Piece is convincing, but according to exit polls Democrats won majority of voters earning under $50,000. The GOP won majority of voters earning over $200,000. Where does that leave the argument?
Maybe it doesn't matter what the Democrats (or the Republicans) say or do? It is unimaginable that anyone on Social Security and Medicare would vote Republican (like shooting yourself in the knee) yet the unimaginable seems very real. So, voters don't vote in their own self interest. They because ...
State and local taxes (SALT) were deductible for federal income tax. A few years ago, Trump decided to punish the "Blue States" (with their high SALT) by limiting SALT deductions to $10,000. The Democrats howled with anger and vowed they would remove that limit if they gained a majority. Then, they gained a majority. Several proposals were broached. They set up a strawman by proposing to raise it to $80,000. However, the far left wing got control and argued that only the wealthy would benefit from such an increase in SALT. So they knocked down the strawman and instead did nothing, thereby supporting Trump's punishment of the Blue States. There was no need to raise it to $80,000. But a professional person making $150,000/yr pays about $13,000 in California state income tax and his real estate tax (at 2% of cost) is likely to be $20,000 so his total SALT is $33,000 and that used to be deductible but now, Trump with support from the Democratic party limits his deduction to $10,000. Only educated people could regard that person as "wealthy"? The Lord helps those who help themselves.
I think Roger is basically right. I think that people have always been more motivated by tribal loyalty than specific initiatives, and that perhaps explains why people vote against their self-interests (e.g. women whose right were taken away voting Republican, or old folks on SS and Medicare voting Republican. The heavily overlapping tribes of wealthy and educated represent a minority. At the same time, there are some hot buttons that the Democrats have put forth which almost have veto power to prevent otherwise moderate voters from voting Democrat. For example, Democrats might believe there are more than two sexes (M and F) but people in the Midwest think you are crazy. Democrats don't need to wildly broadcast their support for LGB but can do it quietly behind the scenes. Adding TG to LGB is a much bigger mistake because TG is widely perceived very as a form of desecration of the body. I suspect that "defund the police" might have cost the Democrats a few million votes. And along with that, the takeovers of cities in the BLM movement did Democrats a great deal of harm. The liberal press has blown up every single incident where police were improperly aggressive toward Blacks, yet far more Blacks are killed by Blacks than by the police. Cogent Black leaders call for more (but better trained) police, not less. The Democrats are perceived as being soft on crime - because they are. In L. A. County, a robbery is not a felony unless it exceeds $950. There was a cartoon of a thief counting out the money in the victim's wallet and stopping at $950 and then handing the remainder back to the victim. The specter of millions of people entering the US illegally and being paid welfare to stay here. Then there is the matter of printing money and handing it out. People like handouts but they wonder where it comes from. Only wealthy and educated people could think of more than two sexes, using surgery to modify the sex of bodies, going soft on crime, allowing groups for whatever cause to violently take over cities, and all the rest which I can't think of at the moment.
As Roger indicates, economic change certainly explains many peoples shift to the right in recent years. An excellent book on the economy’s importance is “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth”, published in 2005 by the former chair of the Harvard economics department. But whether people moved right or the Democrats moved left, it’s sometimes hard to say. Remember the protest and riots at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle? Back then, protesters were from the Left.
In the Times article referenced, Edsall quotes Rodrik as saying “This literature shows that these economic shocks often work through culture and identity. That is, voters who experience economic insecurity are prone to feel greater aversion to outsider groups, deepening cultural and identity divisions in society and enabling right-wing candidates to inflame (and appeal to) nativist sentiment.”
To show how perspectives have changed, I mentioned Daniel Patrick Moynihan in an earlier post. Moynihan is recognized for his declaration of the Central Liberal Truth: “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.” Belief in the later implies belief in the former.
