I had arrived expecting something similar.

The panel consisted of a Special Forces veteran, a lawyer, a firefighter, and a bricklayer.

The veteran arrived first. He possessed the weathered appearance of a man who had spent significant portions of his adult life outdoors in places where mistakes carried consequences. He spoke sparingly and seemed permanently skeptical of abstractions. Throughout the afternoon he would repeatedly drift into a distant thousand-yard stare that suggested he was either recalling military operations or mentally calculating the range to nearby terrain features. One had the impression that he was only partially present in any given room. Even seated, he appeared alert. Not nervous. Alert.

The lawyer arrived next. At six-foot-four, he seemed physically oversized for most civilian environments. His frame occupied furniture in the manner of a bear attempting to use public transportation. He wore polished shoes, expensive eyewear, and the expression of a man who had spent twenty years successfully arguing with people for money. He spoke in complete paragraphs. Unlike most attorneys I have interviewed, he seemed almost completely uninterested in persuading anyone. He possessed a particular type of confidence common among professionals who have accumulated expertise in one field and gradually decided it applies to all fields.

The firefighter arrived in a truck roughly the size of a studio apartment. He looked exactly as one imagines a firefighter would look. Broad shoulders. Thick forearms. Hands large enough to suggest evolutionary divergence. Everything about him conveyed physical capability. If a wall needed to be moved, he appeared capable of solving the problem personally. Throughout the afternoon he maintained a cheerful disposition that alternated unpredictably between practical wisdom and observations that sounded like they had been learned from a barstool philosopher.

The bricklayer arrived last. His hands were impossible to ignore. Every profession leaves traces on the body. The bricklayer's profession had apparently chosen his hands. They were enormous. Not merely large but disproportionate. The sort of hands that cause ordinary objects to appear smaller than intended. Decades of manual labor had left them thick, scarred, and worn smooth in places. When he wrapped them around a coffee mug, the mug seemed to disappear. They were hands that had built things.

What struck me most was how different the men appeared from one another and how quickly those differences vanished once the conversation began.

The political portion of the interview began exactly as I had envisioned.

Moderator: "Who did you vote for?"

Veteran: "Trump."

Lawyer: "Trump."

Firefighter: "Trump."

Bricklayer: "Trump."

Four answers. Four identical responses. No hesitation. No embarrassment. No visible concern that a journalist was taking notes.

Finally, I thought, familiar terrain.

Moderator: "Why?"

Veteran: "Border."

Firefighter: "Economy."

Bricklayer: "Regulations."

Lawyer: "Institutional distrust."

Moderator: "Distrust of what institutions?"

Lawyer: "Most of them."

I moved to a section of notes I had prepared in advance.

Moderator: "Many political scientists argue that working-class voters often support policies that are not in their economic interests."

The room became noticeably quieter.

Moderator: "In particular, tax policy."

Lawyer: "Go on."

Moderator: "Many voters are more dependent on government than they realize."

The firefighter smiled.

Moderator: "How much do you think you contribute in taxes?"

Lawyer: "A lot."

Moderator: "Everyone says that."

Lawyer: "My income, you ask? $380,000k."

Moderator: "You say the k out loud?"

Lawyer: "Apparently."

The firefighter nodded.

Nobody else seemed confused.

I was.

The firefighter was next.

Moderator: "And you?"

Firefighter: "$870,000."

Moderator: "Per year."

Firefighter: "Yes."

Moderator: "As a firefighter."

Firefighter: "Still yes."

Moderator: "How?"

Firefighter: "Excellent union."

Moderator: "That's... substantially higher than I expected."

Firefighter: "That's becoming a theme."

The bricklayer took a sip of coffee.

Moderator: "What about you?"

Bricklayer: "Enough."

Moderator: "Number."

Bricklayer: "Enough enough."

Moderator: "Please."

Bricklayer: "I stop paying Social Security tax after the first $180,000k."

Moderator: "The first what?"

Bricklayer: "One hundred eighty thousand k."

Moderator: "You said the k again."

Bricklayer: "I know."

Moderator: "Why are you all doing that?"

Bricklayer: "Doing what?"

Moderator: "Adding the k."

Bricklayer: "I don't know."

The lawyer nodded.

Lawyer: "It's efficient."

Moderator: "It isn't."

The veteran finally entered the discussion.

Moderator: "And you?"

Veteran: "Military disability."

Moderator: "How much?"

Veteran: "$8,700 a month."

