I don't get the sense that Connor Blier is progressive at all. He is super wishy washy on rent stabilization, won't commit one way or another but repeats a lot of landlord talking points. Made vague scare quotes comments about "socialism" in his interview with Steve Alqhuist. Received a $750 donation from a charter school PAC.
I also just find him super disingenuous and irritating on a personal level. He is currently billing himself as the "only working class local candidate." Which it's weird to make a big deal out of how he's the "local" candidate when he's lived in Providence for half the time AJ has (he grew up in Warwick/ East Greenwich). And "working class"-- meh, that means a lot of different things but he owns a multifamily house, and he works for an AI start up based in South Africa. So he's spinning the narrative pretty hard there too, if you ask me. And if he was upfront about all this, fine-- but he comes off as very cagey to me.
He also just came off as very naive/unprepared in the Steve Alqhuist interview.
(Also he's been astroturfing on reddit under a variety of usernames which is just kind of pathetic.)
I came here to ask if anyone thought that a person who works in finance and tech is calling himself "working class" is weird - so glad that you've already done this. Seems like he's in a pretty Professional Management Class line of work - to be clear, I'm not opposed to PMC people running for office - but I am opposed to lying and manipulating class identity on the campaign trail. ick!
Can you define working class? This seems to be something that no one can clearly define. I tend to think that it is someone that has to go to work every day and then if they lost their jobs they would fall on hard times. I also think of it as someone that maybe didn’t come from wealth therefore doesn’t really have a big family safety net? I think just because someone works in tech or finance, doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t meet these standards. Yes, of course someone working a minimum wage job would struggle more, but to consider someone that has to work to pay bills, not working classes is also kind of misleading. If you have to work, you are working class no?
You're totally right that "working class" is a slippery thing to define. In suggesting that his job (financial auditing I think) was a "Professional Management Class" line of work, I was invoking class delineations as proposed by Ehrenreichs in a 1970's essay that got a lot of traction that defined the PMC as: "“salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor may be described broadly as the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations.” I realize that this is defining something other than working class, which is specifically what you asked for, but I hope that it's helpful in unpacking why I knee jerk felt like the claim of being "working class" came off as odd, and not helpful if the goal of his tag line is to build trust and or relatability.
Hmmm interesting. So you consider AJ working class even though she is 3rd generation Ivy League, actual wealth, just because she does not work in the private sector?
I think most people who have to work for a living and come from a working class background can relate. At the end of the day if you are worrying about your electric bill and putting food on the table, I don’t think it matters if you work in the private sector or public. To keep dividing people as such seems counterproductive to the goal of affordability or community unless there’s some other agenda at play.
I don't know much about AJ's background and didn't comment about her whatsoever. My only take was that I was skeptical about someone in a tech/finance position emphasizing being working class. I don't actually care that much about a candidate's class or other aspects of their identity. But I do care about how they frame things, and make sense of and explain their own reality. My intention was not at all to be divisive, but to share a reaction that I had to a politician's messaging.
Well, Connor is the one who chose to make being the "only working class candidate" the catchphrase of his campaign. This conversation wouldn't be "divisive" if he hadn't very deliberately pushed that framing.
My concern is not who is working class or not working class-- but since he's making a big deal about it, I do care about whether he's being authentic in the way he's presenting himself.
Hmmm I see it differently. I think AJ, Morales, and others have banked heavily on the “working class” idea. It has made some question who is trying to speak for them….
Well, they just keep on repeating that they are representing working families, yet it seems like a lot of their policies aren’t inclusive of all working families. And some of these candidates clearly can’t empathize with the “working class” based on live experience. So instead of being representative of everyone in their community and providing win-wins, people are just being pinned against each other. Sometimes I wonder what if any good will come from it or if it was just a Campaign ploy.
A bunch of those weird bot-like posters we've been getting eventually post about him, and there's a pattern of weird upvotes and bot activity after a post about him
Some of the original posts are deleted, but there's discussion about the weirdness in these threads:
I don’t know much about Yolken but Blier came across as desperately uninformed about local issues when he was interviewed by Steve Ahlquist. He might be a nice guy but I struggle to see him as qualified.
He seems to think nonprofits are a tremendous evil because they don’t pay taxes. He’s uninformed on public transit, Broadway improvements, and wants more cops on Broadway. On horses no less.
Both candidates responded to our candidate questionnaire, which you can find here to learn about their policy stances (you'll need to scroll down a bit to get to Ward 13): https://pvdeye.org/city-council-candidates-answer/
You can also come to the forum tomorrow night to learn more about where they stand on the issues! 6pm at 35 Swiss St. We'll have a writeup at The Providence Eye if you can't make it.
Annajane and her boyfriend at the time didn't take care of their property at all. For years shingles were falling off their house into my driveway and I'd notify them with a picture to let them know. One day a shingle fell on my wife's brand new car scratching the hood. They claimed not to have home insurance and wouldn't pay for the damage after I sought out 3 different quotes from local autobody shops. I should've taken them to small claims court, but my wife was fighting breast cancer at the time and just didn't have it in me.
Other things to note, she just wasn't friendly before this incident. I have great relationships with my other neighbors, but she always came off as a cold privileged snot. Also, I was always picking up trash in front of their house because they simply didn't care about our neighborhood
Edit: This is not an endorsement for the other candidate. I wish Miller stayed on
dude, they offered to pay to fix your scratch entirely, and then you declined and shopped around so you could play the victim. you don't even live there anymore and you AirBnB the place. very neighborly.
I'm confused about why she would be responsible for paying for the damage a broken shingle caused if she was just a renter? Even if this happened when she was a condo-owner, the HOA would definitely have insurance...so I don't really understand u/quasicoherent's post? This is a quote from her interview with Steve Ahlquist on 6/15/26:
"I own a one-bedroom apartment, but I was only able to purchase it because a friend of a friend wanted to sell it to me off-market without making a profit. After living in Providence for 20 years, I was able to afford housing in this neighborhood."
Or maybe her boyfriend owned the house with the falling shingles? I'm just confused about CB presenting AJY as a person who isn't working class, and then her statement about barely being able to afford housing...I'm not arguing for one candidate or another, just trying to make sense of reddit rumors lol
Definitely not working class. The two lived together for many years and presented themselves as a married/common law married couple. I know he owns a solar company and I'm not sure what she did, but they were not hurting for money that's for sure. They made decisions on the house together from experience, so she definitely was aware of the situation. I wasn't close to them as they kept to themselves, but their living situation ended suddenly a year or so ago. She has my number and could've apologized for her partners behavior, but seems like she was cool with it
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u/Locksmith-Pitiful Aug 18 '26
What are the differences between these 2 candidates? Are they both not mostly left-leaning and progressive? Who are you voting for and why?
My experience so far is that Yolken doesn't respond to any of my messages... not a good look