But back to Rodrik’s statement. At the very least, the cultural shift coinciding with economic changes had a strong push from parts of the Democratic Party, and probably preceded the economic changes. Arthur M Schlesinger Jr’s 1991 book, “The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society” predates the trade opening during the later Clinton administration. A similar book in 1994, by then NYT reporter and bureau chief Richard Bernstein, “Dictatorship of Virtue: Multiculturalism and the Battle for America’s Future”, shows that at least some in the party were worried about this cultural trend long before China’s admittance into the WTO in 2001. Now, of course multiculturalism has hardened into a more ridged identity politics viewed even more strongly from the power dynamics perspective of Marxism.
Of course, unlike Democrats in the past such as Moynihan and Schlesinger, Democrats today are loath to admit any role for culture as an shaper of economic outcomes while they simultaneously do everything they can to change culture to their liking.
Having an advanced degree does not necessarily endow one with common sense, particularly if the degree is in 'intersectionality' or 'gender studies'. I would love to see a further breakdown of the 'more highly educated' by degree area. I'm a long-time engineer, and I learned how to separate fact from fantasy. Consequently, the last time I voted democrat was Jimmy Carter.
Frank, are you old enough to remember Bill Buckley? Who famously said..
"I am obliged to confess that I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. Not, heaven knows, because I hold lightly the brainpower or knowledge or generosity or even the affability of the Harvard faculty: but because I greatly fear intellectual arrogance, and that is a distinguishing characteristic of the university which refuses to accept any common premise."
A very good analysis. However, in looking forward, we have to also look at the male/female divide that likely will become ever more important. The higher ed student population is 60 women/40 men, on average, with the ratio growing. It's even more heavily skewed to women. if you look at African Americans, with fewer and fewer black men going on to higher education. You're right – it is the economy, but more so the perception of the economy. And how will the lockdown dumbing of a generation of young Americans impact all of this?
Traditionally, leftwing intellectuals supported workingclass movements, and labor unions provided a channel for the emergence of national leaders. Today's Ds don't have that grounding and seem not to miss it.
Good presentation of evidence, but I think that educational attainment is a proxy for more motivating issues like financial security or perhaps cultural norms.
The contentions, while making an accounting like sense, are overly broad to the point of being useless. And leaving out the actual facts on the ground this cycle: inflation, crime, immigration, and debt growth: the analysis sort of looks like an answer, searching for a question. Yes, I do agree that the D’s have made a rather large tactical error by becoming the party of the rich & educated. But that is more of a result of what they have chosen to prioritize (climate, CRT, gender) than an actual purposeful appeal to the rich & educated. Those bigger parts of the pie (non-rich/non-college) aren’t concerned with those issues, and likely never will be to any measurable extent. That is the real problem with the current D’s, and I don’t see them changing anything, other than maybe lying about their real intentions.
For starters, the Dems could stop calling the other half of the electorate deplorable, racist, white supremacist, misogynist, xenophobes. Wearing condescension like a virtue does not grow their coalition of intolerant woke, urban progressives, over educated green trust-funders, unionized government workers and those entirely deoendant on government handouts.
A good analysis Roger. Thank you for basing it on facts. This helped me confirm what I believed to be true, but couldn’t put my hands on the data to prove it. Well done.
Your next article will undoubtedly focus on the economy, which is very important. I believe it’s a really simple analysis. The economy has taken a nose dive since Joe Biden took office for a few reasons: (1) the federal reserve screwed up monitory policy (because the Fed is independent, Joe Biden gets a pass here), (2) the government has spent too much money (thanks to Joe Biden and the progressives) and (3) the Biden Administration has attacked fossil fuels (thanks to Joe Biden and the progressives). As you well know Roger, fossil fuels are pervasive in our economic life. We simply could not live the lives we live without them. This is not up for debate in my opinion.
