In the states, a lot of leftists (specifically the coastal elite types) have disdain for working class people who are not like them or who live in the south/midwest/rustbelt/redstates/somewhereelse. They favor some policies (e.g. lax immigration laws, sometimes to the point of open borders) that do not help those working class people they claim to care about, and accuse these people of being racists for disagreeing with their opinions.

At least, that's how some people see it.

I find it really weird that people use "working class" to mean "white, rural, and blue-collar." While those people assuredly are working-class, so are waitresses in The Bronx and janitors in San Francisco, who are mostly Democrats.

And by the way, immigrants, at least the ones you hear about in the media, are largely working-class. When people just ignore certain groups of people when talking about "the working class," it's pretty clear that they're not really just talking about economic status.

> I find it really weird that people use "working class" to mean "white, rural, and blue-collar."

I don't think my comment did this.

> And by the way, immigrants, at least the ones you hear about in the media, are largely working-class.

I don't believe anyone has ever claimed otherwise. Or if they have, it's more along the lines of referring to immigrants as welfare recipients. Either way I'm not going to defend a strawman.

This map of 2016 election results by county sums this up pretty well: https://brilliantmaps.com/2016-county-election-map/

You're describing liberals who may often feel that way, liberals are absolutely not leftists (where by the standard international definition of left/right politics, both the democratic party and the republican party are liberal parties with differing views on social issues).

Is Trump, a billionaire from New York, a coastal elite?

I have no idea what actually goes on in his brain so I couldn't say. But I don't think people who use the term in earnest would call him one. It's more of an insult from people on the 'right' to people on the 'left'.

This goes back a long way to the internationalist/"socialism in one country" debate. What is the boundary of a "class"? Are the interests of working class people born on one side of an invisible line fundamentally at odds with the interests of people born on the other?

The boundary of a class probably lies within the heads of every single person, right?

Are their interests at odds? If there is some objective idea of interests, e.g. some ideal like "the American dream", some sense of a decent life and prosperity for normal people, then no. Our interests are shared (save for a few contrarians).

However, most of us have our own moral principles that we believe should be used and not violated to achieve that interest. This is a real boundary that limits progress in one direction or another.

I think this means the middle class has grown and because of this what used to be about the large working class is now about the middle class and a smaller class without agency of "vulnerable people". This group of people which used to have a champion who understood them now have a champion which doesn't need to.

Anyhow the point is that those in the lower classes do not have someone they can "respect or identify with" anymore

People say this a lot. But I've not heard all that many people saying this in the media in their own words. It's possible to go quote-fishing until you can find someone who says "nobody represents me", but that's not quite the same thing. Can we find an example of a working class commentator with a reasonable audience saying this themselves?

The point was that in the UK at the very least, Labour used to be voice of the working class. That we can't point to Labour as being the "working class commentator" which we used to is a great indication that they are no longer in touch with their working class origins.

Edits (sorry I've been editing a lot) - I think the main point is that Labour used to be the voice of the working class. Now it's the voice on behalf of the working class. Working on behalf of and in defence of but not actually from. So they are still very much involved in the lives of the working class and seek to serve them but the relationship to them has changed to one of a benevolent caretaker. Additionally they no longer use the term "working class" and prefer "vulnerable people" which to me indicates the change in relationship better.