In this episode, Lisa interviews Batya Ungar-Sargon about her new book 'Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women'. They discuss the Democrats' problem with working class voters, the shift in the Democratic Party towards the coastal elites, and the betrayal of the working class by both parties. They also talk about the resonance of Trump's message with working voters, the top issues that working voters care about (economy, immigration, healthcare), and the impact of Biden's push for electric vehicles on working Americans. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I was on X one day and I came
across this clip. Listen.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I think that the media really really wants to put
this narrative out there that Biden is going to lose
Michigan over Gaza, and the truth is he's going to
lose Michigan over six hundred thousand auto workers because his
ev market was extremely punishing to auto workers. And like
we said earlier, there's been this big realignment where working
(00:28):
class Americans are very, very very much on the Trump train.
People who used to be Democrats and used to vote
for Democrats, and rather than admit that this outrage that
Democrats lost the working class vote and try to figure
out how we can appeal to them again, they're looking
for excuses and other things to blame, like oh, this
Warren Gaza, or they'll call them deplorables, or they'll call
them racists, you know, because they don't want to admit that.
(00:51):
Trump has picked up a lot of the policies that
used to be Democratic policies in the nineties, like controlling
the border, for example, the idea that an open border
and mass migration is extremely punishing to the working class.
It drives down their wages, it's class warfare against the
working class. It is an upward transfer of wealth from
the working class who end up competing with immigrants, to
(01:13):
the elites who end up employing them. And now they
can employ cheap immigrants instead of having to pay working
class Americans a living wage.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So as Batya and Gar Saragan. She's the opinion editor
of Newsweek. She is also the author of the new
book Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's working men
and women. So today we're going to have her on
the show and we're going to ask her who are
the nation's elites, how did they sell out the working class?
And what does that mean for the twenty twenty four
(01:40):
presidential election. This is a really interesting conversation. She is
very smart and this is an incredible book. She took
the time to go around the country and to speak
with so many working class voters and Americans from housekeepers
to healthcare aids to cops, truck drivers, fast food workers, electricians,
the list goes on. You're not going to want to
be this conversation. Stay tuned for Badja. So, yeah, congratulations,
(02:09):
your book is out. I know it's been a labor
of love. It sounds like you put so much work
into it, So congratulations and I'm really looking forward to
to digging into it.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Thank you so much, and thank you so much for
having me, Lisa. It's such a thrill to be here
with you.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, I saw your clip that made the rounds after
Real Time, and I reached out to you and I
was like, I got to have you on my show.
We need to talk about this subject. And then, you know,
we had talked about when to have you on when
the book was out so that we could fully engage
in it. So I'm looking forward to what was the
reaction after Real Time? You know, did you think Democrats
realized that, you know, they have a problem with working voters.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I actually think they do. And what's amazing to watch
is is that the liberal media, which is always trying
to protect them from realizing this, is trying to run
the same playbook that they ran in twenty sixteen when
they just called everybody who voted for Trump racist. But
it's really falling flat because Trump is now polling so
(03:08):
well with Hispanic voters and even with black voters, and
so that playbook they have where they use race as
a smoke screen for class to distract from the ways
in which the Democrats abandoned the working class. It's just
not working this time around, and that's really amazing to see.
I feel like we've really made strides as a nation
in terms of recognizing how much we've betrayed the working
(03:30):
class on both sides. Thanks to Trump in large part,
we're able to see that now. So it's a little
bit different, and I think, you know, as a result,
the reaction to the Bill Maher clips were pretty positive,
I felt, even from people who were sort of center left.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
When did Trump's message start resonating with you? Personally?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I had the Trump arrangement syndrome. I'm so embarrassed to
admit it now, but I did for like at least
two years. I really was in that headspace, and it
really to shift for me in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen.
And it's one of those things where when you like,
when you start to see it, especially if you're on
the left, your initial reaction is like, oh no, yeah,
(04:14):
because you know, hating Trump is a sort of card
of entree to the left, and if you lose that,
you sort of can no longer be a member in
good standing. So it started to shift for me around
twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, and then after the twenty twenty election,
you know, when you started to see really the in
real time the devastating impact of the Democrats economic policy
(04:39):
on the working class. Just seeing that develop and cascade.
The open border, the inflation, the ridiculous climate agenda, all
of this is really class warfare against the working class.
It's a plunder of the middle class by the over
credentialed college elites. When I started to really see that
(05:00):
and understand just what Donald Trump had done to sort
of try to stop that hemorrhaging, then it really sunk in.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And so I guess that led you to writing this
book that we're about to get into Second Class. How
the elites betrayed America's working men and women. I guess
who would you specify as the ones who betrayed America
as working men and women.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
It was really both parties, I would say, But of
course the old version, the pre Trump version of the
Republican Party, never made any pretense to representing labor in
the working class, so the betrayal was sort of a
lot less deep. The Democrats were once the party of
the working class, and still pretend to be. And actually
(05:47):
it was their policies. So Bill Clinton signing NAFTA into
law and shipping five million good working class jobs overseas
to build up the middle class in China and Mexico,
Barack Obama showing up and saying those jobs aren't coming back.
If you don't go to college, you don't deserve the
American dream. And then Joe Biden coming in and opening
the border to further devalue the jobs that remain by
(06:11):
importing twelve million slaves, cartel slaves basically to compete with
American working class people. You know, those were really uh,
I mean, each of those is a huge, huge betrayal
of people who used to be the Democrats based So
that was sort of, you know, front and center in
my mind. Although of course the GOP, which was once
you know, the party of you know, the country clubs
(06:33):
and free trade and the Chamber of Commerce, tax cuts,
you know, as the only thing that they care about,
also is a huge betrayal of the working class. And
you know, Lisa, when I see you on Fox, you
are so good on this. I'm always sitting there cheering
you on when you're on out Numbered because you make
this point so often, which is that, you know, if
(06:54):
the GOP wants to remain competitive, they simply cannot go
back to the you know, Nikki Hayley version of the party.
The party now is the party that Trump made, and
that upsets the elites on both sides, right, because he's
speaking directly to the voter base and sort of circumventing
the Republican donor base.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Well, that's very kind, and I very much enjoy watching
you and you're on TV. You're so smart and you
always make really eloquent points. Why do you think, I
guess I'm curious. How do you think what led to
Democrats sort of becoming this party of the coastal leads.
