ME-02 Congressman Jared Golden visited BIW last Friday. He wandered the shipyard meeting mechanics on the deckplates with their union leaders.¹ This followed Local S6’s near unanimous endorsement of his 2026 reelection bid.² Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the meeting. I would have spoken against the motion to endorse Golden.

Outclassed came out just a few days after we endorsed Golden. I heard about the book from a Jacobin interview with its author, Joan Williams. Williams is a legal scholar who examines how class differences shape American politics. Her work sheds light on how Donald Trump won ME-02 in 2016, 2020, and 2024.

Conventional wisdom says that Golden has held onto his seat by matching Trump’s divisive rhetoric, but Outclassed challenges this assumption. In the words of her interviewer, Williams argues that “the Democrats’ loss [in 2024] reflects a fundamental cluelessness about class cultures in America.”³ To overcome this cluelessness, Williams filled Outclassed with examples of successful Democratic messaging. She highlighted Democrats who have won in conservative districts like John Fetterman and Tim Walz. She summarized each chapter with a list of “key takeaways” from these examples.⁴

One read, “the Left needs to stop falling into the rhetorical traps set by the Far Right.”⁵ This may explain why Williams did not mention Jared Golden once in all 260 pages of Outclassed. Take student debt relief for example. In August 2023, The Beacon ran an article critical of Golden’s vote against Joe Biden’s debt relief bill. Golden responded by reducing the bill’s supporters to “radical leftist elites.” He said:

I stand by my vote and my opposition to forking out $10,000 to people who freely chose to attend college. They were privileged to have the opportunity, and many left college well-situated to make six figure salaries for life. The Twitterati can keep bemoaning their privileged status and demanding handouts all they want, but as far as I’m concerned if they want free money for college, they can join the Marines and serve the country like I, and so many others, have in the past and many more will in the future. If they want a career and hard skills without college debt, they should join a union and enter an apprenticeship.⁶

This statement was more than clueless. It misrepresented the experiences of college-educated Mainers.⁷ Many workers at BIW carry student debt. Does Golden think they make six figure salaries?

Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez was the only other Democrat to break with the party on student debt relief. Unlike Golden’s divisive rhetoric, Williams actually highlighted Gluesenkamp Perez’s statement:⁸

Expansions of student debt forgiveness need to be matched dollar-for-dollar with investments in career & technical education. I can’t support the first without the other. The severe shortage of trades workers needs to be seen & treated as a national priority. It’s about respect.

I’m all for repairing what’s busted but the higher education system is totaled. College costs too much & the credentials produced get unwarranted social status, justifying more cost increases by our country’s elite. They need to snap out of it & the system needs a total overhaul.⁹

While Golden made headlines for his “tantrum,” Perez raised an excellent point about respecting working people. She recognized relief for some and not others would be divisive. Her statement promoted cross-class solidarity. Golden’s instead dismissed some of his core constituency as “radical leftist elites.” Contrast his use of the phrase with Gluesenkamp Perez pointing the finger at “our country’s elite.” It was clear she was not talking about any of her constituents.

Golden’s divisive approach has only alienated the people who helped him get elected in the first place. Communications professional Morgan Urquhart worked for Golden for almost three years in Bangor.¹⁰ She had this to say about his messaging on student debt relief:

As your former employee, I have to say this divisive language and clear derision for people like me, first-generation college graduates from working class Maine families, goes way beyond disappointing.¹¹

I am sure Urquhart will vote blue no matter who, but I doubt she will ever work for Golden again. I felt aggrieved by Golden’s statements for similar reasons. Last year, I did a lot of door knocking for labor friendly candidates. I won’t be volunteering to knock doors for Jared Golden in 2026. Contributors to The Beacon are bitter, too. Last August, Ethan Strimling compared Golden to Tim Walz, one of Williams’ favorite Democrats:

[Walz] understood that his district needed him to be a little different on a few targeted issues. But he also understood that he was elected as a Democrat and people were OK with that. They wanted him to be genuine, and they would be fine if he voted a little differently than they might. But he didn’t pretend to be two different things, because when you pretend to be two different things, people end up seeing you as neither.¹²

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Golden has won despite his appeals to the right, not because of them. As Donald Trump’s administration flounders, these appeals will only become more unpopular. Moreover, Golden coopting the labor movement to attack his constituents goes against our values. It hurts us as a union much as it hurts Golden as a Democrat. Falling into the right’s “rhetorical traps” will prove a losing strategy for both of us in 2026. Instead of taking another page out of Trump’s playbook, let’s all start reading Outclassed.

1. In author’s personal notes, June 20, 2025. ↩︎
2. General Membership Meeting Minutes, May 17, 2025, IAM Local S6; Rick Sites was the only member recorded opposed. ↩︎
3. Joan Williams, interview by Meagan Day, “The Left Has to Speak to Average Americans’ Values,” Jacobin, May 10, 2025. ↩︎
4. Joan Williams, Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back (St. Martin’s Press, 2025). ↩︎
5. Ibid, 206. ↩︎
6. Shared as image in Jared Golden (@RepGolden), “I’ve always held the opinion that working class Mainers shouldn’t foot the bill for someone else’s choices. Once again, radical leftist elites prove they don’t understand Maine,” X, August 18, 2023. ↩︎
7. Michael Shepherd, “What Jared Golden’s fiery statement on student debt means for his future,” Bangor Daily News, August 21, 2023. ↩︎
8. Joan Williams, Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back (St. Martin’s Press, 2025), 54. ↩︎
9. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, “Statement on HJRes 45,” news release, May 25, 2023. ↩︎
10. Morgan Pottle Urquhart, “Experience,” Linkedin, n.d, accessed June 27, 2025. ↩︎
11. Quoted in Julia Conley, “Golden Blasted for ‘Tantrum’ Attacking Student Borrowers After Taking Sallie Mae Donation,” Common Dreams, August 19, 2023; Morgan Urquhart (@mpottleurquhart), “This is truly embarrassing. As your former employee, I have to say this divisive language and clear derision for people like me, first generation college graduates,” X, August 18, 2023. ↩︎
12. Ethan Strimling, “Opinion: What Jared Golden can learn from Tim Walz,” The Beacon, August 22, 2024. ↩︎