Codding Blue-Collar Whites

SAN DIEGO -- This Labor Day, I'm not feeling the least bit sympathetic for the supposedly beleaguered American worker.

Give me a break. The United States is still the land of opportunity for those who take risks and make good choices, and so I'm tired of hearing about the plight of the media's newest charity case: working-class whites who live in so-called Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

And I'm not the only one who has had his fill of violin music. A few months ago, outside of Chicago, I was in a car with a chauffeur who was born in Greece, left that country as a child, and made a life in America opening bars that became restaurants. Now his sons run the business in the Windy City and he's spending his retirement not on the golf course but driving for a professional car service.

"America is all about opportunity," he said. "You can do anything here, if you're willing to work and not ashamed to do jobs that some consider low-class."

You've heard how youth is wasted on the young. Well, the promise of America is wasted on Americans.

Meanwhile, back at the media ranch, anchors, reporters, producers, and commentators are all fawning over this group of people that they've just discovered: blue collar whites.

This isn't news to J.D. Vance. As the author of the new best-selling memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," Vance not only shares his own story -- which takes him from a poor upbringing to Yale Law School. He also tells the tale of working class whites of Scots-Irish descent who suffer from what Vance calls "learned helplessness" -- the feeling that success is out of their control.

We are told that working-class whites are feeling hopeless, and that they don't believe the American Dream applies to them anymore. They feel forgotten, marginalized, and neglected by their government. They feel that promises were broken, and that playing the game by the rules gets you nowhere.

You know, African-Americans and Latinos have a word for this sort of thing. We call it: "normal."

Still, in this presidential election, politicians in both parties can't get enough of blue-collar white voters. According to political observers, the new battleground states are Florida, Nevada, Iowa, Ohio, Arizona, and North Carolina.

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