Another topic for consideration, which I eluded to above, is the small faction of progressives within the Democrat party that have an outsized influence on Joe Biden. I’ll preface this by admitting that the Republicans have extreme factions too, but we can address this another time. But as to the progressive influence and their affect on our economic well being, it is a disaster. I know many progressive whom I adore as friends, but when the conversation drifts into worldview and societal challenges, their eyes glaze over and they loose their sense of reality. Their focus on the outcome they wish to achieve completely ignores the consequences of the polices they advance to achieve their objects. And those consequences are severe. But being the good progressives that they are, highly educated and wealthy, they get to plead ignorance of the consequences of their policies because they have no affect on them. This in my option, is the problem with the Democrat party today. And it jives with the data (highly educated and wealthy) in your post.
How are Democrats, with their irresponsible, profligate fiscal policies, racist anti-racism, and schizophrenic energy and climate policies a result of having a higher level of education? The more I study and learn in a long life the more I realize how very limited my knowledge is and also that for every action there are multiple reactions many of which are un-anticipatable and very possibly negative.
Certainly, the hubris of understanding and moral fervor instilled in the newly college educated young accounts for some of the correlation with education and voting Democratic. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former Harvard don, UN ambassador, government official and 24-year Democratic Senator from NY, wrote, in a note to Nixon, that every time one of the old-line Democrat editors of the New York Times retires he is replaced by a Marxist-Leninist straight from the Harvard Crimson. Now of course, he would be replaced by a Woke he/she/they, but not much has changed, including this example’s connection of the education-Democrat nexus to the control of the media.
That control of the media has weakened somewhat with the arrival of FOX News and the internet, but when you look at the political affiliation of journalism students and faculty there is bound to be a continuing Left bias in most journalism (see Batya Ungar-Sargon’s book “Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy”). Since the educated consume more news, the bias in the news media will translate into bias in the party preferences of the educated.
A couple of examples illustrating my reference to a statement by Moynihan with respect to the Times in 1970 and its comparable state today might be helpful. Moynihan's statement is not as hyperbolic as it might sound.
Phnom Phenh fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. Four months after it fell a writer at the Harvard University student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, wondered why the paper's editors have gone silent on Cambodia after so many years of supporting the Khmer Rouge and celebrating the fall of Phnom Phenh now that horror stories are starting to leak out. But the writer reflects (in the last paragraph) that "On their own terms they [the Khmer Rouge] continue to be most of what we supported them for--staunch nationalists, socialists, remakers of their own society." see Cambodia and Crimson Politics | News | The Harvard Crimson (thecrimson.com)
Hmm, let me see. "Nationalist, socialists" wasn't there some other political party in the past that combined those two ideals in its name? Aren’t these graduates the supposed crem dela crem of educational attainment?
Moving on to today, in 2020, James Bennet, the editorial page editor of the New York Times was forced out for allowing the printing of an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton. Bennet gave an interview recently to former Times columnist Ben Smith, now at Semafor. The National Review article “Former NY Times Editor Claims Colleagues Treated Him Like an 'Incompetent Fascist' | National Review”, quotes Bennet accusing the Times publisher of missing “the opportunity to make clear that the New York Times doesn’t exist just to tell progressives how progressives should view reality.” Furthermore, “They [the Times] want to have the applause and the welcome of the left,” said Bennet. “And now there’s the problem on top of that that they’ve signed up so many new subscribers in the last few years and the expectation of those subscribers is that the Times will be Mother Jones on steroids.”
I’ll add one more comment here. After a long break from the intellectual appeal of socialism in 60’s and 70’s, a softer version is broadening its appeal again. A Gallup survey in Aug 2018, (see "Democrats More Positive About Socialism Than Capitalism" (gallup.com)), has 57% of Democrats with a positive view of socialism, while only 47% have a positive view of Capitalism. How does being wealthy and educated correlate with this tilt toward favoring socialism and rejection of the very system in which they acquired their wealth?
Piece is convincing, but according to exit polls Democrats won majority of voters earning under $50,000. The GOP won majority of voters earning over $200,000. Where does that leave the argument?
I've seen similar
Most voters are in between, so I think more detailed info will have to wait.