I mean, even you just look at the climate policies, right,
I mean you were talking about this on real time
(07:36):
about how Joe Biden's push for electric vehicles is going
to crush working voters, particularly in states like Michigan. So
I guess what led them to that point? You know,
how do you think they arrived at that point? I guess.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So it's a great question because a lot of these
policies were both the cause of but also the result
of a shift in orientation in the Democratic Party away
from the working class and towards the college educated, the suburban,
the urban voter. The Democrats are now this weird amalgamation
of you know, the top ten twenty percent in terms
(08:11):
of income who have these sort of degrees upon degrees
upon degrees which they get from these prestigious universities where
they learned to sneer at the working class, but also
the poor. The Democrats also represent the poor. So what
they have is, you know, all of their policies are
i say, class warfare against the working class, because they
are designed to put money in the pockets of the
college educated elites, but also the dependent poor who don't work,
(08:34):
both of whom are in competition with the working class
or whose interests are intention with the working class. Why
this happened was we had a great sorting where a
lot of liberal minded people left the sort of middle
of America and migrated to big cities into the coasts.
They increasingly got college degrees, and they were increasingly ensconced
(08:58):
in very tight bubbles of only other like minded people.
And so when you have a lot of people going
to college, what they do there is our universities are
no longer really institutions of education, particularly the humanities and
the social sciences. The thing they really do is inculcate
a sense of elitism and a sense of privilege in
(09:20):
the people who go there, who see themselves as on
the right side of history and as much better people
than the people who don't go to college. They learn
a contempt for the working class because when you spend
one hundred thousand dollars and you're not getting an education,
what you are getting is status. That's what the university
system confers. So you suddenly had a lot of people
(09:41):
who were going to these universities feeling like they were
better than everybody else. They got this status, access to
this network of other people who thought that they were
much better than everybody who didn't go to college, and
that elitism created a sense of we should tell everybody
else how to live, we should get to rule. We
have essentially right now, an oligarchy of the credentials. Obama
(10:04):
was big on this. He wanted to be only surrounded
by people who had gone to Harvard or Yale and Princeton,
and they believe that they should be able to tell
the working class not only how to live, but what
to believe, and we're seeing right now a mass revolved
against that, but effectively, because in their minds they developed
contempt for labor and for the working class and for
people who don't have a college degree, they also created
(10:27):
an economy that works really well for them because they
don't see working class jobs as worthy of dignity. Therefore
they created an economy that also devalued those jobs economically.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
That's such a good point. And then even when you know,
when you said the word status, it even came into
my mind. You know how the left really has this
sort of like victimhood class and it's like transgender, this black,
you know, it's like all these different groups and being
in those groups sort of give you, you know, some
element of status. Uh So you know that kind of
just outo my mind, just for clarification purposes, how would
(11:03):
you define the working class in America?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So this is definitely something I struggled with.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, right, that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I was like that, you know, really hard. I you know,
the whole introduction is my sort of attempt to do
that with examples. So the book has there's a lot
of data in it, but every piece of data you
have a person, a character, a narrative, a story that
exemplifies that data point. You know. There's a lot of
ways to define it. Some people say it's whether your
father had a college degree. Some people say whether it's
(11:31):
you have a college degree. Somebody say it's whether you
make you know under one hundred thousand dollars a year.
Some people say it's whether you make you know the
median income, which is about sixty thousand dollars a year
for a household. There are many ways to define it.
I believe that the real divide in America is this
class divide that separates out the college educated from the
working class. If you have a college degree, you have
(11:52):
access to a much more stable existence and probably the
American dream. Not everyone, of course, but by and law,
college educated Americans make about a million dollars more over
the course of their career than a person without a
college degree. They have better health, they live longer, and
they're not be set by the plagues of working class life,
who are often the victims of crime or overdoses, deaths
(12:16):
of despair, and just downward mobility as we've seen over
the last fifty years. So to me, the definition that
I ended up with was. A working class person is
a somebody who works in an industry that does not
require a skill set you learn in college, who has
been locked out of the top twenty percent. So I'm
not talking about rich people we all know, you know,
plumbers and electricians who've made it, you know, make more
(12:38):
money than I do. Right, and God bless them, right,
God bless this country. I'm talking about people who are,
you know, maked under one hundred and twenty five thousand
dollars a year. Let's say, who are working in a
job that does not require a college degree.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Let's take a quick commercial break, and then more on
how the elites sold out the working class. What I
love that you did about this book, and what I
really want to dig into is you talk to people,
you know what I mean. I think part of the
problem with the media today is like, you know, even
just moving you know, I'm not from New York, but
(13:11):
I lived there for a little while before moving to Florida.
And even on like the vaccine issue is such a
radically different envite. You know, I didn't get the vaccine
the code that and like in New York it's like
you're evil, You're you're basically a terrorist at that point
for not to and then in Florida it's like no
one cares, right, So it's like even that is enlightening
and just you know, being in a totally different environment.
And so I think the problem is the media lives
(13:33):
in these bubbles in New York and d C. It's
not real world, it's not real life. So you went
around the country, you know, talking to people, learning hearing
from the uh tell us about you know that. Where
did you go, who did you meet and and what
did you learn from that?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Wow? I went all over. I went to I went
to California a number of times. I went to Phoenix,
I went to Denver, I went to Houston. I went
to Florida a bunch of times. I spent a lot
of time in Ohio. I also interviewed people from Alaska
in West Virginia. I also spent a lot of time,
you know, talking to people here in the New York area.
And what I found is, first of all, there's a
(14:09):
huge consensus in the working class about what policies they want.
And that's whether they're Democrats are Republicans. I mean, they
basically agree on the policy they want polarization is a
completely elite phenomenon. Working class people are so totally not
polarized because neither party really represents their interests and so
it would never occur to them to hate somebody who
had a different opinion on abortion, although they buy and
(14:32):
large agree on abortion as well. Most working class Americans
are extremely tolerant. That tolerance comes both from the nature
of this country, which is finally made good on the
promises of our founding, but also just from the precariousness
when you have a life that is beset by percarity,
where every mistake you make sends you off the path
(14:53):
into you know, real, real precariousness, and you don't know
where you're going to be, you know, sleeping the next night.
You just people like that are not judgmental at all.
They have extreme amounts of more important but one hundred
percent the case. That's one hundred percent the case. And
here's another thing that I found, the American dream where
(15:14):
it is still alive for working class Americans. It's much
more feasible in Red America than Blue America, simply because
of the cost of housing. So if we define the
American dream as you know, owning a home children being
you know, having slightly better opportunities than you do, having
access to good healthcare. And by the way, this is
(15:35):
how working class Americans define it, and a retirement in dignity.
That piece, the first piece, a home. Owning your own
home has become all but impossible for working class Americans
living in Blue America because even though the wages are
slightly higher, the cost of housing is just exponentially higher.
I mean, it's just totally unaffordable. Whereas you could be
(15:57):
pretty poor in West Virginia and still own your own home.
