To the Editor:

Re “Democrats Are Playing Checkers While Trump Is Playing Chess,” by Thomas B. Edsall (column, nytimes.com, Oct. 12):

I doubt that Donald Trump has the attention span for chess, but the headline echoes my contention that the Democrats always bring a plastic spoon to a knife fight.

There is another underlying, structural and historical development: At least since the time of Richard M. Nixon, “angry white voters” have voted for politicians acting against their economic interests. Now, generations later, we are seeing the results of this shortsightedness.

Call me a liberal college professor (from a blue-collar, working-class family), but my question to the angry white voter is simple: What are you angry about? You voted for this! One candidate in the last presidential election had programs and policies to assist working-class and middle-class families.

Instead, you voted to decimate unions and public education, two American institutions that perhaps more than any others created the middle class.