Anyone in the bottom third of the economy is probably disproportionately concerned with the cost of food and housing because a far greater share of their income is devoted to those categories compared to wealthier cohorts. And the last I checked food and housing were outpacing the general index for inflation.
I think it makes a lot more sense to divide the electorate into segments rather than treat it as a monolith. And it simply makes deep intuitive sense to me that the working poor and middle class will be far more concerned with inflation simply because they are far more impacted by inflation.
Plus it is most likely that these variables/factors aren't completely independent. Josh Kraushaar posted on Twitter something like "Inflation has been rocket fuel for the ongoing shift of Hispanic voters to the GOP".
I suspect campaign finance plays a large role in this shift. Each party needs enough rich guys on its side to be able to compete.
I would like to see an analysis like this one, but for the role of gender in voter preferences. That seems like one of the most important dividing lines to me.
Yes, yes, yes to your first descriptor. My husband, who didn't finish high school and got his GED, had grown up in a trucking family. He knows trucks (semis) inside and out. It's skilled labor and he made it his business to be the best in the SW. He was earning close to $200,000 a year before he quit to start his own business. (I know! Everyone, including our accountant, is always SHOCKED to hear this.) So, what you have is someone without any kind of "educated" credentials earning more than most of those who have them. He only judges by his life experience. He never voted until Trump came along, but something about Trump made him feel comfortable about his less-educated status because Trump is a rich guy that doesn't sound like he hates the working class. That's the problem with the Dems. How long did they think they could trash the non-educated and not be offending their traditional bases?
From my perspective, what’s developing are two, distinctly different American experiences:
(1) economically stable, obsessed with esoteric gender and race ideology; and,
(2) economically unstable, without the comfort (or interest) in an ideologically driven, humanities-based alternate reality of which all the things we once knew to be “true,” have been rapidly upended.
One has the ability to concern itself with trivialities, while the other is worrying about how they can afford to live, and what kind of cultural environment do they want to live in.
Pretty good piece. And you are quite open that you are center-left and want Dems to win generally and Biden to win this year. That’s fine. But the crack about Reagan’s economics being “trickle down” is pure hard left progressive spin.
For someone who studied economics, and claims to be center-left not a leftist progressive, you should know better.
Immigration policy or lack there of is an economic threat to traditional democratic voters as it is undocumented people who often take lower paying jobs and therefore threaten working people. A 4 year proposal by Biden will not makeup for three years of being deaf.
Great piece. I think you can clearly see that the Democrats over the last ~20 years have become much more of a high-income party to reflect that their base is college graduates. Obama keeping the Bush tax cuts for anyone making <$400k and the student loan forgiveness being examples. I also think the GOP has shifted somewhat toward policies that are not as directed toward the middle/upper middle class, things like capping the SALT deduction in the 2017 tax cut. That is my baseline expectation for how the parties will behave going forward.
I know this is straying from the subject, but there is the old "With whom would you rather have a drink?" adage: Jimmy Carter (no) or Gerald Ford (no); Reagan or Carter (Reagan); Reagan or Mondale (Reagan); Bush or Dukakis (Dukakis (the exception which proves the rule?)); Clinton or Bush (Clinton); Clinton or Dole (Clinton); Bush or Gore (Bush); Bush or Kerry (Bush); Obama or McCain (Obama); Obama or Romney (Obama!); Trump or Clinton (?); Biden or Trump (Biden); Biden or Trump . . . I think things like the economy can overcome likeability, but likeability is really important.
Especially Paul Krugman. A rich bourgeois writer using voodoo charts to tell working people that all is wonderful as the stock market hits new highs and others not up on the mountain struggle with rising costs for food cars electric and debt. The underplayed issue is the Pat with college tuition skyrocketing and buying a house more difficult the feeling for many is the American Dream is slipping away.
The culture war is just the old class war wearing a fancy new coat.
On the establishment side of the class war was the educated and wealthy while the other side featured the working class -- Marx's bourgeoisie and proletariat.
One the establishment side of the culture war is the educated and wealthy while the other side features the working class.
Same lineup. Different uniforms -- the political parties have rearranged themselves. They argue about different things, but the parties in conflict (in economic terms) never changed.
Let me simplify: The average person judges the economy by a very simple standard:
Has the cost of food, gas, and housing risen faster or slower than their paycheck? Those three items are both largest expenses for the average person, and they are expenses they pay for daily, weekly and monthly, so those three expenses are constantly in their faces.
And for the average person those three items have risen faster than their paychecks. Democrats quoting statistics to try to tell people they are wrong (or clueless) just makes people angry. People KNOW whether their paychecks have kept up or not.
Democrats greatest obstacle this fall will be Republicans asking the famous question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" The average person will decide their answer on just those three items: Food, Gas & Housing.
Everyone is angry about political disfunction and corruption. Low information voters flock to the republican party whose mantra is "government is the problem". It's as simple as that.
The Supreme Court gave us this mess via Citizens United and related decisions. Big Money in politics leads to extremism via big budget negative advertising. Big Money also leads to corruption. We need to tax the rich to reverse inequality and we need to pass a Constitutional amendment that clarifies that only people have inalienable rights and money is not the same thing as speech. Easy Peasy! ;-)
Anyone in the bottom third of the economy is probably disproportionately concerned with the cost of food and housing because a far greater share of their income is devoted to those categories compared to wealthier cohorts. And the last I checked food and housing were outpacing the general index for inflation.