Moderator: "Disabled?"

Veteran: "According to the government."

Moderator: "Are you?"

Veteran: "Not particularly."

Moderator: "Then why—"

Veteran: "They offered."

The room laughed.

Moderator: "You don't feel conflicted about that?"

Veteran: "Not enough to decline it."

The discussion had taken an unfortunate turn. Then the lawyer put down his coffee.

Lawyer: "Can I ask something?"

Moderator: "I suppose."

Lawyer: "Why do you think we're voting against our interests?"

Moderator: "Because many experts believe—"

Lawyer: "Not experts. You."

He picked up his phone.

Moderator: "What are you doing?"

Lawyer: "Trying to estimate your income."

Moderator: "That's ridiculous."

Lawyer: "Probably around 70,000k."

The room became quiet.

Bricklayer: "You keep talking about us like we're some exploited underclass. Meanwhile you're making less than the apprentice who worked for me three years ago."

Moderator: "That's not the point."

Lawyer: "I think the funny thing is that you assume we're voting against our interests. But nobody ever asks whether you're voting against yours. You keep talking about interests as though they're self-evident. But half the country defines interests economically and the other half defines them morally, culturally, socially, institutionally. Everybody thinks they're being rational. I think you're pursuing things that feel meaningful to you while largely ignoring the things that determine whether people can build stable lives. On immigration, I think you vote against your interests and then congratulate yourself for it."

Moderator: "That's an extraordinary claim."

Lawyer: "Not really. It's basic labor economics. Increase the supply of labor competing for a job, and absent some offsetting productivity gain, bargaining power moves away from workers and toward employers. This is not some strange theory from a bunker. It's Econ 101."

Moderator: "Immigration has broad economic benefits."

Lawyer: "Broad. Aggregate. Long-run. Very nice words. But distribution matters. The National Academies report said the negative wage effects, where detected, fall most heavily on prior immigrants and native-born high school dropouts, because those are the closest substitutes for new low-skilled immigrant labor. That is the working class you claim to care about."

Moderator: "That's selective."

Lawyer: "Everything is selective. The question is whether it's true."

He picked up his phone.

Lawyer: "Borjas estimated that a 10 percent increase in labor supply from immigration reduces wages of competing workers by roughly 3 to 4 percent. You don't have to accept Borjas as scripture. David Card and others are more sanguine. Fine. But pretending the issue doesn't exist is not compassion. It's intellectual laziness dressed as virtue."

The firefighter nodded.

Firefighter: "That's what happens in bargaining too. If the employer has ten guys waiting outside, you get one contract. If he has nobody, you get another."

Lawyer: "Exactly. Which is why the H-1B debate is so revealing. We are told there is a desperate shortage of Engineers. Yet employers lobby constantly for access to more foreign labor. Why? Because employers enjoy tight labor markets when they are selling products and hate them when they are buying labor."

Moderator: "And you believe liberals ignore that?"

Lawyer: "I believe many professional-class liberals love immigration because they consume the benefits and outsource the costs. They get cheaper services, higher asset values, moral status, and cosmopolitan self-congratulation. The wage pressure lands somewhere else."

Moderator: "That's unfair."

Lawyer: "Is it? How many articles have you written about H-1B Engineers competing with domestic graduates? How many about construction labor? Meatpacking? Hospitality? How many about prior immigrants whose wages are pressured by newer immigrants? The National Academies literally says prior immigrants are often the most affected group, and somehow the people most loudly claiming to defend immigrants rarely discuss that."

I began to answer, then stopped.

Lawyer: "That's rank intellectual dishonesty. Not disagreement. Disagreement is fine. But you don't even foreground the tradeoff. You move straight to morality. Compassion. Inclusion. Diversity. Identity. Words that feel good. Words that cost you nothing."

Bricklayer: "If only you knew."

Moderator: "Knew what?"

Bricklayer: "How poor you really are. How little the people you defend care whether you can buy a house. How easy it is to get someone making seventy thousand k a year to clap for policies that make every scarce thing in her life more expensive."

Moderator: "That is not what I believe."

Lawyer: "Maybe not. But it is what you write like."

The room was quiet.

Lawyer: "You think we're voting against our interests because you think interests are whatever your class says interests are. Race. Gender. Symbolism. Recognition. But the actual working class has more basic questions. What does this do to wages? What does this do to housing? What does this do to schools? You want to know why these voters don't trust your class? Because your class keeps describing moral preferences as economic analysis. Then when the people affected object, you call it resentment."