And so from that point of view, there really is
more opportunity. I would say, if you're defining home ownership
as a key part of the American dream, which most
working class Americans do, do.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
You think and talking to those people in you know,
Blue America, you know, working voters in Blue America, is
there an understanding that perhaps leftist policies are part of
the reason why they're in that state, like or not
obviously in that state, but more of the you know
why they're in that position, the financial position.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, I mean, especially immigration, which to any working class
person is an economic concern. Right. Immigration is a proxy
for like the devaluation of working class jobs right, So
to them, immigration is an economic question. To the elites,
of course, it's the sort of cultural question, you know, oh,
we must welcome immigrants here or whatever. So that is
(16:52):
very obvious to them that the that the leftist policies
are screwing them over. I will say, you know, the
number one reason I think that there is not more
even more defection. There's a lot of defection of working
class people from Democrats Republicans. I think the reason there
isn't even more is because, you know, healthcare is extremely important,
(17:12):
and people don't feel that it is affordable or accessible,
and they never hear Republicans addressing this issue, but they
do hear Democrats addressing it. If the Republicans came up
with a good healthcare plan, just some way to relieve
some of the burden and anxiety, to make people feel
like they're not going to go bankrupt over their health
(17:32):
after they spent their lives working physical jobs to sustain
this society, they would be unstoppable, because of course they
have the immigration piece.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, but I mean I think you know, Democrats pretty
much own today's healthcare state, you know, after Obamacare. In
talking to people, and then looking ahead at the twenty
twenty four election, did that shape sort of how you
think this election could go down? In those conversations, you know,
(18:01):
where do you think the folks you talk to are
going to end up on election day or heading into
election day? Because now we have male and balloting like
super early and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I spoke to a lot of Obama Obama Trump Trump
people who are definitely still Trump people. I did speak
to a number of people who really don't like Trump's
personality but are going to vote for him because I mean,
there was no one I spoke to who didn't feel
like they were better off in twenty eighteen financially from
(18:32):
a safety point of view in terms of the country.
The people that had ambivalent feelings about Trump, it was
because they felt that he was sort of giving the
working class a bad name by being such a good
proxy for what they were looking for. But in terms
of just policy, there was very little debate about which
(18:53):
president had put more money in their pockets, and it
was definitely Donald Trump. And so that's definitely impacted how
I think about the coming election. You never know how
things are going to go. You never know what people
are going to be thinking when they got into the
voting booth. But it's very hard for me to imagine
Trump losing if I'm just going based off the reporting
(19:14):
I did in my book.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
You know, you reference you know, healthcare and immigration. If
you if you kind of had to pick the top
three issues that you've heard the most consistently from folks, uh,
you know, how would you lay them out?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
So Number one was the economy. I mean, groceries are
up eighteen percent. People living on a shoe string budget,
even people who are not poor. That is it's it's unforgivable.
I mean, it's unforgivable. It is plunder of the middle class.
And so that was definitely the top issue. Was inflation,
people having to make choices about how many nights a
(19:48):
week they could afford to feed their children chicken or
meat or you know, devastating stuff like that. Immigration was
a top concern, and you know, immigration is a proc
see for good jobs, jobs that pay a living wage,
a sense that if you work and work and work
your butt off, there is a sense that the country
(20:10):
is going to look out for you and give you
the modest fixings of a middle class life. I mean,
that's all they want is the most modest things that
you know, we and the elites totally take for granted.
And then the third thing I would say is feeling like,
you know, that they were going to be able to
have a dignified life if if they got sick, when
(20:31):
they got old, when they're you know, aching bones, could
no longer do the backbreaking work that they spent their
careers doing. And so I would say, you know, if
I would put it, you know, I would say economy, immigration,
and healthcare.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
You know, I guess dig in a little bit. You know,
you had talked about, you know, because obviously there's a
lot of focus on you know, Michigan and uh, you know,
you look at the uncommitted vote in Michigan against Joe
Biden and particularly in dearborn Michigan again which she had
lost to you know, and you know, there's been a
(21:05):
lot of talk that he could potentially lose Michigan because
of his support for you know, home as basically, if
you just want to call it out what it is,
but you you had made the point, you don't know,
it's his push for electric vehicles, it's you know, the
auto workers in the state. How big of an issue.
Do you think the electric vehicle push is for you know,
working Americans?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Huge, absolutely huge. It just it's such a good example
of how people who live in blue bubbles where by
the way, seventy five percent of journalists live and you
know where where If everybody around you lives in an
urban setting and they only need their car to drive
(21:45):
twelve blocks to whole Foods, right of course you think
everybody wants in a little Chinese electric car, right, But
rural voters, I mean, what are they going to do
with an electric car? You know, they don't have an
hour in the middle of the day to sit there
while it, you know, fill up with electricity. Who's going
to pay for that hour of their time? And you
know they're driving much further they need their cars for work,
(22:09):
and you know, it's just such a perfect encapsulation of
the cluelessness of leftist elites about how like the rest
of the country is actually operating. That's from the consumer's
point of view, Lisa, But from the producer's point of view,
we know that it takes a third of the amount
of time on the line to produce an ev that
(22:31):
it does to produce a gas car, meaning that Obviously,
this is going to be a major hit to the
auto industry, which used to be like the pride and
joy of the United States. And now, of course China
is threatening to open a factory in Mexico so that
they can get around the tariffs on Chinese cars. This
is all stuff that is just totally lost on the Democrats,
(22:52):
who are catering to a college educated base and totally
obvious to working class people the way that it is
to Trump. So to me, I look at Michigan. I
don't see two hundred thousand, you know, Muslim Americans. I
see six hundred thousand auto workers who know what this
whole ev market scam is going to do to their
bottom line. Only four percent of people in America vote
(23:15):
on foreign policy. It's a really tiny percentage. And then
you have to keep in mind that Trump, I mean,
whatever you think of Joe Biden, if these people feel
like he's not pro Hamas enough, like Trump is much
more pro Israel than Biden ever was. So you know,
the idea that they're going to vote for the more
pro Israel candidate based on foreign policy I think is nonsense.
(23:38):
And in fact, a lot of the people who are
voting uncommitted are saying they're going to vote for Donald Trump.
So to me, this looks like there's working class Arabs
and they need an excuse to defect to Donald Trump
and they're using Gaza. I mean, I'm sure they care
about it deeply, which, by the way, is their god
given right as an American to vote on whatever they want.
But to me, it's that is a sort of media
(23:59):
fantasy that Biden is going to lose over something the
media cares about, which is the Middle East. It's nonsense.
I mean, the American working class is not going to
vote on the Middle East.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Quick break more with Batya. You said carelessness before. Do
you think it's carelessness from Joe Biden all these policies
or is it with intent? Because I mean it's hard
to imagine he doesn't understand the level of destruction that
this could wage against the auto industry.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
It's a great question. I think it's very similar to immigration. Right.
