LSE III | Professor Joan C. Williams | Why Did Trump Win? Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute at LSE
Recorded on 10 May 2017 at Wolfson Theatre, LSE Campus
Speaker: Professor Joan C. Williams
Chair: Dr Michael McQuarrie

This public lecture marks the publication of Joan C. Williams latest book, White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America. https://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Workin...

Much analysis has focused on the fact that Donald Trump won the U.S. Election because liberals lost the white working class vote. The same might well be said about Brexit. That being the case, what exactly does the left need to do to regain those votes? And can it do so without ignoring the needs of immigrant and other minority groups? Joan C. Williams, whose evaluation of Trump's electoral victory in the Harvard Business Review has been read over 3.5 million times, will explain how the left can regain white working class votes while remaining true to their principles.
Joan C Williams latest book addresses why so much of the elite's analysis of the white working class is misguided and rooted in class cluelessness; dismissing white working-class motivations as racist or xenophobic and wrongly conflating 'working class' with 'poor'.

Joan Williams (@JoanCWilliams) is Professor of Law at UC Hastings Foundation and Chair and Director of the Center for WorkLife Law.

Michael McQuarrie is Associate Professor in Sociology at LSE.