To the editor: Columnist Virginia Heffernan considers cops and workers in “education, training and library occupations” as part of the “bourgeoisie, the dread middle class to Democratic socialist Bernie.” I have never heard Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) talk about people in such professions as the “bourgeoisie.” (“What’s behind Elizabeth Warren’s rise? It’s the logic, stupid,” Opinion, Sept. 20)

Heffernan goes on to state that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) “makes it clear she believes that what’s greatest about America is the bourgeoisie, and those striving to join it.” This is also a serious misreading of Warren.

I believe both Warren and Sanders adhere to the more commonly used definition of “bourgeoisie” as the class that owns and controls the means of production. Cops and teachers who aspire to a living wage, a secure pension and retirement, decent healthcare coverage and home ownership are not striving to join this class. They’re just trying, like other people in the working class, to lead normal, productive lives with growing opportunity for their children and without the threat of major disruption in the event of a health emergency or a natural catastrophe.

That is what both Warren and Sanders want for the majority of Americans. Higher taxes on the super-rich, such as the U.S. once had, will help redistribute America’s wealth more equitably.


Eric A. Gordon, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Hefferman correctly sees Warren’s strategy as appealing to reason. But are there enough voters willing to think?

President Trump’s appeal is to raw emotion. He frightens people with false claims about dangerous immigrants and Democrats being socialists.


Hefferman claims that Warren’s cogent arguments on behalf of the middle class have “our left brains working again.” That would be good news not just for Warren, but for the nation.

Fred Fenton, Seal Beach