You look at this and you just think, like, you know,
I'm sure we're all sitting here thinking the same thing
for four years. Why doesn't he just close the border?
It's so easy. Trump created with three executive actions, he
created the playbook that is completely effective, Like, why doesn't
(24:51):
he Biden just do it? I think there's a number
of reasons that the Democratic Party. You know, each party
has its sort of donor class. The Demo Scratic parties
donor class is very beholden to this sort of NGO
network of college educated people combined with billionaires, all of
whom have the same sort of vanity morals which always
(25:13):
end up coming at the expense of the working class.
But you know, the if these are your funders, these
are your donors, you don't have a lot of leeway
to say, actually, you know, we're going to care about
the American working class instead of about the climate. Because
these people are obsessed with climate, just like they're obsessed
with the kind of open borders and a lawlessness and
the decarciral state and getting criminals out of prison. These
(25:35):
are the values you pick up at the university and
it is their religion. So for for Biden to say, actually,
I'm going to go back to, you know, the roots
of the Democratic Party, it would be very very difficult
for him to do that, not because I think of
the left flank, but because of who the donor class
to the Democrats is.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
You know, so the left tries to paint Donald Trump
is he is out of touch, she's the bills billionaire.
And sometimes those attacks, you know, work against you know,
Republicans from the left, although they make money off the
backs of us while they're in office. But anyways, Uh,
why do you think Donald Trump has been able to
resonate with working voters despite the fact that, you know, look,
(26:16):
he's a billionaire, which is great. I want to be
a billionaire. I want everyone else to be one too,
you know, I want us all to be rich. But
why do you think he's been able to resonate with
so many people.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I'll tell you what a gay nurse certified Nurses Aid
in Florida told me. She said he can't be bought.
And I heard that a lot. There's a lot of
skepticism about that from left wing elites. But I don't
know how you you look at, for example, the Republican
primary and not see that that's basically what happened. I mean,
(26:49):
the entire donor class turned on Trump to support Nikki
Haley and it didn't move the needle for her at all.
When Trump came into office, he took on both sides.
He took on both parties. He took on the orthodoxy.
There's basically a handshake agreement between left and right about
you know, free trade, for example, and he said, we're
(27:09):
not gonna have free trade. We're gonna have a trade
war with China. We're gonna have tariffs on steel and aluminum,
Like he just got it. He had this sort of
very intuitive sense that the entire seventy percent of the
country that is sort of in the reasonable middle had
been abandoned by both sides. And it's so funny because
there's so much distraction around Donald Trump the man, but
(27:32):
if you just look at his policies, Donald Trump is
the consensus candidate that Joe Biden promised he was going
to be. I mean, he's a total centrist on everything.
He looks more like a kind of you know, mid
century Democrat than he does like a Republican. He believes in,
you know, protectionist economy, protectionist trade policies, policing the border
(27:53):
to protect working class people. He's courting union workers, he's
courting black voters. He believes in a fit fifteen week abortion,
it should be legal for fifteen weeks. Like this is
where seventy percent of Americans are at This used to
be where the Democratic Party was, and he sort of
realized that there was nobody in that reasonable center and
(28:13):
made a bee line for it. But it involved taking
on the really the orthodoxies and the elites on both sides,
and I think that really came through to the working class.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, when you said I can't be bought, it took
me back to the gupe primaries heading into the twenty
sixteen election. Well one the only rosy O'Donnell, which is like,
still like the best line ever. And then also, and
I love Megan Kelly, so that's not a knock to her,
it's just was hilarious response. And then I can't remember
who we had donated to, but I think someone who's
(28:45):
bringing up like, oh, you've given money to Nancy Pelosi
or whatever, and he was like, oh, yeah, because she
can be bought. Like I think people are at home
were like, yeah, right, that checks out. That makes sense.
All right, That's what it took me back to.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean I think that there is really
you know, I understand why people are skeptical when you
say that about somebody, but it's obvious from the way
that he governed that he was not thinking about anybody
except what he wanted to see happen. He did. He's
(29:22):
up a little bit on immigration towards the end, and
there were some sort of people in the commentary of
class saying it's because Wall Street was sort of urging
him to. But in twenty twenty, Joe Biden got more
money from Wall Street than Donald Trump did. Wall Street
loves an open border because, of course it's great for
their bottom line, for the same reason that when you
turn on leftist liberal cable news, they're always talking about
how great the economy is. It's really good if you
(29:45):
have a stock portfolio. You know, it's really good if
you own property, because it's you know, the economy is
doing really well for that sort of top for the
elites basically, and that's thanks to all these policies that
Donald Trump was trying to undo.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Well, you also said they're not setting their best and
I think people are realizing that now as we have
potential terrorist gang members. I saw that there was there
was like a Ninja's from Chile that are have burglary brings.
Now I was reading about Oakland County. I think we're freaking,
like what in the hell, like Russian Bobsters is reading
(30:22):
like it's like, why you know, it's insane that we're
letting these people into our country. Well before we go,
why do you think immigration specifically resonates so much with
working voters?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
So in nineteen seventy one, which was the high water
mark for working class wages, right after that they began
to stagnate and then basically just fall. In nineteen seventy one,
the share of the population that was foreign born was
four percent, and today it is fifteen percent. And this
(30:57):
really gets left out of the conversation. You know, I
don't have anything against immigrants personally. This is what working
class people would say to me. I don't have anything
against them personally. I understand people who want the American
dream for their children, but it's so obvious to the
working class that other people are getting the American dream
(31:17):
and they are not. And there seems to be so
much forbearance for these people and nothing for them. And
they know, they know that when you import fifteen million
people in four years and they are all going to
be working in certain industries, of course, it is obvious
(31:39):
that that is going to drive down the wages in
those industries. I mean, it's the most obvious supply and demand,
and so that really for them is a proxy for
the devaluation of their jobs and their hard work, even
though they're working harder than they ever have before. That,
I think is why it's so important to them, you know,
to the elite's immigration, and they pretend that immigration is
(32:01):
about morality, but it's not. It's really about economics and
bringing in these migrants. It puts money in the pockets
of the rich and it is simply wage theft from
the American working class and they know it. Well.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
We're going to end on that because that was really
well well said. I think a super important point. Second Class,
How the Elites Betrayed America's working men and Women? Really
interesting stuff. Batya, a great book. I love this. I
think this is so important. I just really appreciate you
taking the time to come on the show. I hope
this book is such massive success.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Thank you so so much for having me, Lisa, for
everything that you do. God bless you.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I was Batya Angarsargane with her new book, Second Class,
How the Elites Betrayed America's Working men and Women. Just
really interesting stuff. She's super nice, so smart. Always tune
in when I see her on TV, so appreciate her
for making the time every Monday and Thursday, but you
can listen throughout the week. I want to thank John Cassio,
my producer, for putting the show together. Until next time.
