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The Privileged vs. the White Working Class
National Review ^ | 11/10/2015 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 11/10/2015 7:26:27 AM PST by Servant of the Cross

Truck drivers, trappers, farmers don't rate in the eyes of our elites.

A recent study published by the National Academy of Sciences, co-authored by a Nobel laureate, revealed a spiraling death rate since 1999 of Americans described as middle-aged (45 to 54), middle/working-class (without a college degree) whites (apparently self-identified as such).

That is not supposed to happen to sizable demographic groups in our postmodern societies. The regression to shortened lifespans is more akin to the trend in the old Soviet Union than in the United States. The supposed culprits are inordinate use of alcohol and drugs (both legal and illegal), psycho-social maladies leading to increased suicide, and legal and financial problems. In search of root causes, are we to think that the white working class eats less healthy foods than, say, blacks and Hispanics of the same class? Do whites visit the doctor less? Or are they more prone by nature to disease and culturally induced illnesses? The answer seems probably not.

The study’s findings belie conventional wisdom, which has focused almost exclusively on the plight of minorities, who in many areas have proven unable to achieve parity, ostensibly because of endemic and lethal white racism.

Indeed, the authors, Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton and his wife, Anne Case, found their study rejected by several prestigious medical journals. Again, their conclusions are explosive - given that they raise questions about the conventional wisdom that “white privilege” trumps class considerations and is the key driver of minority despair and the inability to ensure equality of result.

We know whom Deaton and Case are studying by simply watching reality television. An entire genre has arisen of filming in mediis rebus poor, overweight, working-class loggers, truck drivers, fishermen, hunters, trappers, and the underemployed, who seem to win audiences ...

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: middleclass; privileged; race; vdh; workingclass

1 posted on 11/10/2015 7:26:27 AM PST by Servant of the Cross
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To: Sir Napsalot; Kaslin; neverdem; EXCH54FE; 2ndDivisionVet; Rummyfan; smoothsailing; Hojczyk; ...

VDH ping ...


2 posted on 11/10/2015 7:27:55 AM PST by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: Servant of the Cross

I have solution for the working class—VOTE TRUMP!


3 posted on 11/10/2015 7:39:21 AM PST by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll Onward! Ride to the sound of the guns!)
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To: Forward the Light Brigade

Most of us are working class, per the original definition.

If you work for a paycheck (whether the paycheck is high or low, and regardless of whether you went to college), then you are working class.

If you are a business owner, where you work for yourself, then you are middle class.

If you do not need to work because your investment income provides you with a good standard of living, then you are upper class (note: I’m not talking about retired people living off their 401K’s, I’m talking about people who were born never needing to work).


4 posted on 11/10/2015 7:46:17 AM PST by PapaBear3625 (Big government is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: PapaBear3625

Trump mentions that the labor participation rate is at a 38 year low.

There are he said close to 40% people out of work, 95 million out of workforce.

Most of them White, enough for White Privilege BS, you have the privilege of being out of work, or paying the highest taxes in the world.


5 posted on 11/10/2015 8:13:42 AM PST by Zenjitsuman (A)
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To: Servant of the Cross

As the US becomes more like the USSR, where hard work mattered less than faction and connection, it’s not surprising that the morale of the white working class would drop. That would correlate with an increase in alcohol, drug, and caloric abuse.


6 posted on 11/10/2015 8:16:11 AM PST by Pearls Before Swine
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To: Forward the Light Brigade
Trump is second generation rich. Prep school failed to give him a classy veneer but he might just be the only candidate with a sense of noblesse oblige - if the concern he expresses for displaced Americans is not empty campaign rhetoric.
7 posted on 11/10/2015 8:33:09 AM PST by heartwood
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To: Servant of the Cross

Calling it “the middle class” is contrary to American
values: it is not a “class” because middle income folks
have the possibility of achieving higher income at any time.
( at least before big O’s tenure)


8 posted on 11/10/2015 8:49:46 AM PST by upcountryhorseman (An old fashioned conservative)
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