A hero of the working class fights for working class interests, They do not merely originate from the working class.
Regardless of his class background, Thompson was successful on the terms of the ruling class. This is to say he was successful on the terms of the enemies of the working class.
I read it and it's nonsense, his point is that Brian Thompson is from a working class background, as if there's no precedent for people who grow up working class becoming class traitors later in life.
Isn't it interesting, 10 years ago bugs like Brett Stephens never would have used words like "working class" or even acknowledge the concept of class as something that exists, now everyone is playing on our rhetorical field and using our terms like it's second nature
If there's been one small victory for the socialist left, it's the fact we've clawed back so much conceptual room and created a kind of nascent half-realized socialist realism in the heart of capitalist realism
Twenty years ago they would've just spammed the terrorist and criminal activist card and left it at that, maybe even used words like "illiberal" or "Soviet remnant"
Some random guy on Twitter called him a bedbug and Bret wrote an entire article about how that was antisemitic. It got enough attention that Trump made fun of him.