QUOTE : Punditry has tended to reduce the reality of class, which crosses lines of racial and gender identity, and to replace it with an all-encompassing marker of dispossession that exclusively features the once ascendant, now aggrieved “white working-class male.” Such an artificial, monolithic designation of working class reinforces the idea of voting blocs as fixed categories. As a result, politicians are said to appeal to one or another preset group. We need to see beyond.20 We need to look honestly at the real perils of our electoral system in this age of media celebrity and instantaneous communication, especially when compounded lies cease to shock and a cacophony of voices among insistent ideologues compromise constitutional principles and make it harder and harder to know which policies stand the best chance of improving the lives of more citizens. We need to stop thinking that some Americans are the real Americans, the deserving, the talented, the most patriotic and hardworking, while others can be dismissed as less deserving of the American dream.