I wrote about this a few years ago in American Affairs:
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/will-shifting-party-coalitions-change-policy-priorities/
Maybe it doesn't matter what the Democrats (or the Republicans) say or do? It is unimaginable that anyone on Social Security and Medicare would vote Republican (like shooting yourself in the knee) yet the unimaginable seems very real. So, voters don't vote in their own self interest. They because ...
something left out ... They vote because of their tribal associations even to the self detriment.
State and local taxes (SALT) were deductible for federal income tax. A few years ago, Trump decided to punish the "Blue States" (with their high SALT) by limiting SALT deductions to $10,000. The Democrats howled with anger and vowed they would remove that limit if they gained a majority. Then, they gained a majority. Several proposals were broached. They set up a strawman by proposing to raise it to $80,000. However, the far left wing got control and argued that only the wealthy would benefit from such an increase in SALT. So they knocked down the strawman and instead did nothing, thereby supporting Trump's punishment of the Blue States. There was no need to raise it to $80,000. But a professional person making $150,000/yr pays about $13,000 in California state income tax and his real estate tax (at 2% of cost) is likely to be $20,000 so his total SALT is $33,000 and that used to be deductible but now, Trump with support from the Democratic party limits his deduction to $10,000. Only educated people could regard that person as "wealthy"? The Lord helps those who help themselves.
I think Roger is basically right. I think that people have always been more motivated by tribal loyalty than specific initiatives, and that perhaps explains why people vote against their self-interests (e.g. women whose right were taken away voting Republican, or old folks on SS and Medicare voting Republican. The heavily overlapping tribes of wealthy and educated represent a minority. At the same time, there are some hot buttons that the Democrats have put forth which almost have veto power to prevent otherwise moderate voters from voting Democrat. For example, Democrats might believe there are more than two sexes (M and F) but people in the Midwest think you are crazy. Democrats don't need to wildly broadcast their support for LGB but can do it quietly behind the scenes. Adding TG to LGB is a much bigger mistake because TG is widely perceived very as a form of desecration of the body. I suspect that "defund the police" might have cost the Democrats a few million votes. And along with that, the takeovers of cities in the BLM movement did Democrats a great deal of harm. The liberal press has blown up every single incident where police were improperly aggressive toward Blacks, yet far more Blacks are killed by Blacks than by the police. Cogent Black leaders call for more (but better trained) police, not less. The Democrats are perceived as being soft on crime - because they are. In L. A. County, a robbery is not a felony unless it exceeds $950. There was a cartoon of a thief counting out the money in the victim's wallet and stopping at $950 and then handing the remainder back to the victim. The specter of millions of people entering the US illegally and being paid welfare to stay here. Then there is the matter of printing money and handing it out. People like handouts but they wonder where it comes from. Only wealthy and educated people could think of more than two sexes, using surgery to modify the sex of bodies, going soft on crime, allowing groups for whatever cause to violently take over cities, and all the rest which I can't think of at the moment.
By the way, I voted Democrat the last 60 years
Cross-link this was discussed on today's Honestly podcast with Bari Weiss.. some similar conclusions.\
https://www.honestlypod.com/podcast/episode/1a645c00/who-do-voters-hate-more-a-midterm-roundtable
As Roger indicates, economic change certainly explains many peoples shift to the right in recent years. An excellent book on the economy’s importance is “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth”, published in 2005 by the former chair of the Harvard economics department. But whether people moved right or the Democrats moved left, it’s sometimes hard to say. Remember the protest and riots at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle? Back then, protesters were from the Left.
In the Times article referenced, Edsall quotes Rodrik as saying “This literature shows that these economic shocks often work through culture and identity. That is, voters who experience economic insecurity are prone to feel greater aversion to outsider groups, deepening cultural and identity divisions in society and enabling right-wing candidates to inflame (and appeal to) nativist sentiment.”
To show how perspectives have changed, I mentioned Daniel Patrick Moynihan in an earlier post. Moynihan is recognized for his declaration of the Central Liberal Truth: “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.” Belief in the later implies belief in the former.
