If you read American newspapers, you’d be forgiven for thinking the country is filled with enlightened leftists and liberals held captive by a conservative right wing elite. As the story goes, all Joe Six Pack wants is to pay reparations and re-write the constitution so zhe and all zheir polyamorous, gender fluid lovers can get free courses on the evils of Whiteness (TM) from the Disinformation Governance Board. It’s certainly true that lower income groups are more likely to support left wing politics related to public programs that focus on economic relief; that’s the intuitive norm. But is it enough to justify the narrative of elite bias against the left?
Let’s start with the low hanging fruit: The higher the education level, the more liberal one tends to be. This fits right in with the idea of leftist enlightenment held captive by conservative anti-intellectualism.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
But what does a college degree actually represent? Economically, socially, the primary function of a college education is a status signal to distinguish the degree holder from the non-holder. While this translates to the self-perception of higher intelligence among the former and education does correlate with higher intelligence, college grads also tend to overestimate their own competence and skills:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
One thing the highly educated do have for certain is more wealth and power, and that’s seldom a positive development amongst a group which is predisposed to overestimate itself on a fundamental level. Here too, the intersection with far left politics is glaring. Despite dominating the economic and political elite, these represent less than 10% of the electorate ideologically. Most Americans identify as conservative or moderate while the Democrat Party lurches further and further left. Similarly, while conservatives and the less educated show less disparity on major political issues, Democrats trend toward extremes in tandem with education levels.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
One way to see this is to look at congressional districts. The places with the largest concentrations of wealth are now disproportionately represented by Democrats. In 2014, 17 of the 25 wealthiest congressional districts (measured by average income) were represented by Democrats. And overall, the median household income in Democratic-represented congressional districts was about $2,000 more than the median household income in Republican-represented districts ($53,358 to $51,834).
We can also observe some of these larger changes by looking at the partisan giving by the Forbes 400 wealthiest individuals, which political scientists Adam Bonica and Howard Rosenthal have tracked over three decades. Between 1982 and 2012, the share of GOP money from the Forbes 400 fell from 68 percent to 59 percent.
https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2016/6...-wealthy-partyWhether one wants to call this a conspiracy of higher education to indoctrinate the youth, or simple virtue signaling, we arrive at the crux of the matter: Why is it Democrats tend to fight uphill in the culture war if a small but growing portion of Americans identify as liberal? Why is it Democrats feel the need to establish a Disinformation Governance Board to politically correct wrongthink if the vast majority agrees with them? Why is it Republicans keep winning elections if most people think they’re evil? One potential answer: the same reason working class people buy accessories they can’t afford just to keep up with the people who can.While Democrats lose support as income increases, there seems to be a tipping point where the ultra-wealthy begin leaning Democratic. The most famous example would be the entertainment industry, where star-studded events have become a significant part of Democratic culture.
But this phenomenon is not limited to Hollywood. A review of the 20 richest Americans, as listed by Forbes Magazine, found that 60 percent affiliate with the Democratic Party, including the top three individuals: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison. Among the riches families, the Democratic advantage rises even higher, to 75 percent.
https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-.../#UltraWealthy
Because the beliefs of the liberal elite function primarily as status symbols, we often see them manifest in a collection of thought terminating cliches and tautologies, which are then enforced with papal sanctimony. But as the lower classes seek to both comply with and emulate the elite, the latter must always double down on the purity spiral in order to distinguish itself. It’s no longer enough to be non-racist, one must be “antiracist.” It’s not enough to support freedom of speech. One must support correct speech to protect “marginalized communities” from wrongthink. It’s not enough to reform the police, the latter must be completely defunded. Etc.The chief purpose of luxury beliefs is to indicate evidence of the believer’s social class and education. Only academics educated at elite institutions could have conjured up a coherent and reasonable-sounding argument for why parents should not be allowed to raise their kids, and should hold baby lotteries instead. When an affluent person advocates for drug legalization, or anti-vaccination policies, or open borders, or loose sexual norms, or uses the term “white privilege,” they are engaging in a status display. They are trying to tell you, “I am a member of the upper class.”
Affluent people promote open borders or the decriminalization of drugs because it advances their social standing, not least because they know that the adoption of those policies will cost them less than others. The logic is akin to conspicuous consumption—if you’re a student who has a large subsidy from your parents and I do not, you can afford to waste $900 and I can’t, so wearing a Canada Goose jacket is a good way of advertising your superior wealth and status. Proposing policies that will cost you as a member of the upper class less than they would cost me serve the same function. Advocating for open borders and drug experimentation are good ways of advertising your membership of the elite because, thanks to your wealth and social connections, they will cost you less than me.
https://quillette.com/2019/11/16/tho...status-update/
What’s really the harm in all this? Does the average American need to care if the southern border is a complete cluster? If the public discourse is curated by the Democrats’ Disinformation Governance Board, does that really affect the average person who isn’t as politically engaged? What’s the big deal about dismantling monuments to the Founding Fathers and re-writing school curricula to tell kids they are morally defined by the color of their skin? 1619 or 1776 - yawn…. If these are luxury beliefs, aren’t there only luxury consequences? Well, not if the elites have anything to say about it:Third Wave Antiracist tenets, stated clearly and placed in simple oppositions, translate into nothing whatsoever.
I suspect that deep down, most know that none of this catechism makes any sense. Less obvious is that it was not even composed with logic in mind. The self-contradiction of these tenets is crucial, in revealing that Third Wave Antiracism is not a philosophy but a religion.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/j...the-neoracists
Note the massive disparities between the general population and the liberal elite. Even if this isn’t problematic in and of itself, it bears considering what the country’s most powerful are using their status to pursue. We are constantly inundated with news about the threats posed by foreign elites who seek to undermine American interests and institutions. How much greater a threat must our own elites be if they consider their role in undermining and destroying American institutions a badge of honor? These are people who believe the country is inherently immoral, its existence only exploitative, who want to abolish the Senate, pack the Supreme Court and replace checks and balances with a politically correct oligarchy of “experts.” These are the people who raised the proverbial pitchforks and cheered as a merry band of fraudsters burned down the country.
If we can manage 50 billion to defend Ukraine and 100 billion to confront communist China, surely we the people can allocate some resources to eradicate the enemy which actively seeks to immolate the country from within, before they finish the job. Even the hedonist, papist French recognize the problem, and you know if I agree with the French about anything, we really have arrived in clown world. Not good folks. Not good.