When pundits refer to “the working class” that supports Donald Trump, there’s a silent “white” implied in the phrase, Jamelle Bouie writes. But the actual “working class” is increasingly black and brown. “It’s inaccurate to talk about Trump’s ‘working-class appeal,’ ” Bouie argues. “What Trump has, instead, is a message tailored to a conservative portion of white workers.”
Seth Stevenson went to follow Bernie Sanders as it became clear the candidate would lose the race for Democratic delegates, thinking he would file a story about a campaign’s bitter end. Instead, he found something else. “This may be a zombie campaign, but the end-of-the-road vibe I went looking for in Indiana wasn’t there,” Stevenson writes. “It’s not so much that his supporters are delusional about his odds. It’s more that, for once, the monk keeps winning, and they simply refuse to let the movement die.”
In writing about the raging firestorm in Fort McMurray, Alberta, this past week, Eric Holthaus linked the disaster to climate change, then found himself the target of angry comments from people who found his post insensitive. But this is exactly the right time to try to think about the relationship between this disaster and climate change, Holthaus argues. “Accepting climate science can threaten our very identities,” he writes, trying to parse the intense energy of the negative comments he’s received. “It is understandable that people would react with fear, anger, and, yes, even vitriol. That does not mean, however, that climate change is not happening, and we should not take it seriously.”
On Motherboard, Rose Eveleth writes about women and PTSD. We think of the typical PTSD sufferer as a combat veteran (usually male), but women are, in actuality, more vulnerable to the disorder. “While the popular perception is that the ‘trauma’ in ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ has to be something like explosions and war, you can actually get PTSD from any kind of shock and terror,” Eveleth writes. “Women are more likely to be the victims of sustained abuse, as opposed to one-time attacks. And they’re more likely to experience domestic trauma at the hands of a partner or loved one.”
The United States doesn’t give its parents a solid amount of leave when they have babies. The United States also has a high infant mortality rate, when compared to other developed countries. In a super-sad and necessary piece, Virginia Sole-Smith connects these two facts. “Maybe we are squandering an opportunity to use social policy to address a serious public health concern,” says an epidemiologist whom Sole-Smith interviews. “The poorest countries in the world are finding ways to provide benefits to new mothers that we can’t rationalize in the United States.”
For fun: Mia Birdsong writes a joyful hymn to the virtues of the auntie.
Allomothering 4-eva,
Rebecca
