Thomas Edsall manages to make a sound and important point about the much-discussed "white working class" in the US

I'm not a Thomas Edsall fan because for 30 years or so he's been making a concern-troll argument for Democrats to be more conservative than they are at any given point in time. But in We Aren’t Seeing White Support for Trump for What It Is New York Times 08/28/2019, he actually digs into the standard assumption that uses education rather than income or occupation to distinguish who is "working class." And it turns out that some substantial portion of the "white working class" voters who support Trump aren't coal miners or oil field workers or food processing plant workers but affluent business owners.

He quotes two political scientists, Herbert Kitschelt and Philipp Rehm, whose study he discusses:

Individuals in the low-education/high-income group tend to endorse authoritarian noneconomic policies and tend to oppose progressive economic policies. Small business owners and shopkeepers — particularly in construction, crafts, retail, and personal services — as well as some of their salaried associates populate this group.

He also cites some important historical data on the effect of declining union membership on partisan voting. Unionized workers tend to vote more Democratic.

Does anyone remember how Obama in 2008 committed to supporting the "card check" procedure to make it easier for workers to join unions? When House and Senate Democrats introduced a bill in early 2009 to implement it, Avi Zenilman described how Obama, uh, supported it (Obama's Card-Check Gambit New Yorker 03/10/2009, internal liks omitted):

So what does President Obama, who supports the bill, do? Take on the teacher’s unions, and draw a distinction that labor’s opponents have successfully blurred over the last few decades: there may be bad unions, but that doesn’t mean unions are bad.

In a speech this morning on education and the budget, Obama explicitly criticized “supporters of my party [who] have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay.” (Teacher’s unions have long been skeptical of the policy.) Even though the speech covered a wide range of topics, both the AP and the Wall Street Journal’s stories homed in on the intra-party criticism as their leads.

The idea died, I'm sure much to Obama's relief. His dropping the card-check idea was consistent with his Mugwump no-red-America-no-blue-America approach. It kept him in office for eight years. And then Donald Trump became President.

Amanda Marcotte also tweeted a favorable reference to Edsall's analysis.

This is so critical to understand. For white Boomers and older, having a college degree was not necessary for a middle class, or better, life. For Gen X and younger, having a degree was no guarantee of good employment. https://t.co/4CRojsOVq3

— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) August 29, 2019