The cruelty expressed by politicians like Vance towards marginalized groups is a performative strategy to make white working-class people feel superior despite the lack of improvement in their own liv

“And so the the cruelty is a way of saying to those white working-class people even though their lives aren't necessarily getting any better, these guys are having a lot worse because we are giving them hell.”

The speaker believes that adopting performative working-class aesthetics, such as wearing specific clothing, is disingenuous and ineffective at winning trust.

“Part of the issue of insisting that leftists engage in working-class aesthetics is that people can almost always see it as disingenuous, people aren't stupid and wearing a cowboy hat or flannel is not going to actually convince people to join the cause.”