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Fair Observer is an independent, nonprofit media organization that engages in citizen journalism and civic education. Our digital media platform has 2,500 contributors from 90 countries, cutting across borders, backgrounds and beliefs. With fact-checking and a rigorous editorial process, we provide diversity and quality in an era of echo chambers and fake news.
The Forbidden C-word, Class in America | FO Podcasts
FO Podcasts
57 minutes
3 weeks ago
The Forbidden C-word, Class in America | FO Podcasts
Why is the word class almost never spoken in American politics, despite shaping elections, identity, and power? In this episode of FO Podcasts, Fair Observer’s Founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief Atul Singh, examines the hidden class system in the United States with former Washington Post journalist Ken Jenkins.
Drawing from his journey from a blue-collar upbringing to elite Washington institutions, Jenkins explains how class operates through education, accents, culture, and unspoken social rules. The conversation explores why American politics avoids class language, how elite institutions dominate political discourse, and why working-class voters across racial lines have drifted away from the Democratic Party.
The episode also unpacks Donald Trump’s appeal, elite condescension, identity politics, and the widening divide between metropolitan professionals and rural or industrial America. With comparisons to Europe and the United Kingdom, this discussion shows why class, not race alone, has become a defining fault line in US democracy.
00:00 Class in America
04:30 Atul’s Family in India
06:30 Ken’s Family in America
10:00 Class Politics in the US
15:00 What Trump Did Right
21:00 Class in Europe vs America
35:00 The Impact of Class on Community
40:00 Democrats and Zohran Mamdani
45:00 Race and Class in America
55:00 Republicans vs Democrats
FO Podcasts
Fair Observer is an independent, nonprofit media organization that engages in citizen journalism and civic education. Our digital media platform has 2,500 contributors from 90 countries, cutting across borders, backgrounds and beliefs. With fact-checking and a rigorous editorial process, we provide diversity and quality in an era of echo chambers and fake news.