So I was on X one day and I came
across this clip. Listen.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I think that the media really really wants to put
this narrative out there that Biden is going to lose
Michigan over Gaza, and the truth is he's going to
lose Michigan over six hundred thousand auto workers because his
ev market was extremely punishing to auto workers. And like
we said earlier, there's been this big realignment where working
(00:28):
class Americans are very, very very much on the Trump train.
People who used to be Democrats and used to vote
for Democrats, and rather than admit that this outrage that
Democrats lost the working class vote and try to figure
out how we can appeal to them again, they're looking
for excuses and other things to blame, like oh, this
Warren Gaza, or they'll call them deplorables, or they'll call
them racists, you know, because they don't want to admit that.
(00:51):
Trump has picked up a lot of the policies that
used to be Democratic policies in the nineties, like controlling
the border, for example, the idea that an open border
and mass migration is extremely punishing to the working class.
It drives down their wages, it's class warfare against the
working class. It is an upward transfer of wealth from
the working class who end up competing with immigrants, to
(01:13):
the elites who end up employing them. And now they
can employ cheap immigrants instead of having to pay working
class Americans a living wage.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So as Batya and Gar Saragan. She's the opinion editor
of Newsweek. She is also the author of the new
book Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's working men
and women. So today we're going to have her on
the show and we're going to ask her who are
the nation's elites, how did they sell out the working class?
And what does that mean for the twenty twenty four
(01:40):
presidential election. This is a really interesting conversation. She is
very smart and this is an incredible book. She took
the time to go around the country and to speak
with so many working class voters and Americans from housekeepers
to healthcare aids to cops, truck drivers, fast food workers, electricians,
the list goes on. You're not going to want to
be this conversation. Stay tuned for Badja. So, yeah, congratulations,
(02:09):
your book is out. I know it's been a labor
of love. It sounds like you put so much work
into it, So congratulations and I'm really looking forward to
to digging into it.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Thank you so much, and thank you so much for
having me, Lisa. It's such a thrill to be here
with you.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, I saw your clip that made the rounds after
Real Time, and I reached out to you and I
was like, I got to have you on my show.
We need to talk about this subject. And then, you know,
we had talked about when to have you on when
the book was out so that we could fully engage
in it. So I'm looking forward to what was the
reaction after Real Time? You know, did you think Democrats
realized that, you know, they have a problem with working voters.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I actually think they do. And what's amazing to watch
is is that the liberal media, which is always trying
to protect them from realizing this, is trying to run
the same playbook that they ran in twenty sixteen when
they just called everybody who voted for Trump racist. But
it's really falling flat because Trump is now polling so
(03:08):
well with Hispanic voters and even with black voters, and
so that playbook they have where they use race as
a smoke screen for class to distract from the ways
in which the Democrats abandoned the working class. It's just
not working this time around, and that's really amazing to see.
I feel like we've really made strides as a nation
in terms of recognizing how much we've betrayed the working
(03:30):
class on both sides. Thanks to Trump in large part,
we're able to see that now. So it's a little
bit different, and I think, you know, as a result,
the reaction to the Bill Maher clips were pretty positive,
I felt, even from people who were sort of center left.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
When did Trump's message start resonating with you? Personally?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I had the Trump arrangement syndrome. I'm so embarrassed to
admit it now, but I did for like at least
two years. I really was in that headspace, and it
really to shift for me in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen.
And it's one of those things where when you like,
when you start to see it, especially if you're on
the left, your initial reaction is like, oh no, yeah,
(04:14):
because you know, hating Trump is a sort of card
of entree to the left, and if you lose that,
you sort of can no longer be a member in
good standing. So it started to shift for me around
twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, and then after the twenty twenty election,
you know, when you started to see really the in
real time the devastating impact of the Democrats economic policy
(04:39):
on the working class. Just seeing that develop and cascade.
The open border, the inflation, the ridiculous climate agenda, all
of this is really class warfare against the working class.
It's a plunder of the middle class by the over
credentialed college elites. When I started to really see that
(05:00):
and understand just what Donald Trump had done to sort
of try to stop that hemorrhaging, then it really sunk in.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And so I guess that led you to writing this
book that we're about to get into Second Class. How
the elites betrayed America's working men and women. I guess
who would you specify as the ones who betrayed America
as working men and women.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
It was really both parties, I would say, But of
course the old version, the pre Trump version of the
Republican Party, never made any pretense to representing labor in
the working class, so the betrayal was sort of a
lot less deep. The Democrats were once the party of
the working class, and still pretend to be. And actually
(05:47):
it was their policies. So Bill Clinton signing NAFTA into
law and shipping five million good working class jobs overseas
to build up the middle class in China and Mexico,
Barack Obama showing up and saying those jobs aren't coming back.
If you don't go to college, you don't deserve the
American dream. And then Joe Biden coming in and opening
the border to further devalue the jobs that remain by
(06:11):
importing twelve million slaves, cartel slaves basically to compete with
American working class people. You know, those were really uh,
I mean, each of those is a huge, huge betrayal
of people who used to be the Democrats based So
that was sort of, you know, front and center in
my mind. Although of course the GOP, which was once
you know, the party of you know, the country clubs
(06:33):
and free trade and the Chamber of Commerce, tax cuts,
you know, as the only thing that they care about,
also is a huge betrayal of the working class. And
you know, Lisa, when I see you on Fox, you
are so good on this. I'm always sitting there cheering
you on when you're on out Numbered because you make
this point so often, which is that, you know, if
(06:54):
the GOP wants to remain competitive, they simply cannot go
back to the you know, Nikki Hayley version of the party.
The party now is the party that Trump made, and
that upsets the elites on both sides, right, because he's
speaking directly to the voter base and sort of circumventing
the Republican donor base.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Well, that's very kind, and I very much enjoy watching
you and you're on TV. You're so smart and you
always make really eloquent points. Why do you think, I
guess I'm curious. How do you think what led to
Democrats sort of becoming this party of the coastal leads.
I mean, even you just look at the climate policies, right,
I mean you were talking about this on real time
(07:36):
about how Joe Biden's push for electric vehicles is going
to crush working voters, particularly in states like Michigan. So
I guess what led them to that point? You know,
how do you think they arrived at that point? I guess.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So it's a great question because a lot of these
policies were both the cause of but also the result
of a shift in orientation in the Democratic Party away
from the working class and towards the college educated, the suburban,
the urban voter. The Democrats are now this weird amalgamation
of you know, the top ten twenty percent in terms
(08:11):
of income who have these sort of degrees upon degrees
upon degrees which they get from these prestigious universities where
they learned to sneer at the working class, but also
the poor. The Democrats also represent the poor. So what
they have is, you know, all of their policies are
i say, class warfare against the working class, because they
are designed to put money in the pockets of the
college educated elites, but also the dependent poor who don't work,
(08:34):
both of whom are in competition with the working class
or whose interests are intention with the working class. Why
this happened was we had a great sorting where a
lot of liberal minded people left the sort of middle
of America and migrated to big cities into the coasts.
