During the final months of the U.S. race for the presidency, both major candidates claimed the “middle class” for their own, but what either meant by the term itself was left for voters to puzzle out. Confusion about the middle class—specifically, white suburban families—is nothing new, says Matthew Lassiter, a Research Fellow and associate professor of history at the University of Michigan. “For more than half a century, American political culture has celebrated white middle-class suburban families as the heart and soul of the nation, the hard-working, tax-paying heroes of Middle America, who safeguard traditional family values and maintain a...