I agree with the general trend of cultural warfare, but lotsa industries have gotten rich off overselling that sort of division to ‘both’ sides of the divide. Nursing grudges is profitable. Plenty of movies in the 80s I grew up in featured richies as d-bags and the heroes being Men at Work (!). It’s not at all clear to me how many of those families where the family had one type of job swore their kids would not go into their occupation, for their personal reasons. Same for military service? I wish we had a better spokesperson for labor issues because Mike Rowe is sort of a choad.

Americans love underdog stories but don’t love underdogs. Look at how many Murkins say they ‘support the troops’ but don’t support single-payer or nationalized health care.

You might even be too young for it, but there used to be folks called “Yuppies” and seemingly they were tacky and were subtly ruining everything. That glide path got folded into ‘the American Dream’ too. Nowadays it’s aspirational and trucks are status symbols not work trucks, for urban and rural alike.