When you say educated people are more prejudiced because they know more arguments to support their view it seems to be getting into tautology
5
In these racially polarized times, how dumb is it to have a political discussion without factoring in a racial component, especially since race was such a large component in the last election?
3
I'd gladly pay higher taxes for a better president; this one is amoral and greedy.
11
As someone with two graduate degrees I would say I’m a moderate. As a New Yorker, a person who has the highest tax burden in the nation I look around to see how my taxes are spent. I see failing public schools, crumbling infrastructure, filthy streets, poor and inadequate roads, and a public transport system that is a disgrace and a nightmare for anyone who has to use it. I wouldn’t give the government one more penny to waste. If DeBlasio wants to tour the country trying to sell his nonsense ideas, let him pay for it out of his own pocket.
5
So basically, no one's really gotten past school - where one clique looks another with disdain. Big surprise there.
2
Edsall and those he cites operate on the assumption that "rational interest" always involves economic gain; hence, the affluent who want to raise taxes on themselves are driven by irrational emotions, identify and ideology. But perhaps those of us who are "better-educated" are more aware of the downside potentials of a society in which the income gap is growing and the state is absconding on its responsibilities to its citizens. That seems fairly rational to me: a low discount rate and concern for the future. (BTW, I fit your profile of radical, highly-educated coastal libs (I'd drop the libs and stick with the radical) who believe the Republicans are driving this country toward civil war--and they have the guns!
5
Of course liberals, especially educated liberals, have become angrier toward GOP voters/politicians over the course of the last four decades.
That's precisely when neoconservatism started to take over the GOP and systematically lying became an essential part of the GOP strategy to win elections.
Why would any researcher call this "expressive partisanship" ... let alone increased "bias" ... ?
As soon as one political party starts to systematically lie, as the previous elections have shown, you can't even HAVE a debate about the issues anymore, you constantly have to go back to what used to be common ground among people defending different political philosophies, namely proven facts.
It's the fact that the other person continues to respect proven facts that allows for a REAL debate, and THAT is what generates respect for people thinking differently, not just the fact THAT they claim to think differently whereas in real life they're just blatantly lying or taking over lies spread by one single political party.
And once you can't distinguish a proven fact from political prejudice anymore, as an op-ed writer, you don't characterize liberal opinions (and as a consequence motivations to vote) correctly anymore, and start wondering WHY liberal elites would vote "against their own self-interests", whereas the ONLY elites out there believing that paying a little bit more taxes goes against their self-interests, are Republicans - and, apparently, now also "liberal" Edsall ... ??
9
Or - we well-educated Democrats become "ideological" because we look at the issues, and make rational decisions about what position we'll take in any given situation. Contrast that with most Republican voters who get their "ideology" from evangelical churches and/or Fox News. I read three newspapers including USA Today to get the conservative perspective. Sorry, I won't support hatred for the poor, women, and children that was glaringly evident in the GOP's tax cut bill, their insistence on the ACA be destroyed, and the only Americans they support are the 1%. If that's ideological ok. I call it empirically justifiable truth. I would gladly support higher taxes, and we're definitely upper middle class, to achieve a fair society. Fat chance.
4
I note from the graph that college educated conservatives have a greater bias (by 10 pts) than college educated liberals. Still, I am surprised it's even that close. Of course, to be honest, it's my observation and my opinion that the far left is just as prejudicial as conservatives. So, the far left are as likely as the typical conservative to pick a side and ignore the facts.
I have a strong tendency to support the truth, wherever it leads. I've always thought that trait makes me fairly unique, even among liberals. As for the conservatives, they pretty much follow Trump's creed that the truth is for losers. They ignore the facts as a matter of core principles. They create their own reality by stating it over and over again:
Trump did not collude with the Russians...Trump did not collude with the Russians...Trump did not collude with the Russians...Trump did not collude with the Russians.
Yeah, he did collude with the Russians...not that any conservatives care. Oh, but they would be very upset if Hillary had done one tenth of what Trump has done. Very upset and storming the gates. Lock her up...we don't need a reason why...lock her up...the rule of law is for losers...lock her up...if we keep saying it...lock her up... it must be valid...lock her up...as valid as an actual fact. Maybe that is what Kelly Ann meant by alternative facts. Statements that are not true, but are repeated over and over and over and over and over and over again, become true.
5
It's a close call, but that might be the most ridiculous thing I've read today. The basic assumption of the author and all his supporting quotes is that the interests of Democrats in upper income bands are (perhaps solely) about enriching themselves.
If their interests lie in enriching others, education, ecology, sharing, doing things in more sustainable ways, balanced budgets, etc.; then they're no longer voting against their interests when they support higher taxes on their own income brackets.
Assuming that everyone is driven by personal greed is both polarizing and insulting.
7
I am a well educated white liberal, but firmly middle class. I live in a lower middle income neighborhood. My child graduated high school from a school district with a 50% graduation rate.
I get the article's point about the chink in the liberal identity armor when it comes to things like housing and education. Affluent liberals willingly pay taxes so the poor can have better housing in their neighborhoods, but build low income housing in middle or upper income neighborhoods? No way. Property values will go down and crime will go up.
Wealthy liberals will pay for poor children to have better educational opportunities in their own schools, but integrate high and low performing students in a wealthy district? No way again. SAT scores will go down, "discipline problems" will increase, and property values will go down even more.
I believe affluent liberals are trying to be good and generous citizens by paying higher taxes to fund liberal policies. But how committed are we really to the changes necessary for true equality? How committed is the Democratic Party? It's easy to fund food banks when you're rich, much harder to eat dinner with a poor person in their home. I think some who detest "liberal elites" know this about us, and despise us for it.
8
A discussion of the political views of the public that somehow managed to leave out the fact that the public is to the left of both parties on economic issues: increased taxation of wealth (far beyond the 3 or 4% tinkering the Dems do while acting like working class heroes); a financial transaction tax; INCREASED Social Security benefits; expanding Medicare coverage to everyone; increased spending on social programs - decreased military spending.
Sadly, this is typical of elite "analysis" of political issues.
6
The question is where democrats want higher taxes on households making a quarter million a year, but all we are not told what democrats making that much think about taxes. Never mind. Enjoy reprieve while Democrats making less than 30,000 and those with high school degrees are less inclined to tax the rich more. When they do, pundits can't think fast enough.
I disagree with the 'evaluation' of the data.
My own experience explains why I disagree. I was raised in a family with conservative parents. My father is still a republican, in a majority democrat state. Both of my sisters, one younger and one older, vote & support the republican agenda.
I am the only member of my immediate family who graduated from a liberal arts college. Though I was already questioning the conservative perspective back in 1976 when I entered college, having the opportunity to live and learn with people from many different backgrounds, nations and perspectives - gave me so much 'data' to run through the mill of my mind! Many conservative assumptions were proven incorrect or out of sync with real humans who had lived different truths. In addition, I was taught to use my mind to evaluate all the new information pouring in. That instruction came from classic philosophies that I'd not been exposed to in public school. It came from all the disciplines of learning; math, philosophy, science, political science, economics, literature, history, art and languages that were not native to me.
I learned from a classmate from Viet Nam, about the suffering her nation (and family) had endured. Another dear friend was from Iran (during the hostage crisis). Some of my sister students were conservative, some extremely liberal.
I was pushed to see it all. I grew into a 'liberal' perspective. It's knowledge & exposure, not group think, that's at play here.
6
Having come of age and formed my political sensibilities during Viet Nam, Selma, Freedom Summer etc.; I "grew up" and joined the corporate world. I guess some of my politics changed over the years. However, under today's circumstances I find I'm returning to the radicalism of the 60's and its confrontational tendencies. I firmly believe that we're facing an existentialist threat and politics as usual is not an option. In the 60's my support was physical. It is now economic.
7
Can we all agree that people who support higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy more than likely have a better grasp of the issues confronting this nation, and prefer honest policy decisions over mindless demagoguing? The Republican Party used to harbor such people, who tended to be conservative but also recognized (and celebrated) the duties and opportunites of citizens in a democratic society. Not anymore.
There is only one true political party today, the Democratic Party, which is beset by severe flaws and a lack of exciting courageous leaders. But it is a party nonetheless. The Republican Party is a parody of organizational politics. It has no compass, no principles, no honesty, no morals, no direction. It specializes in winning elections through aggressively dishonest marketing, and once in office, its members have displayed no interest whatsoever in governing on behalf of the entire population.
So, in answer to this column's headline, I'm on the side of rational, compassionate, forward-thinking politics. I'm a Democrat.
8
This analysis seems to leave out policy goals as a motivating factor. We may be motivated by economic self interest and in/out-group dynamics, but what about believing in a vision for society that is more just, and believing in provenly effective policy solutions to bring about that vision? This can explain why the relatively affluent and educated vote against their narrow economic self-interest, without defaulting to tribal influences as an explanation. We sometimes vote against our self-interest and FOR the common good, and we vote for the candidates that will bring about that common good. Don't overcomplicate it.
5
I reject the idea that advocating for increases in one's own taxes is a fundamentally irrational behavior that could only be motivated by partisanship. Perhaps these elite democrats asking to pay more taxes are, in fact, perfectly rational? Has the author considered that our home values and standards of living are dependent on clean streets and good schools? Perhaps we liberal elites are willing to accept that these services cost money, and realize that we have more room in our budget to help pay than individuals in lower tax brackets? Has the author considered that, just maybe, our education has given us perspective instead of entitlement?
15
I can't speak for others, but I support social programs not because I align with any one party (I'm unaffiliated), but because I recognize that if we do not provide adequate support to those at the lowest rungs of society, then we'll end up paying for it in the long run in the form of increased crime, homelessness, slow economic growth, etc.
If your worldview dictates that more money equals more happiness, you might come to the conclusion offered in this op-ed piece that wealthy liberals vote against their own self-interest. This view, however, underestimates the value to the individual of a clean environment, limited poverty, an educated workforce, etc.
10
Please let's avoid suggesting there's perfect symmetry between Dems and Reps, or liberals and conservatives, in the matter of their mutual dislike. As the graph from
American National Election Studies shows, although the shapes of the lines more or less mirror each other across the neutral center, nevertheless the conservative respondents rated liberals a good bit worse than the liberal respondents rated conservatives.
Also, voting against one's personal or household economic interest is not a symmetrical issue at all. Ideological traditions are well known: Republicans rate personal enrichment as a very high priority, while holding in contempt any suggestion that they have responsibility for the common good. Hence it made sense for a book of political analysis to ask, a few years ago, "What's the matter with Kansas?" By contrast, it's part of liberal thinking that the common good is a matter of great concern, maintaining a strong social net is one of government's chief responsibilities, and it rightly falls to citizens to pay their share for it.
7
One argument many on the left have made to support elective abortion, that if men could get pregnant then abortion would be a sacrament, is striking and relevant to the thesis of this article.
It takes but a moment’s reflection to see clearly both the flaw in this argument and how insulting it is. Men have long been expected to go to war or otherwise face danger to protect family and community, and to take on grinding and often dangerous work to provide for family.
It’s hard to think of a more perfect way than the persistence of this clearly flawed argument to represent the combination of heedlessness and disdain with which many on the left view those working class men who take on substantial risk with their obligations.
I’ve rarely if ever seen people who identify themselves as on the Democratic left sharply criticize this argument. How can a political party that tolerates this sort of argument be trusted to fairly govern the country while aiming for dignity and equality for all?
False equivalence? It’s precisely equivalent to any given example on the Republican right that shows they also cannot be trusted to fairly govern the country while aiming for dignity and equality for all.
4
The idea behind this argument is that what men believe is good for men, they get signed into law, because most lawmakers are men.
This has nothing to do with being wealthy or being part of the working class, and everything with the gender gap.
5
There’s a big problem with the research quoted: it’s based on what people say, not on what they do. When push comes to shove, I have absolutely no doubt that wealthy liberals will little difficulty voting for candidates that serve their interests, whether those candidates are Republicans, Democrats or independents. And strength to them for that: it’s what keeps the US functioning.
3
There is quite an obvious and I would suggest misguided assumption in this essay about what precisely is in a voter's interest.
I'm not sure why Mr Edsall posits in graph 4 the central question of this essay as, "why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests," when he has just established in graph 1 that "those on the bottom of the income distribution appear to want lower taxes on high earners." Isn't his question better stated: Why are Americans determined to vote against their own interests?
There is no indication in either the data or the commentary presented here that one's party or income makes any difference in likelihood of voting against one's interests. Voting against one's interest is ubiquitous. Indeed, it seems to be the sine qua non of democracy.
Added to which, it seems silly and childish to this reader that any political scientist has ever hypothesized that any vote for any candidate or issue in political history, American or otherwise, had its roots in economic self-interest.
Economic self-interest is the most base, superficial, and cynical reason any citizen could ever muster for engaging in democracy, and some of these researchers are simply revealing their own callousness by displaying surprise that economic self-interest isn't as potent an inspiration for voting as they thought.
I am aware that this comment seems to bolster Mr Edsall's argument; I hope it also provides an answer to his question.
4
That the lowest incomes are less incined towards taxraises than the middle incomes, may come from something that my experience tells me; that the low income people simply do not have a real idea of what kind of money the rich really make, and that they out of the fear of the unknown probably fear that taxraises somehow will touch them as well.
Another take, is the commonplace idea of the american dream, and "if taxes are raised, it will hamper me when I too get rich" (which very, very few achieve, in this day and age).
3
This article is using a simplistic and overly broad question - increased taxes for high incomes - to frame a person's entire ideology. I'm quite liberal but no I don't think we need to raise taxes on income for people earning 250,000 full stop. For one thing, the combined tax rate on income (payroll taxes, state and local taxes, federal taxes) is already quite high for this group. Should couples making 250K pay the same percentage as those making 2 million, 100 million? No, and in fact chances are the very wealthy pay a significantly lower rate as Warren Buffett has pointed out numerous times and they have tremendously high after-tax net worth. I believe we need a fairer tax code across the board but this should be coupled with significant improvements in healthcare coverage, access to quality education, paid maternal/paternal leave, real childcare support, a living minimum wage, affordable housing for the poor, worker protections, and so on.
Corporations should also be taxed at proportionately fair rates to support a more equal society. It is all of a piece but we have moved in the opposite direction.
As it is, I don't want my taxes raised to support carte blanche military buildups, regime change, corporate welfare, privatization of public services, billionaire family dynasties, investment bank and Wall Street malfeasance, a corrupt political finance system, plus the tremendous waste in medical services spending (public and private) that we now endure - to name a few.
2
So outside of tribal or group allegiance, people will only act out of self interest and not because of what's right?
5
"what's right"? Seems a little arrogant. Didn't realize there was a cosmic absolute floating out there somewhere. Need to tune my radio-telescope to the "what's right" frequency, it seems.
I have read the article but I think it is a generalization. I do not personally feel a social connection to other liberals but I vote for candidates who support my positions on key issues like education and the environment.
2
In order to understand this data one must employ a class analysis missing from this piece. Increasing international capitalist competition induced the Democratic Party leadership 40 years ago to move right and adopt a slightly less harsh neoliberal economic program than the version embraced by the Republicans. They knew this would alienate working class people, while at the same time they also hoped that shifting the Party's electoral appeal to the kind of identity politics that would attract both people of color and upscale liberals unattached to New Deal programs would compensate for the loss of working class voters. At the same time the gradual but necessary liquidation of New Deal programs and the abandonment of unions made it necessary to bring in a significant portion of the wealthy donors that Republicans consistently milk for campaign contributions, upon which the Party now depends. The Party now finds itself confronting the internal class contradiction of it's own political coalition: they can't defend people of color, an overwhelmingly working class constituency, while carrying out a program of economic austerity for workers in general, and they have no ability to recruit new voters from the mass of working class people that no loger vote because they can't address their increasingly precarious economic position without alienating their wealthy campaign donors.
2
Oh! Forgive us for using facts and logic!
1
“I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.” John Stuart Mill
“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know that the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.” Bertold Brecht
12
Can we please stop with these useless us and them arguments? The reality is that while we are all bickering about who's a who's a bigger idiot BOTH parties are doing the bidding of a handful of oligarchs.
5
But one insured 20 million more Americans while the other is already destroying the health insurance of 13 million (through the tax reform bill) and wants to do so for 30 million Americans.
That's a difference of 40,000 lives saved each year.
And the party that is saving lives, is also doing LOTS of other things that benefit the 99% - and even the entire planet.
Ending the SC Citizens United ruling so that the wealthiest Americans have less influence on elections and politicians is only one of those things.
And then of course there is the fact that the Democrats' wealthiest donors actively support raising their own taxes, getting rid of Citizens United, protecting the climate, making education and HC more universal and affordable, whereas the GOP's wealthy donors want to do the exact opposite (and are doing so as we speak, as "we the people" just gave them the legal power to do so).
The most idiotic thing to do here is to ignore reality and adopt the nihilistic view that "politics" is "corrupt" without doing any concrete fact-checking.
Cynicism never helped us move forward, remember?
I am on the side of anyone EXCEPT rich old white men. Their time is over.
4
Edsall’s thinking careens around like a superball on racketball court; he contradicts himself on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. I’m sure there is a conversation to be had, but Edsall’s column ain’t the place to start. He’s little more than whacking the hornets’ nest, as if he needs to demonstrate readership by sheer number of comments. I am sorry to have added one.
1
I hope this reflects prosperous progressives recognizing that "to whom much is given , much is expected" ,as we were taught when we were children .
For a struggling low-income voter to support right-wing kleptocrats who always cut services for the needy , on the other hand , is just frustratingly illogical.
6
In my best year for earnings, I made something around $350,000. I am also a Democrat, and strongly in favor of a more strongly progressive tax system, both via higher income taxes on higher incomes, but also through taxes on large estates and--one can only hope someday--on wealth itself.
This is not because I am an "affective partisan" who is behaving economically irrationally or "emotionally" because of my group: it's because I think it's the best policy for the nation, and what's good for my country is on the whole good for me and my family.
Further, those of us who have had the good fortune to make a few hundred thousand dollars a year--at least when we've done so on the coasts in major cities--are privileged to realize how not-upper-class that makes us. David Tepper pulls in $3.5 billion a year--at my best rate I'd have to work ten thousand years to make that. I could have started when they built the pyramids and I'd still have 5,352 years left to work to make what he makes in a single year.
Of course I'm in favor of higher taxes. And if the price of taxing that $3.5 billion more is that my marginal rate rises a little, so be it.
12
There is only one dictionary definition of middle-class and it is not middle income earners. the middle class in the words of Malvina Reynolds is doctors, and lawyers and business executives and then go to the university and they all come out the same.
America has the largest middle class and had the wealthiest and most powerful middle class ever developed until the mid 1960s when the Civil Rights Act and Viet Nam proved a large wealthy and powerful middle class proved difficult to govern.
The rise of conservatism is response to middle class governance Without the kind of education that middle class governance demands you have a polarized society where cynicism makes liberal democracy impossible and you have a failing nation state.
America is still fighting Viet Nam. For me America's schism is still rooted in 1968 and the moral choice of refusing to obey a government that commands you to go somewhere and risk your life or the decision to disobey your government and its moral failure.
This is a philosophical disagreement and filled with hypocrisy as those who least agree with freedom of choice believe in adherence to law and precedence. Conservative governance is anti-American and America needs to rediscover its roots and why it was created.
3
Gee, Mr. Edsall, it just wasn't polite to point all this out!
I am amused that many of the concepts detailed by self-identified Democrats. It used to be that conservatives were, too, but the method for addressing them were different (more opportunity based rather than direct). Conservatism used to support preserving natural resources (i.e. Ted Roosevelt). Now, it seems to exploit them to the detriment of the populace, and exclusive benefit of the donor class. Why we want go against our best interests to hand over irreplaceable resources to corporate interests with no real described collective benefit, is not a party thing. It is nakedly tribal.
1
The whole impetus for this piece is flawed. Progressive populism IS in the economic interest of well-educated, higher-earning Democratic voters. It’s in the interest of EVERYONE except the Republicans’ ultra rich patrons.
We would much rather have state of the art infrastructure, great public schools, universal healthcare, and a strong social safety net than a few crumbs in our pockets while the rich drink up ever more wealth and power into themselves.
These policies offer economic security and opportunity for us, our neighbors, our kids, and all Americans.
The GOP’s dog-eat-dog social Darwinism will destroy the fabric of our country and usher in a corrupt oligarchic dystopia where inherited wealth reigns supreme.
We must take back our country before all hope has been extinguished by the billionaire class. 2018 and 2020 are our last chance to avoid hell on earth.
8
The advantage of good infrastructure, public schools, healthcare, and help in a time of need (like when you are old or disabled) means that all citizens have a chance to be productive, creative and relatively content. The more who have the chance to flourish: the more will flourish. I don't need to inherit wealth or receive gifts from my family to live in an adequate home or gain an education.
1
Ex CIA Director Mr. Pompeo who has already held secret meetings with North Korea has just called the leader of North Korea Chairman Un.
Are there any highly educated people at all in the White House or the Trump Republican party? Are there any who have any education at all?
7
I'm not convinced that the concept of "prejudice" against liberal or conservative viewpoints is meaningful. I may be wrong in attributing certain beliefs to my conservative neighbor, and my neighbor and I may be less in control of our ideological choices than we'd like to think (we may be somewhat hard-wired), but each of us has a pretty good idea what it means when someone self-identifies as a liberal or a conservative. Having a strong belief in one's political positions is not the same as having a bias. Nor is being passionate about it. How exactly would these thinkers have us be "less rigid", without abandoning our principles?
1
Some of us know it is our turn to give back to society. My parents supported public education and infrastructure through their taxes and I think I should do the same. It is in my interests to live in an educated society with an infrastructure that does not harm people with lead pipes and crumbling bridges.
6
Gee, so glad I possess just an Associates degree. Makes me less of a part of the problem, does it? Sorry ... I'm right up there with the PhD's in how liberally minded I am.
2
The complaints to this opinion piece can be summed up, "How dare Edsall say we're closed-minded! It's only because the Republicans are such jerks!" Way to prove his point, folks. This comment probably won't be published because of what I'm about to say, but perhaps you all should start getting your news from more neutral sources such as Reuters or the Associated Press. Have people's political stances dictated by in-group loyalties is terrible for democracy! How can we criticize the Iraqis for their sectarian partisanship if we're doing essentially the same thing here?
3
When the author wrote "...things might be quite different, and people may then live up to the expectations of rationality," I was struck at how his definition of rational rests on income, home value, competition and status while mine rests on safety, fairness, compassion, and human rights. The difference in these views can clearly cause the chasm between the Republicans and Democrats. It is certainly behind the strength of the activism as well.
In addition, Citizens United giving the insanely rich owners of corporations the power to manipulate policy through their candidates and votes through their television ads has contributed to the political environment (and parties) becoming so extreme. It's not Republican neighbors arguing with Democrat neighbors anymore. It's the rich (and those that think "entitlement" programs, not corporate profits) make them poorer against the Democrats.
2
Seems to me like an example of finding statistics to support a preconceived notion. "Identity Politics" is not the complex topic everyone seeking their PhD and continued employment in the pundit class make it out to be.
You can boil it down to people who FEEL "we're all in this together" and people who FEEL they are "in it for themselves".
Out of necessity less money tends to force people into the second group desperately trying to make ends meet to fulfill their obligations. When you're working that hard you tend to value what you have and expect to be able to keep it.
It's not a mystery that needs statistical unpacking so much as being poor for a while would help crystallize Thomas' understanding of the true forces at work here.
Then again, most Times readers fall into the more educated, more affluent category so perhaps we can have lively discussion over cocktails and nibbles after we meet our deadlines.
1
What was Werner Sombart’s answer?
Are we paying down the debt yet or just adding to it?
1
The liberals who are prosperous and consider themselves the virtuous elite are buying into a Democrat narrative consistent with their perceptions of themselves, but it is paid for by the 0.1%, primarily dark money. Dark money spent by the Democrats vastly exceeds that being spent by the Republicans.
Tax reform that increases revenue from the wealthy is never going to pass because it would require eliminating the infinite deductibility of unrealized capital gains, which is the mechanism by which the wealthy avoid current taxes and simultaneously retain control of their wealth for themselves and their heirs.
As a consequence, liberals believe that Obamacare increased availability of healthcare when what it did was increase insurance, paid for by borrowing money and increases in the cost of medical care for the middle class, to ensure that big medicine will get paid. It sounded a lot like the employer provided health insurance they have, but is defective in multiple ways. Primary beneficiaries are cronies. Republican objection is not intended to reduce the availability of health care to the people, but to prevent the gifts to big medicine.
The educated, liberal leaning people believe they are smart and educated and do not recognize that they are the people Gruber called stupid.
3
Thanks to Obamacare, I was able to afford health care insurance as a self-employed person for the first time in 16 years.