I think it makes a lot more sense to divide the electorate into segments rather than treat it as a monolith. And it simply makes deep intuitive sense to me that the working poor and middle class will be far more concerned with inflation simply because they are far more impacted by inflation.
Plus it is most likely that these variables/factors aren't completely independent. Josh Kraushaar posted on Twitter something like "Inflation has been rocket fuel for the ongoing shift of Hispanic voters to the GOP".
I suspect campaign finance plays a large role in this shift. Each party needs enough rich guys on its side to be able to compete.
I would like to see an analysis like this one, but for the role of gender in voter preferences. That seems like one of the most important dividing lines to me.
Yes, yes, yes to your first descriptor. My husband, who didn't finish high school and got his GED, had grown up in a trucking family. He knows trucks (semis) inside and out. It's skilled labor and he made it his business to be the best in the SW. He was earning close to $200,000 a year before he quit to start his own business. (I know! Everyone, including our accountant, is always SHOCKED to hear this.) So, what you have is someone without any kind of "educated" credentials earning more than most of those who have them. He only judges by his life experience. He never voted until Trump came along, but something about Trump made him feel comfortable about his less-educated status because Trump is a rich guy that doesn't sound like he hates the working class. That's the problem with the Dems. How long did they think they could trash the non-educated and not be offending their traditional bases?
From my perspective, what’s developing are two, distinctly different American experiences:
(1) economically stable, obsessed with esoteric gender and race ideology; and,
(2) economically unstable, without the comfort (or interest) in an ideologically driven, humanities-based alternate reality of which all the things we once knew to be “true,” have been rapidly upended.
One has the ability to concern itself with trivialities, while the other is worrying about how they can afford to live, and what kind of cultural environment do they want to live in.
Good article and analysis. Also:
"You’d expect them to be a strongly Democratic voter with lefty politics and a Mastodon account."
Killed me.
Pretty good piece. And you are quite open that you are center-left and want Dems to win generally and Biden to win this year. That’s fine. But the crack about Reagan’s economics being “trickle down” is pure hard left progressive spin.
For someone who studied economics, and claims to be center-left not a leftist progressive, you should know better.
Immigration policy or lack there of is an economic threat to traditional democratic voters as it is undocumented people who often take lower paying jobs and therefore threaten working people. A 4 year proposal by Biden will not makeup for three years of being deaf.
Great piece. I think you can clearly see that the Democrats over the last ~20 years have become much more of a high-income party to reflect that their base is college graduates. Obama keeping the Bush tax cuts for anyone making <$400k and the student loan forgiveness being examples. I also think the GOP has shifted somewhat toward policies that are not as directed toward the middle/upper middle class, things like capping the SALT deduction in the 2017 tax cut. That is my baseline expectation for how the parties will behave going forward.
I know this is straying from the subject, but there is the old "With whom would you rather have a drink?" adage: Jimmy Carter (no) or Gerald Ford (no); Reagan or Carter (Reagan); Reagan or Mondale (Reagan); Bush or Dukakis (Dukakis (the exception which proves the rule?)); Clinton or Bush (Clinton); Clinton or Dole (Clinton); Bush or Gore (Bush); Bush or Kerry (Bush); Obama or McCain (Obama); Obama or Romney (Obama!); Trump or Clinton (?); Biden or Trump (Biden); Biden or Trump . . . I think things like the economy can overcome likeability, but likeability is really important.
Especially Paul Krugman. A rich bourgeois writer using voodoo charts to tell working people that all is wonderful as the stock market hits new highs and others not up on the mountain struggle with rising costs for food cars electric and debt. The underplayed issue is the Pat with college tuition skyrocketing and buying a house more difficult the feeling for many is the American Dream is slipping away.
Very informative article. Nate, thank you for your work on this!
The culture war is just the old class war wearing a fancy new coat.
On the establishment side of the class war was the educated and wealthy while the other side featured the working class -- Marx's bourgeoisie and proletariat.
One the establishment side of the culture war is the educated and wealthy while the other side features the working class.
Same lineup. Different uniforms -- the political parties have rearranged themselves. They argue about different things, but the parties in conflict (in economic terms) never changed.
Let me simplify: The average person judges the economy by a very simple standard:
Has the cost of food, gas, and housing risen faster or slower than their paycheck? Those three items are both largest expenses for the average person, and they are expenses they pay for daily, weekly and monthly, so those three expenses are constantly in their faces.
And for the average person those three items have risen faster than their paychecks. Democrats quoting statistics to try to tell people they are wrong (or clueless) just makes people angry. People KNOW whether their paychecks have kept up or not.
Democrats greatest obstacle this fall will be Republicans asking the famous question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" The average person will decide their answer on just those three items: Food, Gas & Housing.
Everyone is angry about political disfunction and corruption. Low information voters flock to the republican party whose mantra is "government is the problem". It's as simple as that.
The Supreme Court gave us this mess via Citizens United and related decisions. Big Money in politics leads to extremism via big budget negative advertising. Big Money also leads to corruption. We need to tax the rich to reverse inequality and we need to pass a Constitutional amendment that clarifies that only people have inalienable rights and money is not the same thing as speech. Easy Peasy! ;-)
NE-02 may be extremely important in this election. It seems to be safe blue if the wealthy are in Biden's pocket.