America's Long (Unaddressed) History of Class

The National Review's savage takedown of the Trump-supporting "white working class" (excerpted here) was stunning in its contempt, calling them lazy drug addicts, comparing them to animals, even saying that they deserve to die. Though it stopped short of saying it, the implication was clear: these people are white trash. 

It's a term we've heard plenty of times before, often as a dismissal, sometimes as a badge of honor. But the notion of "white trash" has been around for a long time. Nancy Isenberg, author of the forthcoming book, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold Story of Class in America, argues that the myth of America as a classless nation has obscured an ugly truth: that this country was founded on a disdain for the poor that has never been fully addressed. Brooke speaks with Isenberg about America's uneasy relationship with class and how the National Review's recent article was echoing a theme that is at least four centuries old.

Song:

"Superstition" by Sungha Jung