5
It's hard not to perceive Republican adversaries as enemies when so many of their policy decisions seem geared to grinding the poor and middle class further into the dirt. Isn't that the definition of "enemies of the people".
The notion of paying forward, advancing the nation and providing solutions to social ills seems to be the province of Democrats (we're in this together) whereas the erection of walls, the hoarding of cash and deploying defensive measures to ensure no one of wealth will be challenged for any portion of their spoils is the platform for Republicans (what's mine is MINE!).
It's odd that the socio-economic class most likely to give up their young to be slaughtered in war, settle like sheep to be sheared of any promise of a better tomorrow; no health care, no social security, no education. Such is the magic of a few bright shiny objects - guns, abortion, foreigners - to blind such a large part of the electorate.
1
This "editorial" merely quotes other scholars without synthesizing or explaining their views. Could the author take some time and energy to piece his research together into an argument, rather than offering a string of quotations as if they were self explanatory?
3
Warren Buffett famously explained his investment philosophy by saying he searched for businesses with "moats," barriers to entry by competitors into the industry. I find fascinating the responses of the commenters here, who very subtly express the same idea, that no matter how much more Uncle Sam nicks off their wealth, still their education and intelligence will always protect them. More to the point, this self-confidence about their ultimate security is what REALLY CONTRASTS them from those on the lower economic/educational scales. I'm not surprised PhD's support illegal immigrants; the people coming across the Rio Grande aren't professors or division managers. They're carpenters and landscapers, the same occupations as the people who turned out for Trump. "Build the Wall" was the latter's version of "Get Your Masters." Want proof? It came when President Obama tried to shut down the 529B tax-advantaged deduction. Republicans, predictably, were opposed, but the final straw, as reported by the NYT, came from push-back from the Democrats [perhaps even some of today's Commenters.] After all, everything should be in moderation, even Altruism!
2
I am wealthy. When I vote to: expand the safety net, increase funding of public education, support state and federal higher education grants based on financial need, support public libraries, parks etc, I AM VOTING in my self-interest as long as the resulting tax burden is distributed based on ability to pay. ( I vote to increase my own taxes at nearly every opportunity. In addition I contribute 5% of my annual income to charitable purposes.)
My life is enhanced when my fellow citizens are not living lives of desperation due to the damaging side effects of ever more unbridled capitalism. I was born lucky. If you are not born on 2nd or 3rd base, very smart, driven to succeed, or given a real hand up from others, all the freedom to pursue happiness in a "libertarian utopia" is ephemeral. The first base folks have no leverage to effect their nearly ordained trajectory. I want this to change in my country.
6
I'm wealthy now but I was born into the bottom 20%. I got a decent public education despite attending school in a rough neighborhhod because 30-40 years ago there was still discipline in our public schools. i.e. Unruly and slow kids were removed from the classroom and not allowed to disrupt the education of the rest of us. I worked 3 jobs every summer and part time during the school year and was able to pay my way through a state school. At the time professors far outnumbered administrative staff and we had one student center for everyone (as opposed to a separate club house for each grievance group) so tuition was cheap. I graduated debt free with a STEM degree and have done well thanks to my own hard work. Heck yea, I but that!
I vote for business friendly center right conservatives regardless of party because liberals have destroyed the very rungs I used to climb the ladder to success and have the audacity to call me "privileged".
4
I left the Republician party 15 years ago because it was becoming increasingly a lobbying arm of the corporate oligarchy while pandering to the lowest common denominator of social issues and insecurities. It was intectually dishonest, mean-spirited and hypocritical. The misgivings I had about the party have been fully realized in tRump. He is the creature of the GOP swamp that has been 25 years in the making.
5
I’m a democrat (life long), and I am well off and fall into the upper income level category identified in the article.
And yes, I don’t mind paying higher taxes and yes, I want the really really rich to pay MORE taxes.
We are heading toward a class war in this country. Even a blind person can see the seeds of that upcoming conflict.
When the rich - through influence or political corruption - keep getting richer as the poor get poorer only a self-absorbed fool neglects too see the inevitable outcome: anarchy, mayhem in the streets, and the downfall of our society.
How short sighted of the wealthy to think their wealth will protect them when that happens.
5
Perhaps we'd be better off if the citizenry was entirely idiotic and agreed that Trump was exactly what our nation needs to make it great again? The nature of media today makes partisanship greater. If you ask poor people if taxes should be raised, they're unlikely to notice that raising said taxes will directly benefit them. One might inform them of this fact before posing the question. And most educated people aren't really educated. They have a college degree, yes, but that's not enough.
People like to feel that they belong, that they have a purpose. Being part of a group provides an identity and a mission. This is a necessity; it's anything but surprising. Nor is it revealing that Democrats, like Republicans, have large "contradictions" within their party. Much of liberalism is pretense. This has long been the case. Many well-off liberals are very like Mrs. Jellyby in Dickens's "Bleak House."
American capitalism provides much opportunity but less assurance. We've modified it a lot over the years to make it "softer." Many want it softer still. There is, it's true, a kind of capture and exploitation of the political and thus the economic system that is corrupt and unfair. We have to work to change this. And though it sounds like victim-blaming, it's apparent that culture is often part of the problem in the perpetuation of poverty. This is as true in the sticks as in the ghettos. Democrats seem incapable of even acknowledging such a thing as a "cultural problem."
We live this way in California. A thriving economy (5th largest in the World) demonstrates we are on the right track. The news today reports that the Republican party continues to lose support and is now on par with “no party preference” voters.
In Los Angeles County and City we tackle problems — homelessness is the biggest — by raising taxes in an effort to make the place in which we live better for all. At least we try.
1
I was asking myself just yesterday if I could ever have any respect for someone who voted for Donald Trump,
in spite of realizing that it was a sweeping statement.
I came to this conclusion :
No, in all honesty, I could not .
3
The premise of the article is wrong. The premise is well off liberals are voting against their economic self interest when they approve of higher taxes for themselves.
How is it against your self interest pay for what you get from government?
How is it against your self interest to NOT leave your debt to your children?
Why is it against your self interest to agree to pay for better schools for your kids, better city services like an adequately numbered and trained police and fire department?
How is it against your self interest to pay for repairing infra structure or improving public transit or cleaning up pollution?
It is a known fact that low tax "red" states suffer far greater levels of social pathology (divorce, drop out rate, smoking, drug use, lack of HC insurance, mortality rates, teenage/out of wedlock birth rates, low wages) than higher taxed "blue" states.
Maybe college educated liberals/Democrats "get it". They want to live a comfortable, safe and healthful life and are willing to pay for it.
I've said for decades the great overlooked story by intellectuals is that of the "welfare conservative" who wants all the good things liberals are willing to pay for but he wants them for free.
8
Your last paragraph hit the nail on the head.
The concept of a meritocracy is quite a profound American value.
Some liberal bloke who has spent his entire life educating himself
and working hard is not going to give it all away because of a "liberal" ideology defined by others in the democratic process.
America, as compared with a small Scandinavian society is not that cohesive. We are not all one big happy family, more or less closely related genetically as are many Scandinavians. This is basic evolutionary biology at work.
People relate more to people who are more closely related genetically, who share many of the same genes.
The more highly educated are protective of their earned privileges ..
2
Will affluent white liberals, whose expressive or affective partisan identification has been with the Democratic Party, continue to be steadfast members of the left coalition if they perceive imminent threats to their economic well-being, their property values, their children’s educational opportunities and their own relatively homogeneous neighborhoods? - A resounding no! In my opinion, White liberals are not that different from White conservatives. They simply think they are more "evolved."
2
You see, the thing is, professor, white liberals actually support the things you mention - such as good education, economic fairness, and lifting people out of poverty so they can move into nicer neighborhoods.
We don't vote against our own self-interests, as so many white conservatives do. So, yes, indeed, we are more 'evolved.'
“How firm is the commitment of the Democratic Party to an agenda that shifts benefits to those on the bottom half of the economic distribution...”
The fact that the Dem party bosses are sabotaging progressive congressional candidates as they sabotaged Sanders campaign, gives us an unequivocal answer - not firm at all.
3
You can see it in plain sight even here. The NYT comments are usually well written, and raise a point. But the popularity in "recommends" is hugely biased towards their identity in politics.
NY AG accused of abusing women: The top voted comments are making pleas for due process, and to not have it a witch hunt. Donald Trump and Roy Moore had no such comments sitting at the top. Personally I can't stand either Trump or Moore, but hypocrisy and tribalism are the problem in discourse now.
There are highly educated people here making very good comments but we need to stop tribalism and identify with facts and reason rather than party or tribe. Feelings on issues should be applied universally. Otherwise you too are part of the problem of identity emotional politics that are destroying discourse and relations in the USA.
1
Facts and reason are precisely why I quit the GOP and became a Democrat. As for comparing the AG to tRump, the latter still has a job, doesn't he? So let's not pretend there's not a double standard between what the GOP gets away with and what Dems are punished for.
3
This is when I realize that 'research' can be totally misleading, and in fact 'bogus'. Sorry Thomas, I don't buy this at all.
Yes, we are 'predictably irrational' at many levels. But if you think 'polarization' is coming from well educated people, then you are dead wrong.
Sorry.
1
Perhaps in today's political environment those with a broader education are better able to separate the wheat from the chaff and in doing so find that the chaff is filled with lies and misrepresentations. Is it not a natural human response to polarilze against groups that day in and day out engage in such blatant distortions in an effort to influence my opinion? One necessarily develops a deep mistrust of everything that comes from such a group, and thus polarizes against that group; that is a more rationale response than trying to segregate truth from fiction in every statement made by the other.
1
its absolutely abhorrent for governments of all stripes to take what amounts to 60 percent of someone's income even if they do make millions of dollars a year. but you have to pay for what you buy, and the current regime of ever increasing government deficits and debt is a prescription for national disaster. a just tax system must pay for what is spent and it must fairly distribute the tax burden. the current system fails on both counts.
1
Why should educated Democrats’ concern for the broader good be thought of as “supportive of policies seemingly adverse to” their own interests, and not FOR their broader interest, to live in a society that works?
And why does this concern have to be the result of tribal allegiances and partisan hatred, and not of simple common sense?
2
I could not disagree with this article more. More education helps them see the forest instead of the trees. They realize that more taxes (put to good uses) means good things can happen for everybody. It goes back to the days long ago when there was a large debate about taxes to support schools. People whose children are out of school, or childless couples complained that they should not have to pay for education because they no longer needed schooling for themselves of their children. The argument that education benefited everybody. Thus it was decreed that everybody had to pay for public education. That same principle still applies today. Wealthy, educated Democrats understand this for other causes, and thus do not mind paying more taxes to benefit society as a whole. Rich, educated Repulicans do not care about society as a whole, they only want to put more money in their pockets and always vote for less taxes. After all, they've already got theirs, right? This article completely misses the point.
Let me emphasize: This era is an aberration (I hope).
When one party of an advanced nation is willing to let an ever-increasing proportion of its people go without healthcare, this is not about "identity."
When one party refuses to investigate the intrusion of a hostile foreign power into an election, this is not about "identity."
When glaciers are disappearing and low-lying areas are repeatedly flooding, owning up to reality is not about "identity."
The "left" in this country includes what would be the right and center of any other advanced nation. The right wing has moved so far off the charts, it has broken the bounds of common sense and common humanity.
3
Let's look at colleges as they currently exist. They are bastions of free speech, as long as no one is offended. Free speech is encouraged as long as it is politically correct free speech. If anyone challenges any "progressive" dogma, that is where free speech ends, and it is opposed violently. This does not sound like an enlightened education, even liberals have been forced to exit some of these "educational" institutions. All this crowing about the supposedly educated "progressives" when they are not educated but indoctrinated. That indoctrination explains the polarization, it has nothing to do with education or intelligence.
1
"Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests?" This question is the problem. It is within my self interest to create the kind of world that I want to live in. It is within my self interest to protect the dignity of children (who deserve education, healthcare, food, and more) because I believe in their potential, and that I'd rather pay for their educations than their jails. It is within my self interest to pay for my neighbor's healthcare with preventative benefits, rather than his ER bills when he's uninsured but experiencing a health catastrophe. It is within my self interest to protect the planet, because rising temps impact all of us. Just because I am not a poor child or an uninsured person doesn't mean I can't see how it makes society better to feed children, to offer healthcare to all. My question is, "Why can't everyone see it that way?!"
3
I think the explanation is pretty simple: lower-income voters like tax cuts because the extra money means more to them. The fact that wealthy people also benefit is not really a concern for them. Wealthy people benefit more from everything!
1
Edsall sets up an interesting dilemma then digresses into an entirely different train of thought. He ways that college educated people are more likely than the less well educated to want to "tax the rich" (people who make over 250k). He does not seem to understand that the majority of college educated people are making much less than 250k and see that salary as being truly wealthy and care free. It is not the rich demanding taxes on the rich it is the upper middle class standing up for themselves against a ruling rich group that wants to treat people who make over 100k as equally liable for taxes as people who make over 250k. One group is drowning in mortgage and education debt, the other is just pulling the levers of power to insure that they remain on top.
I am disappointed that Edsall, like most journalists, have so little insight into the struggles of people making an upper middle class salary.
1
This isn't that hard. People don't like to be told their argument is wrong. People who go to college and paid good money to "be smarter" REALLY don't like to be told they are wrong.
I know. I'm a professional. And you're wrong for thinking this comment is wrong. ... Couldn't help myself.
Seriously though...
If you sit around talking politics, religion, sports, health, whatever, with any group of professionals, you will be in for a giant mess of an argument where everyone walks away thinking they had the best solution or position or whathaveyou.
It is very difficult to find humble self-reflection and compromise in the professional world because we have all be trained to be "right." It doesn't surprise me in the least that this plays a part in the polarization of politics.
2
College does not train people to think that they are right. Quite the opposite. What I learned in college was to question myself, and form opinions based on facts.
In the current political climate, the distortion of facts is what is fueling polarization.
1
This great column raises ( but doesn't answer) two important questions. Will affluent white liberals continue to be steadfast members of the left coalition if they perceive imminent threats to their economic well-being, their property values, their children’s educational opportunities & their own relatively homogeneous neighborhoods? Let me answer that. Absolutely not. If you're telling me that is the only option the Democratic party is offering...that I have vote against my own interests...well that is an insane strategy. This will translate into an epic political disaster... as it has before. Mind you I'm defining affluent as households making $100,000 or more who constituted the top 24.7 percent of American households in 2014. If you define affluent as Silicon Valley billionaires or Wall Street plutocrats they won't care...they won't feel the pain of a 20% hike in taxes. But it's the height of arrogance to think people making over $100,000 a year who are stretched to the max with mortgages, car payments, & student loans won't revolt if the DP tells them they need to sacrifice more. These so called privileged voters are indeed crucial to the party’s prospects in 2018 & 2020. What this column speaks to is a civil war brewing within the party's centrist & progressive wings as they vie for power. If progressives win they will drive these affluent voters as they have working class people into the arms of the GOP. I'm hoping the centrists win this conflict.
2
I've always been befuddled by this paradox, why poorer Americans do not vote for their personal interests, in terms of wealth redistribution. Maybe it's because the taxes they pay take such a bite out of their pay checks, that they are just generally antagonistic to taxes in general, no matter who is being taxed? Until the middle and lower classes wake up and take control of the political process by voting for progressive legislation, which they could easily do given their numbers, then inequality and substandard public investment will continue to dog us until the whole system breaks and we have a revolution.
Their awakening and response may be more violent in nature than a vote.
It's an interesting observation to ponder.
I'm wondering if it's just that educated voters are more likely to think for themselves. Or is it that they are following the leanings of the school they have paid into.
Another piece of information that might be useful is if the answer "don't know" was considered in the survey questions and whether the conclusions might be somewhat different if we had the full data set.
I think Prof. Edsall needs to check out the attitudes of affluent liberal Democrats in San Francisco toward proposed zoning law changes intended to help ease the housing crisis experienced by lower income individuals and families.
I've not read all the comments for Professor Edsall's invaluable op-ed, but most of the replies I've read by people with high levels of formal education and who are in good/great financial situations tend to be defensive, indignant, and unwilling to engage with key points, notably the point that Edsall makes in the form of a question in his title. In fact, my first response, posted here earlier this afternoon, is full of these flaws. By the end of Edsall's article, he has offered solid evidence well-educated liberals (like me) often are not so generous and progressive when the prospect of true economic and social change comes up for a vote in their "own" schools and neighborhoods. This is true, and too many people are taking this article very personally while not facing up to the challenge expressed so simply and effectively in its title.
1
Any concrete example of such a votes in their "own" schools and neighborhoods?
And any concrete studies proving that that would be a problem with a majority of wealthy liberals, as you seem to claim here (and knowing that none of the studies that Edsall comes up with here even MENTION questions like that)?
1
This round-up of research on political/social identity and partisanship is interesting, but misses an even more fundamental aspect of affiliation, which psychologists have also explored. It's not just identity with a party or a tribe, but with an entire way of perceiving the world. It's really a question of seeing life as a zero-sum game or believing we're all in this together.
3
Many liberals, like me, believe that we will do better if everyone does better and if the pie is more evenly distributed. While I benefited from the Bush tax cuts in that my annual taxes went down by tens of thousands of dollars every year, the impact of the Bush tax cuts on the overall economy were more harmful than the benefits received, as there was no investment growth during his eight years in office. With President Obama's approach (and President Clinton's approach), there was real growth in wages at the bottom by the end of his term, his health policies would have eventually reduced the cost of health care and there would have been continued real growth in the economy. With Trump, his tax cut will balloon the deficit, is already pushing interest rates up and will harm the economy in the long term. At the same time, his health care policy (if you can call it that) will cause insurance costs to skyrocket, cause more people to be uninsured and will once again push people into emergency rooms, where they will get needed care too late and at maximum cost.
To a certain extent, being liberal is self-serving, but it is self-serving over the long haul.
2
The premise that higher taxation for higher wage earners is against the self interest of high wage earners is a fallacy. If the high wage earner values a peaceful and secure, first world society with low crime and well educated people then redistribution is within their self interest.
7
Hear, hear!
I support higher taxes because I would like to have well-maintained parks and roads in my city. I would like to hire educated people who know that the states due north of Florida are Georgia and Alabama.
When a major storm hits, I want my city and state to have the resources available to get us back to normal quickly. I also want the federal agencies to have the resources to tell when and where those hurricanes are going to hit.
All of that is worth paying higher taxes.
6
My guess is those who are in favor of raising taxes somehow benefit by raised taxes, government workers with some liberal arts degree for example. More money going to the government benefits them. Also those in politically correct business like renewables that are heavily subsidised by the government.
1
"Expressive partisanship, in effect, allows the most committed to override their own circuitry and support policies antithetical to their economic interests."
I completely disagree with this statement. I am not overriding my circuitry in being willing to pay more taxes to educate the next generation and provide health care and social support to those who need it. My "circuitry" compels me to support these initiatives because we are all in it together. In the deepest sense, we are all one. My brother and sister humans are my concern, even if I never meet them, do not like them, or abhor their political views.
5
Edsall errs this week by adapting the long discredited "Firing Line" standard of rote neutrality toward two things being compared even when what is at stake is an assessment of the two that should allow for one to be judged better or worse. In doing this, Edsall seems to be adopting the same sort of stylized neutrality that psychologist -- amply cited here -- adopt in discussing ideology as a sort of prejudice (or "motivated reasoning") because they do not as psychological social scientists risk claiming the range of expertise (political, economic, moral,etc.) needed to provide well rounded analyses and assessments of ideology. Tricky business being objective, but sometimes one of the "objects" being assessed needs be termed diseased or destructive. Edsall sets himself up u in a tough spot in this column. Uncharacteristically, he ends up in one.
1
Edsall considers paying higher taxes "duress," and seems surprised, or at least presents as surprising, the idea that "narrow economic self-interest has always been a relatively weak predictor of policy preferences relative to other symbolic considerations" to the point that "many well-educated affluent Democrats might very well support these types of redistributive programs."
It's called society. I know some well-off (by my standards - probably in the $150k range) folks who would happily see their taxes go up if it was part of shift away from the largely bipartisan abandonment of government as force for good in people's actual lived experience. (One's as likely to hear about "public-private partnerships" being used to "harness market forces" to "incentivize job creators" to be a "disruptive actor" from a D as an R these days.)
Most Dems I know, whether they're tradesmen, educators or well-paid lawyers, simply don't buy into the Adam Smith For Dummies idea that we're all just self-motivated value extractors looking to squeeze what we can from everyone else. Unfortunately, we're not very well represented by our elected officials or the journalists and commentators reinforcing each other's ideas of what "conventional wisdom" simply must be.
5
One of the realizations that comes with being relatively comfortable financially is that you can be comfortable and still not have nearly as much money as you need to be truly insulated from risk.
I have savings and assets but I could still land in the poorhouse if I were out of work for long enough. During the Great Recession the unemployment rate in my profession approached 30%.
If all goes according to plan, I will have substantial retirement savings. Yet Social Security will still form a substantial part of my retirement income and I will rely on Medicare for health coverage. Meanwhile, my parents enjoy the benefits of Social Security and Medicare - which helps them remain financially independent and not rely on their children, i.e.: me, for support.
Therefore, if I support policies that increase my taxes I don't see that as acting contrary to my interests. I see it as supporting government programs that directly benefit me and my family. The programs I don't directly benefit from I see as insurance. I don't need them now but they would be there if I ever did.
9
Perhaps affluent liberal voters understand taxes can provide greater security for all in society and contribute to the common good. Maybe the affluent liberal voter believes it is in their self-interest to see economic opportunity spread to all strata of society.
8
This article and many of the comments flabbergast me. Are we all really such narcissists that we don't understand the idea of choosing a path for the common good?
I'm a wealthyish liberal and I am happy to pay more taxes to enable people who do not have as much achieve. I'm happy to pay taxes for schools in which I have no child. I'm happy to contribute to roads that I may not use... Isn't that what being a liberal is about? Good for all?
Is that really such a bygone idea?
We all have so much and we deride the rich for being greedy, yet we do not give.
6
Well, happy to pay--if it's reliably demonstrated that the money is used efficiently to pay for essential services, or produces a positive return. Education does pay a positive return, but the states are steadily cutting back on public education. Prisons don't have a positive return, but we're spending more and incarcerating more....
The topic of voting for or against one's interests is always interesting, for lack of a better word. So far as I can see, there are at least two ways of defining such interests--in selfish, short-sighted terms and in less selfish terms, focused on community and long term well being for that community.
I'd hope that those at the levels that are better formally educated and whose financial situations are good/great, and who advocate progressive income tax policies, see their interests as falling into the less selfish category. That's how I like to see myself, for what that's worth--and I don't think it should be worth very much at all.
2
OK. You might make Trump happy if someone reads this to him, but really, a perfectly apportioned line chart conflating high levels of education with high levels of of both liberal and conservative tribalism? This is too creative, and not helpful.
2
The assumption running through this piece is either that a) reasonable people care solely about promoting their own self-interest or b) people, whether reasonable of not, should care solely about promoting their own self-interest.
In either case, hogwash!
People -- reasonable or not -- should and do care about all sorts things, including (but not limited to) promoting their own self-interest. Just to cite an outstanding obvious example, people become firefighters, policemen, soldiers, sailors, and, yes, even spies, for reasons that actually drive them to risk life and limb.
Perhaps those of us who see taxes as about something a little bigger than simply paying the same amount, relative to income, that everyone else, including those poorer than us, does are coming from place, which Mr Edsall cannot imagine.
That possibility should interest him. It's not altruism, necessarily. In some cases, at least, it's simply about the awareness that luck plays a role in life and calls those of who've been lucky -- lucky enough to be relatively well off and even comfortable -- to give back.
Ever consider that, Mr. Edsall?
5
"Self-interest" is an interesting concept. Does it mean only financial gain? Can't someone's self-interest manifest itself by wanting to be proud of how our nation treats all its citizens, not just those in the highest income brackets? I, for one, would be happy to pay a little more in taxes if it meant I'd be living in a country that values what I value, such as taking care of the earth and those who desperately need health care, fixing our infrastructure and providing better mass transit, and generally treating the rest of the world with respect. A tax cut without any of those values being considered is worthless to me.
6
So! Education matters!
4
Yes, the humble citizen has every right. But those who are willfully ignorant and uninformed should not be calling shots in politics. Our "leaders" should stop bending to their stupid pressures.
2
You need get out more. Come on out to Texas; I'll introduce you to my non-college redneck friends. Nice people except they don't believe Democrats are real Americans. Then we can search for their partisan equivalent among my college-educated friends. We won't find any but the search will be fun.
4
I KNEW it: a college education, that's what's wrong with this country. What a know-nothing article.
2
Oh give me a break. This is ridiculous.
