Know Your Enemy

Working-Class Conservatism (w/ Max Alvarez)

Episode Summary

Matt and Sam talk with Max Alvarez, host of the Working People podcast, about blue-collar conservatism.

Episode Notes

Matt and Sam talk to Max Alvarez—writer, editor, and host of Working People, an excellent podcast—about growing up working-class and conservative in a mixed race household.

Matt and Max compare experiences as we try to answer some basic but tough questions: what attracts some members of the working class to conservative politics? How do the cultural and economic aspects of conservatism interact for working class conservatives? And what can the left learn from working-class conservatism's appeal?

Support Max's Patreon here!

Further Reading:

• Max Alvarez, "Can the Working Class Speak?" Current Affairs (2018)
• Stuart Hall "The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism Among the Theorists," (1988)
• Charlie Post's two-part essay from the early aughts in Against the Current (and Sebastian Lamb's response)
• Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Walmart
• Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas? (2005)
• Larry Bartels' review of Frank.
• John Jost, "Working Class Conservatism: A System Justification Perspective," (2017)

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