Our interviewees believe that most politicians do not understand their lives or their struggles. They see an enormous distance between their own experiences and those of politicians, as well as the people they think of as being involved in or caring about politics.
This class (and often race) divide is a big part of our respondents’ distrust of voting and politics.
But candidates, nonprofit staff, organizers, volunteers, and others who have personal experience with economic precarity could do a lot to help connect working-class and low-income people to politics. Max, a 51-year-old Black security guard, told us:
If I was to vote, it would have to be for a candidate that felt like I did and I’d seen through their actions that they’re making change…I would have to personally feel—feel them. [...] You’ve got to have somebody that’s really been through something to tell some people about something… That’s what’s wrong with politics…You have all these rich people running for office…if you had a person that come in here that’s broke, ain’t got nothing, you know what I mean? And they just come in there and they just want to make a change. They’re not caring about the money, they want to buck the lobbyists and… yeah, I would be for that person.
Our respondents’ perception that political work is mostly done by people unlike themselves is accurate:
Both social-class and racial representation help build trust and confidence. To help more people see themselves in politics and trust what they hear from people asking them to vote, organizations should seek to recruit and train volunteers, staff, and candidates from the same communities they are trying to mobilize, in terms of both race and social class.