4
All this tells me is that our universities are doing a wonderful job of brainwashing our kids. Pathetic.
I recommend that everyone go and read the original paper. This essay is ridiculous. The idea that education makes one antisocial is ridiculous. The graph shown is not interpretable based on the data and explanation. There are many many other explanations for why people at different levels of education would respond differently to the questions asked. (Go ahead, pick a number between 1 and 100 that represents your outrage at this essay)
But I guess that we must conclude that the South Carolina guy in one of today's NYTimes articles, who attempted to hire a hit-man to kill his black neighbor and hang him from a tree must have been a freakin' PhD. And everyone who is outraged by that act must be one too.
6
This article is predicated on the outmoded idea that taxes are somehow confiscatory. All dollars come from the government. Federal taxes, federal debt, and federal spending are all essential parts of a cycle by which the economy gets the fuel and lubrication that it needs. Most importantly, the government doesn't need taxes to spend, but it does need to take money out of the economy to prevent inflation. Eventually government spending accrues (by definition) to the wealthy and taxes suck the excess out of the system. Conservatives call that confiscation. Everybody focuses on gaming the system than on making it work for everybody. To get stuff down. Like transportation, housing, medical care, clean food, education, etc.
1
I don’t buy it. If anything, the analyses Edsall cites mostly get it backwards: “These effects of identity-based ideology on political evaluations are psychological and emotional...” Actually, it is usually our psychological and emotional reactions to issues (and politicians and what they do and say) that influences our so-called identity-based ideologies. Sure, we can all be sorted into groups. But these political scientists have the causalities all wrong. Advocate for policies that go against my core values, or do and say things that make me really cringe, and I don’t care what party you’re with: I will vote the other way.
1
A college degree has become like a drivers license. Nothing special at all and there are certainly a lot of licensed drivers who are very dangerous out on the road. Just like those with college degrees who think they are educated and smarter than others. Dangerous.
1
Agree. What is sad and dangerous is that much of college particularly in liberal arts degrees is not education, it is indoctrination. It explains why those with liberal arts degrees (excluding hard sciences) as so much more partisan now days. They cannot think critically nor do they try and understand opposing points of view.
1
Actually, I'm trying to figure out why an increasing number of people want to define me as a member of "the elite." Really, is that all one needs to be a member of "the elite" these days? Requirements for "elite" status have certainly slipped over the decades. Even with my two college degrees, my work and political lives have no more or less dignity than my father's did, and he had a 3rd grade education.
1
We have a lot of problems in this country, but too many educated voters is not one of them.
6
This is just dead wrong and egg-headed. It isn't party loyalty making well-educated and upper-income Democrats support higher taxes on the affluent--it's brains, enlightened self-interest and empathy. Educated Democrats realize that the government isn't taking in enough money to pursue goals they see as important. Moreover, they are more likely to view the state of the country and one's quality of life as a shared fate...we are all better off and happier when the country as a whole does well, in contrast to Republicans and especially Libertarian types who focus only on self-gain (and wrongly believe that all the poor and working poor are entirely responsible for their state). Finally, there's empathy. Democrats are more empathetic and inclined to see how the odds are stacked against the poor and ethnic minorities in the US and the obligation of the affluent to help those less fortunate and advantaged, while Republicans rationalize away the disparity by insisting that we live in a meritocracy with equal opportunity for all--a patently false notion.
Finally, there is a reason the poor and working class (especially Republican) are less supportive of taxes on the rich. They've been sold a fantasy about the American dream, that all have an equal shot at riches and that it could be their money the tax man comes for when they finally make it. A lot of uneducated Americans are like lottery players, sure that they will be the winner in a rigged game.
10
Perfectly stated. Thank you.
1
I find that wealthy liberals support the most outrageous left wing policies; their wealth insulates them from any impact the policies may have on their lives. In the example of immigration, wealthy liberals can move to gated protected communities to protect themselves. Wealthy liberals say they support public education, but send their own children to elite private schools. The examples are endless how wealth shields liberals from their outrageous policies, so that in actuality they have more in common with wealthy conservatives. Thank you.
4
Wealthy liberals support education and comprehensive immigration reform through voting for politicians that support it too and have already proven to be competent enough to achieve something substantial here - even though that implies paying a bit more taxes themselves.
That being said, as long as the GOP continues to fight against those ideals, yes of cours private schools will be better, and the uneducated will continue to make walking on the streets less safe. As wealthy liberals aren't fools either, they'll use part of their money to protect their own families against these negative GOP results, of course. What's wrong with that ... ?
1
Liberals, conservatives, more educated; whatever - once Trump got thrown into the mix, most of Mr. Edsall's arguments went out the window.
1
I think this article pretty much says what most people who more conservative believe.
When one reads comments such as the one from one person who said that Brookline women were brighter, better educated and far more thoughtful than their economic equivalents in the Midwest, is so arrogant and patronizing. She has no idea what these women think! But she assumes if they are not pounding their chest over their "enlightened and evolved" thinking, that they are dolts.
In my experience, liberals are the least tolerant human beings on earth. Their arrogance causes them to believe "it's my way or the highway".
It's easy for wealthy people to embrace higher taxes - they have plenty of money to meet their basic needs and still have lots of discretionary income left over. Those of use closer to the middle learned a long time ago, that when Congress decides to increase taxes on the "rich", we suddenly discover that WE are considered part of the "rich". We're NOT rich! Yes, we can meet our basic expenses, but there is not a lot left over and most with children are frantically saving for college as when it comes to financial aid, once again, we're "rich" and get none. Someone earning $175,000 a year with 2 children 2 years apart in age, cannot afford $75,000 a year in tuition.
We also cannot afford the kind of taxes someone making a seven figure salary can easily afford to pay. There aren't enough "rich" people to not also have to tax the middle class more as well.
6
As a wealthyish liberal, I have to say that the thing that bugs me about wealthy liberals is that they support tax policies that work against their economic self-interest (narrowly construed of course)--but then they bemoan poor or working class Republicans for "voting against their own economic self-interest." It's as though they think that they themselves are allowed to vote on the basis of their moral beliefs--but no one else is. Anyone else who votes against their own economic self-interest is clearly "duped" by party propaganda.
54
Not really. When wealthy liberals vote "against their own economic self-interest" they are consciously voting FOR an improvement in others' quality of life and the common good. Working class Republicans vote against their own economic self-interest while their stated goal is to improve their economic self-interest.
39
I don't think everyone who votes against their own immediate financial interests has been "duped", I think a substantial percentage of people understand the personal cost but believe it to be outweighed by the common good. I think one big difference between dems and republicans is that republicans attribute success to the individual. They think if that person has more money, it's because they deserve it, and if I continue to work hard I will soon join the ranks of the wealthy. Whereas democrats see all of the outside factors that contributed to an individual's success: access to quality education, infrastructure, government policies that favored them, being born a white cis-gendered man, etc. So dems see more people being helplessly trapped if it were not for government intervention.
25
1. Could you please explain how paying a little more taxes, as a wealthy liberal, somehow would be against rather than advancing their own economic self-interest?
2. Many wealthy liberals refuse to vote MERELY "on the basis of their moral beliefs" but try to include as many proven facts as possible. Because of a lack of education (which higher taxes for the wealthiest citizens can solve, if the money saved goes to better education and more access to education for the poor), many poor Republicans are voting today for politicians and even ideas that have been PROVEN to make their situation/poverty only worse.
So of course liberals (wealthy or not) bemoan that fact. It's not voting on the basis of moral beliefs that they bemoan, it's the fact that the poor don't have access to proven facts and as a consequence vote against their own interests AND the interest of America as a society, that they bemoan.
For a liberal, not fighting climate change, for instance, means not taking his OWN interests into account. If you have a majority of the uneducated (working) poor who are unaware of this fact and then vote for a party that deliberately and actively makes climate change even worse, the result is bad for wealthy liberals and the poor alike, as we all breath the same air, you see?
25
The short version of this article is that culture and "tribe" emotional issues, especially when one feels that one's "tribe" is being personally insulted and mocked. "Educated" liberals don't seem to "get" that. FDR era liberals did not mock or insult working class whites, or the people in the bread lines. Even FDR conservatives never did that. But today's "educated" liberals seem to lack some basic human skills.
1
The polling data are taken in the abstract. When it comes down to it, Democrats/Liberals share the same self-righteous assumption that they are entitled to my hard-earned money, that anyone who excels is by definition a cheater, and that they, not I, know best how to deploy my resources.
2
The graph included in the article covers the period from 1972 to 2012. Over that time frame consider how far “the goalposts” have been moved for a voter to be considered “extremely” liberal or conservative. In 1972 there was wide support in the GOP for Environmental Protection, funding of SSI and Medicare, a progressive Income Tax, reasonable gun control efforts etc. etc. Today we have the “Club for Growth”- No New Tax Pledge, hIghly influential NRA “Grades and Endorsements” and a GOP platform that includes a the explicit goal of passing a Constitutional Amendment to Ban ALL abortions. Toss in FOX News- “the cure” far worse then the disease of Liberal Media Bias and complete the picture. I’m a College Educated, retired upper Income Capitalist and not a Democrat. My record of voting across Party Lines diminishes. Wonder why?
3
Disappointing. You take one attribute (education) and run correlations between it and political views (or biases, as you call them). Then you posit one simplistic explanation to explain this correlation: group identity. Come on. Really? Has anyone taken Statistics 101? The methodological quality of your argument is poor.
2
“Much of the growth in ideological consistency has come among better educated adults — including a striking rise in the share who have across-the-board liberal views, which is consistent with the growing share of postgraduates who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party.”
As anyone who has recently visited San Francisco knows, it only takes but a few hours in Lenin’s Bay Area to see the truth in this–most “lean toward” the DNC Politburo. However, the triumph of will here lies with the real success of Marcuse and the Neo-Marxist UC system. Google, Facebook, Apple et al. are merely its products uber alles.
As Zuckerberg testified to the Senate--the Bay Area is an “extremely left-leaning place”, e.g., home of Pelosi, Harris, Feinstein, Governor Moonbeam, and, of course, the masked Berkeley “free-speech” street-thugs.
The only thing missing, it seems, from Lenin’s Bay Area is Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety, though it seems it's already operating inside the Google complex.
1
Maybe you could discuss the Republican Party in detail too.
1
God, when will the stupidity of writers like this end? ALL government income is redistributive. Radical Republican policies would redistribute it back to the wealthy where...something good was supposed to happen. It doesn't and never will.
Meanwhile millions suffer for it.
2
This is a moral problem more than an ideological problem. The increasing polarization we see is eerily reminiscent of the German Weimar Republic in the early thirties. Here is a quote from Stuart Hampshire, a British philosopher who worked in Intelligence, and interviewed Nazis captured during WWII. "The Nazi revolution was a revolution of destruction, and more particularly, of moral destruction...The aim was to eliminate all notions of fairness and justice from practical politics, and, as far as possible, from person's minds; to create a bombed and flattened moral landscape, in which there are no boundaries and no limits...” We are witnessing the same phenomenon today with the Trump presidency, as one moral barrier after another is torn down and discarded. Remember: Hitler started the Second World War.
4
Another insultingly stupid article.
This is an exercise in "complicate and obfuscate." The article's author chalks partisanship among the highly educated up to mere tribalism, and even cites studies that similarly misread statistics to support the bizarre inference that there is an inverse relationship between education and critical thought and individualism--that those who push furthest to expand their mind are actually most predisposed (or primed) to unthinkingly revert to primitive social behavior. What illogical, convoluted nonsense.
Doesn't it make more sense and ring truer that people who are more highly educated have further explored their own beliefs and ideologies, and are thus more committed and able to justify their opinions and defend their convictions? Casting aside the eponymous question for a moment, doesn't it seem more plausible on both sides?
As for prejudice (and I can't believe I'm talking about etymology either): those who are ignorant yet have strong opinions hold PREJUDICES. Those who have accurate information and form judgments have PRINCIPLES. The "pre" in "prejudice" indicates (or at least connotes) beliefs formed BEFORE one has the experience or knowledge to justify their conviction.
Conflating these concepts is a major problem: hatred of blacks, gays, Muslims, women, etc. is not a preliminary feeling. It is optimistic, but it is smug liberalism at its worst, to imagine progress is inevitable. Bad ideas will not eradicate themselves.
2
At first glance, it appears the opinion stresses the very frequently applied term "tribalism" to describe much of what is described by the writer. He refers to emails from, (personally) unrecognizable people stating conclusions having no documentation. I do think his position of self interest is very convincing, yet his illustrations(particularly the California affordable housing legislation) may be more the exception than the rule. Not recognizing the one- issue voter like the NRA, woman's rights, anti-abortionist, may have been negligence. The awareness and education of what a democracy and why it is necessary to establish a flourishing nation, seems to be missing in this piece. The Karl Marx predictions of how capitalistic philosophy will seep into a social culture is significant and may apply to our severe self-interest as a nation, inclusive of " make AMERICA great again." I believe our great mistake is too many people, believe in loyalty to people and institutions rather than loyalty to ideals and ideas.As individuals, we are not using our self interest to enhance the strength and well-being of a democracy; we are misusing our democratic process to enhance our self interest and well-being at the cost of our nation's future well-being. We have lost sight of how a democracy functions : checks and balances, informed citizens, knowledge of what a democracy is, knowing the US Constitution etc.
1
If policy choices follows partisan choices, if party membership comes first, then what determines party membership? Not policy options, not party platforms.
It is a specifically Democratic Party conceit that a fable about policy options in a Party Platform that will never be honored will draw in membership. Republicans have always followed a very different idea, one that Democrats demean as voting against interests, meaning not listening to policy promises (never kept).
When the Democratic Party was stronger, it had union members because they were union members, not because of policies. Blacks turned out for their own leaders, often churches, or for Obama, not because college students wrote nice things on Hillary's policy promise web site that she probably never read and certainly would not have done.
This story could be summarized: Democrats are wrong. They've abandoned their base for an idea that does not work.
2
In these studies how much of the “party identity” can be ascribed to what the respondents are against as opposed to what they are in support of? Whether on the “right” or the “left” so much of modern American politics is defined by what one is against rather than what one truly strives for. That may go a long way to explaining the apparent dissonance noted in this article, such as affluent, well educated liberals and conservatives NIMBY-ism.
I agree with Mr. Edsall's line of reasoning. What he points out is sad but true.
And if you are old enough to have experienced the gains that were made during the Roosevelt (FDR) Administration, then I suppose you could conclude [with Mr. Edsall?] that, "the issue oriented politics of the New Deal have finally run out of steam." [my caption]
While I cannot argue with statistical results of the various survey used to support this article, I will point out that wealthy, well-educated people supporting higher taxes on high income brackets does not represent an abandonment of self interest. Quite the contrary.
History clearly shows that a very unregulated economy, one in which generally taxation is low, leads to a pooling of money in the hands of very few. That inevitably reduces demand, which in turn, leads to job losses as manufacturers and others cut production. The onset of the Great Depression in the 1930 illustrates this point well. Logically, then, taxing the wealthy more than others will redistribute the money, keeping demand relatively stable across the income spectrum. Clearly, this does not need to move an otherwise capitalist economy to socialism. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Viewing things from this angle, one can see how high taxation on the wealthy is one method by which a government can keep an economy growing at a relatively stable pace, increasing wealth for broad swaths, namely the wealthy.
Gutting regulatory agencies and slashing taxes for the rich is little more than a pyrrhic victory for that income class.
2
High taxes are for others to pay. The influence wielded by money in our politics is the real culprit in our Democratic system. Citizens United has done more harm to our Democratic process than we understand. We the voters no longer have sway. Super-Pacs run this country.
4
There is more to self interest than my own personal income. I want good schools for my kids and to support my community and home prices. I want clean beaches. I want smooth roads. I want the government to take better care of homeless. I want police I can trust. I believe allowing people to choose Medicaid if they want would improve choice and access to healthcare.
All of these things and more are in my self interest. I am willing to pay for them. Why aren’t conservatives?
What do they (really) want?
If “conservatives” wanted these things, then I would be a comfortable swing voter, but their actions indicate otherwise.
8
The notion that higher taxes for more wealthy citizens is against a person's "self-interest," and that economic and ethnic/racial integration is "irrational," reflects Edsall's own blind partisanship. He appears unable to conceive of a world where people consider a healthy social structure and the greater good as part of their own self-interest and that of their country.
6
I take issue with the idea that people who earn $250,000 and favor increasing their taxes are supporting "policies antithetical to their economic interests." At and above that level of income, all basic necessities of life are easily taken care of, especially if the education of their children has already been paid for. The main danger to their economic interests becomes instead the societal instability caused by extreme difference in incomes.
2
I'm familiar with academia and academics. I appreciate them. But instead of the clinical analysis, I wonder why no one has come to the obvious conclusion that the well-educated may have better ideas on modern issues that come before voters than those that are not well-educated? Can we just say that?
It's not meant to say anyone is better than anyone else, but why else would one get an education if not to gain better-informed decision making skills? Can we make education more affordable for everyone so that the whole population can partake?
6
I disagree that being in favor of higher taxes for the more wealthy, when you are more wealthy, is against economic self-interest. Sure, that may reduce take-home pay in the short-term. But if you are considering well-educated voters, as you propose in the article, then those people should also have in mind the long-term. If you are a person who views dramatic income inequality and an increasingly disenfranchised poor and middle class as a long-term threat to civil society and current forms of democratic government, then it is very much in your economic interest to favor policies that would address income inequality, including policies that in the short-term reduce your take-home pay in order to guarantee in the long term your basic standard of living and quality of life for yourself, your children and future generations.
4
I think the question "Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests?" ignores that many of us recognize that social justice and more economic equality ARE in our best interests. Money truly isn't everything.
In addition, if the political scientists who see a positive correlation with higher education and political engagement/voting are correct, the Republicans would seem to have even bigger problems since they have been expanding their "base" to those with less education, not more.
4
Mr. Edsall usually makes so much sense. Not here. Being educated is closely related to believing in doing the right thing, whether it directly benefits your bank balance or not. What's so difficult to understand about that?
4
I appreciate Mr. Edsalls articles but these “two sides” articles looking for a solution to partisanship is always flawed because it never looks at the root of the problem - the two party system.
We have an us vs. them mentality because there are only two sides to choose from. Our current voting systems don’t allow us to choose an alternative to change the system - it’s all or nothing. See the Tea Party or Trump for perfect examples of the huge demand for an alternative to the status quo. We need ranked-choice voting or more non-partisan elections to truly change partisanship and the damage ya causing in this country. Without that, it will only get worse.
5
Thomas Edsall is a national treasure, but I strongly disagree with the premise of this article. As others have commented, it's not party affiliation that drives attitudes toward wealth distribution among the well-educated - it's different values and ideas about economic self-interest and wealth creation. The frequent references to "rationality" in this article indicate a reliance on old-school economic theory. More recent economic theory recognizes that people don't actually behave "rationally" in such a narrowly construed manner.
1
Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't think it is partisan (liberal) to believe our priorities are geared towards destructive outcomes for our society, especially with this present administration.
The Trump tax giveaway to the big guys is not going to improve the lot of most Americans, and come 2020 or so, the Treasury will be looking for ways to make up the shortfall; taking from the vulnerable. However, taxes on small businesses were too high, lumping them in with the corporations was wrong; they are not in the same league. What should be considered "small," a 1, 5 10, or 20 million dollar top? This is up to the economists; I don't have an answer. Help to small businesses should remain.
Health coverage for all is an absolute must. It is criminal for millions of Americans who don't have health coverage at work to be left out in the cold. And, it is criminal for life's necessity to be at the mercy of insurance companies and drug companies when it comes to life-giving medication. We can fix this if we want to.
Education from preschool throughout, including apprenticeships in all fields in order to compete with the world's economy.
Affordable housing; no one in this country should be homeless. And, money spent for overhauling our infrastructure where it will put millions to work and ripple out to businesses, large and small.
This not partisan, this discussion and implementation should be what would be good for our country.
2
Mr. Edsall is and has always been a conservative. In reading his pieces over many years, it is apparent that he cannot bear to find that corruption has taken charge of the more conservative party--the Republican Party. It began in Nixon’s era, was cemented by Reagan, and hardened under the younger Bush.
If upper-middle-class and middle-class educated people find higher taxes for the wealthy acceptable it is because they have their children and children’s children in mind. We have made a transition from a society where industry and creativity are rewarded to a society where investment (i.e., people who make money by investing while other people labor) is rewarded, the exact opposite of the situation in the years leading up to and immediately after WWII. The aim of the conservative in America today is to stifle those who would achieve, insuring that the conservatives in power now hold power. The Republicans do this by making healthcare atrociously expensive; making education expensive; making self-controlled housing unreachable; providing poor nutrition and entertainment that draws funds from the unsuspecting “ignorant” classes, and moving what was democracy toward autocracy.
In short, Mr. Edsall, I’m not buying your arguments, and I don’t believe anyone should buy them.
3
I hope I wasn't the only one that noticed that the most highly educated conservatives are more 'extremely' conservative than the most highly educated liberal are 'extremely' liberal. There's more to this education-political orientation nexus than evidenced by a single graph.
Nevertheless, in an era when "identity" is everything, it's no surprise that everyone thinks exclusively in those terms. One's status as an "evangelical" is more important than the economic reality of being a low-income wage earner: which is why West Virginia has become so insufferably Republican.
There are also no unions anymore, and without them, there's no class-based political messaging. Educated people know that "trickle down" economics is bunk, but most lower income people still think the Gipper got that right. Hence they're as opposed to taxes and regulation as any scion of Wall Street.
What's missing today is a real social movement promoting the economic interests of wage earners not otherwise a function of gender or race. The inability to recognize how the system allows the haves to take too much means that the
sublimated class based resentment manifests as bigotry, reaction and Donald Trump.
2
Joan Walsh wrote a great book, "What's the Matter with White People?" about the unraveling of the tenuous New Deal coalition between Northern working-class whites and the concerns of non-white voters struggling for civil rights. After the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the working class whites who felt marginalized and threatened migrated to the Republican party and the Dems wasted several decades getting bogged down in identity politics. We know how well that went. It looks like the Dems will have a tail-wind this November, but if they want their comeback to be lasting, they have to focus on a message of social justice and government for all that can resonate equally well with unemployed coal-miners and with Silicon Valley venture capitalists.
2
One thing to note - being "liberal" and "conservative" is still relative. American politics are way more conservative than most European politics. So in the United States, a very liberal person could very well be a moderate person in Europe, and a conservative in the United States is bordering on fascism in some European countries. So wanting universal healthcare in the United States might have been extreme liberalism 10 years ago, but in Western Europe it was what the vast majority of Europeans wanted and expected.
5
Times readers know that education is the key to being in the professional class - and to stay out of the working class. It's not pretty. The prosperity they enjoy depends on having more others that are less educated. "Education for all", as long as it doesn't match theirs....
2
Uh ... can you please explain how educated people would have a "prosperity" that depends on having more rather than LESS others that are less educated ... ?
And you seem to have forgotten that it's the party supported by most Times readers that systematically increases access to education, whereas the GOP systematically does the exact opposite ... ?
1
I find it odd that having beliefs or values now gets researched and expressed as "identity politics" - especially when those beliefs or values have themselves been achieved through research and education. There seems to be an overarching agenda distorting the writer's POV here - a desire to reduce beliefs to simple clannishness in ways that support a popular media narrative but may not be true in reality.
3
Come on people.... this is obviously a false dichotomy. 49% of adult Americans consider themselves Independents. About 24% consider themselves Democrats - and 24% identify as Republicans. There is clearly a political purpose to this article. He'd also have you believe that 'extreme liberals' are hardcore Democrats. Sure, and Hillary was a progressive.... as was Kissinger.
3
NYT, your swing to the right (I will not say ‘the center’) is becoming more pronounced day by day, as evidenced in today’s Opinion pieces...
What is happening here? Confusing.
1
It's an op-ed, so by definition, it only defends the author's views, not necessarily the Times editorial board's opinion.
And any high-quality news media actively looks for op-eds that they disagree with, because that's how you obtain the debates necessary for any democracy to thrive.
The fact that so many conservative op-eds today omit tons of proven evidence (deliberately or not) relevant to the topic that they try to comment on, doesn't mean that the Times' conditions for a quality op-ed have gone down but is rather a sign of the times we're in: there are no real conservative intellectuals anymore, that's why even the NYT has to work with people such as Edsall and (when it comes to the quality of his arguments) even worse, Bret Stephens.
That being said, THESE are the people who control all levels of the government now, so more than ever it's important to hear from them and debate their opinions. Merely rejecting them won't help us move forward...
1
Educated people can see how public spending adds to their own income. Idiots cannot fathom it even when they are on government payrolls with 100% of their own income derived from public spending.