They increasingly got college degrees, and they were increasingly ensconced
(08:58):
in very tight bubbles of only other like minded people.
And so when you have a lot of people going
to college, what they do there is our universities are
no longer really institutions of education, particularly the humanities and
the social sciences. The thing they really do is inculcate
a sense of elitism and a sense of privilege in
(09:20):
the people who go there, who see themselves as on
the right side of history and as much better people
than the people who don't go to college. They learn
a contempt for the working class because when you spend
one hundred thousand dollars and you're not getting an education,
what you are getting is status. That's what the university
system confers. So you suddenly had a lot of people
(09:41):
who were going to these universities feeling like they were
better than everybody else. They got this status, access to
this network of other people who thought that they were
much better than everybody who didn't go to college, and
that elitism created a sense of we should tell everybody
else how to live, we should get to rule. We
have essentially right now, an oligarchy of the credentials. Obama
(10:04):
was big on this. He wanted to be only surrounded
by people who had gone to Harvard or Yale and Princeton,
and they believe that they should be able to tell
the working class not only how to live, but what
to believe, and we're seeing right now a mass revolved
against that, but effectively, because in their minds they developed
contempt for labor and for the working class and for
people who don't have a college degree, they also created
(10:27):
an economy that works really well for them because they
don't see working class jobs as worthy of dignity. Therefore
they created an economy that also devalued those jobs economically.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
That's such a good point. And then even when you know,
when you said the word status, it even came into
my mind. You know how the left really has this
sort of like victimhood class and it's like transgender, this black,
you know, it's like all these different groups and being
in those groups sort of give you, you know, some
element of status. Uh So you know that kind of
just outo my mind, just for clarification purposes, how would
(11:03):
you define the working class in America?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So this is definitely something I struggled with.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, right, that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I was like that, you know, really hard. I you know,
the whole introduction is my sort of attempt to do
that with examples. So the book has there's a lot
of data in it, but every piece of data you
have a person, a character, a narrative, a story that
exemplifies that data point. You know. There's a lot of
ways to define it. Some people say it's whether your
father had a college degree. Some people say whether it's
(11:31):
you have a college degree. Somebody say it's whether you
make you know under one hundred thousand dollars a year.
Some people say it's whether you make you know the
median income, which is about sixty thousand dollars a year
for a household. There are many ways to define it.
I believe that the real divide in America is this
class divide that separates out the college educated from the
working class. If you have a college degree, you have
(11:52):
access to a much more stable existence and probably the
American dream. Not everyone, of course, but by and law,
college educated Americans make about a million dollars more over
the course of their career than a person without a
college degree. They have better health, they live longer, and
they're not be set by the plagues of working class life,
who are often the victims of crime or overdoses, deaths
(12:16):
of despair, and just downward mobility as we've seen over
the last fifty years. So to me, the definition that
I ended up with was. A working class person is
a somebody who works in an industry that does not
require a skill set you learn in college, who has
been locked out of the top twenty percent. So I'm
not talking about rich people we all know, you know,
plumbers and electricians who've made it, you know, make more
(12:38):
money than I do. Right, and God bless them, right,
God bless this country. I'm talking about people who are,
you know, maked under one hundred and twenty five thousand
dollars a year. Let's say, who are working in a
job that does not require a college degree.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Let's take a quick commercial break, and then more on
how the elites sold out the working class. What I
love that you did about this book, and what I
really want to dig into is you talk to people,
you know what I mean. I think part of the
problem with the media today is like, you know, even
just moving you know, I'm not from New York, but
(13:11):
I lived there for a little while before moving to Florida.
And even on like the vaccine issue is such a
radically different envite. You know, I didn't get the vaccine
the code that and like in New York it's like
you're evil, You're you're basically a terrorist at that point
for not to and then in Florida it's like no
one cares, right, So it's like even that is enlightening
and just you know, being in a totally different environment.
And so I think the problem is the media lives
(13:33):
in these bubbles in New York and d C. It's
not real world, it's not real life. So you went
around the country, you know, talking to people, learning hearing
from the uh tell us about you know that. Where
did you go, who did you meet and and what
did you learn from that?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Wow? I went all over. I went to I went
to California a number of times. I went to Phoenix,
I went to Denver, I went to Houston. I went
to Florida a bunch of times. I spent a lot
of time in Ohio. I also interviewed people from Alaska
in West Virginia. I also spent a lot of time,
you know, talking to people here in the New York area.
And what I found is, first of all, there's a
(14:09):
huge consensus in the working class about what policies they want.
And that's whether they're Democrats are Republicans. I mean, they
basically agree on the policy they want polarization is a
completely elite phenomenon. Working class people are so totally not
polarized because neither party really represents their interests and so
it would never occur to them to hate somebody who
had a different opinion on abortion, although they buy and
(14:32):
large agree on abortion as well. Most working class Americans
are extremely tolerant. That tolerance comes both from the nature
of this country, which is finally made good on the
promises of our founding, but also just from the precariousness
when you have a life that is beset by percarity,
where every mistake you make sends you off the path
(14:53):
into you know, real, real precariousness, and you don't know
where you're going to be, you know, sleeping the next night.
You just people like that are not judgmental at all.
They have extreme amounts of more important but one hundred
percent the case. That's one hundred percent the case. And
here's another thing that I found, the American dream where
(15:14):
it is still alive for working class Americans. It's much
more feasible in Red America than Blue America, simply because
of the cost of housing. So if we define the
American dream as you know, owning a home children being
you know, having slightly better opportunities than you do, having
access to good healthcare. And by the way, this is
(15:35):
how working class Americans define it, and a retirement in dignity.
That piece, the first piece, a home. Owning your own
home has become all but impossible for working class Americans
living in Blue America because even though the wages are
slightly higher, the cost of housing is just exponentially higher.
I mean, it's just totally unaffordable. Whereas you could be
(15:57):
pretty poor in West Virginia and still own your own home.