But back to Rodrik’s statement. At the very least, the cultural shift coinciding with economic changes had a strong push from parts of the Democratic Party, and probably preceded the economic changes. Arthur M Schlesinger Jr’s 1991 book, “The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society” predates the trade opening during the later Clinton administration. A similar book in 1994, by then NYT reporter and bureau chief Richard Bernstein, “Dictatorship of Virtue: Multiculturalism and the Battle for America’s Future”, shows that at least some in the party were worried about this cultural trend long before China’s admittance into the WTO in 2001. Now, of course multiculturalism has hardened into a more ridged identity politics viewed even more strongly from the power dynamics perspective of Marxism.
Of course, unlike Democrats in the past such as Moynihan and Schlesinger, Democrats today are loath to admit any role for culture as an shaper of economic outcomes while they simultaneously do everything they can to change culture to their liking.
Having an advanced degree does not necessarily endow one with common sense, particularly if the degree is in 'intersectionality' or 'gender studies'. I would love to see a further breakdown of the 'more highly educated' by degree area. I'm a long-time engineer, and I learned how to separate fact from fantasy. Consequently, the last time I voted democrat was Jimmy Carter.
Frank, are you old enough to remember Bill Buckley? Who famously said..
"I am obliged to confess that I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. Not, heaven knows, because I hold lightly the brainpower or knowledge or generosity or even the affability of the Harvard faculty: but because I greatly fear intellectual arrogance, and that is a distinguishing characteristic of the university which refuses to accept any common premise."
Yep ;-)
A very good analysis. However, in looking forward, we have to also look at the male/female divide that likely will become ever more important. The higher ed student population is 60 women/40 men, on average, with the ratio growing. It's even more heavily skewed to women. if you look at African Americans, with fewer and fewer black men going on to higher education. You're right – it is the economy, but more so the perception of the economy. And how will the lockdown dumbing of a generation of young Americans impact all of this?
Traditionally, leftwing intellectuals supported workingclass movements, and labor unions provided a channel for the emergence of national leaders. Today's Ds don't have that grounding and seem not to miss it.
I am trying to generate some energy for this topic. No success so far.
I find it difficult to express my views of the Democrat Party in a civil manner without the use of obscene language, so I'll sit this one out.
Good presentation of evidence, but I think that educational attainment is a proxy for more motivating issues like financial security or perhaps cultural norms.
The contentions, while making an accounting like sense, are overly broad to the point of being useless. And leaving out the actual facts on the ground this cycle: inflation, crime, immigration, and debt growth: the analysis sort of looks like an answer, searching for a question. Yes, I do agree that the D’s have made a rather large tactical error by becoming the party of the rich & educated. But that is more of a result of what they have chosen to prioritize (climate, CRT, gender) than an actual purposeful appeal to the rich & educated. Those bigger parts of the pie (non-rich/non-college) aren’t concerned with those issues, and likely never will be to any measurable extent. That is the real problem with the current D’s, and I don’t see them changing anything, other than maybe lying about their real intentions.
For starters, the Dems could stop calling the other half of the electorate deplorable, racist, white supremacist, misogynist, xenophobes. Wearing condescension like a virtue does not grow their coalition of intolerant woke, urban progressives, over educated green trust-funders, unionized government workers and those entirely deoendant on government handouts.
Agreed, political discourse could be much improved. Consider this site an experiment in that direction.
A good analysis Roger. Thank you for basing it on facts. This helped me confirm what I believed to be true, but couldn’t put my hands on the data to prove it. Well done.
Your next article will undoubtedly focus on the economy, which is very important. I believe it’s a really simple analysis. The economy has taken a nose dive since Joe Biden took office for a few reasons: (1) the federal reserve screwed up monitory policy (because the Fed is independent, Joe Biden gets a pass here), (2) the government has spent too much money (thanks to Joe Biden and the progressives) and (3) the Biden Administration has attacked fossil fuels (thanks to Joe Biden and the progressives). As you well know Roger, fossil fuels are pervasive in our economic life. We simply could not live the lives we live without them. This is not up for debate in my opinion.