4
I can only wish the NY Times could survey studies of the Christian evangelical sects and their beliefs in reactionary, exclusionary politics. I do believe... that the more rigorous the Christian community the more likely it will forgive
political representatives for groping secretaries and hiding
from their wives, for spiriting money from company coffers,
for advocating violent solutions to international problems,
for poo-pooing climate change and solar power, and a whole
lot of other immoral and backward positions of their own
leadership. They expect sinners to be better Christians,
and believe simple decency is a sign of weakness.
2
What it means is that our universities are nothing but radical Communist indoctrination centers.
So: If we were all stupid, we would be in harmony. Ignorance is bliss.
1
“I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” – Groucho Marx
“This is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher.” – Albert Einstein (on doing his tax return)
“We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are.” – Bill Hicks
1
Raise taxes? Why? You want your trash picked up? You want your sewers to work? You want your snow plowed? You want your streets repaired? Naw!,, those municipal employees are getting too much money, get too much in medical benefits and get crazy pensions. Let's privatize it and make it more efficient. A local government did that with their sewer plant and saw rates double in 5 years! There are no free rides!
2
I wonder if this is a function of the nature of education, particularly higher education. The system itself seems rooted more in ideological truths than in universal truths. In fact, there is even an undercurrent that would suggest there is no such thing as a universal truth.
We need to do a better job understanding where our ideology comes and test it regularly based on facts and common sense. Sadly, it is clear from many of the comments here, people just don't get it. Many commenters seem content to say 'well that's because well-educated Democrats are right" without realizing that they are making the point.
2
"Democratic political leaders are risk averse"?
From the party who licks the boots of the NRA for fear of what they will do to them come next primary cycle if they don't.
What a load of hooey!
1
I'll bet the farm that part of the problem is that we 'educated people' are reading the the NY Times and other print and on-line publications more than the less educated. I think this will get us to form stronger opinions than those who don't follow politics.
Of course there's the dread Echo Chamber that we all fall into. The libs read liberal media only and the cons read conservative media and watch Fox. They're both awfully inbred these days.
So let me get this straight, Becoming more educated, ie: better informed, is a problem because then you find fault with the ignorant? This is an amazingly stupid premise.
We're a little like passengers in bus being driven over a cliff and you think those of us who are awake enough to notice, and attempt to point it out to our sleeping fellow passengers, are the problem? And you get you own weekly column. Just wow.
3
"Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests?"
This statement is absurd. Highly educated people can understand how helping their neighbors is in their own best interest. Here are some examples: If my neighbor cannot afford medical care, he might get sick, not see a doctor, and pass the germ on to me and my children. If members of my community are struggling financially, they might turn to crime and rob my house.
Whether someone is highly educated or not, rich or poor, simply being a good person is the right thing to do. It doesn't take education to understand that; just look at almost any religion and even much secular philosophy.
3
One fallacy throughout this piece is that by voting for higher taxes, Democrats are voting against their own interests (especially economic).
That's simply not true. I can't be a high earner if nobody is able to pay for my services. My home won't appreciate in value if nobody can buy it. Wealth concentration is horrible for prosperity. Eventually the snake consumes its own body.
Some of us realize that short sighted greed and social Darwinism are destructive, and that a measure of altruism is better for the individual as well as society.
1
Democrats = Social Justice issues
Republicans = Their wallets
Democrats = The Future
Republicans - The Past
Democrats = “We’re all in this together
Republicans - Us against “them”
Democrats = Hope and Change
Republicans - Fear and Isolation
Republicans = “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps”
Democrats = First, make sure everybody HAS boots!
Just my opinion, but I’m sticking to it.......
5
How about:
Democrats: everyone can and should be a winner and gets a trophy for showing up
Republicans: You have rules in life. You don't change the rules of a baseball game just because the losers cry or are shocked ("electoral college" theme by Dems)
Democrats: We're all victims
Republicans: Whining (" it's all about Me") never makes an individual strong
2
I think Democrats get blamed for the trophy phenomenon a lot, but I truly believe the problem was created by the entire baby boomer generation.
Baseball/football/sports in general are always adjusting the rules. Crease sizes, three point arcs, what constitutes a catch - these are always being tinkered with. Rules change all the time, in sports and other areas of life.
I don't get the "we're all victims" line, but I agree with you that republicans do a lot of whining.
This article is ridiculous nonsense. It tries to argues that people wanting higher taxes on themselves is somehow exclusionary and prejudiced. Because creating a society with robust public services and infrastructure for all just screams bigotry.
2
The phenomenon described in this column is absolutely misidentified.
It's not education that drives polarization; polarization is driven by political engagement and participation. So-called "moderates" are mostly simply apathetic to politics. Political engagement, in turn, is associated with education.
Rather than a clear-eyed analysis of the data, this column embarrassingly cheery-picks a single correlation to support the point the author wanted to make. It's below the standards of the New York Times.
2
Methinks it's a chicken and egg phenomenon. There is also the tenuous assumption that folks with more education, all of them, are more able to reason. Folks who were born into the solid middle class are more likely to go on to school where folks who come from working class families do not get the same expectation.
So, you may need to reason as to whether the newly hyper-polarized Repugs have so effectively filled the media with rubbish that the modestly capable, from any sector of the society - capable or less so, will blindly buy any tripe well packaged, thus the findings you report from researchers. Thoughts?
The educated voter would of course do a better job of electing officials there is no question about that. But we do not live in such a society. We believe the smartest among us to be as equal as the dumbest in the voting booth. Thus, we wind up with a complete idiot as Trump. In no civilized, educated, cultured world would an oaf like Trump prosper. He is a cypher, a person who reads sparingly and absorbs even less. Trump is proof positive that wealth does not equal intelligence. He is perhaps, no make that is, the stupidest person ever to assume the presidency. And to think in this day and age, and in this country of all places, a cretin like Trump is allowed to lead it defies all sense of reason and logic. So, Stephen Hawking and Ivanka, Donny Jr. and Eric all have equal say in who should be the president. The thought of that simply horrifies.
DD
Manhattan
1
One researcher is quoted as saying, "Political knowledge tends to increase the effects of identity as more knowledgeable people have more informational ammunition to counter argue any stories they don’t like." How is that different from saying that politically or economically knowledgeable people have information that they find persuasive and which they use to defend their views? And why would that researcher conclude that these knowledgeable people formed their view for any other reason than the persuasiveness of the information they use to defend those views? To me it seems that it is easier in the post-modern social sciences domain to get contrarian views published that denigrate the whole concept of knowledge and knowledge-based thinking. I'd need a lot more specific data about the decision making process of these "knowledgeable people" to put any stock in these arguments.
1
The more extreme polarization of "educated" democrats is evidence of my conjecture that colleges now are more in the business of indoctrination than education. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of republicans vs. democrats based on college degree fields. Would suspect democrats vastly outnumber republicans in social "science" degree fields while republicans outnumber democrats in hard science fields like engineering.
2
The author has forgotten one simple thing -- the facts have a liberal bias. Does that make us tribal, or wise?
2
Voting for the good of all citizens rather than your own personal interests makes you a partisan? I thought that it made someone a patriotic citizen. I must not be living in the same country as Mr. Edsall.
2
In short, educated people are able to see how stupid most conservative "principles"are, even when those purported principles are abandoned to expediently shift money to the already monied.
1
With all due respect, the papers cited, the polls, the deconstruction of liberals — all of this leaves out two essential truths. One, for decades the Republican Party has been engaged in delegitimizing the very idea of an opposition and consequently the idea of democracy. For Republicans the Democratic Party has no right to exist and needs to be burned to the ground. Two, the Republican Party’s owners are interested only in enriching themselves and the oligarchy they represent. Mussolini famously defined fascism: “Fascism is when you cannot slide a cigarette paper between business and government." That’s where we are after a long, well financed attack by the Republican oligarchy on the democratic ideal. Political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann chronicle the rise of American fascism in much of their work, of which Mr. Edsall seems unaware. They describe the Republican Party as a “radical insurgency.” (Read “fascist” for “radical.”) It is not, as Mr. Edsall implies, only Democrats making more than $75,000 who favor higher taxes on the rich. In fact it’s a majority of Americans. Said Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” Instead, the American Fascist (read: Republican) Party lowers taxes on the rich. In one of the richest societies in the history of man, people die from lack of medical care and go to bed hungry. That, Mr. Edsall, is the triumph of Republicans. It has nothing to do with identity politics.
1
This silly, insulting article attempts to dismiss liberal and leftist politics as mere social identification overriding "normal" politics of self interest, eliding the fact that altruism is a core liberal value (if sometimes honored more in the breach than the observance). Maybe it's not "us vs. them" so much as the fact that educated, affluent liberals recognize the reality of their privilege and seek to use it for the common good--and can see the moral deficiencies in self-interested, individualistic conservatism (and the entitled attitude it breeds).
“The more highly educated also tend to be more strongly identified along political lines.” And the depth of their education plays a role:
Political knowledge tends to increase the effects of identity as more knowledgeable people have more informational ammunition to counter argue any stories they don’t like.
In other words the more educated and more informed you are the less influenced you are by propaganda designed to motivate the less educated populist regressives against intelligent progressive action and against their own self interests
In other words - objective analysis with the capability to find answers which will benefit the common good thrives among the educated while the ignoraant are prey to appeals to their emotions.
Goebells understood that! All Fascists do!
1
There's the joke about the jesuit and protestant missionaries arguing over who is more righteous.
Finally, the Jesuit says "well, we're both doing the Lord's work, you in your way and I in His".
Nah. All that you're seeing is the graduates of Oral Roberts University hold views based on religion which they've decided to call "conservative". Graduates of Princeton see the world in terms of evidence which is not called "liberal". This mirrors the fact that there really are no conservatives anymore, just religious zealots and their running dog capitalist cronies. The real cleavage in this country is between religious groups seeking to establish a state religion by turning our legal system into one that mirrors their peculiar set of beliefs and those who believe that only secularism in government and law is consistent with the constitution. It could be worse. Look at Israel which faces the choice of either becoming a real democracy by absorbing the Arab population or continuing to be a sham democracy where religious affiliation is more important than anything else.
1
The focus on a tactical question -- will "elite" Democratic Party partisans remain in the fold if it comes time to put up or shut up -- misses what seems to me a more pressing question: how do we fix this hardening of the political arteries?
Isn't that the underlying affliction of our time?
I find myself painted into a corner by these findings and the brush strokes are to broad to truly reflect the detail needed to be a true representation of my reaction to the Republican Party. I have always been a "liberal". That means nothing in regards to my feelings in regards to understanding right from wrong. I am disgusted by their complicit support for a President who is a disgrace to the office and for their treatment of his predecessor. Their attack on his Presidency began during the election and was facilitated by our current CIC. The sick prejudice in Trump created a plan to tap into the huge numbers of people who have the same sick trait as a means to disqualify a black man running for the office. The Republican party fueled the fire and has been feeding hate and prejudice to those constituents who are sick with it by the shovel full. Mitch M. literally stole a SCOTUS seat from a President. I don't care which President it was. It was wrong. Obama's grace through all of his term, was impeccable. We have seen none from our current leader. Both sides of the isle are guilty of self serving acts and ignored their oath to the constitution. We have been choosing the lesser of two evils. We have lost our Democracy and it's principles to greed. HC clearly represented that in peoples minds. Until we get big money out of our politics, we will have to choose the lesser of two evils. Integrity with true service to the people are paramount if we are to survive as a Democracy.
88
It is not wrong to choose sides, which seems to be the gist of this article. The Republican Party is bad. The SA was bad. The Waffen SS was bad . It is crystal clear.
6
Hello Eugene,
I agree with your comment. I think my point was that my choices are based in my values that reflect a need for service to the betterment of all people by ALL politicians carrying out their oath to the Constitution with integrity. My willingness to pay taxes is such a small part of why people vote in my opinion. The history of tax breaks have always benefited corps and the very wealthy. It is moot in my opinion. It is one issue that reflects greed but it is not as powerful as racism, hate and distrust of the other. Right now the Republicans egregious disregard for their sworn oath and actions that represent the greed that is rife in our political system. Good people do bad things for money. Greed colors ones perception and can blind them to their rationalized excuses for losing their way. This is how I feel about HC. Her history of living in an intensely political and wealthy bubble was reflected in her actions and a very large percentage of voters choices reflected that perception of her. Either situation reflects a government that is filled with people whose service is tainted by greed. I truly believe that if we remove the potential and assure that the focus of our public servants is allowed to be service to the people and the country, their choices will reflect this and the job will attract those who want to serve without the chains of begging for money to get elected. It would also eliminate those who see their service as a spot at the trough. .
One thing to be said about research, no researcher gets attention for results that support the status quo- conclusions that are counter-intuitive are what makes headlines and even promote academic careers. This is particularly problematic for the soft sciences, such as psychology and research based on polls and interviews instead of test tubes.
There are many conflicting conclusions that can be drawn from the same research, and the researchers sited here seem clearly to be highlighting conclusions likely to get the most bang for their buck.
1
The Left analyzes itself, then analyzes itself some more. Group members try to divine each other’s deeper motives. Subgroups debate and compete to establish their superior moral authority with claims of greater oppression. The left obsesses over processes. Its members argue over what transgressions by others in the group warrant ostracism or other penalties and about what punishments are just.
The Right sets goals. It appeals to powerful emotions through easy-to-understand messages. It wins, and achieves its goals.
If identity in-grouping/out-grouping, rather actual ideological identification with actual policies and positions is what's driving our partisan divide, then how do you explain the widespread dissatisfaction with with traditional establishment candidates and the support of someone like Bernie (or Trump for that matter)?
When the country was sharply divided in the years leading up to the Civil War, was our biggest problem the depth of division and partisanship?
No. The biggest problem was that almost half the population believed it was their God-given right to own another human being as a piece of property, and were literally willing to fight to the death to continue doing so.
Sometimes one side of a deep political difference is vastly morally inferior, and this explains most of the difference.
One side of our current political divide supports throwing millions of people off medical care, giving tax cuts to the rich at the expense of those with less, encouraging a demagogue, and destroying the planet we live on.
Level of education is not the point.
2
Other research indicates that the well educated are less likely to change their minds when presented with new, contradictory information. Apparently, higher educational attainment increases self-confidence, leading to all sorts of cognitive errors, such as anchoring, etc. As Oscar Wilde said, people would rather be rude than change.
2
Clearly highly educated people are a dangerous bunch. If only there were more Forrest Gumps. Life would be like a box of chocolates every time Trump opens his mouth. You never know what you'll get. Educated people would only complain that it's not chocolate at all, but candy coated cow patties. The brainiacs spoil it for the rest of us.
The academics miss the point. I'm smart enough to make money, but that does not cause me to be greedy for more. Our republic is in real trouble and it will get worse as long as the greedy are in power. I will gladly pay for a healthy society, well-functioning infrastructure, education, healthcare and appropriate national defense. My kids deserve no less.
5
Your fourth sentence says it all. YOU are “willing.” There is nothing stopping you from donating virtually your entire current and future wealth and income to the causes you support with that stated willingness. However, you do not get to decide the tolerable level of spending nor charity that rest of us willingly accept. I have never been able to discern what drives that in liberals. Is it a sense of intellectual or social or moral superiority? Is it a lack of stomach for knock down drag out capitalism and the great wealth it can create juxtaposed with the abject poverty it can force on so many? Or is it about knowing ones limits and as a result, wishing to handicap others to avoid being crushed by competition?
1
This opinion poll ignore the elephant in the room, those left out of the poll, poor, disenfranchised, or +45% who didn't vote due to various reasons. Sure, democracy is polarized here and failing, money and propaganda for Capitalism is winning the day, but society is failing.
1
Pure nonsense. This kind of false equivalence between the left and right ignores history. The right has been fighting a class war for almost 40 years now - since Reagan. Since Obama was elected, that has turned more explicitly into a race war, to disempower people of color and drive as many as possible out of the country. Now the right feels like it is on the verge of a permanent lock on political control of the government of this country and they have lined up behind a buffoon of a president who, they think, will take them the rest of the way there. This is all completely consistent with the economic and political interests of the rich old white men who control the Republican party. Meanwhile, the left, which believes in democracy, has felt that it has to compromise and be the adult in the room. This has played into the hands of the right and helped them to consolidate their control. But the left has slowly begun to wake up to what is happening. They can no longer compromise with the right because democracy itself is threatened. The educated and wealthy left understands that a country where some of the wealth is redistributed to the disadvantaged and disempowered is a better country for all of its people. To say that the wealthy left supports paying higher taxes because of some "ideological identity" that overrides its economic interests is to assume that everyone is driven by pure greed and that no one has any compassion for their fellow human beings.
3
The right is the one fighting a class war? Try again. From Teddy and Franklin through Truman to JFK and LBJ up unit Obamacare, the nanny state has crept up on us to the point where few alive today know anything else.
2
What a bunch of ivory tower mumbo-jumbo. The simple reality is that people who are more highly educated tend to a) subscribe to facts, b) appreciate that no person is an island and that when many people in a society are struggling/suffering, then the entire society, and everyone in it, is brought down, and c) also appreciate that those who are less well-off are often less well-off due to circumstances, biases, and systemic inequities that are beyond their control.
4
The real question here is defining self interest.
For me, higher taxes that pay for national health, better roads, environmental protection programs, improved infrastructure and education are in my self-interest. These are too expensive, or too large for me to purchase by myself.
My interest isn't in redistributing wealth, but building a better America.
The fallacy of the Right is that they believe the more money they keep personally is in their self interest. They are given easy targets to blame by Fox News when their lives are inconvenienced, often expensively, by health care, potholes, infrastructure and education. They ask themselves, why give more money to the inept?
It's easy to see how they get there, but they are wrong. Less government, less services, less is less. Oftentimes, government is the solution. That's why we have it. Ultimately, Conservatives are anarchists with a totalitarian mindset.
3
The most disturbing thing here is how more education seems to exacerbate emotion- and identity-driven, ideologically prejudiced us-them attitudes and us-them politics.
1
I believe its called sharing and self interest are not mutually exclusive.
1
Asking someone making $75,000 how they feel about raising taxes on someone making $250,000 is not asking them about a tax hike that personally impacts them - in the real world, these are very different incomes. Even 150,000 is far from 250,000 in the real world. The issue, I believe, comes down to the fact that virtually nobody thinks of themselves as "rich." Someone making $250,000 looks down the street at a neighbor that spends that sum annually on vacations and feels poor. Someone earning $750,000 most likely associates with loads of people, particularly in big cities, making many times this amount and feels like a poor schlub because he still flies commercial, doesn't have a big house, etc, but is merely comfortable.
The Democrats tend to criticize the "rich" in the abstract, making idiotic assertions such as "they'll have to give up one yacht" and then from a policy perspective wants to tax people earning $250,000, who in big cities are basically middle class. Just wait until the Democratic base rebels, knowing that it's the other guy who needs to be taxed, not them.
After spending 9 months in New England as a liberal, I do see witness this. The liberal identity compels folks here to speak out about racial economic injustice, even though we don't have a significant PoC population that is systematically stuck in poverty(like in Chicago, where I moved from.)
Among conservatives, identity of coal miners and manufacturing labor dominates even though there are only 80K and 12 mil workers, respectively in those jobs. (American economy is predominantly service based now. Most American families can relate to health care aides and teachers.)
Americans(Trump and Bernie supporters, mainly) long for the days when we supplied raw steel to the rest of the world when we should be enthusiastically get behind supplying robots to the rest of the world, in this age of technology.
The most interesting part of this piece is the degree to which more highly educated citizens are more likely to identify unquestioningly with one political side or the other.
One would expect the opposite - the more intelligent and better educated someone is, the more questioning they should be of received opinion and shibboleths of their own side as well as the other. In other words, more highly educated people ought to hold more nuanced opinions, not accepting a predetermined slate of opinions but rather thinking for themselves and taking positions that cross political lines from time to time.
And yet, it appears that the more education you have, the more likely you are to turn politics into your version of old-fashioned religion, with every tenet to be accepted without question and fought for doggedly and dogmatically.
It's odd and not conducive to a healthy society.
1
Wrong, wrong, wrong. When you claim that we vote against our own economic interests, you are essentially claiming that each person lives in a bubble, and that if only each individual would concentrate solely upon what is good for her individual pocketbook in the short term, that there would be less political polarization.
What you ignore is that many of us do not subscribe to the bubble concept of society. Anyone whose eyes are open is aware that what affects me will ultimately affect you, as well. We believe in a society that works together to build and maintain a system that strives for fairness and equality for all. We all drive on the same roads, we all send our kids to public schools, we all shop in grocery stores and farmers' markets, patronize museums, libraries, restaurants, theaters, and utilize hospitals. We have to live in a world with other people. We have to walk down the street with other people beside us. I want the people around me to live happy, comfortable lives, because unhappy, miserable people threaten my happiness and well-being when they go off the rails.
That is self-interest to the maximum - but the kind of self-interest that is of mutual benefit to everyone. The other kind of self-interest is both short-sighted and mean-spirited to boot.
5
Mr. Edsall. You have no understanding of what makes a Democrat tick.
We believe in economic policies that are fair, benefit those who most need help and make our economy stronger. So those with a better understanding of economics (more highly educated) are going to support such policies.
Republicans tend to look out for their own pocketbooks and don't care about helping the less fortunate or making the system fair and strong for everyone. As for the low income Republicans they tend to put babies, guns and god before their own economic interests.
1
I don't think that there is anything stopping the highly educated and affluent Democrats from sending more money to the IRS or local governments. I think that the tax agencies would accept those voluntary contributions. So if you really feel strongly about paying more, write a check.
3
Voting for higher taxes is one thing; voting to have subsidized housing in your neighborhood or sending your kids to inner-city, underperforming public schools is another. My daughter's extremely liberal friends talk a good game, but when they came to visit and went to a part of town where there were a large number of African-Americans who didn't look or act like the cast from Blackish, they immediately wanted to leave. My daughter, who is more conservative but actually walks the tolerance talk and attended an integrated school, couldn't believe how quickly they abandoned their high-minded beliefs. The NIMBY mindset of liberal elites is something I cannot reconcile; the day Nancy Pelosi et al. open their gated communities and subsidize the poorest of the poor in their own affluent neighborhoods is the day I will come back to the fold.
5
Edsall discusses the mechanism that causes better-educated Democrats to hold views antithetical to their own economic interests. I would call that altruism.
But what do you call that which impels the better-educated conservative toward views consistent with his or her economic interest?
2
Less educated Democrats are as susceptible to Republican propaganda as less educated Republicans, namely, that so-called "trickle down" economics works; they also recognize that the wealthy are masters at evading taxation and, perversely, that efforts at increasing tax collections may actually fall on them, rather than the actual targets.
Nothing good ever trickles down.
At the highly educated end of the spectrum conservatives tend to concentrate in high-earning fields - law, medicine, banking, and their commitment to conservatism is an entirely self serving commitment to Adam Smith's Vile Maxim: "All for ourselves, none for anyone else".
In those less remunerative fields - social sciences, education, humanities, arts, history, literature - liberals are concentrated. Study in those fields tends to reinforce a belief that we should be concerned with our fellow man and his lot in life, and that we have an obligation to the society in which we live to make an effort to help those less well off than ourselves.
1
More education = more $ (generally speaking); more $ = more freedom to act contrary to one’s own narrow self interest without incurring existential pain.
Those with little or no money to spare oppose any tax increase, regardless of whether it is targeted at the wealthy, because they fear it also means a tax increase to them...and they cannot afford it!
The (relatively) well off (who also tend to be well educated) are more likely to be OK with policies (e.g., tax increases) that may work to their detriment in some sense because they CAN afford it...they CAN afford to “take one for the team” as it were.
This is not to deny the reality of Identity Politics but, in the end, it still mostly comes down to $.
2
I once politely asked Scott Walker to raise my taxes and fix my schools. He turned pale, left the room, and promptly did the opposite. Now, Wisconsin can't hold onto its young adults, educated or not. This writer's thesis ignores opportunity and mobility.
2
Thinking it over, these high taxes are not as against their interest as it might seem. Many affluent liberals derive their living from the very programs they pay tax to support. Doctors pay high taxes, but the government puts $1 trillion a year into medical subsidies; big lawyers pay high taxes, but big government passes laws and regulations enabling them to sue all and sundry; full professors, deans, and program directors pay high taxes, but government pours enormous subsidies into higher education. Many more are employed in government-related jobs and tax-exempt foundations. High-powered consultants and lobbyists make a fine living in a convoluted, bureaucratic state.
I suspect that the affluent people who work in a private industry with no government contracts or subsidies, would be considerably less enthusiastic about paying higher tax.
4
The liberal response to conservative wrong-headedness in these pages has often been, "The problem is the breakdown of our educational system." But it appears that the best-educated voters are the most partisan. Now what?
"Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests?"
