Kamala Harris must lean in: The left doesn’t have to pick between woke and working class

Conservatives have already begun attacking Vice President Kamala Harris as an unqualified “DEI hire,” language that evokes the broader right-wing narrative that the left has become too “woke” and no longer represents the average American. With Harris’ ascension to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, many political commentators have expressed fear that voters may buy into the idea that liberals have, indeed, become too woke to connect with voters in the swing states needed to secure an Electoral College victory. But this election doesn’t have to be a clash of the “woke” versus the working class, and liberals don’t have to sacrifice one to win over the other.

The left has long struggled to win back working-class voters. Americans without a college degree have steadily moved to the right in recent decades, resulting in a diploma divide where political views are largely split along educational lines. In 2021, progressive groups surveyed working-class voters in five swing states and concluded that “‘woke,’ activist-inspired rhetoric is a liability” to winning them over – a perspective echoed by other recent analyses.

Meanwhile, liberals are also courting the next generation of voters, many of whom value social justice and progressive ideals. In a recent study, my colleagues at Harvard University and I found that Gen Z is replacing the traditional American Dream – now financially unattainable for many of them – with the dream of inclusion.

As a sociologist who has spent decades studying everyone from working class American men to immigrants in France to Gen Z college students, I’ve found that we all share certain core values: We want dignity and recognition. We want to feel valued by our community and our country. While Gen Z may call out inclusion as a priority, it’s something all of us strive for in one form or another.

This includes working-class people who don’t see themselves represented with dignity in our culture. Our media praises entrepreneurs for disrupting the status quo and CEOs for creating jobs. For a fleeting moment during the Covid-19 pandemic, essential workers were celebrated, but that quickly faded. Working-class people were back to feeling invisible and undervalued.

We see the hunger for dignity reflected in recent labor mobilizations demanding restroom breaks at Amazon, air-conditioned cabins for UPS delivery drivers, and the right to display pride flags at Starbucks. My colleagues and I also found it when we analyzed the language Donald Trump uses to appeal to white working-class voters in his campaign speeches, especially in response to perceived elite condescension. His selection of Ohio Sen. JD Vance, a vocal critic of America’s elite, was meant to reinforce the image of the Trump campaign standing with a significant portion of the working class.

So contrary to conventional political wisdom, concern for dignity and inclusion is not a weakness. Rather, it is liberals’ best shot at winning back the working class. From LGBTQ+ rights to Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, progressives excel at building identity-based social movements that promote the humanity of marginalized groups. These movements succeed because they understand that equality isn’t only about legal rights or economic benefits. People also want recognition and respect.

Unions have traditionally been the biggest source of working-class dignity. They’ve also been a reliable supply of left-leaning voters. With unions on the decline for decades in the U.S. (the rate of union membership among workers is half what it was in the 1980s), it is high time for the left to forcefully refocus on shared dignity as an electoral strategy.

Liberals should use their movement-building magic – and the Gen Z passion for social justice – to build a movement that prioritizes the humanity of all people, including the working class. Here are four strategies they can take from past successes.

First, embrace the values we all have in common, whether that’s our longing for recognition, our desire for health and well-being, or our need to provide for our families. For my latest book, I interviewed dozens of change agents – creatives, activists, thinkers, and innovators reshaping our society. From an activist in Florida fighting for voting rights to a Catholic nun managing global humanitarian projects, so many of the people I interviewed emphasized the importance of centering our shared humanity.

Second, speak to working class culture. Cultural representation has been key to advancing inclusion for people of color and LGBTQ+ people. And class is an identity like any other, with its own cultural markers. The right excels at linking themselves to cultural symbols of the white working class, from country music to NASCAR. The left should look for new points of connection in various corners of American culture – whether that’s professional athletes “taking a knee” against racism or Gen Z singers like Olivia Rodrigo promoting reproductive rights.

Third, promote broad definitions of who is worthy in our society. Capitalist rhetoric focuses on economic measures of success like what people earn or consume and how productive they are. The left should refocus on values that are achievable by anyone and beneficial to everyone, such as creativity, care for others, and contribution to community. The push for paid family leave, for example, acknowledges that people not only have value as workers, but also as parents and family members.

Finally, eliminate the moral blame placed on the working class for their economic situation and refocus on the social conditions they are up against. Working class people are frequently portrayed as lazy, uneducated, or unsophisticated, but we also have a long history of recognizing their hard work, savvy, and perseverance. Replacing stigma with positive portrayals was critical to the success of movements for same-sex marriage (“love is love”) and for HIV patients, bringing these people into the fold as members of our society deserving of respect.

Progressive activists are already drawing on these lessons to build 21st-century labor movements. Organizations like the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) and the One Fair Wage Campaign (OFWC), whose leaders I interviewed for my book, emphasize respect and empowerment while scoring concrete wins. They understand that a living wage and dignified working conditions are symbols of “cultural citizenship,” of being acknowledged as a worthy contributor to society. Gen Z has also been bringing their dream of inclusion into the labor movement, sparking new approaches and demands during recent strike actions.

Progressives know how to stand up for the dignity and respect of different groups and create a big tent where everyone feels valued. It’s time to do that for the working class.