Another big part of that is the little mentioned attempt early in the Biden-Harris administration to boost the minimum wage as part of their wildly successful economic recovery program, including direct payments to Americans, WHICH WAS BLOCKED BY REPUBLICANS AND ONE SENATE ALLY, AS I RECALL WITH AN ORDER FROM TRUMP TO DO THAT. Kirsten Sinema is a one-person reason that more Americans didn't directly experience what would have been one of the greatest boosts in personal wealth among the working poor and many in the lower middle class. But she couldn't have done it WITHOUT UNANIMOUS REPUBLICAN HELP TO THE BENEFIT OF TRUMP.
Which brings us to a third most obvious reason that Trump won, he had the support of the mass media that makes up what most Americans seen to believe is what they know about the world and what they believe they experience. Now, this is something that could, actually be studied accurately because you can see and analyze what the mass media did, potentially you could even come up with an accurate generalization of what the most observed online media did during the election period in the hundred or so days that comprised the campaign of Kamala Harris against Trump. Though it would be a massive undertaking. But if such a study of such an observable, you might say studyable phenomenon as that is impractically complex, it only proves my point made above that doing so for something you can't directly observe is impossible. I would point out one big part of that observable, even quantifiable phenomenon is the amount of coverage to opinion polls comprised the content of that media during those crucial days.Yeah, keeping people angry against the incumbent so they vote against it is classic political strategy. Even better is doing nothing for them when you win. Which brings us to our guest:
During the “Rich Men North of Richmond” controversy, certain columnists pointed a finger at liberal elites, urging deep introspection about why they have lost touch with the anxieties of people like Oliver Anthony. Now that Trump has been reelected while winning more working-class voters, including Latinos, we’re mired in another such debate.
No one should deny the need for such introspection. It’s obviously not enough for Democrats and liberals to say, “Our policies are better for people like Oliver Anthony.” A reformed approach should include an agenda that’s substantially more economically populist; a clear-eyed look at why certain liberal policies alienate working-class voters; and a deep dive into why working people are skeptical that Democrats fight for their material interests these days.
But surely it’s a sign of another profound problem, one that deeply afflicts our discourse, that a genuine effort by Democrats to lift the fortunes of millions of people struggling with low overtime pay—one blocked by a Trump judge and business elites—garnered almost zero media attention. This, even as a working-class anthem partly about that very problem captivated the media for weeks.
That disconnect captures one of the cardinal facts about our times. While Trump has broken with pro–big business orthodoxy to some degree—on tariffs and trade, for example—broadly speaking, he will outsource much of his agenda to the GOP’s plutocratic wing. He is expected to deeply slash the safety net to pay for more tax cuts for the rich, and to roll back many Biden labor policies, ones that arguably constitute the most pro-worker agenda in decades, perhaps doing nothing on overtime as well.
The media obsesses over Oliver Anthony and treats MAGA’s fetishization of him as sincere—but for all of its dutiful coverage of our policy disputes, it can’t seem to convey the larger truth about which party’s policies are actually pro-worker, and which are not.
This deception runs deep in right-wing media too. Media Matters found that Fox News devoted hours of programming to hyping “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and the network also made it the topic of the first GOP presidential debate. At my request, Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for Fox coverage of the ruling striking down the overtime rule—and found zero such coverage.
Yes, Anthony’s song was about more than just overtime pay. It was about a broader set of social afflictions. That helps explain all the press attention to it. But after this extended media fixation, Trump and fellow populist JD Vance faced no media pressure at all during the campaign to say where they stood on Biden’s effort to expand overtime pay to millions, or whether they’ll continue it.
That’s absurd. It reflects its own form of elite dereliction—one that leaves people less informed about the larger forces shaping their lives, the very thing, we’re told, that makes so many people like Oliver Anthony feel powerless and adrift. This elite failure too deserves some serious introspection. Perhaps someone should write a song about it.One point not included in that conclusion is missing in action from the opening:
You probably missed it, because it created barely a ripple in the media, but last Friday, a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump struck down one of President Biden’s most pro-worker policies: his effort to ensure that far more Americans benefit from overtime pay. Around four million salaried workers with lower incomes are the losers in this decision, yet it generated startlingly few news stories and no outraged missives from leading columnists.
Watching this all unfold brings to mind a now-forgotten controversy. Remember when Oliver Anthony, the little-known folk singer, went viral in 2023 with his song lamenting the plight of working people imposed by the “Rich Men North of Richmond”? Donald Trump and Republicans claimed the bearded, red-haired Southerner as one of their own, a veritable bard of MAGA country who’d crafted the ultimate right-wing populist ballad of protest aimed directly at supercilious elites. “This is the anthem of the forgotten Americans,” gushed Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Media commentary endlessly analyzed the song as a cry of anguish straight from the blue-collar heartland, one that elite liberals should take to heart as a sign of how badly they’d failed regular Americans.Media commentary followed the lead of MTG and Trump. When was the last time AOC set the national agenda? Biden was President and a pretty good operator of the “bully pulpit.” Certainly better than Trump, who relied on tweets and conspiracy theories and telling people to inject bleach. And yet media commentary hangs on Trump’s every word, and takes a buffoon like MTG seriously. (Compare and contrast the efforts of Nancy Mace to make it hard for the first trans Representative to be able to pee in the Capitol. Does anybody really care? Is the MSM blowing up with commentary? Is it because it’s not “Jewish space lasers”? Or because she’s not MTG?).
And, right on cue, Big Media Thoughts are about how Democrats have abandoned the working-class. Inarguably because Democrats embrace racial and cultural and gender diversity, when the real power is with white people. Barely. But that’s a damned inconvenient argument.
Finally, Edsall brings in Nick Gourevitch, a partner at Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling firm that worked for the Harris campaign (and countless others) who finally notes the point that Democrats just lost a national election by about a point and a half, and outside of the presidential race actually did reasonably well. Clearly, Democrats need to do better, but Gourevitch makes the pretty obvious and I think salutary point that you need to consider pretty carefully which parts of your coalition you’re going to toss aside if you’re coalition is still around 50%.It was a vibes election, so it’s best explained by a vibes analysis, right? Certainly a vibe that takes all its cues from MAGA. After all, it’s the only objective thing to do. 🤷🏻♂️
(The perennial narrative accommodates any electoral outcome: if Democrats lose the White House, they need to be more like Republicans. If they win, they need to reach out to Republicans. Fair and balanced, donchaknow?)