Well, I'll go out on a limb here and posit that it's because in the final analysis, they realize that policies intended to help other people are *not* adverse to their own self-interest at all.
3
My thoughts exactly!
I know little about professional basketball and I don't care which team wins. My relative is from Houston and knows all about basketball and used to play in college. He has strong views about the upcoming playoffs, and can analyze strategies and predict what will happen in mid-play.
Politics and the fate of the country are more important (sorry, Jack the basketball guru) than sports, but the way knowledge leads to better-informed conclusions and thus more confidence in them is the same.
1
Simply put, there's more to life than making money. if the marginal benefit decreases strongly once you earn $250k, maybe someone might find more fulfillment with their families, their hobbies, the arts, public service or charitable pursuits.
1
Consider that those who don’t want to ding higher earners EXCESSIVELY may hope to count themselves among that fortunate demographic someday. A lot of them are young and just starting out, and many older voters are trying to make a go of small businesses on Amazon, or with similar enterprises. It would be a colossal pain for these people to finally get there by dint of their own sweat, only to find that they’re now enslaved to the IRS to pay for government in a massively disproportionate way relative to others. I regard as encouraging the finding that lower-income workers aren’t as committed as other classes to soaking the upper-middle-class and “wealthy”. It’s very American, and bloody good for them.
All those college-educated professionals making between $120,000 and $250,000 per household apparently DO want to ding the “wealthy” more than they’re already dinged. Folks, the top 20% of earners in America already pay 80% of federal taxes, and they’re dealing with vastly increased state and local taxes, as well as the repeal of deductions and exemptions they once counted on as minimal cover from what were patently excessive marginal tax rates. The top 1% of earners, who have an average income of more than $2.1 million, pay 43.6% of all the federal individual income tax collected in the U.S. 45% of Americans pay no federal income tax.
We have a steeply progressive tax framework, one that should satisfy even the most berserker among the unchained, potted liberati.
2
The problem is that liberals want to redistribute far MORE of our GDP in immense programmatic boondoggles, have nowhere else to go for the (ever increasing) additional money and are accustomed to demonizing the “wealthy” who have had it. Yet it’s predictable that this comfortable cohort wants to stick it not to themselves but to the TRULY “wealthy”.
The thrust of Tom’s column today is academic: WHY are higher-earners, quite comfortable right into the upper-middle-class, so redistributionist, urging as they do greater and greater takings (of OTHER people’s earnings) to stoke a desire to solve ALL the world’s problems NOW on the backs of a miniscule percentage of Americans? His answer appears to be that this is a tribal characteristic entwined with ideological-political identity. Okay, I’ll buy that. So much for Tom’s column. (If A=B and B=C, then A must equal C. Wow.)
Economic inequality has existed as long as we have had civilization. It existed in the U.S.S.R. and China at their communist heights as it exists in Russia and China today. The implied new social order that Democrats seek appears not to be more intelligent allocation of resources to empower our people to make more prosperous lives for THEMSELVES, but to forever expropriate MORE to make up for a dismal failure to do that by separating effort from prosperity and just guaranteeing the prosperity – on the backs of a few. Well, that’s not going to happen. That may be tribal of me, but it’s also very American.
1
But when it comes to redistribution of wealth it is what you do with the tax dollars that counts. I would argue that we should be spending a great deal more on upgrading our infrastructure. Not only would it provide good paying jobs for those who were displaced by globalization, but a better infrastructure improves the standard of living for everyone. I would argue that we should do more to reduce the cost of a college education. Not only would it help provide upward mobility, but college graduates earn more money and pay more in taxes in return. I would argue that we should spend more on funding basic research. It would help maintain our scholastic centers of excellence, help prepare our next generation of scientists, and promote our slipping technical advantage. It is not so much in how you tax, but rather what you do with the tax dollars.
2
This whole argument is always a bad joke. The redistribution policies you decry are crumbs, while the voracious military, so-called security apparatuses are the feast.
1
I distinctly recall a friend of mine, herself theoretically a socially progressive democrat, discussing local politics in Cambridge, MA. She didn't like some busing program that was proposed and commented, "I love my Cambridge liberals until it affects my son's education." Until the policies of the "liberal" agenda affect one personally, it's easy to believe in them, but when those policies actually have an impact on one's life, it's not so easy to stand on principle.
Edsall's conclusion absolutely rings true with me: "Will affluent white liberals, whose expressive or affective partisan identification has been with the Democratic Party, continue to be steadfast members of the left coalition if they perceive imminent threats to their economic well-being, their property values, their children’s educational opportunities and their own relatively homogeneous neighborhoods?" I hope so, but my own circle of friends gives me reason to doubt.
3
As an upper middle class white male, I think Edsall misses the point entirely by framing the choice for higher taxes on the rich as either (a) economically against my interest, or (b) confirming my liberal identity. What about (c): it's actually good for the country overall?
I, and I expect many other educated people, understand that a rising tide lifts all boats, and poverty and lack of education lead to a downward social spiral. It is absolutely in my interest (see (a) above) to reduce poverty and inequality: it improves health, educational outcomes, and provides a stronger social fabric.
5
"Expressive partisanship, in effect, allows the most committed to override their own circuitry and support policies antithetical to their economic interests."
This statement reveals a bias about the view of human beings as economic actors. To see making a sacrifice for others as an "override" of our circuits is bizarre. Maybe the most significant circuits in our brains are not those that control our economic (greedy?) behavior, but those that control our moral and social behavior and our love for one another. It's not overriding our circuits to sacrifice for others, it's why we managed to survive as a species.
1
Couldn't Democrats start by proposing redistributive economic policies that don't impact the vast majority of their constituents, upper middle class included? Making American oligarchs (Bezos, Schwarzman, Zuckerberg etc.) pay substantially higher rates wouldn't alienate families making $100-$200k a year and concerned about their economic stability in exorbitantly expensive metro areas.
The problem with such a plan is that it would raise very little money. The government could confiscate the entire fortune of every billionaire in the US, and it would only pay for 3 months of government spending. What would they do then?
1
As far as I understand it, the chart seems to show that the more educated people are, the more able they are to defend their opinion. No real surprise there.
It does *not* show that there are more extremes in educated people, contrary to what the title implies. For example, there could be 30% extreme conservative or liberal people in high school and only 10% in people with a college degree. In which case the polarisation would actually decrease. The chart and associated numbers show no information regarding these points, which would, it seems, be more relevant.
1
Even after the contentiousness of the 2000 elections Democrats worked with Republicans on eg no Child Left Behind, and co-operated with Bush in 2008 to stem the economic Meltdown. When Obama won of course the Republicans were equally willing to work with him....not!
McConnell et al treated Obama as the enemy and refused to co-operate at all, including the Government shutdown in '13 and of course the Garland nomination.
The Tea Party radicalized the GOP so much that any compromise, any agreement became taboo! Democrats knowing they were the "enemy" responded similarly. As the GOP base and representatives became more and more set in their hatred, so did the anti-GOP
I believe the Republican agenda is not in the public interest and core Democratic ideas are, so I oppose the Right. The actions of clowns like Nunes and the pathological Liar that leads them have shown me that the party that cravenly works against the public interest in matters at the heart of democracy, and that in its present form the the not-so G OP can no longer be treated as a responsible opponent, willing to play by rules generations old.
I would suggest two things. One, as the Republican party moved to the right and became opposed to any compromise with the Democrats, making them the enemy, the natural reaction was for Dems to reciprocate.
Second to imagine that all voters chose only on how policy affects them personally is to misunderstand the public spirit that citizens may exhibit in their views.
3
This article misses a simple, fundamental point. Self-interest doesn't exist inside a vacuum.
Having more money in the bank is not synonymous with self-interest.
Affluent Democrats recognize that a high functioning, healthy, fair society is more valuable than money that they don't need to survive.
Similarly, is it shocking that education fosters intellectual confidence?
It's possible that the data in this article reflects a byproduct of the perceived shift in power from one homogeneous identity (white males) to many (anyone). There's a perception that there are winners and losers, though it's all through association. A proxy play for power, and the well-educated are the cavalry.
2
"Why are well off Democrats supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interest?" The answer could not be simpler. It is only hard to understand if immediate take home pay is your only value. If living in a more educated society is of value. If living in a more peaceful society is of value. If living in a society where more people can afford to buy your products is of value. If living in a more creative society is of value then forgoing that foolish immediate gain in favor of long term real value is the obvious choice.
4
Then there is that area in between far left and far right.
I believe it is called the middle or center. And there are many of us Americans who currently occupy that space.
Observing the daily pushma-pullya extremes is getting not only tiresome but insanely out of control. There is a third way.
Vote for moderates, the peace makers and compromisers.
2
OR....the educated support redistributive policies because they know such policies are good for the long-term health of the country, and the uneducated fail to support such policies because they have been duped to believe all government is bad. The author’s cynicism is unmerited. The data simply show that education matters. People who are educated understand that self-interest is a short-term game.
1
"TAXES ARE WHAT WE PAY FOR A CIVILIZED SOCIETY."
These words, spoken by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, are inscribed in stone on the front of the IRS Building in Washington, DC.
Republicans believe to the contrary stating that " Every tax people pay is a theft from ones pocket." And they preach this message to their flock day after day after day after day.
I am one of those "well off" Democrats, Mr.Edsall. I am also "extremely liberal". I am a Navy Vietnam veteran ('65-'69) and served as a Fire Control Technician (Gunnery) 3rd Class.
I spent my legal career (1995-2010) as a field (trial) attorney for the Phoenix Region of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB enforces National Labor Relations Act (Act).
My salary was $120,000 a year when I retired about a fifth as much as the attorneys made against whom I tried and won 90% of my cases . Nonetheless I loved my job because I saw each and every day how my worked helped people.
Republicans despise the NLRB, and every other federal agency for that matter, because we are efficient in what we do. Indeed,they advocate for the 1% of the population who do not, and will not pay, their fair share of taxes so we can have the civilized society of which Justice Holmes spoke.
Finally, it seems to me that Edsall suggests that liberals me should just get stupid. Well, there's already a "Party of Stupid." [Thank you Bobby Jindal]. I don't think that I would be a "good fit."
5
Higher taxes are supported as long as there are tax breaks, as the all the noise about changes in mortgage interest deduction and state and local taxes makes it apparent that there is a lot of hypocrisy on the issue. In addition making things better for others is acceptable as along as it doesn't affect the neighborhoods that people in and where their kids go to school. The 'liberal' North has led in segregation in the US since legal segregation was outlawed in the South.
I am one of those highly educated (PhD) affluent white liberals. My guide in supporting policies and candidates is my morals and ethics, not my economic self-interest.
2
When you have a bike lane costing $12 million per mile, even liberals here in Seattle start to question how tax dollars are being spent.
2
Not only that, who do you think is riding the bicycles? It's the upper middle class.
A surprising number of taxpayer-funded amenities in cities like Seattle are main used by affluent taxpayers.
1
“We are acting because our emotions and the self-esteem that is driven by our identities compel us to do something.”
“Identity does not require values and policy attitudes,” she writes. Instead, it simply requires “a sense of inclusion and a sense of exclusion.”
What a lot of insulting hooey. Thank God I'm educated enough to roll my eyes at column filler like this, and to know that if Republicans had decent, fact-based policies, I'd be voting for them instead of the other "tribe."
Most of the upper middle class Democrats who are imagined by this writer to flee the Democratic Party if income tax rates are raised or so-called “redistributive” policies are adopted will not actually be affected by the real targets of these policies, the obscenely rich who have multiple homes all over the world, mega yachts and off-shore assets. Or draw down multi-million dollar compensation packages as CEO’s of companies they have looted and run into the grounded. They are also well-educated enough to realize that as a society we are all better off when we have a healthy concern for our fellow human beings. The idea that Democrats will flee the Democratic Party because of constraints on unmitigated greed of a tax increase is insulting and beneath contempt.
Insulting? Sure. Beneath contempt? Hardly. The case study is California, which is the most liberal state and has the highest poverty rate. Please tell me how the mega rich in Hollywood allow blocks of downtown Los Angeles be cordoned off as skid row for the homeless. Tell me why there is not an avalanche of rich liberals solving the housing crises in all of California's major cities?
As so many if the comments suggest, this piece is not up to Mr. Edsall's normally high standards. The studies cited beg too many questions.
In its attempt at neutrality, this essay falls into reductivisim and false equivalence. Perhaps better educated, better paid voters align with Democrats because they better understand, for example, that paying higher taxes for universal health care would be cheaper, less wasteful, and more humane than lining the pockets of middlemen insurance companies? Or because their "self-interest" extends beyond how much money they have in the bank? Or because it is harder to lie to critical thinkers who value science, facts, and objectivity? This essay is pot-banging.
2
Pure conservative demagoguery. You start with the false premise that "self interest" only involves how much you make and how much you pay in taxes, and then base a nonsensical argument around it, naturally incorporating the word "identity" since that's such a great conservative dog whistle.
I might - and do - think that providing for the "general welfare" (where have I seen that phrase?) is a good thing, regardless of the individual impact on me.
This is also an example of the danger of talking about politics while pretending that it's not issue-based. You can then create a false equivalency, when in fact you're attempting to undermine liberal positions (by the definition of self-interest used in the article, conservatives tend to vote consistent with their own).
1
Uneducated Republican Votes do not even know what the word"Liberal" means. They throw it around like an insult. Those who are educated are exposed to the Liberal Arts Tradition in Colleges and Universities. These are the Arts that " set you free", the Liberal Arts. They set you free because they teach you things like the equality of Human Beings, like the way that Science supports rigorously the truth of Climate Change. Learning History teaches you to avoid mistakes that we have made in the past as a Nation and as a World. In literature courses you learn to read, something that UNeducated Trump does not know how to do and which yields nothing but bad decisions as we can see everyday that he exists. If Middle American valued education instead of TV watching along with heroine use, they might see the dismantling of the EPA in the same light that the rest of us do. They might agree that White Nationalism is a Dead End. They might think that assault weapons are an instance of grave injustice. I have a Ph.D. in Philosophy and that is also why Justice, Equality, Beauty and Truth are important to me. Smug fly-over Republican Voters are a dying breed and thank Goodness for that. I want the top earners to share their wealth. We have no business supporting rich Corporations to the detriment of all of the rest of us. Get a Clue!
1
No! It is not party affiliation or polarization that's making wealthy voters want to share more of their wealth. It's just common sense. More educated people understand that a more egalitarian society is a more happy society for both the rich and poor. They understand that single payer health care is simply less expensive than a private system, not to mention morally superior. They also understand math to a higher degree, which allows them to understand tax policy better. It's not an issue of bias. It's an issue of education and understanding, which conservatives have none of.
Republicans are a morally corrupt party with bad ideas. Nothing redeemable about being a stubborn conservative.
259
Your post is a perfect example of the effect Mr Edsall described, well done.
Democrats believe that government programs are the best way to redistribute wealth, Republicans believe that individuals should decide how (or whether) to redistribute wealth, either through charities, churches or community institutions. Hence, Republicans are consistently the largest contributors to philanthropic causes. Both Democrats and Republicans can believe in sharing wealth, it's just that they have different ideas about how to do it. Education, as Mr Edsall's column aptly pointed out, has nothing to do with it. Calling the other side 'morally corrupt' because you are too narrow minded to appreciate the other side's point of view is exactly what it's all about.
26
I would like to see the evidence for your claim that, "Republicans are consistently the largest contributors to philanthropic causes." Certainly the leader of the Republican Party is not among them.
Better educated people may well understand that society is not a zero sum game in which if you win someone else has to lose. Society functions in an entirely different way from either an individual or even a family. I know Thatcher and Reagan tried to pretend that "society doesn't exist" but there are many domains in which private interests can be subtracted and leave something that all can share in, like our National Parks that as a nation we agreed should be preserved and open to all.
Such ideas are anathema to petty little egotists who think that whatever they have has been obtained directly at someone else's expense when the fact is that if the society flourishes the individuals within it do too.
22
Fascinating article. I've found uber-liberal, enthusiastic members of the Democratic Party are sensitive to Welfare recipients, homeless, minorities, but insensitive to those who are also suffering---and paying taxes---the fry cook in McDonald's in Kentucky, the single mom at a Walmart in Idaho. Why the bias against poor whites, who are paying taxes? My son made $12,000 in 2016 and paid $1,250 in income tax, and had to buy private health insurance because he'd have to drive 50 miles to find a doctor who would take Medi-Cal.
I don't understand it. The backlash against this insensitivity is one reason Trump won IMO.
4
The Earned Income Credit is a subsidy of low wages for people with children.
If a child is older than 26 the subsidy is not applicable.
We do care. We support higher wages, health care for everyone, infrastructure and governance so that things work, and education (which we believe is a public good, not just an expensive diploma that “lets you get ahead”).
The laws we want to pass do not exclude poor rural whites, except where conservatives have fought to exclude them (see the fight against a public option health insurer and Medicaid expansion).
If you’re making $12,000 a year to live on, most likely you should be getting the EITC (which is supported by both parties), which can lead to a tax refund in excess of what you paid.
1
This author really misses the point of why I, though making well over 200K, support higher taxes. It is not a position that goes against my self-interest. You assume my interest is only in money. I want economic stability, and the redistribution of wealth is a requirement in order to maintain economic stability in a capitalist system. Without wealth redistribution, markets ultimately crash as more capital is taken from the masses who drive the markets through spending. Essentially, unfettered capitalism is an unstable economic system that suffers periodic devastating market crashes. I prefer the live in a more stable economic system and, thus, in my own self-interest I support redistribution of wealth. I also support a 90% tax bracket for any annual income over 10 million. That is to say that all income in excess of 10 million is taxed at 90%.
4
Taxation and spending comprise the fiscal policy to maintain a steady movement of money through the economy.
1
Hmmm. Just because Democrats who make higher incomes support higher taxes does not mean they are more politicized and partisan. It means those with higher incomes probably have more education and thus have a better understanding that taxes are what pays for public services such as roads, police, teachers, all government employees, military troops, etc., etc. Wealthy conservatives understand this too; but they believe people should pay private companies to do some of the services typically done by governments.
4
Might there be a religious component in this question?
While most people have some desire to help their neighbor, the affluent, educated, secular class wants to do this through the government. The rural, conservative, religious class prefers to do this through charity, often connected to their churches.
3
The academic hypotheses behind this column seem to ignore the actual behaviors of the individual politicians or the likelihood that most people once they have acquired power rarely relinquish it willingly.
This also applies to political parties.
We have seen the Republican Party repeatedly buck the norms and mores of politics in this country without penalty.
After a fashion, it seems obvious that the group that continues to cling to power at whatever means necessary; i.e. Neil Gorsuch and the deliberate stealing of a Supreme Court seat, will eventually delegitimize themselves and lose power regardless of group identification.
I feel like this article is more of the same from the established academic and media authorities, a convenient explanation that blames both sides when clearly one side bases decisions on social priorities and reason, and the other deplorable side clings to its guns and religion at the expense of the Republic.
1
Try asking the right question. Democrats who make "over $75,000" and want tax increases on those making $250,000 probably aren't making anywhere near $250,000. From a $75,000 perspective, someone making $250,000 is rich. And it's a "better them than me" opinion.
Not certain about the current federal tax structure. Before the change, tax deductions and credits disappear as income rises, so effectively a family making $250 was paying a higher percentage of their income to taxes, no matter what the posted marginal tax rates were.
Here in NYS, $250,000 is comfortable, not rich. And when the Democrats treat families making that sort of money as rich, they push those people to the Republican party.
2
If I earn 250k in NYC, I can't dream about earning a second home. An extra 15k in taxes won't bother me as much, because I won't be saving for a time-share condo in Telluride or Hampton Bays. If I am earning 500k/yr, I can hope for a second home, and I'll begrudge an extra 15k in taxes, because it will deplete my second home fund.
My impression is that increased wealth diminishes needs yet multiple wants. When I was too poor to own a car, I didn't even think about owning a Porsche. Now that I can afford a Porsche, I daydream about a McLaren.
2
It can be full time work just to keep all the toys running.
1
Your statistics are interesting, but I wonder why there is so much concern with structure of opinion on relatively complex issues like fairness of tax policy. How about simpler topics like the acceptability of widespread impoverishment of American children, poor performance of elementary and secondary education in US compared to other nations, lack of access to internet, cost-effectiveness of American defense budget allocation, prevalence of incarceration of American citizens? I would expect that you would find greater unanimity on topics of this nature, and journalism on those items MIGHT rally readers to select more effective leaders. Ameliorative policies could then follow. The sociology of identity seems to me a form of navel-gazing in the light of so many more pressing issues.
This article postulates that economic self-interest has been replaced by rampant partisanship, noting that wealthy, educated Democrats are more likely to raise taxes on themselves than their lower earning (and less educated) counterparts.
According to Mr. Edsall, this is a problem. But it is not a problem when low-income, less-educated, Republicans vote against their economic-self interest in the form of the recent tax bill (which he only mentions in passing). Being 'educated' is problematic, but apparently being uneducated is permissible. so long as in doing so you advance specific interests.
The issue here is not 'partisanship' folks.
2
The essence of the matter seems to be that "the Idea of America" is dissolving before our eyes as the country moves into a really new, demanding, and unprecedented period. And that means that the COMMITMENT TO "the Idea of America" is eroding, too.
"Identity" has always been an important element to any citizen who is politically connected--at least enough to remain fairly current with the major issues of governance, and who VOTES. Virtually anyone when questioned can place themselves on a left-right, Dem-Rep line. Those positions "used to be" fewer in number and less complicated with respect to the policy commitments they reflected.
Now, the proliferation of "micro-positions" has eaten into the coherence and solidarity of our political identities, and very strong progressives or conservatives discover that persons "next to them" along the continuum are very far away on specific positions.
It all reflects a threat and undermining of what "used to be" fairly reliable, fairly stable, and fairly dependable political affiliations and leanings. It makes our culture that much more volatile with regard to the factors in a political cycle that will either coalesce or disband cohorts that will vote together to achieve their aims. Their aims are fractured and unsteady!
1
There is an element of the analysis that is missing. As education level increases, the tendency is for income to rise, and the tendency is also for conservative attitudes increases.
If the graphs were weighted by population, it would be revealed that the population is overwhelmingly conservative to a minority with a liberal bias.
That is concealed in the graphs.
The majority of individuals who have a college degree voted for Trump, and a majority of those who lack a high school diploma voted for Hillary.
What is concealed in the analysis is that the blue lines comprise a much smaller proportion of the population than the red lines. Across educational levels, the population is conservative.
The article cites a 68% favorable for Democrats with income over $75,000 for increasing taxes on the rich. As income levels rise, Democrats increase their liberalness. For the "liberals" from $75,000 to $250,000, they think the "rich" are people other than them. The overwhelming majority of Democrats in the over $75,000 income range think they are advocating tax increases for "others" and are not advocating against their own interests.
3
My guess is that Democratic “expressive partisanship” correlates much more strongly with the rise in Republican partisanship than any desire for identity-centric affiliation. Educated people have more information and knowledge and make better choices. As a former Republican and an educated woman, I gradually became "liberal" in disgust with the pure greediness and meanness of the Republican party. It was because I educated myself on issues. It was not the siren call or allure of identifying with a new party.
2
Interesting piece, but I am left to wonder if this polarization is a result, at least in part, of the way news is presented to us. The NY Times, for instance, no longer even pretends to be objective, and takes strong stands -- in its 'analyses' and even its straight-up news reporting -- opposing virtually anything Trump does (I say this as one who can't stand Trump, but nonetheless feel he deserves at times a fairer shake). When the news we educated voters get is itself packaged and distilled in a polarizing way, well, the outcome is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
3
I am a liberal who always votes for school tax propositions, library millage renewals, road assessments, etc. It costs me money to replace my tires by driving over potholes. Have you seen Louisiana's roads? Their schools? The worst in the nation. (well, maybe we're just 49th--I can't remember).
Interesting....
But I don't think it's the whole story.
1. Different drivers for the left and the right.
Maybe what's really going on here on the Democrats' side is that the more highly-educated, the more likely to believe experts (who are also highly-educated)--and the more likely to support higher taxes for the wealthy, climate change mitigation, universal healthcare--because most of the experts in the world support those things too.
For Republicans, I would posit a different mechanism: Those who are highly-educated are more successful, and the central tenet of conservatism is that you "make it on your own", that luck--and government intervention--have no role in determining your success.
2. Reflection/thinking and priorities.
The educated, being in knowledge professions and/or economically successful, have the time to think about problems that are not directly relevant to their own bottom-line. An educated professional--a professor in an intellectual environment, a management consultant, an engineer--spends more of their time THINKING than a person in a factory; it is part of their job. This encourages thinking about all kinds of abstract things, like the state of the overall economy, foreign policy, the health of the body politic and so on. And thinking being a powerful tool in their professional lives, it becomes powerful in their political lives, leading to more articulated--and potentially more extreme--viewpoints than someone struggling to get by.
