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Joe Biden wears a Rolex. So do I. A thread (that's mostly about social class and how we think about it): https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/fashion/mens-style/rolex-biden.html
When my dad graduated from his apprenticeship in the early 1980s, he bought himself a stainless steel Rolex Explorer. If you know anything about my dad, you know he's not into fancy things, and absolutely doesn't care how he dresses. He's incredibly hardworking and restless.
About thirty years later, that Rolex was still ticking when he gave it to me, in its original box, after I got my first full-time academic job. I was stunned. It's my most prized possession.
He had the back of the watch inscribed "Congratulations Love Dad," just like that with no punctuation. That's my favorite thing about the watch, not the fact that it says Rolex on the face.
I wear it every time I teach and feel really proud. I don't usually wear it at conferences because I don't like to travel with it. Here's a picture of me wearing the watch, taken by my mom when she and my dad came to class.
The point is that while having a Rolex is (rightfully) associated with being rich, it also means "making it" to a lot of people. Joe Biden is very rich, but given his background I'm completely unsurprised he bought that exact watch to celebrate a new job. He felt like he made it.
There's good research that tells us that a politician's background actually matters in ways their choice of watch certainly does not. I'd happily refer anyone still reading this to @Nick_Carnes_ book, White Collar Government to learn more.
Plus, there are broader points to be made about who is allowed to have nice things, and the weird ways we measure and signify class in the United States. Suffice to say, being rich is a lot more than just being able to buy a Rolex.
Poor people aren't allowed to have nice things in the United States, and we're quick to say that having an expensive item (a big TV, a pair of Nikes) disqualifies someone from needing help, as if deservingness only kicks in once people exhaust all of their resources.
Nevermind the fact that it's really expensive to be poor, in part because you can't put up big sums of money to buy one nice thing once and have it for a long time. A Rolex is really expensive, but they literally can be passed from one generation to the next.
We expect working class people to eschew luxury and act working class all the time. It's funny bc all of the white collar people I know are constantly working or thinking about it, while my blue collar relatives get to relax when they go home. They have the luxury of free time.
They can actually enjoy nice things. My brother has traveled way more than I have, for non-work reasons. My dad cooks dinner every night because once he's home, he has plenty of time. He doesn't have email. White collar people invented Blue Apron so they can pretend to cook.
Anyway, I think that if you actually know any real working class people, you'd begin to understand that to many of them, Biden owning a Rolex like my dad's (I still don't feel comfortable calling it mine), makes him more relatable and not less.
Defining and measuring social class is complicated, and if you're using "owns a nice thing" as a heuristic, you're doing it wrong.