And so from that point of view, there really is
more opportunity. I would say, if you're defining home ownership
as a key part of the American dream, which most
working class Americans do, do.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
You think and talking to those people in you know,
Blue America, you know, working voters in Blue America, is
there an understanding that perhaps leftist policies are part of
the reason why they're in that state, like or not
obviously in that state, but more of the you know
why they're in that position, the financial position.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, I mean, especially immigration, which to any working class
person is an economic concern. Right. Immigration is a proxy
for like the devaluation of working class jobs right, So
to them, immigration is an economic question. To the elites,
of course, it's the sort of cultural question, you know, oh,
we must welcome immigrants here or whatever. So that is
(16:52):
very obvious to them that the that the leftist policies
are screwing them over. I will say, you know, the
number one reason I think that there is not more
even more defection. There's a lot of defection of working
class people from Democrats Republicans. I think the reason there
isn't even more is because, you know, healthcare is extremely important,
(17:12):
and people don't feel that it is affordable or accessible,
and they never hear Republicans addressing this issue, but they
do hear Democrats addressing it. If the Republicans came up
with a good healthcare plan, just some way to relieve
some of the burden and anxiety, to make people feel
like they're not going to go bankrupt over their health
(17:32):
after they spent their lives working physical jobs to sustain
this society, they would be unstoppable, because of course they
have the immigration piece.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, but I mean I think you know, Democrats pretty
much own today's healthcare state, you know, after Obamacare. In
talking to people, and then looking ahead at the twenty
twenty four election, did that shape sort of how you
think this election could go down? In those conversations, you know,
(18:01):
where do you think the folks you talk to are
going to end up on election day or heading into
election day? Because now we have male and balloting like
super early and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I spoke to a lot of Obama Obama Trump Trump
people who are definitely still Trump people. I did speak
to a number of people who really don't like Trump's
personality but are going to vote for him because I mean,
there was no one I spoke to who didn't feel
like they were better off in twenty eighteen financially from
(18:32):
a safety point of view in terms of the country.
The people that had ambivalent feelings about Trump, it was
because they felt that he was sort of giving the
working class a bad name by being such a good
proxy for what they were looking for. But in terms
of just policy, there was very little debate about which
(18:53):
president had put more money in their pockets, and it
was definitely Donald Trump. And so that's definitely impacted how
I think about the coming election. You never know how
things are going to go. You never know what people
are going to be thinking when they got into the
voting booth. But it's very hard for me to imagine
Trump losing if I'm just going based off the reporting
(19:14):
I did in my book.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
You know, you reference you know, healthcare and immigration. If
you if you kind of had to pick the top
three issues that you've heard the most consistently from folks, uh,
you know, how would you lay them out?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
So Number one was the economy. I mean, groceries are
up eighteen percent. People living on a shoe string budget,
even people who are not poor. That is it's it's unforgivable.
I mean, it's unforgivable. It is plunder of the middle class.
And so that was definitely the top issue. Was inflation,
people having to make choices about how many nights a
(19:48):
week they could afford to feed their children chicken or
meat or you know, devastating stuff like that. Immigration was
a top concern, and you know, immigration is a proc
see for good jobs, jobs that pay a living wage,
a sense that if you work and work and work
your butt off, there is a sense that the country
(20:10):
is going to look out for you and give you
the modest fixings of a middle class life. I mean,
that's all they want is the most modest things that
you know, we and the elites totally take for granted.
And then the third thing I would say is feeling like,
you know, that they were going to be able to
have a dignified life if if they got sick, when
(20:31):
they got old, when they're you know, aching bones, could
no longer do the backbreaking work that they spent their
careers doing. And so I would say, you know, if
I would put it, you know, I would say economy, immigration,
and healthcare.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
You know, I guess dig in a little bit. You know,
you had talked about, you know, because obviously there's a
lot of focus on you know, Michigan and uh, you know,
you look at the uncommitted vote in Michigan against Joe
Biden and particularly in dearborn Michigan again which she had
lost to you know, and you know, there's been a
(21:05):
lot of talk that he could potentially lose Michigan because
of his support for you know, home as basically, if
you just want to call it out what it is,
but you you had made the point, you don't know,
it's his push for electric vehicles, it's you know, the
auto workers in the state. How big of an issue.
Do you think the electric vehicle push is for you know,
working Americans?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Huge, absolutely huge. It just it's such a good example
of how people who live in blue bubbles where by
the way, seventy five percent of journalists live and you
know where where If everybody around you lives in an
urban setting and they only need their car to drive
(21:45):
twelve blocks to whole Foods, right of course you think
everybody wants in a little Chinese electric car, right, But
rural voters, I mean, what are they going to do
with an electric car? You know, they don't have an
hour in the middle of the day to sit there
while it, you know, fill up with electricity. Who's going
to pay for that hour of their time? And you
know they're driving much further they need their cars for work,
(22:09):
and you know, it's just such a perfect encapsulation of
the cluelessness of leftist elites about how like the rest
of the country is actually operating. That's from the consumer's
point of view, Lisa, But from the producer's point of view,
we know that it takes a third of the amount
of time on the line to produce an ev that
(22:31):
it does to produce a gas car, meaning that Obviously,
this is going to be a major hit to the
auto industry, which used to be like the pride and
joy of the United States. And now, of course China
is threatening to open a factory in Mexico so that
they can get around the tariffs on Chinese cars. This
is all stuff that is just totally lost on the Democrats,
(22:52):
who are catering to a college educated base and totally
obvious to working class people the way that it is
to Trump. So to me, I look at Michigan. I
don't see two hundred thousand, you know, Muslim Americans. I
see six hundred thousand auto workers who know what this
whole ev market scam is going to do to their
bottom line. Only four percent of people in America vote
(23:15):
on foreign policy. It's a really tiny percentage. And then
you have to keep in mind that Trump, I mean,
whatever you think of Joe Biden, if these people feel
like he's not pro Hamas enough, like Trump is much
more pro Israel than Biden ever was. So you know,
the idea that they're going to vote for the more
pro Israel candidate based on foreign policy I think is nonsense.
(23:38):
And in fact, a lot of the people who are
voting uncommitted are saying they're going to vote for Donald Trump.
So to me, this looks like there's working class Arabs
and they need an excuse to defect to Donald Trump
and they're using Gaza. I mean, I'm sure they care
about it deeply, which, by the way, is their god
given right as an American to vote on whatever they want.
But to me, it's that is a sort of media
(23:59):
fantasy that Biden is going to lose over something the
media cares about, which is the Middle East. It's nonsense.
I mean, the American working class is not going to
vote on the Middle East.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Quick break more with Batya. You said carelessness before. Do
you think it's carelessness from Joe Biden all these policies
or is it with intent? Because I mean it's hard
to imagine he doesn't understand the level of destruction that
this could wage against the auto industry.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
It's a great question. I think it's very similar to immigration. Right.
You look at this and you just think, like, you know,
I'm sure we're all sitting here thinking the same thing
for four years. Why doesn't he just close the border?