Excellent question posed by Edsall. "how reliable upscale Democrats will be if the party regains control of Congress and seeks to enact legislation that threatens the financial or social status of the upper middle class. "
The article seems inclined towards the idea that excessive partisanship will overwhelm any personal cost the affluent may bear from Democratic policies. I'm skeptical. Look at the recent past. Bill Clinton raised taxes modestly - but he also ushered in 22 million jobs (post war record) and balanced the budget which mitigated the prospect of future high taxes. Then we come to Obama. Though he was a full-throated liberal, it's notable that he didn't raise taxes on the affluent as opposed to allowing the Bush taxes to expire. It's also notable that his Obamacare did not touch personal income taxes which are perhaps more visible than his Medicare surtax or increase in investment income tax. I'd suggest that the loyalty of affluent Democrats was never really tested.
But Hillary would have been a different story. She proposed an explicit 4% hike on millionaires and an increase in the AMT to 30% ! That may very well have strained alliances.
Lastly, the caveat that Edsall offers (e..g. the resistance of affluent whites in Brooklyn to school integration) shows how fragile is Obama's "upstairs downstairs" coalition. It's easier for affluent whites to write checks for higher taxes (akin to charity) than to send their kids to school with poor blacks.
1
I have a PhD and I refuse to identify with either political party. Same with religious affiliation. In both cases I definitely have opinions but I consider them a personal matter and nobody else's business. So much for your theory that education begets identity politics.
In general I tend to think that educated people are better able to form a rational opinion. This makes sense since presumably an education gives one a wider view, better historical perspective and a more discerning process of forming an opinion.
One of the ironies of democracy is that we give decision making power, through the ballot box, to those who are not always qualified to make the best decision. I do not feel qualified on many issues yet I get to vote on them.
In one sense the biggest achievement of democracy is group ownership of the result. The masses are less likely to revolt when they are given a tiny voice in things. The results are unpredictable, highly influenced by emotions, and not always the best for the country yet because it was a democratic process, they stand as the decision of the people.
I agree with those who note that this entire column is based on a bunch of unproven assumptions. It also ignores the role of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. As an economically comfortable liberal, my basic needs are secure. Therefore, I vote for higher level needs including love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. I am not voting against my own self-interest. I am voting for my higher self-interests. The difference between liberal and conservative educated voters is in the social values they cherish. It boils down to whether one views society as win-win or win-lose. Win-win will vote liberal to "raise all boats." Win-lose will vote conservative to maximize to prize for the winners.
2
Perhaps the reason for increased intensity of political beliefs has to do with having a better grasp of history, which no longer is well taught in our schools, least of all in college. An historical perspective provides context for how we frame our politics. Our interpretations of history may differ based on other factors -- hence the wide separation between highly educated progressive and reactionary voters. Seeing things in an historical context makes for a greater sense of certainty that one's political stance is correct, and thus the confidence to express it fully. What may appear momentarily detrimental to one's personal well-being, in an historical context may be more rational after all. So why are our K-12 schools so ginger in this regard? Probably because such ignorance favors the politics of those now in command, in both camps.
3
Could it be that the more educated a person becomes, the more they realize that we're all in this together? That supporting a social safety net with higher taxes on the rich contributes to a stable society? That it's good for "rich people" to have well-educated employees?
Underfunding education and the social safety net has resulted in a political disaster. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see this, but it helps to have some education. Many uneducated people do not realize that to "make America great again" we have to return to the high taxes on top brackets that existed in the decades following World War II.
5
A citizen who sees that we are in this together does not mind higher taxes spent on the public benefit. Taxes must be paid by those with the money. The rich are still able to live well without tax breaks, but the poor have no recourse as safety nets get taken away. The nation suffers when even the employed can't afford a home, healthcare, and education. It is common sense, not liberal prejudice.
8
In my lifetime I have experienced both wealth and poverty, while my financial situation has fluctuated my commitment to liberal values have not.
It is not difficult to understand that greater knowledge, whether through a college degree or a rigorous pursuit of factual information, would lead one to support a strong Social Safety Net. Compassion for others is not a sign of weakness but rather the understanding that together we rise, divided we fall.
11
Speaking for myself and people I know on the left side of the spectrum, we are desperate to talk about real issues with real data and real life outcomes. Our values, not ideologies, drive us toward wanting to create policies that will result in more equity, more people reaching their potential, less climate change, less pollution, more health care, more housing.
This is not the opposite of believing that Obama was born in Kenya because Trump said so or declaring immigrants to be "illegals" or that climate change is a Chinese hoax. It's on a completely different track.
Two-sider-ism does not work in this case.
6
It’s a matter of how narrow you define ‘voting your own interest’. I regard it in my interest to vote for higher taxes for the wealthy, even if it means i pay more. Living in a fair society that takes care of it’s citizens leaves us ALL better off. There is a lot less risk to everyone in such a place. The risk in the unfair society is that you will lose your money, you will have to use so much of it to wall yourself off and protect yourself, and society itself may build to the point where it explodes.
That’s the logical answer above. There is also the emotional toll of living in an unfair society. I always thought before, that educated people became Democrats because they could see the connections. That conservatives were less systemic in their thinking. However, well educated conservatives become even more conservative. So I was wrong there.
I am glad though that I am not conservative. I get to believe that most people are good. That if we tinker around with our systems we can create a just society. It’s an essentially hopeful outlook. I don’t have to live in fear of so many things that are vague and shadowy. I wouldn’t want to think that immigrants were my enemies. That science is a conspiracy. That the only path to a good life is to amass a pile of money. And if you lose that money its your fault. I am glad i don’t have to look at homeless encampments and think they brought it on themselves.
12
Rather than saying that the college-educated are more polarized, I would say that they have a different frame of reference for the changes we're making. They see a stark choice between supporting a racialized status quo or changing it.
I suspect that those without a college education are both more resigned and more habituated to being left out of partisan conversations.
2
That is just what the author said "polarized." You just provided a euphemism.
Generally speaking, if rich people were willing to accept disadvantageous circumstances or events, they would never have become rich in the first place.
If and when the current definition of either major ideology becomes disadvantageous to the rich, you can expect a quiet but definitive reshuffling of terms.
1
Excellent article and you are so right. Arrogance is rampant now. I find as an Independent, moderate, I don't suffer the anger issues my other friend do. I would love the country to adjust in that direction....
1
Identity politics are a far greater influence than people give credit to as it underlies the very nature of our society. Tax cuts from 39% to 37% (remember Reagan - 28%) are frankly unimportant. Under President Obama, we not only reset policy to the left but the mainstream Press became an active part of the thought police damning and marginalizing anyone who did not agree with the prevailing orthodoxy. It left behind large numbers whose voices were quelled but whose votes were not. I happen to largely agree with the social changes under Obama. However, driving thoughtful debate into the shadows results in anger. I have many friends who vote Right less on specific issues but to halt movement to the left. The same on the Left. We live in a world where the victor does not extend a hand but rather a slap and where debate has been replaced with Handmaiden Tale thought regimes. While this continues, you can expect stronger Republican outcomes than polls suggest and you will continue to have the mainstream label their victory as a matter of the last dying breaths of the "deplorables"
3
The more educared you are the more you are aware of what a raw deal the lower socioeconomic classes are getting. Underfunded education, underfunded judicial systems that sustematically screw minorities and the poor and so on. One thing in particular americans are unaware of is anything not germane to their own situation, blissful ignorance.
2
Well, this is not me. Perhaps because I went to art school, which makes me not quite educated. I'm a hysterical moderate. I get nervous when I see either extreme. I almost can't form a judgment on any issue, because I'm constantly looking at it from every angle. I feel there is something wrong with me.
On election night, people weren't only crying because Hillary lost. Certainly she would have made a fine president, with well-considered, well-documented, centrist policies that might even have garnered Republican support.
But much of the wailing was because the Vikings stormed the town, burning city hall and the churches, raping and pillaging their way throughout the kingdom and promising to undo everything the last king did to improve our lives.
The shame of having Donald Trump in the Oval Office burns as much as any alien invasion. It couldn't be worse if he came from Mars.
10
It seems to me there are thousands of undereducated far right voters with extreme views on guns, abortion, immigrants etc.
5
If voters were actually intelligent they would have long ago realized that they are being played for suckers by both sides of the two party system. You can teach people any number of subjects in school,but can you think them to think?
2
I think this is a key issue. We don't spend enough time teaching critical thinking skills in school at all levels. One result is the hyper-partisanship and tribal, "us versus them" mentality described in the article.
1
False equivalency as usual; the polarization is real, but it’s asymmetrical. The right side of the political spectrum is much more polarized and insular than the left. This is nowhere more starkly illustrated than by a 2010 Stanford poll indicating that almost half of Republicans (49%) would be “somewhat or very unhappy” if their child married someone of the opposite party, but only one-third of Democrats expressed similar reservations. A 2014 Pew poll reinforces these findings: half of the “consistently conservative” want to live where most people share their political views, but barely one third (35%) of the “consistently liberal” have similar wishes. Less than half of the consistently liberal, but five-eights of the consistently conservative say that most of their friends share their political views. Too many on the right are content to live within the echo chamber of “Fox Nation,” a term that always vaguely smacked of treason to me.
4
I agree completely.
I suggest that you read comments to WaPo OpEd pieces. Both sides are very bad.
The use of the word "polarized" is misleading. It implies a "both sides are responsible" conclusion which does not accord with the facts. At. All. In this case, sociological jargon needs to be scrapped.
Consider: two people in a room. One goes clinically mad or violent. We do not describe the room as polarized.
Those who resist the destruction of American democratic institutions and the rise of neo-fascist power cannot be said to be part of political polarization. To do so makes the heroic defense of democracy seem irresponsible, as if appeasement would somehow be more responsible.
6
Your protest proves the author's point. You cannot make your case with appealing to name-calling.
"You human beings have so many flaws," he says. It's pretentious, above-it-all, willfully myopic "scientific analyzers" who claim the right to explain to the educated why they're at fault for as much as possible. Apparently, there's money in that, the educated, whether liberal or conservative, so willing to be flagellated--and the Times knows it.
1
The children's book by Dr. Seuss explained this well. There are the Star Bellied Schneeches and the Plain Bellied Schneeches. it wasn't until Sylvester McMcmonky McBean came along and got them all together. Where is that Sylvester today?
1
Paying your taxes is the most patriotic act a citizen can make.
1
I wish it was only sweat we sacrifice... Apparently you have never been asked to pay in blood. That’s real patriotism!
All discussion of tax rates on income ... is pointless.
The economy is no longer largely driven by "income". Income is still important, yes....but it is no longer the most important aspect of our Internet based Economy.
Oh how I recall with glee, those heady days of 2016, when wealthy democrats were are crowing loudly about how happy they would be to pay more taxes.............then they lost their property tax exemption and their Income Tax obligation actually did increase..........response? Impeach Trump!! He's ruining us with unfair burdensome taxes!!! LOL.
1
Karl Polyani argued that this situation - when the center left party in a liberal democracy abandons the working class to cozy up to the bourgeoisie - leads not to Marxist revolution but to fascism. Does this sound familiar?
1
For millennia, Plato has been trying to tell the West that education is the key to a well-run community. The part of the brain that allows for other people's interests to matter is complex and it requires true understanding which can only be achieved by a willingness to learn. We watch our ignorant (and proudly so--only "intelligent" when bragging") President when something only he has never heard of, pops into his limited vision of the world, and shocks his ignorance. ("Abe Lincoln was a Replublican! Who knew?" Everyone, but you and your base, Mr. President. Sigh.) Public education is critical--the whole community (in our case "country") MUST agree on certain basic truths. We no longer do; we live in different universes where global warming is a "hoax," the news is "fake," everything is a "trick," a "lie," a "false flag," the "Deep State." Where people "self-investigate" pizzarias with rifles, sure that HRC is running a child sex operation out of the basement. This is how democracy ends. Read Thucydides' description of the long fall of Athens during the Peloponnesian War. Truth was the first casualty.
1
I am one of the higher income liberals you refer to. Prior to this election I felt that paying higher taxes to help the less fortunate was a public good and my "christian" duty. Since the election, I want every penny back. I don't want any of my money leaving my state to help those in other states, esp. red states. That is what this "president" and his "administration" have done. America was cracked, now it's broken. Buh bye red states. Start paying enough taxes to pay your own teachers etc. You are no longer my problem.
It is not against your economic interest as a wealthy person to want to pay higher taxes. Tax dollars well spent educate your work force, allow you to move products to market, and protect your assets with rule of law. Without these things you have anarchy, rape and pillaging. You would lose your wealth anyway and all you care about as the those without rise up and take it as opposed to striving and working hard to earn it. This is my opinion is one of the biggest weakness in conservative ideology is that they have a very narrow myopic view of the world and their and their role in its ecosystem. In other words the world does not revolve around conservatives and if you won't take care of the ecosystem it will destroy you.
What is making things more polarized is that we are now in a culture where half wants to be informed and wants our president to reflect us as civilized and intelligent (Obama, Clinton) and the other half wants to FEEL its way through the voting booth and apparently wants the country to reflect their anger, vulgarity, immaturity - as they cheer and guffaw at a US President who actually makes up pathetic and childish ad hominem insults and name calling when referring to critics...ALL emotions. it's not the more educated making things more polarized. It's both. Are we going to be an intelligent, educated, civilized culture? Or are we going to be a Trump/GOP culture of greed, warring against education and intellectualism, exploiting the undereducated so they vote against their own interests, vulgar..all emotion-based. I asked a female friend why she voted for Trump. This is woman who proudly admits that she doesn't pay any attention to the news. She actually had to think about it for a second, and all she could come up with was, "Guns!". Oh. My. God. Her husband is a firefighter, and I asked her why she, and he, would vote against the party that wants to cut taxes, the source of their income. No answer. These people don't think at all. The feel. I read the WaPo's list of Obama policies Turmp has undone. They ALL helped the working class! yet Trump somehow dupes these fools into thinking he's a working class hero! I'm sorry, but Stupid is ruling the day here.
1
So the most educated and thoughtful members of American society support policies not because it is the right thing to do but only because they want to belong to their social “tribe”?
Come over to Europe, where most of society supports progressive policies because it is the right thing to do, and “partisanship” and political tribes are much weaker (except for the far right - a small fraction of the society).
So the conclusions of these social studies are thus somehow uniquely American. I am skeptical....
2
Which is why Switzerland did not give women the vote until 1971!
Edsall is a broken record, I’m afraid, with his LONG columns and LONG excerpts from others’ writing... (Shouldn’t there be a reasonable limit on the latter?)
I don’t care that more educated people want tax cuts for the rich. He may find that fascinating — I find it irrelevant.
And instead of the same tired hand-wringing lament that “Americans are just so divided!?!” That Times columnists take turns bemoaning —
— Here’s a news flash! Americans actually AGREE on a lot more things than they disagree on.
Our corporate media just doesn’t like to report on that fact and those agreements because:
a.) conflict generates more interest, in their minds, and thus more $, and
b.) reporting on the issues about which (often large) majorities of Americans agree — single payer, free public higher ed, higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, legalizing marijuana, ending our forever wars — might actually help those changes come to pass — which unfortunately The Times and establishment press, politicos and Big Business DON’T want to see happen.
So it’s a fait accompli!
2
Thomas B. Edsall, my 2d submission changed its form and content in part because so many of the 30 comments in print take issue with your position or with the positions taken in your sources.
Already there are excellent comments stating that we are many who support the Democratic Party or oppose the Republican Party because we hope that a new DP can improve the public health of the American people, can provide the renewable energy program that even the Obama administration could not even begin to formulate, and can display some understanding that we are all of the only genome-based race, the human.
I can already rely on many of the 30 and my own first submission awaiting review to present a view questioning the belief that so-called economic interest is our primary interest.
Instead of going further with that line, I raise once again a question that I believe only you, if any, of the NYT OpEd writers could even begin to handle. Suppose you talked with former USCB Director Kenneth Prewitt and then wrote a "What If" column drawing on his fine book "What Is Your Race?..."
What If?
What if the US government ended the use of its archaic system of classifying us citizens, the system that was invented by racists with the original purpose being to create a racial order?
Been trying to get even one reader to answer such a question. Results to date - zero!
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
I would question the assertion that economic self interest
represents rational thought while other values are evidence
of a need to be on the winning side. Are there limits to self
interest? Greed is real and true while empathy and social
commitment indicate a need to be accepted by the liberal team.
Fuzzy thinking versus real values like a higher bottom line?
1
' Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests?'
I am happy to pay higher taxes if it will increase the well-being, health and educational outcomes for my adopted countrymen, most of who who I will never meet and who would probably resent me for being a immigrant person of color who has worked for and found success in this country.
2
Since average income grows with level of education, the right hand side of the graph demonstrates that there are two kinds of affluent people: liberal democrats who favor higher taxes on the rich (including themselves) and conservative republicans who want lower taxes on the rich (but don't much want lower taxes on anyone else -- see the recent tax bill).
What is the basic difference between these two points of view? One group cares about others as well as themselves. The other group mostly cares about themselves.
3
While I deny the label "liberal", I have never voted for a Republican in my life. I got turned off by how they flipped the South between 1960 and '64 with race and have considered them evil since. Beginning in 1992 and Newt Gingrich, Republicans destroyed civil politics, producing the hyper partisan world we live in today. This piece confirms what I have been reading for some time (I am a retired psych prof), but takes it further in showing that it is not the just the uneducated who vote their party loyalties--we all do it. Voters across the spectrum appear to have great capacity to distort reality to think that what their party is supporting is in their interest. Edsall is raising the issue of when that might break down for well-to-do voters if Democrats push re-distributive measures. My prediction is that party loyalty will prevail until Democrats push something more extreme than I can presently imagine. As an aside, let me point out that the country is waiting for voters who drank the Reagan cool aid in 1980 to die off so we can make some progress--the dark side of what Edsall is talking about here.
2
...or maybe highly educated liberals realize that higher taxes are not necessarily in conflict to their own interests (economic or otherwise). It takes a degree of nuance that the "TAXES BAD!" crowd does not seem interested in.
1
Sophisticated people understand that some public spending inevitably trickles into their own income. For us, the measure of government productivity is how much of the taxes we pay eventually returns to us as income, which has the effect of reducing the net costs of the public services we pay for.
1
Why does it feel to me as though Edsall is always turning over every rock, and peeling off selective quotes from any ostensibly credible source he can find, to make the same point over and over: that Democrats, or liberals, are extremists too, that their political positions are based on "bias" and "prejudice", and furthermore, they are hypocrites, because they don't always perfectly support the perfect liberal agenda, whatever that might be. Talk about false equivalence! I used to think he was just a cranky ex-liberal who wanted to stick his fingers in his formerly like-minded compatriots' eyes. Now, I think it's that, like David Brooks who consistently comes up with good points and then draws a ridiculous conclusion from them, that the problem is his frame. Neither side of the political spectrum exists in a vacuum or outside of history. Yes, there are different fundamentals now to political alignment than their used to be. And, as education--the focus of this piece--deepens, people are able to perceive "self-interest" in different, broader terms. Climate change, for example, just kind of puts the icing on that cake, doesn't it? Of course, if you and your party are invested in denying climate change, education really becomes your enemy.
I'm sorry. We need some new talking heads here.
5
With this statement, the author either places himself in the neocon camp, or shows that he has fallen victim to their campaign to reframe the terms of the discussion in their favor:
"how reliable is elite support for this redistributive agenda?"
It has been business as usual to tax the rich more than ordinary people for at least 60 years. Why is it suddenly a "redistributive agenda?" Because the neocons have reframed the terms of the discussion to discredit those who disagree with them.
This trick is as old as the Mohawk Valley formula, used to discredit striking workers in the 1800's by framing them as lazy do-nothings who wanted something for nothing.
Could it be that the right-wing rhetorical reframing is as much to blame as the educated voters, who's education helps them to see through this subterfuge? They're caught in the trap: any argument against the neocon agenda appears divisive, which is exactly what they intended.
Don't fall for it. It's a cheap rhetorical trick.
8
Of course elements of voter's identity - race and gender--in particular, are behind which party one votes for. This country has been a country led by caucasian males since it's beginnings in 1776. No longer satisfied to be second class citizens, and perhaps frustrated by the more male desires to go to war and win/rule at any cost, women are moving to the fore and choosing a party that more represents their values. African Americans, no longer willing to be 3rd class citizens, and frustrated with intense racist attitudes among our white population, are standing strong to pick a party that represents their persons. Our country is at a tipping point, and it is my belief that the party of Trump, lacking in basic human values led by a man with sociopathic selfishness, is a party destined to die.
3
I do not know many rich people. The two rich people I know happen to be progressive. They did a poor job of raising their children who are now dodging obligations and living off the dole. Better yet, they themselves would be in the higher education bracket but lived hand to mouth until a rich conservative relative died. Fortunately for my friends they were taught how to hide money and avoid taxes. So when the old conservatives whom they constantly insult died and left them with huge amounts of cash they immediately started hiding money and evading taxes and living the good life of the rich all while attacking conservatives who made them rich. So when push comes to shove, progressives talk like progressives but definitely abandon those ideas when and where it counts.
2
Anecdotes are of limited importance, if any. They also suffer from the ability to be created out of whole cloth to fit the teller's agenda. If this has not become evident to you from the explosion of deceit in social media, then nothing will make it so.
Two rich people are not exactly a representative section of the progressive populace.
The initial question is interesting, but I don't know why the author uses $75, 000 as the cut-off for "high-earners" in his example when asking if they approve of tax increases on earners making more the $250k a year. I'm curious how many households earning more than $250k/year are supportive of tax increases. The example he provides currently doesn't surprise me. My household makes more than $75 but far less than $250. I'd like to tax the rich more, but don't think it's against my own interests.
Warren Buffett calling for tax increases on the rich? That surprises me. Me (or folks in similar situations) calling for those same increases - no duh. Are most 1 percenter liberals in favor of tax increases?
The concept of affective or expressive partisanship does help explain to me why so many conservative white women voted for Trump though. Or why people vote single issue regarding abortion or gun rights, while more urgent issues like income inequality and climate change are dismissed or ignored. But I guess if you keep your guns on a high enough shelf, the rising sea water shouldn't be a problem.
I'm having trouble coming up with a personal example that illustrates me "voting against my own self-interests." Perhaps it's because I have a deep instilled beliefs that we should put others before ourselves - that service and sacrifice for the greater good are in fact beneficial to me and my family, even when it may inconvenience me in the short term.
2
As a lifelong Democrat, I vote against my own financial self-interest every time I go to the polls. Self interest does not determine the policies I support; fairness to all those in the United States, most of whom are less well-off financially than I, does. I want my fellow citizens to have living wages, good health coverage, good educations, and upward mobility.
The utter selfishness and lack of vision exhibited by Republicans and Trump supporters generally, who support cutting the safety net out from under our poorest citizens, continually floors and depresses me. If education causes a greater understanding of societal needs as a whole, and it does, it explains why Republicans oppose good public education systems and perpetually seek to reduce access to higher education for those who cannot pay for it.
There is no better reason to be a Democrat.
5
Mr. Edsall, I reject the conceit (unquestioned by you) that paying more taxes is against my interest. It's how the taxes are spent that is often against my interest. Bloated military budgets for questionable foreign interventions while schools and roads fall into disrepair. Credits for industries the pollute my environment and strip my land of its resources with profits going to only a few. Bailouts for large banks and insurance companies that made terrible decisions but no help for the individuals who suffered most the consequences of those decisions. I could go on but I think you get my point. I would happily pay higher taxes for a competent government that protects consumers and the environment in which they live.
8
Well, yeah. Couldn't the academics simply looked at the behavior of fans of team sports and figured out the same thing?
Many have covered how breathtakingly wrong this article's reading of data is, but here's a fresh take on it.
First voting for higher taxes is not against one's own economic interest, in much the same way that paying more than your minimum due on loan or credit card payments is not against your economic interests. Liberals correctly understand that taxes are not a punishment due, but a group investment.
If you want a proper example of voting against economic interests, you need only look at the poor who vote to cut social safety nets, because the pennies they save on taxes is viewed as greater than the dollars they accumulate in benefits. But, fools only see hard small scale numbers, not large scale trends.
And this leads to the second point at the crux of the article-education is not driving partisanship. Education is driving liberalism, because being better informed allows you to see the con for what it is, whether it's a grifter taking over a party or a long discredited notion of trickle down economics. It was a joke, but it's also a truism-facts have a known liberal bias.
One party eschews education and embraces nonsense, and was warned about becoming the "party of stupid" by one of it's former rising stars.
