Michelle, I PROMISE you that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Democratic organizations reaching out to rural, working-class, and unafilliated voters with not just the "message," but the truth of where their misery comes from. Some folks are willing and able to hear the sources of their oppression, and some aren't.

Just as working-class people feel that "Liberals" don't want to listen to them, it is equally true that many working-class people don't want to listen to us. They prefer to complain about the liberal "elite" without knowing that those same "elite" are the ones working for their interests. Which side proposes programs that are demonstrably of more use to working people?

While we need to be intentional, informative, and appealing in our messaging, we also have to be painfully honest about the factors that keep more rural and working-class people away from the Democratic Party. Republican disinformation easily exploits their religious, racial and cultural fears, even among those who have rarely encountered a black person. These factors will, too frequently, overcome the economic issues that should bring different groups together.

I'm an urban, overly-educated, black woman, but I have white family in rural areas of the Midwest. I know what they live.