Another topic for consideration, which I eluded to above, is the small faction of progressives within the Democrat party that have an outsized influence on Joe Biden. I’ll preface this by admitting that the Republicans have extreme factions too, but we can address this another time. But as to the progressive influence and their affect on our economic well being, it is a disaster. I know many progressive whom I adore as friends, but when the conversation drifts into worldview and societal challenges, their eyes glaze over and they loose their sense of reality. Their focus on the outcome they wish to achieve completely ignores the consequences of the polices they advance to achieve their objects. And those consequences are severe. But being the good progressives that they are, highly educated and wealthy, they get to plead ignorance of the consequences of their policies because they have no affect on them. This in my option, is the problem with the Democrat party today. And it jives with the data (highly educated and wealthy) in your post.
How are Democrats, with their irresponsible, profligate fiscal policies, racist anti-racism, and schizophrenic energy and climate policies a result of having a higher level of education? The more I study and learn in a long life the more I realize how very limited my knowledge is and also that for every action there are multiple reactions many of which are un-anticipatable and very possibly negative.
Certainly, the hubris of understanding and moral fervor instilled in the newly college educated young accounts for some of the correlation with education and voting Democratic. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former Harvard don, UN ambassador, government official and 24-year Democratic Senator from NY, wrote, in a note to Nixon, that every time one of the old-line Democrat editors of the New York Times retires he is replaced by a Marxist-Leninist straight from the Harvard Crimson. Now of course, he would be replaced by a Woke he/she/they, but not much has changed, including this example’s connection of the education-Democrat nexus to the control of the media.
That control of the media has weakened somewhat with the arrival of FOX News and the internet, but when you look at the political affiliation of journalism students and faculty there is bound to be a continuing Left bias in most journalism (see Batya Ungar-Sargon’s book “Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy”). Since the educated consume more news, the bias in the news media will translate into bias in the party preferences of the educated.
A couple of examples illustrating my reference to a statement by Moynihan with respect to the Times in 1970 and its comparable state today might be helpful. Moynihan's statement is not as hyperbolic as it might sound.
Phnom Phenh fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. Four months after it fell a writer at the Harvard University student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, wondered why the paper's editors have gone silent on Cambodia after so many years of supporting the Khmer Rouge and celebrating the fall of Phnom Phenh now that horror stories are starting to leak out. But the writer reflects (in the last paragraph) that "On their own terms they [the Khmer Rouge] continue to be most of what we supported them for--staunch nationalists, socialists, remakers of their own society." see Cambodia and Crimson Politics | News | The Harvard Crimson (thecrimson.com)
Hmm, let me see. "Nationalist, socialists" wasn't there some other political party in the past that combined those two ideals in its name? Aren’t these graduates the supposed crem dela crem of educational attainment?
Moving on to today, in 2020, James Bennet, the editorial page editor of the New York Times was forced out for allowing the printing of an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton. Bennet gave an interview recently to former Times columnist Ben Smith, now at Semafor. The National Review article “Former NY Times Editor Claims Colleagues Treated Him Like an 'Incompetent Fascist' | National Review”, quotes Bennet accusing the Times publisher of missing “the opportunity to make clear that the New York Times doesn’t exist just to tell progressives how progressives should view reality.” Furthermore, “They [the Times] want to have the applause and the welcome of the left,” said Bennet. “And now there’s the problem on top of that that they’ve signed up so many new subscribers in the last few years and the expectation of those subscribers is that the Times will be Mother Jones on steroids.”
I’ll add one more comment here. After a long break from the intellectual appeal of socialism in 60’s and 70’s, a softer version is broadening its appeal again. A Gallup survey in Aug 2018, (see "Democrats More Positive About Socialism Than Capitalism" (gallup.com)), has 57% of Democrats with a positive view of socialism, while only 47% have a positive view of Capitalism. How does being wealthy and educated correlate with this tilt toward favoring socialism and rejection of the very system in which they acquired their wealth?