The notion that education creates partisanship is driven by the conflation of a rate vs a number. There are more highly educated partisans, but the great majority of highly educated partisans are liberal.
6
Academic social science studies tend to be reductionist at best. Edsall's article is another example of this.
1
This is a baseless and politically-driven article. There are NOT two "sides" that we muse choose between. The are as many people who consider themselves Independents as there are who consider themselves Democrats or Republicans - COMBINED. Edsall's liberal-conservative dichotomy is bogus in other ways, as well. He would have us believe that 'extreme liberals' (like myself) are just extreme Democrats! Wrong. The Democratic establishment in deeply committed to global capitalism. They may call themselves "progressives". But that doesn't mean it's true, of course. America's progressive movement is supported more by Independents, democratic socialists, and others than by the democratic party faithful. Also, Edsall would have us choose between belonging to a righteous and informed, socially-aware group or a self-serving and uneducated band of ideologues. Supporting a modest increase to higher tax brackets that APPROACH your own tax bracket does not equate to selflessness; it probably does fit well with a selfless self-opinion though. (Edsall's selected and poorly-linked data 'take-aways' are not exactly rigorous.) Educated, establishment democrats know that education is the key to prosperity, life quality and security in society today - and, at some level, they also must know that if EVERYONE had similar levels of education their own good fortune would fall precipitously. After all, capitalism is all about competition.
2
The problem is that we are really a two party system, comprised mostly of white males, exclusionary to a fault, of not only women and minorities but diversity of ideas, overall. By excluding a deeper, richer pool of candidates, we get.... Trump... Clinton, even. For most of us, it just doesn't work. We wind up voting the lesser of evils, if not at all. Big Money has destroyed the political process, with the support of a mostly white Judicial system. I think we need to get more connected to our personal politics, the larger societal questions, and not only vote our values, but align our daily spend with values too. Democrats will claim to support economic empowerment and social mobility for blacks, and women, yet spend all their money with the very individuals who fund, sponsor, and vote for leaders like Trump. Pick a side, fine. But give your dollars to that side too. I live in a Republican controlled county where my local Democratic party boss discourages women from running for office, calling them lame ducks. I try everything I can to not spend one cent of my wealth (beyond taxes) in my community, even building a shared data repository for others who wish to spend their values, outside of their community too. Need to buy a car, hire a lawyer, doctor, mechanic, nanny--- spend within the communities you aim to empower.
That's true identity politics. #grabyourwallet
Well-educated, middle-class liberal here. I often identify with the Dems. I support: unrestricted access to abortion, no death penalty, severe gun control, unrestricted unions and arbitration, stiff penalties for white collar crime, intense watchdogs for all financial institutions, large corporations, and transactions, enforcement of all discrimination and harrassment laws, legal pot, diplomacy and treaties over defense and CIA spending, higher taxes to pay for schools, mental/physical health facilities, aid to the poor, elderly, and disabled, infrastructure, parks and culture...everything a society needs to succeed. Those who were most passionately "with her" might nod their heads to most of these, if not all. But how many hold their elected officials accountable when they cave to conservatives? How many support candidates who stake middle grounds on issues that are destined to be compromised to the right?
This is where I get lost in articles like this. Dems are liberal, mostly, kind of, unless they have to live among the working class. Republicans are conservative, unless morality becomes inconvenient and free markets don't sound tough enough. I might be weird, but my identity with one group or another just doesn't matter if what I passionately believe might be threatened.
1
What capitalist economists call rationality, more humane schools of thought might call enlightenment. No wonder more educated people in a rich society might often act as something more than little grasping automatons. It's our pseudo-science that fails us here. Some people, in some conditions, can and do learn to be decent members of a broad community from their schooling.
I'm a big fan of Mr Edsall, but I think he dropped the ball on this one. The reasons why are well expressed by others in this thread.
1
Mason writes, "“Identity does not require values and policy attitudes,” she writes. Instead, it simply requires “a sense of inclusion and a sense of exclusion.”
She may simply be saying that this is true for some people, not all, which is how I see it because I cannot agree with that as a blanket statement applied to the correlation between higher education and more liberal values.
The more a person learns (in the true sense, not from indoctrination), the broader the exposure to different ideas and their consequences through knowledge of history, and increased interactions with different types of people and cultures/subcultures, the greater the chance a person will see which ideas have the most merit, which political views and actions in history have led to better outcomes, and come to understand that our common humanity is more important than are our differences.
The primary truths that more educated people tend to embrace more than do less educated people, speaking very generally, are that study, research, and scientific inquiry have led to most critical developments in history, that authoritarianism and plutocracies are bad for most people and democratic (small d) principles are good, and that tolerance, appreciation of diversity, and civil rights are moral, just, and valuable to progress.
Those broad general truths align more closely with liberal views in life, I think, again to varying degrees because they are also shared by many conservatives, but not all.
If Edsall knew a little history, he would know why. Oliver Wendell Holmes provided the answer almost a century ago:
"Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization."
6
Why all the mumbo-jumbo? You finally got to the point of why well-off Democrats support taxes about 2/3 of the way through: "narrow economic self-interest has always been a relatively weak predictor of policy preferences relative to other symbolic considerations". And the most important "symbolic consideration" is that of support for a functioning society and government because those benefit everyone, including the ones paying the most in taxes.
4
As a liberal, I have a different take on this issue of raising taxes.
Sadly, the Democrats have allowed the Republican narrative on taxes to be revered as gospel, leading to tax cut after tax cut, for the middle class, for corporations, for the wealthy.
The result? An underfunded social safety net, crumbling infrastructure, underfunded schools, job loss, societal problems left to fester such as the opioid epidemic, a broken immigration system, a court system unable to handle the volume of cases, etc. And then there's the debt and the deficit.
I think that it is time to be honest about taxes and government. As potent and integral to the greatness of this country as individual innovation, hard work and the building of private enterprises are, the way in which we pool our resources through taxes to fund government programs that benefit all Americans - infrastructure, public schools, fire, police, support for scientific research, the arts, disaster relief, defense, and many other things, is equally integral to that greatness.
Just as everyone benefits from these government programs when they are run well, everyone should contribute through income taxes, rich and poor alike. These taxes should be graduated, with the rich paying more and the poor paying less, but everyone should contribute, unless they have no income at all.
The country needs the services that a well-funded government provides. It is high time that we all shouldered the responsibility to pay for them.
4
In reality, Obama INCREASED taxes on the wealthiest Americans multiple times (Obamacare, ...), remember?
And Obama cut Bush's record, structural $1.4 trillion deficit by two thirds.
So yes, Democrats too sometimes cut taxes, but they only do so for the poor and the middle class, and only during times of economic hardship and to stimulate demand as a way to get the economy going again.
The second point I disagree is where you want the poor to pay taxes. Imho, being poor is already bad enough, we shouldn't ask those people to stop eating one day each month so that they can contribute to building solid roads and bridges etc. Let's FIRST, through a fair tax system, create the opportunities for them to get into the middle class, and THEN tax them like anybody else.
For the rest, I fully agree with what you wrote.
In my discussions with GOP supporters, any argument involving taxes frequently devolves into 'those people are getting more than they deserve.'
If that isn't tribalism, I don't know what is.
4
Republicans are terrified someone is getting something they are not. No matter how rich they are, they believe they desreve more.
Democrats support the Social Safety Net because they know it protects all Americans. Paying our fair share of taxes is a sound financial and ethical investment.
2
LEE: Americans are caring people. When there is a problem, they want to help. When there is a disaster, they send supplies and money. When a neighbor's kid gets sick, they hold a bake sale or put money in the jar at the market, etc. So why won't they approve of national health care or pay more in taxes to help the destitute as the Europeans do?
Our society is different. Europeans lived in relatively mono-ethnic societies. When they pay their taxes, they know that the money is going to people just like them but are having a problem and they want to help; just like you'd help a cousin. With little exception, in the US people help their neighbors because their neighbors are just like them; similar backgrounds; they could be cousins.
Since we're a multi-ethnic society, when they pay taxes, they are sure that the money will be going to some other kind of person; someone not like them. Someone different, less worthy. There's a word for that: Racism.
Dear Mr. Edsall,
I am on the side of liberty. I am for government that, first and foremost, protects life and property. Otherwise, there is no legitimate purpose for government. Whatever else society decides that government should provide should be done through reasoned debate instead of coercion or shaming.
I am on the side of the nation's founders, who wisely thought that the federal government should be as unobtrusive as possible in our everyday lives and leave the major decisions of the people at the state and local level. We are nowhere near that model of governance now.
Mr. Edsall, you opened with the wrong question: "Should taxes on households making $250,000 or more a year be raised?". You should instead ask, "If you earned $250,000, how much of that would you be willing to give to the government in taxes?" The answer to that would be much more insightful than your entire article.
5
Even lots of educated, upscale liberals may not stay in the upper income brackets all their lives. I have an excellent job with full benefits NOW, in middle age, but I spent most of my 20s without health insurance. And I'm certainly counting on Medicare for retirement, since I know that it was created precisely because the private insurance market does not like to ensure older people. The safety net is important for everyone who works for a living when they are outside their peak earning years, regardless of how high they fly within those years.
It even matters for people in their peak earning years in some cases. How many lawyers lost their jobs during the Great Recession? A lot. How many engineers in every swing of the business cycle? Companies go broke or get bought out all the time. We all know someone who was doing fine until something went wrong, and no one should be so arrogant as to think it will never happen to them.
So that's the argument for people who are upper middle class, but not wealthy enough to live without working, to favor a strong safety net.
4
You have to define rich and affluent and assign some numbers. If you are saying incomes of over $250,000 define affluent and do not assign some numbers, it is misleading. And to ignore other demographic factors, or to simply not pursue that just a bit more also blurs the point. I am not disagreeing, but the case is made weaker without at least some of this detail. How many people are making $50,000 or less in this country? A strategy to reach them could take advantage of your data here. Republicans are hoping for local appeal to local issues. Should Dems do the same and basically ignore these data on the "rich" simply because the numbers define where one should focus most effort? For some reason, less affluent people have voted against their own interests, seemingly, forever. Or, they have not been inspired to vote. Maybe they are too busy surviving. Maybe they need some help in understanding their importance. I would also like to see data on retired individuals, seniors. A quickly growing group. Who is talking to them? How do they see ideological politics? Where do they fall in the income spectrum? Just another example. Re these data, one other question: How do Republicans interpret these same data? How should they?
While the many respondents critical of Edsall on the view that they recognize that "taxes are the price one pays for civilization" and hardly antithetical to their own interests make a good argument, there is still some 'splaining to do in response to his point about the NIMBYism that appears to be a rare non-partisan issue. Edsall does force us liberals to examine to what extent our willingness to pay higher taxes is partly motivated by the desire to give the least among us a place to bloom other than in our gentrified and increasingly homogeneous backyards.
1
There is a possible explanation that neither the social scientists nor Edsall mention: Our highly educated citizens likely have a better historical perspective, and think of their own “self-interest” on a longer time horizon. They perceive, however fuzzily, that historical examples of extreme inequality of wealth and income – as now in the US – have not ended well. Think France 1789, or Russia 1917. Plutocracy means that a bill eventually comes due.
9
I have no problems with paying more taxes if that money is spent on improving our lives rather than supporting politicians whose sole aim in office is slashing programs that help people when they are in need of it. We may pay some of the lowest taxes in the civilized world but we also receive much less because of it.
Other civilized countries manage to create health care systems that serve all their citizens and legal residents. We haven't. Other countries have better social safety nets and don't force their citizens into poverty before they step in. We penalize people for being poor or not rich. Other countries educate their citizens to a higher level even if they don't go onto college. Our education system doesn't equip non college bound students with the skills they need to support themselves after 12th grade.
Our politicians prefer to let the financial industry prey upon us. They protect environmental polluters, fraudsters, and liars. Whenever the consumer needs protecting our politicians refuse to take up our cause. And the only people/companies/organizations most of our politicians listen to are the extremely wealthy. Yet they try to avoid paying taxes while leaving us to pick up the slack. This is how a society/country fails its working class citizens: by refusing to make room for them unless they pay most of the cost.
5
There have been many excellent responses to the proposition put forth in Edsall's column that it is surprising that Democrats/liberals/progressives are often quite willing to support higher taxes on themselves and redistribution of resources away from themselves, in seeming contradiction to their own economic interests. Many of these are of the "taxes are the price paid to support civilization" kind, and look to a society in which there are good government services and protections as one that benefits everyone.
I do think, though, that his further point that this has limits is the more important one--specifically, that at times, when the affluent populace's "good schools", property values, or specific benefits are threatened, economic interests may reassert themselves. Edsall mentions the battles over affordable housing in California and the school battles in New York City; we can add the outcry against changes to the 529 college savings program suggested by the Obama administration and, now, the limits on deductibility of state, local, and property taxes in the 2018 tax bill. Admittedly, the latter is part of a smoke screen to reduce the taxes on the truly oligarchic and to resentfully punish/shift tax burden to "blue" states that tend to have higher local income and property taxes, but it still represents the kind of economics that progressives might otherwise accept magnanimously, but probably won't, and it points up that high tax/redistribution support has limits.
2
This looks like an elaborate false equivalency. The Republican party has undeniably become hyper-partisan, to the point where the President’s Press Secretary regularly suggests that opponents of the President’s policies are treasonous. It’s hardly surprising that politically engaged non-Republicans feel increasingly negative about Republicans, and that formerly disengaged nominal Democrats are beginning to feel that their party identification is a matter of political life or death. Diagnosing this as “expressive partisanship,” and assuming that partisanship is purely “identity-centric,” requires the unacknowledged assumption that political identity is purely formal—tribal, as it were—and has nothing to do with the actual content of the politics of the party. In the case of Republicanism, this means ignoring, for example, the critical role of racism and racist policy in party identification. For Democrats, it means dismissing as a matter of principle the possibility that, for example, affluent Democrats might favor tax increases on themselves not because their economic rationality has been overridden by “expressive partisanship,” but because of their commitment to the public interest.
8
It seems that general liberal attitudes are more easily accepted by better educated Dems...BUT, specific policies that have immediate, visible adverse affects on their own families might be a harder sell.
Go to a college football game and observe the identity-reactions to referee decision's. If it benefits "our side" even if the ref gets it wrong we cheer...and if the ref gets it right and it adversely affect "our side" we boo. Simple really.
1
Would that liberal voters among the wealthy truly do want more equitable policies. After watching the California housing legislation meant to serve the less well-off go up in flames, primarily due to liberal rejection, I can't be too sanguine about their commitment.
3
Overpopulation is the universal stressor we are forbidden to discuss.
1
The GOP "tax cuts" are temporary, they are just lying to their base in an election year. Wait until 2019! The latest Republican Tax cuts will add trillions to the deficit. Why would anyone be okay with this?
We are well-educated-upper-Middle class Democrats. We want our country and commutes to thrive, for schools to be well funded (even though we know have grandchildren), we want universal healthcare so that no American has to declare bankruptcy nor have to decide between food and shelter and medical services! We also want our infrastructure rebuilt, we are willing to pay more in taxes to see all this implemented. As of today, our schools are struggling, our infrastructure is crumbling all thank to eight years of Republicans controlling Congress!
When we look back in history, ask what have Republicans done for America? Not much, you will find! Finally, we must end the endless Middle Eastern wars, especially get out of Afghanistan!
3
This article reminds me of the one that questions whether there is a "liberal bias" to fact-checking sites, since they invariably find Republicans are lying more often. The reason more educated people skew liberal is because the Republicans have been the party of simplistic platitudes that don't hold up to scrutiny. Regarding whether higher taxes are in wealthy liberals' self-interest, the reason I am for higher taxes is because, in addition to caring about the welfare of other people (something that seems foreign to some on the right), it is in my, and everyone else's, self-interest to have an educated workforce, clean air and water, a healthy populace and modern infrastructure. The idea that you can keep cutting taxes and still have these things is a fantasy (see Kansas), yet the Republicans manage to sell this to an uneducated populace year after year.
8
Rich liberals have been in favor of taxing themselves for the country’s benefit—ergo our own—longer than we’ve been hating on Trump. Being educated means we understand the limited advantage to ourselves of amassing obscene money.
10
Education has always played a major role in any society regarding politics. In this article, I’m reminded of a statement found in The Urantia Book. “The argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the Truth Contained.”
All the Pew research in the world goes out the window when you just look at reality. Educated people generally get to view the world with a “wide-angled lens.” Less educated people are stuck with “A Telephoto Lens.”
2
The in group/out group dynamic re conservative views is extreme on college campuses like the one in my town. There are almost no conservatives on the faculty and in a large auditorium event students actually booed a student activist who dared to start a conservative student group. An educated person can have sound conservative ideology w/out being a Trumper or a racist etc but on a collage campus you will be socially ostracized for it, whether you are an adult or a student. “I disagree w/you” has become “I hate you”, even among liberals who like to think of themselves as so tolerant of others.
When are all these old guys going to retire? Move on and give the young people a chance. We need them now more then ever.
2
This article is full of blatant generalizations, and just further instills the polarized view of 21st century politics. It is especially insulting when the author claims that better educated voters are more ideologically based in their thinking, leaving no room for conservative viewpoints, than a person of a lower education. Wrong. Time and time again, I read of low educated, white conservatives spouting hatred against anyone who is not white that they fear is taking their jobs, their way of life, and they are the ones that will go to a rally, scream animosities against democrats, or they will get in a car, and drive through a rally of those who oppose them politically and try to kill them, or they will get a gun and try to rid them that way. I don't read of liberals doing these things. They try to change the world for the better. While Trump voters whined about losing health care access, even though they voted for the man who would do that, democrats and liberal conservatives saved their access to healthcare. Would they do the same? No.
4
I am not ideological. I have nothing to prove to any deity that forces me to believe anything that isn't substantiated by reproducible experiments.
You can pay now or you can pay later.
3
Why do poor, under-educated people of color vote almost universally for Democrats? Very few of them live close to highly educated, affluent white voters, yet they vote for the same candidates. What "identity-centric" politics unite them?
I'm a member of the latter group and I try to keep it simple: who are the most virulently racist, homophobic, and misogynistic people voting for? OK, I'll vote for the people running against their candidate. Guess how often I vote for Democrats
3
It is amazing to read all these articles and not come away with the feeling that the media and scientists have fallen for the populist message of the Trump campaign and the Republican party.
It almost feels like it is a crime to be educated,
imformed and liberal. Being liberal has become a black mark on your list of accomplishments.
Critizing the Democratic Party leaders who deserve very much to be criticized for their arrogance and lack of new ideas, criticizing them is now wrong.
And why? Because there is a strong increase in right wing populism all over the world?
This is very similar how the ‘intelligent’ press and scientists reacted in the 30’s in Germany.
What about morality, you find offense and mistakes in liberals being well informed while decline of morality by the populist movement is ignored.
It is about time that the media and scientists pay attention to what all these not (quite trust worthy liberals) have done and achieved with their activism.
2
All of this is absent an external threat to the nation.
1
Russia manipulating our elections is not an external threat to our nation?
How you answer that probably depends on your tribe . . .
Every reader of newspapers, including the NY Times, should subscribe to the on-line service called The Knife, which cuts through the bias of the various news sources. The Knife is equally merciless toward right-leaning bias as it is to left-leaning bias. Our news is being managed - and it is imperative that we realize that advocacy journalism has taken over the news marketplace.
"Trump and the Republicans targeted the super-rich as the primary beneficiaries of their tax bill, yet it does not seem to have hurt the downscale base." Iyengar
The downscale base takes every advantage of safety net provisions provided by the Democrats, which the tax cutting Republicans want to severely lessen or eliminate altogether. When confronted with their hypocrisy, the downscalers will smirk, shake their heads & condescendingly say, "Not going to happen, Congress will never eliminate food stamps, Medicare, etc."
The downscalers have essentially played Russian Roulette throughout their spotted working lives, living on the edge, losing marriages, incurring alienation of their children & enjoying being the object of derision of neighbors. Hey, it's attention, isn't it?
No great wonder that they identify with the "problems" of the Plutocrat-in-Chief.
2
it comes down to this.....which it seems the GOP never can grasp since it is owned by the .1% to fleece the rest of the country, but at least educated liberal seem to...
"...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. "
~Last Speech of Hubert H. Humphrey
or this:
"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members."
~ Mahatma Gandhi
or for the more media savvy:
“Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
-Spock, 1982
2
When we were kids, we used to taunt each other by playing a verbal game called "Backwards Day." On Backwards Day, everything you said was the opposite of the truth. It was annoying yet a lesson in translation from nonsense to reality. I think this author is stuck in some version of Backwards Day when he states that self interest was the underpinning of the New Deal. Or maybe he went to Backwards School and learned this in some required history class.
3
So it's "What's the Matter with Kansas" in reverse; i.e. "What's the Matter with California".
2
This article is an example of severe academic myopia and false equivalence. The fact is that Trump's election is a result of an appeal to resentment and hatred of immigrants and minorities which is prevalent among less well educated and less secure people. Trump is disliked by well educated and well off people who see how vicious his policies are.
The basis for the dislike of Trump are his lack of empathy and his awful character coupled with his blind hatred of Obama and his insane desire to undo everything that Obama did. If it takes intelligence to see this so be it. It doesn't make the two sides equivalent.
The Republican Party has become a very narrow, ideological organization. What used to be called a moderate Republican no longer has a voice. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, includes a wide range of views. There is a reason that educated people tend to be Democrats. They see through the inconsistencies in the Republican arguments. For instance, they see that supply-side economics doesn't work. The recognize that giving huge tax breaks to the ultra rich and big corporations will not create jobs any time soon. The see the magic asterisks in Rep. Paul Ryan's economic plans. As a result of their education they are not so easily fooled on technical subjects such as this. Placing the Republican and Democratic Parties on the same level as Mr. Edsall does in this essay is a joke.
2
I think that many college educated Liberals do not understand much about taxes. Say I have 1B$. I have no income flows. Since I have no income flows I pay no taxes. I finance my purchases by borrowing against my wealth and keep rolling this debt forward. I get tax rebates on the debt interest payments. Of course I will vote for higher taxes as they only benefit me.
If you're paying interest, you may get a deduction but it's not 100% so there's still a carrying cost to your debt. And you will get "rebates" only if you paid taxes and somehow become entitled to a refund. Still you're not getting free money either way.
Byron, the benefits do not come fro tax rebates - increasing taxes on my neighbors without suffering this increase I benefit from the spending of these taxes on public good so I have the best of two worlds private wealth and public benefits without paying a dime.
The word redistribution is “loaded.” Shouldn’t we be talking about “the public good?” Isn’t that why those without children don’t question paying taxes for public education?
In a recent paper, “Education is Related to Greater Ideological Prejudice,” P.J. Henry and Jaime L. Napier, psychology professors at NYU-Abu Dhabi, argue that we are exchanging one type of bias for another — that while “education is related to decreases in interethnic/interracial prejudice,” it simultaneously leads “to increases in ideological — liberal vs. conservative — prejudice.”
Of course! This seems ridiculous, people with a greater education have a broader vision and can vote for the ideals expressed in democracy... they can see why and how a more equitable country will be stronger for all. It is not a prejudice it is an informed opinion...
Social Security taxes - yes.
I'm on the side of decency and logic:
that firmly beives and wants to do something today about Climate change and end our unnecessary slavery to big oil.
That also firmly holds that each American and those seeking to become one have equal rights in the eyes of God
That we have a right to quality health care .
That we must erradicate Racism as a mental condition in order to become truly civilized.
That this administration is as crooked and treasonous as any that have preceeded it.
That women's rights include her own reproductive choices.
And that we all must become educated and involved in our country by voting and fighting for what is right .
1
Believing that the old bromides “ It’s the economy stupid”, and/ or “follow the money”, it may be time to bring to public view the debt clock. I recall one in Downtown Vancouver, at a very busy intersection, that ominously reported, updated every second, the nation’s indebtedness, as well as every households share. It impacted me, and led to policy changes.
It wouldn’t hurt to rub the Republican noses in their hypocrisy on balanced budgets, fiscal restraint.
1
Interestingly enough there is nothing stopping progressives from paying higher taxes. You will find that rich progressives will use every tax exemption available to avoid taxes. Buffett has an army of tax lawyers and accountants and he has structured his income so that it does not accurately reflect his wealth. And how about bill gates? I imagine he and his company evade as many taxes as possible as well. And what about the esteemed senator from New York who got caught evading taxes but still has not settled the tab at least a decade later. And what about the the progressives on the other end of the spectrum whom receive massive payouts far beyond what they paid in taxes to the IRS?if progressive really think more taxes should be paid to the government then stop talking and do so! Cut out deductions, create a flat tax and make things equal. Or merely shut up and pay more as your belief system seems to dictate. You know, act on those principles you claim are superior. PS. If your sacred cow, public education, is producing uneducated voters then perhaps it is time to stop dumping money into the program and do something more productive with those tax dollar.
