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1. I've thought a lot about why the left largely ignores @Chris_arnade's remarkable book, Dignity, a book on poverty and class in America. I think it's because he challenges the core identity of Democrats, and they can't see in the blind spot he identifies.
2. The Dems are not a working class party, but an upper class party. Dem primary voters are wealthy and educated. Nearly all of them have gone to college. Three in ten have post-graduate degrees, and four in ten make $100k+. A third are over 60. 
3. When Dems discuss social problems, it's largely a performative dance focused not on addressing those problems but using those problems to validate their own social status. They are charity oriented, not liberty oriented.
4. Chris's book is not about the poor, or the 'back row' kids, as he puts it. It's more about the front row kids. It's about how we choose to not see ourselves as human beings with social needs that are no different than those in crack houses. Meaning, connection, love, food.
5. @Chris_arnade's conclusion from traveling around the country and talking to poor people in McDonald's is that all the institutions that validate the upper class are simply social validators for a community that wants to not see the uncertainty of life. penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566661/d…
6. @JDVance1, @TuckerCarlson and Tom Cotton have all focused on what @Chris_arnade is discussing, which is the raw divide between the upper class who unsee the poor, and the lower class living in despair as a result. But the left doesn't see it. penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566661/d…
7. It's because conservatives aren't obsessed with seeing themselves as self-righteous good people. They know they are rich and powerful. But the Democrats cannot see power, because they do not see they draw meaning from an upper class hierarchy. The poor are not like them.
8. This isn't about some policy framework. Would the Dem framework be better for the poor? Sure, maybe, a little bit. That's not the point. The point is, who do you see? The Dems can't see the poor, but more importantly, they can't see themselves as the upper class they are.
9. Life is scary. Power is scary. Being upper class doesn't make you exempt from life. And upper class institutions don't exempt anyone from drug abuse, loneliness, moral longing. Musing on one's anti-racist views at brunch doesn't change that. It just means you don't see.