For the first time in the interview, nobody laughed.

***

By this point in the afternoon, I had abandoned the hope that the conversation would remain within the boundaries of any particular subject. Every topic became another topic. Every answer became a theory. Every theory became an argument about something else entirely. The men seemed to regard categories not as destinations but as starting points. I decided to try foreign policy. For years, one of the more interesting political phenomena in America has been the enduring support for Israel among conservative Christians and many working-class voters. The coalition has survived multiple wars, administrations, scandals, and geopolitical realignments. Analysts have offered explanations ranging from theology to strategy to domestic politics. The literature is extensive. I presented a condensed version of that literature. The men listened patiently.

Moderator: "So why do you think conservative Christians support Israel so strongly? Is it religion? Foreign policy? Strategic interests? Historical sympathy? What is it?"

The firefighter answered immediately.

Firefighter: "You're overthinking it. I know you people hate that answer, but that's the answer. Most of the guys I know aren't reading white papers. They aren't studying the balance of power in the Levant. They aren't sitting around discussing maritime shipping routes or regional alliances. Jesus was from there. That's eighty percent of it right there. Maybe ninety. People hear Israel and think Bible. They think Sunday school. They think Jerusalem. They think maps they saw as kids. Everything else comes afterward."

The bricklayer leaned forward.

Bricklayer: "I don't think people appreciate how old that situation is."

Moderator: "Meaning?"

Bricklayer: "Meaning every time I turn on the television they're acting like they just discovered conflict in the Middle East. Every article sounds like somebody walked into a room and found out people were arguing. As far as I can tell they've been fighting continuously for about 2000k years."

The veteran had been unusually quiet. This generally meant trouble.

Moderator: "What about you?"

Veteran: "Look, everybody acts like conflict is some abstract thing. For most people it's a headline. For soldiers it's a profession. Different perspective."

Moderator: "And your perspective is?"

Veteran: "That I wouldn't mind seeing how this one ends. Up close and personal. I'd deploy if given the chance. The future of the State of Israel could lay in the balance."

The lawyer's head snapped upward. Something had been triggered. The effect was immediate. The firefighter started laughing before anything had been said.

Lawyer: "This whole thing reminds me of the State of Gaming."

The firefighter nearly spilled his coffee.

Firefighter: "There it is."

Moderator: "I don't see how."

Lawyer: "Of course you don't."

Moderator: "Explain."

The lawyer settled back into his chair. I recognized the posture by now. It meant a speech was coming.

Lawyer: "Look at gaming. Twenty years ago, if a game failed, the developers generally assumed the game failed. Today a game fails and they immediately begin investigating the audience. The gamers are toxic. The gamers are unreasonable. The gamers are entitled. The gamers are defective. Anything except the possibility that the product itself changed. Politics works the same way. Media works the same way. Education works the same way. Every institution now begins with the assumption that the customer is wrong."

Moderator: "Customer?"

Lawyer: "Citizen. Voter. Student. Consumer. Gamer. Same idea."

The room became quiet.

Lawyer: "People ask why voters support Israel. Why voters support Trump. Why voters distrust institutions. Why voters are angry. Why voters don't listen to experts. Why gamers reject games. Why students don't trust universities. Why readers don't trust newspapers."

Moderator: "And?"

Lawyer: "Nobody asks whether the institutions changed."

The firefighter nodded.

The veteran nodded.

The bricklayer nodded.

Lawyer: "That's the State of Gaming. The State of Everything. The State of Journalism. The State of Israel. The State of Trust. The State of Expertise. Every discussion now starts from the premise that ordinary people are malfunctioning."

Moderator: "That's absurd."

Lawyer: "Then why is every article about why voters changed instead of why institutions changed?"

Nobody spoke.

Lawyer: "Every article about why readers changed instead of why newspapers changed."

Silence.

Lawyer: "Every article about why gamers changed instead of why games changed."

The bricklayer leaned back.

Bricklayer: "The Absolute State."

The lawyer smiled.

Lawyer: "Exactly."

Moderator: "And what exactly is the Absolute State?"

The lawyer looked around the table.

Lawyer: "The belief that every institution is healthy and every citizen is broken."

Nobody laughed.

For several moments, the room was quiet.

Even I had to admit it was a better line than I wanted it to be.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5871826&forum_id=2Reputation#49919898)