It's so easy. Trump created with three executive actions, he
created the playbook that is completely effective, Like, why doesn't
(24:51):
he Biden just do it? I think there's a number
of reasons that the Democratic Party. You know, each party
has its sort of donor class. The Demo Scratic parties
donor class is very beholden to this sort of NGO
network of college educated people combined with billionaires, all of
whom have the same sort of vanity morals which always
(25:13):
end up coming at the expense of the working class.
But you know, the if these are your funders, these
are your donors, you don't have a lot of leeway
to say, actually, you know, we're going to care about
the American working class instead of about the climate. Because
these people are obsessed with climate, just like they're obsessed
with the kind of open borders and a lawlessness and
the decarciral state and getting criminals out of prison. These
(25:35):
are the values you pick up at the university and
it is their religion. So for for Biden to say, actually,
I'm going to go back to, you know, the roots
of the Democratic Party, it would be very very difficult
for him to do that, not because I think of
the left flank, but because of who the donor class
to the Democrats is.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
You know, so the left tries to paint Donald Trump
is he is out of touch, she's the bills billionaire.
And sometimes those attacks, you know, work against you know,
Republicans from the left, although they make money off the
backs of us while they're in office. But anyways, Uh,
why do you think Donald Trump has been able to
resonate with working voters despite the fact that, you know, look,
(26:16):
he's a billionaire, which is great. I want to be
a billionaire. I want everyone else to be one too,
you know, I want us all to be rich. But
why do you think he's been able to resonate with
so many people.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I'll tell you what a gay nurse certified Nurses Aid
in Florida told me. She said he can't be bought.
And I heard that a lot. There's a lot of
skepticism about that from left wing elites. But I don't
know how you you look at, for example, the Republican
primary and not see that that's basically what happened. I mean,
(26:49):
the entire donor class turned on Trump to support Nikki
Haley and it didn't move the needle for her at all.
When Trump came into office, he took on both sides.
He took on both parties. He took on the orthodoxy.
There's basically a handshake agreement between left and right about
you know, free trade, for example, and he said, we're
(27:09):
not gonna have free trade. We're gonna have a trade
war with China. We're gonna have tariffs on steel and aluminum,
Like he just got it. He had this sort of
very intuitive sense that the entire seventy percent of the
country that is sort of in the reasonable middle had
been abandoned by both sides. And it's so funny because
there's so much distraction around Donald Trump the man, but
(27:32):
if you just look at his policies, Donald Trump is
the consensus candidate that Joe Biden promised he was going
to be. I mean, he's a total centrist on everything.
He looks more like a kind of you know, mid
century Democrat than he does like a Republican. He believes in,
you know, protectionist economy, protectionist trade policies, policing the border
(27:53):
to protect working class people. He's courting union workers, he's
courting black voters. He believes in a fit fifteen week abortion,
it should be legal for fifteen weeks. Like this is
where seventy percent of Americans are at This used to
be where the Democratic Party was, and he sort of
realized that there was nobody in that reasonable center and
(28:13):
made a bee line for it. But it involved taking
on the really the orthodoxies and the elites on both sides,
and I think that really came through to the working class.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, when you said I can't be bought, it took
me back to the gupe primaries heading into the twenty
sixteen election. Well one the only rosy O'Donnell, which is like,
still like the best line ever. And then also, and
I love Megan Kelly, so that's not a knock to her,
it's just was hilarious response. And then I can't remember
who we had donated to, but I think someone who's
(28:45):
bringing up like, oh, you've given money to Nancy Pelosi
or whatever, and he was like, oh, yeah, because she
can be bought. Like I think people are at home
were like, yeah, right, that checks out. That makes sense.
All right, That's what it took me back to.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean I think that there is really
you know, I understand why people are skeptical when you
say that about somebody, but it's obvious from the way
that he governed that he was not thinking about anybody
except what he wanted to see happen. He did. He's
(29:22):
up a little bit on immigration towards the end, and
there were some sort of people in the commentary of
class saying it's because Wall Street was sort of urging
him to. But in twenty twenty, Joe Biden got more
money from Wall Street than Donald Trump did. Wall Street
loves an open border because, of course it's great for
their bottom line, for the same reason that when you
turn on leftist liberal cable news, they're always talking about
how great the economy is. It's really good if you
(29:45):
have a stock portfolio. You know, it's really good if
you own property, because it's you know, the economy is
doing really well for that sort of top for the
elites basically, and that's thanks to all these policies that
Donald Trump was trying to undo.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Well, you also said they're not setting their best and
I think people are realizing that now as we have
potential terrorist gang members. I saw that there was there
was like a Ninja's from Chile that are have burglary brings.
Now I was reading about Oakland County. I think we're freaking,
like what in the hell, like Russian Bobsters is reading
(30:22):
like it's like, why you know, it's insane that we're
letting these people into our country. Well before we go,
why do you think immigration specifically resonates so much with
working voters?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
So in nineteen seventy one, which was the high water
mark for working class wages, right after that they began
to stagnate and then basically just fall. In nineteen seventy one,
the share of the population that was foreign born was
four percent, and today it is fifteen percent. And this
(30:57):
really gets left out of the conversation. You know, I
don't have anything against immigrants personally. This is what working
class people would say to me. I don't have anything
against them personally. I understand people who want the American
dream for their children, but it's so obvious to the
working class that other people are getting the American dream
(31:17):
and they are not. And there seems to be so
much forbearance for these people and nothing for them. And
they know, they know that when you import fifteen million
people in four years and they are all going to
be working in certain industries, of course, it is obvious
(31:39):
that that is going to drive down the wages in
those industries. I mean, it's the most obvious supply and demand,
and so that really for them is a proxy for
the devaluation of their jobs and their hard work, even
though they're working harder than they ever have before. That,
I think is why it's so important to them, you know,
to the elite's immigration, and they pretend that immigration is
(32:01):
about morality, but it's not. It's really about economics and
bringing in these migrants. It puts money in the pockets
of the rich and it is simply wage theft from
the American working class and they know it. Well.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
We're going to end on that because that was really
well well said. I think a super important point. Second Class,
How the Elites Betrayed America's working men and Women? Really
interesting stuff. Batya, a great book. I love this. I
think this is so important. I just really appreciate you
taking the time to come on the show. I hope
this book is such massive success.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Thank you so so much for having me, Lisa, for
everything that you do. God bless you.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I was Batya Angarsargane with her new book, Second Class,
How the Elites Betrayed America's Working men and Women. Just
really interesting stuff. She's super nice, so smart. Always tune
in when I see her on TV, so appreciate her
for making the time every Monday and Thursday, but you
can listen throughout the week. I want to thank John Cassio,
my producer, for putting the show together. Until next time.