1
The "flat tax" is another simpleton's panacea that neglects the economic law of diminution at the margin: the more of anything one has, the less each unit of it is worth to one. "Fair taxation" expressed in terms of this law is defined as causing all taxpayers to feel an equal degree of pain paying their last marginal dollar of tax.
1
Self interest does not mean low taxes! Stop spreading right wing propaganda!
Taxes are used to improve commuties' life collectively, and prevent select private individuals from hoarding and capturing resources they don't use or need.
I suspect the whiter the affluent liberal, especially male, the more likely they will go into some form of hiding soon given the cultural climate. Or maybe eventually just cave and quietly self-identify as independent because their pariah status has been decided for them. Wearing a T Shirt with the right hashtag on it and voting Democrat will not be enough to save a liberal from the sins of rich white and particularly male. If 2020 Democratic success needs them then maybe it is time to start letting them know.
1
Edsall seems to find it amazing that the wealthy and well-educated do not adopt a “let them eat cake” view of taxation. Seems to be the GOP version of “winners and losers” that ignores most of history.
The view that problems have to be addressed seems lacking here. Problems like lack of infrastructure, lack of health care, lack of education, lack of affordable housing, lack of child & elder care, lack of environmental protection, et cetera, require government action and taxation.
Resistance to such action is largely the result of very effective propaganda and disinformation campaigns by the weirdo billionaire backers of the GOP. Balkanization is not related to disagreement about goals, but about who is going to do something about it.
2
Silly guy! It's the Media that has made politics entertainment. Mysteries, steamy love stories, spy intrigue! Most novels do not contain all of these in one book, only in the daily news, called "breaking news", will you find all of the above in one chapter.
I really hope this series has a good ending!
Yes, I am more partisan after living through years of incessant GOP lies, misinformation, obstructionism, racism, sexism, blaming, shaming, and now the icing on the cake - Donald Trump. The "Moral" majority have no morals. They lied to us all this time. So now, after being burned by them over and over I don't trust anyone who is a Republican. They have aggressively violated nearly every value I hold dear. Just maybe Democrats have become more partisan because the Tea Party and Alt-Right Republicans have destroyed all decency.
"Can Democrats retain their new rich constituents without destroying the party’s mission?" Democrats have a mission? A focus? News to me!
Well educated liberals work towards the advancement of society and support liberal policies. Well educated conservatives realize how they can exploit the system and profit personally from it. There's your explanation for why the well educated gravitate towards one extreme or the other. It's the basic divide between selflessness and selfishness that permeates through every partisan disagreement.
3
Wait. They asked people making "more than $75,000" whether we should raise taxes on folks making more than three times that amount ($250,000) and think the respondents are ideologically voting against their self-interest?
I'm okay with raising taxes on folks who make 3+ times as much as I do, also.
But I don't think this proves anything.
3
George Washington expressed his concern about partisan political parties. Whether it could have been avoided remains an open question. What is absent is a civility between people of differing opinions. Once upon a time, one would acknowledge their opponent was an “honorable person” even if they had differences.
1
As a highly educated, progressive liberal I take exception at the idea that my support for the Democratic party is based more on my desire to be 'in' with my neighbors or cast 'out' any person or group than it is based on policy preferences. I am a Democrat because I want to see church and state separated. I want no group, women, LGBTQ or other disadvantaged. I want to see universal health care, access to education for all and gun control. And if the Republican party were to champion these policies while offering better implementation, speak lower taxes, I would support the Republicans. But the current Republican party has embraced race-baiting, misogyny and graft. The animus between the parties is undoubtedly real, but it rises with the cruelty the government rains down on vulnerable people, not with my desire for a dinner invitation.
2
Most educated Democrats and Republicans would agree with you that their political stances are based on their understanding of the issues, yet the data speaks against you. Consciously, I'm sure you're accurate, but most of our brain is unconscious, and impulses from that part of the brain have strong and predictable effects on decisions which we perceive as entirely conscious ones. Psychologists have been showing this on various topics for a decade or more.
Just home from two weeks in Amsterdam. We are fortunate to travel. Each Dutch person we spoke with had a precise list of US states they had visited: taxi drivers, waitresses, hotel staff proud of having been to 20, 30, 40 US states. They were curious about other places, other cultures while proud of their country as well. Everyone has problems but overall they were more joyful and relaxed from not worrying about healthcare that can lead to bankruptcy, proud of their strong educational system. They have a cohesive social vision and work from there. Their love of biking everywhere keeps them healthy and working together. The US has become a race to the bottom.
5
What is obvious from these data, yet strangely not addressed in the article, is the fact that with more education people have been exposed to, and exercise critical thinking; and those same people are more curious and therefore have a broader intake of news. These attributes give them an expanded data base on which to exercise judgement.
1
Why are Democrats supportive of policies NOT in their best interest? It’s simple. Unlike Republicans who will never resist an opportunity to wrap themselves in the flag and feign patriotism as if they themselves defined the term, Democrats truly love our country and are willing to pay higher taxes to support it. Republicans are just so completely selfish that their love of country comes only after they get something out of the deal, like senseless tax cuts followed closely by deficit spending. Democrats live by the famous words utter by JFK, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. Whereas Republicans believe the exact opposite, “ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you.”
1
That is exhausting. The Democratic Party should stick to its roots, and not try to appeal to every splinter psychographic segment that one can dream up. Those of us that can, should help support those of us that need help (a rising tide raises all boats). Everyone benefits from our Government. Even the conservative farmers in Iowa. If they lose their subsidies, they don't have a farm.
If you change your beliefs because of your paycheck, tradition says you'll be become a conservative to protect your financial security. Of course, traditionally the GOP was fiscally conservative. Not now. The Democratic Party has to be the party of inclusion, holding true to America's ideals. Let the GOP continue to fragment our country by embracing the worst human emotions. It will backfire. America was not meant to be a Zero Sum game.
1
This is very interesting, and has widespread implications.
People who are educated have the tools to objectively evaluate information, and make informed decisions - Not all people have those tools, and are easier to manipulate. The Republican party is well aware much of it's "base" does not have the tools to objectively evaluate information, and they take full advantage of that fact. Republicans manipulate its base with false and misleading information, and attempt to confuse people by calling credible sources of information "fake news", and it works. Educated people see how the GOP manipulates people and constantly lies, and that pushes them further away.
This is partly why scientists and religious people are politically opposite - Scientists are very good at objectively evaluating information, and religious people are taught to "believe" despite what contrary facts might exist.
The GOP prays on less educated and religious people because they are much easier to manipulate, and these people are not even aware they are being manipulated. It is kind of crazy.
1
Wow, a lot of these comments are quite defensive about their own polarization, thus demonstrating the point of "I'm only polarized because I'm right about everything" hypothesis.
As for taxes:
US Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20220
Send as much money as you like. There is nothing preventing all the big-hearted generous liberals from larger levels of self taxation.
But that won't happen, because this is just self congratulatory empty bluster for almost every single one of the self confessed generous tax-me-more types. Does that make you feel defensive?
2
Let me quote from this article:
In their 2015 paper, “Losing Hurts: The Happiness Impact of Partisan Electoral Loss,” the authors found that the grief of Republican partisans after their party lost the presidential election in 2012 was twice that of “respondents with children” immediately after “the Newtown shootings” and “respondents living in Boston” after “the Boston Marathon bombings.”
This gets us to the big question.
How firm is the commitment of the Democratic Party to an agenda that shifts benefits to those on the bottom half of the economic distribution when one of its most committed constituencies is the comparatively affluent who are motivated by “psychological and emotional” concerns and “feelings about who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ ”?
Now for a couple of points:
1. How does the discussion of how Republicans responded to the 2012 election get us to the question of the Democratic party's firmness of commitment?
2. If I were to see a series of studies showing that Republican voters are open to compromise and are not polarized, then I will be happy to debate this.
3. If Mr. Edsall wants to make an argument based on quotes with transitions, that's fine, but he and The Times really ought to do better.
4. "Which Side Are You On?" is hardly a headline that tells me anything.
1
Edsall's faulty assumption is that our personal "economic interests" are paramount. Perhaps helping each other have a sustainable life is a value above personal "economic interests"? Or perhaps the belief that we are all better off if, we all are better off?
This sterile categorizing of people into "tribes", most fashionable today, ignores the substance of peoples' beliefs. It serves no purpose. One final note, please show me the liberal's equivalent to the conservative's "build that wall"?
3
This article is framed in a peculiarly combative form. Edsal says:
“Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests? [...]Expressive partisanship, in effect, allows the most committed to override their own circuitry and support policies antithetical to their economic interests.”
That is, why do the elite not adopt a “let them eat cake” approach, disdaining the “lower classes”?
Hasn’t history been replete with accounts of the inadvisability of such an approach??
Isn’t it in EVERYONE’S best interest to recognize dignity for all and diversity of approach and attention to real problems??
And isn’t it part of this discussion to consider taxing the benefits accruing from automation and outsourcing to finance government activity necessary to address major problems the private sector is unable and uninclined to approach??
3
I'm a PhD lifespan autodidact; I've traveled the world and done many things. My view of politics is this: an enormous boat, democrats on one side and republicans on the other, yelling back and forth about the right course to chart; meanwhile, the boat is sinking. In other words, a ship of fools.
Edsall quotes the interpretation of correlational studies, without vetting the covariance controls on the causal chain. It's just as likely that partisans first become impassioned and then seek other partisans to amplify their own political impact -- "expressive partisanship" as the outcome, not the cause.
Why are they impassioned? Because everyone with a brain can see this ship is sinking.
Nothing here is unexpected, given Joseph Tainter's picture of "The Collapse of Complex Societies." These societies always fragment and fractionate in the process of their dissolution. There is no longer such a thing as party cohesion: in both the R and D parties we see the fragmentation continuing within their ranks.
In my view, the fundamental issue here is the careerist failure of leadership. Politicians speak in partisan code to elevate personal careers (another factor left unanalyzed). But when the ship becomes icebound and the salvation is a death march, only leaders can motivate the choice to trek.
Even icebound, the shouting continues about the course of a ship going nowhere.
1
All this talk about paying more taxes, never any talk about spending more efficiently. Examples abound of wasteful spending at every level of government. Tighten your standards and I'll loosen my wallet.
2
This articles says paying more taxes is 'not in my personal interest'. That is false. It is in my interest to have good roads, good schools for my kids that will be looking after me in my old age, and good and affordable health care. All of these things are paid for by higher taxes. How are thos things NOT in my personal interest?
The biggest falacy in this article is its premise.
4
Part of the problem of divisive politics is acerbated by attaching labels to people; it only emphasizes an "us" vs. "them" mentality that is damaging to our nation. Divisiveness under the current president in office is encouraged, not to mention the highly partisan and uncooperative GOP, who tried to block Obama's legislation at every turn in the previous administration, unlike earlier times when compromise and cooperation were accomplished across the aisle. Mass hysteria and group mentality are not original to the US, but when you have political forces that encourage the worst instincts in voters, voila, you have even further divides. The side I'm on encourages critical thinking, not mindless sloganeering;informed decisions, not seat-of-the-pants opinions based on gut instinct; and knowing the difference between facts and lies. If that means being educated, then I'm happy to be one of the "liberal " voters Mr. Edsall is referring to, because the outcomes matter to the quality of our lives and the trust we place in our leaders to ensure that quality of life is there for everyone, regardless of their politics.
The tee shirt I wear to the gym says "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!" I am amazed at how often folks assume that this means I am a liberal. In fact, I would say I support the Sanders/Warren wing of the Democratic Party, but I cannot bring myself to join the Democratic Party itself. Nevertheless, I take no joy in watching first the Tea Party and then the Trump wing of the Republican Party destroy that Party, and I cannot understand why true Conservatives have not risen up to strike down the serpents in their midst. I guess, as the saying goes, "Ignorance is Bliss".
1
Hmm. Seems the comments on the article prove the point of the various studies it refers to. Well educated readers either trying to "one up" the author's argument or doubling down on their partisan commitments. Interesting.
2
I am on the side for investing in my country,state,county,city and town. Those who have benefited the most should of course pay the most. Why not? We are all in this together,and except under special circumstances no one's good fortune is earned without the support of society. Paying taxes should be seen as one of our most important and patriotic duties. Everyone lauds the girl who gives up her birthday party so the money can be given to her teacher. Then we have other examples to admire. Our president thinks anyone who pays taxes and does not use every loop hole is a loser.
1
Well-educated people are typically higher earners, and well-educated democrats understand that having good schools, roads, parks, firefighters, police, etc. mean that we have to pay for it!
Republicans have been selling the same con since the 1920s - that they can give people everything the democrats want to give people on we won't make anybody pay for it.
2
The civilized, progressive part of the country, as personified by the 'Sanders Wing' of the Democratic Party, has the difficult task of forcing the country to move towards becoming civilized and moving away from mindless primitivism. More Sweden, less plutocracy. In this task, we are fighting against oligarchical Republicans and their red-state followers (who progressives are fighting for, but who profess to hate progressives, based on their swallowing of right-wing propaganda and their own unconscious rage). While challenging, I haven't given up and come November, I hope to see a political neutering of the Republicans before they can do too much damage to our country.
1
I disagree with a fundamental premise of this article in that educated Democrats support policies that are antithetical to their economic self interest. This premise is based on the idea that educated Democrats see the economy from a purely selfish perspective. I cannot speak for Republicans becasue I don't get their logically unsound economic arguments, but educated Democrats buy into the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats.
1
Are these polarizing Democratic Political Party sentiments against political opponents more prevalent amongst Liberal Arts Degree holders while less pronounced by those awarded STEM Degrees?
1
What a bunch of nonsense.
Highly educated liberals, who also tend to do well economically, are pushing for redistributive policies because they can plainly see it is the only way to have a successful country. It is highly a practical, not just moral or tribal, point of view.
Economic inequality has become so great - and is being increased so quickly by Republicans - that it is threatening the very fabric of our society. Without a social safety net, access to quality education that enables economic mobility and appropriate infrastructure investment, it is impossible to have a just, peaceful, functional society to live in. What good are a few dollars more in my own pocket if the entire country is crumbling?
Every other modern country in the world has figured this out.
1
I hope that Mr. Edsall-- usually a great thinker-- will read the comments today and respond. For the most part, they destroy the the points of his included pundits, and by extension his own conclusions. I will add two points to the discussion:
Metaphor: I live in a town with a great public pool. Have I used the pool? Yes. But mostly I like my taxes going to the pool so our High School teams have a place to compete; so our kids (rich and poor alike) can learn to swim and understand water safety; so everyone can cool off and have fun; so the committed lap swimmers can enjoy their chosen work out. My economic self-interest has NOTHING to do with my support for the pool.
Small mindedness V big town square: Further, most dems are dems also because of social justice issues. A pro-abortion voter may never want or need an abortion, yet we want others to have that freedom. The anti-abortion crowd frames the issue in terms of their own squeamishness about having an abortion. Gay rights, gun control, religious freedom (to name just 3 issues): dems look at the big picture--what advances our core values of freedom and security? The GOP personalizes everything: "I hate gays, they're going to take away my guns, we have a war on Christmas." Democratic support for justice has little or nothing to do with their own self-interest.
1
Mr. Edsall leads off with a major blunder in his interpretation of the preferences for higher high-income taxation He states that the higher percentages of higher-income people wanting higher taxes "on rich households" is "seemingly adverse to their own interests". No!
You've got to look carefully at the survey questions. Lower-income people are "far away from" very high-income and rich folks. However, as we climb the income ladder our proximity to the 1% and higher grows. As does resentment. I would bet that most of those households "making more than $120,000 annually" are making under $250,000 and I'll bet they're thinking higher taxes should be applied to those making over $250,000.
I would love to hear those making less than 30 thousand explain their answer. I wonder what percentage misunderstood the question. I bet you would get a different answer if you just asked them . "Should taxes be raised on rich people". That would in itself be an interesting question. I suspect it is the awkward wordy question the produced the results you want.
As a poor man, I am comfortable making this observation:
The well educated and well compensated appear to have this in common: THEY THINK VERY HIGHLY OF THEMSELVES AND THEIR OWN OPINIONS.
Republican or Democratic, red state or blue state, younger or older, straight or gay, etc.
As an open-minded man, I am comfortable making this observation:
All Americans, regardless of education and compensation, THINK VERY HIGHLY OF THEMSELVES AND THEIR OWN OPINIONS.
Republican or Democratic, red state or blue state, younger or older, straight or gay, etc.
1
All depends on what you consider "rich." Absent that it's sort of silly poll data.
I know this is tired argument but nevertheless it rings true. I make 200k. I'm divorced with two kids. I'm only able to afford, after payments for child support, very modest living.
But even when married the only home I could afford was farther out on Long Island (modest home, decent schools, 1 1/2 hour commute to NYC job). I don't think taxes should be raised on people in that range. Sorry. And I"m a loyal Democrat.
As a matter of fairness, why should I pay more when the wealthy are paying so little that their lifestyle is not affected? As a matter of selfish interest (gasp!), why should I pay more in taxes when we I don't have enough saved for retirement, but trying, and none for college for the kids?
Then again if I made my salary level in Kansas (or even upstate NY), I'd be ok with higher tax because all is cheaper.
There is great peril for the Democrats to raise taxes on the "rich" unless it is the very rich.
The more educated understand that it is technology that is driving income inequality. They understand that programs such as universal healthcare and affordable eduction will greatly improve the standard of living for those affected by an ever shifting job market. The net result is a sustainable economy that benefits everyone, not just the privileged few.
There are slivers of reason in the chart that should hearten progressives and are indicative of this nation's ideological battlegrounds: The only group that *consistently* trends the "other" way as they become more educated are those with moderate-conservative bias. Also, those with slightly conservative bias remain slightly conservative as they become more educated. A geographic breakdown of this chart by voter district would be helpful in understanding the real issues of real people so we can start to make doors in identity-partisan walls.
I don’t think we’ll educated adults are voting against their interests, they just look at their interests over a longer time frame. They believe that by paying more taxes they will be more likely to live in an economically thriving democracy.
1
Identity politics is a bad deal. Virulence on one side induces like virulence on the other. If people took each issue on its merits and voted based more on their economic interests and less on their tribal affiliation our politics would be less toxic. What we have here is a game-theoretic bilateral sub-optimal outcome.
Don't hold your breath on progress in the near future.
Why does Edsall focus on Democrats in this column and focus especially on higher income Democrats? If the underlying research is correct, shouldn't he focus just as much on lower income Republicans and ask why they continue to support Republicans? To fail to do so, Edsall appears to take academic research out of context and suggest that the results are far less nuanced than most academic research usually is.
Further, he doesn't comment on the glaring evidence of the chart "More Education Means More Polarization." The extent of pro-conservative bias is always greater at each level (slightly L/C, L/C, extremely L/C) than the extent of pro-liberal bias, regardless of level of education. For example, those with college degrees who are extremely C rate greater than 60, while those with the same education who are extremely L rate less than 60. For those with less than high school, each of the three conservative categories are much more biased than its opposite liberal category. Further, those who are Moderate actually rate slightly more C for the first three education levels and neutral only if they have a college degree.
This data might suggest two points: 1) education re-enforces bias rather than limiting it; 2) conservative bias is always more strongly held than liberal bias. If so, the reasonable conclusion might be that conservative beliefs lead to deeper polarization than liberal beliefs.
"Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests?"
Being a well-educated and (reasonably) well-off member of the coastal technocratic elite, I can assure you that the bottom-righthand corners of my monthly account statements are not the most important measures of my interests. An educated person would understand that POV, so this piece is a major disappointment. My only demand wrt paying higher taxes is that the funds be used to benefit all of us - think education, safety net, healthcare, transportation infrastructure - rather than on border walls and wars and subsidized resource extraction.
5
Well said!
I see a real problem with (and was put off by) this article, in that it speaks almost entirely about Democrats. While purportedly attempting to describe modern politics as 'identity-centric,' it uses Democrats as an example and to illustrate its assertions throughout, only mentioning Republicans directly in quoted material, or in direct comparison to Democrats, but never, not once, any Republican issues or concerns, or how Republican attitudes and identity affect that party. As an attempt to explain partisanship and tribalism in politics, it is itself overly tribal and partisan.
I'd also like to point out that focusing on whether Democrats would support a tax hike is a bizarre issue to use to base conclusions on identity politics or political tribalism. It is a core belief and foundational plank of the Democratic party that a firm tax base is necessary for a healthy society. This isn't a new idea. I'm sixty years old and this is a political belief I share with my parents, just as they shared the same belief with their parents. This isn't tribal or identicentric, it's foundational.
3
Or maybe it’s it just basic ethical development, in part permitted by affluence and education; from those who have been given much, much will be required. When you are economically secure in your life you understand that a healthier society benefits you in many ways, and you have more time on your hands to think about that. Frankly, it is insulting to insinuate this process is affiliatiative or imaginative rather than logical merely because the end result is more compassionate.
9
Generally I find it very hard to argue with Edsall's pieces, but this one seems to miss a significant motivating factor in wealthy liberals' approval of higher taxes as it seems to define self-interest too narrowly.
1
Many people assume that tax hikes on the rich hurt them in some manner, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. They are also easy prey for propaganda, as few have the economic knowledge to be immunized from it.
For example, Obama and Clinton raised taxes on the top 1-2% and the economy boomed thereafter. The CBO just reported that the ACA raised taxes on the top 1% families by about $21,000 on average (1-2% of their after-tax income), while transferring about $600 on average to the bottom 40% of families, expanding healthcare coverage for 20 million people. No other group was affected significantly one way or the other. This was a significant improvement in after-tax inequality.
Right now, people are feeling some benefit from Trump's tax cuts in their paychecks, but forget that they won't know the real impact until they file their tax returns in April 2019. Further, those individual tax cuts are scheduled to expire; if they don't the deficit explodes.
But people don't think about the opportunity costs or other options; eliminating tax breaks for the top 1% (about $300 billion per year; see CBO-Tax Expenditures) would fund most college or trade school costs for their kids. That's without touching rates.
Democrats need simple, consistent messaging: Universal healthcare and education for all, paid for by higher taxes on the rich and lower defense spending.
There should be a weekly Democratic press conference with a PowerPoint to get the messages out.
3
I'd argue that those of us who are affluent supporting higher taxes is a prime example of how we should vote. Certainly, each person has issues that are personally important and relevant. However, we should always remember that as voters, we have a responsibility not only to vote for what is best for our community and our friends/family, but also what is best for all 300M+ Americans, especially those who are less fortunate than us.
3
I disagree with the assumption here: "Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests?"
Perhaps it is because well-off Democrats have a larger vision of what "self-interest" is, like maybe not wanting to have a violent revolution, overthrow of the government, and Mad Max anarchy. Conservatives, especially mainstream Republicans, seem to have blinders on about the risks of taking-taking-taking. At some point, there is a limit, and people will not stand for it.
I would prefer to pay higher taxes, share a little, make people's lives easier in terms of social safety net, and not end up with my head on a pike, thanks.
Just to be clear, I have always thought that the idea of "voting against one's own self-interests" as applied also to conservative, or lower SES voters, was false and, moreover, condescending. All of us are capable of voting against our narrow self-interests in favor of our values. These values just happen to be different.
1
Last time I checked I drove on public roads, had all the clean water I want from public sources, went to free public schools, use the free public libraries, walk in the town and state and national parks, etc. etc. I'm in the upper middle class (and still moving upward) and yes, I am happy to pay taxes for these public goods. I don't vote with my pocket book; I vote with my mind and my heart. And I'm smart enough to understand that short time gain often leads to a long time loss. Don't presume to tell me what I think and how I should vote.
7
Voting in accordance to one's economic self interest and venerating individual freedom through an espousal of a libertarian definition of liberty brought you Trump. If you can't recognize that Trump is the culmination of the Reagan Era, then you're surely blind.
Voting more in concert with benefits society as a whole and viewing yourself as part of a larger entity is more commonplace in Australia, Canada, NZ and UK. Needless to add, it's something Americans tried before---aka The New Deal. Perhaps it's time Americans finally abandoned the economic and political dead end of Reaganomics.
3
As a college educated Liberal, it's shouldn't be a surprise that I (and others like me) have become more diametrically opposed to conservative politics.
For forty years now, conservative politics has relied on distortions, outright lies, and dirty tricks to rise to their position of power. And simply saying "both sides do it", is truly false equivalency.
Thanks to a few powerful and very rich benefactors, the conservative wing of the GOP has built a massive infrastructure (Heritage Foundation, among others) from which they create their own facts to support their agenda. They have created a cottage industry (ALEC) to create legislation that benefits their donors. They have Jerrymandered districts to create extreme disproportionate advantage. They have packed the courts with judges having deep conservative roots (George Mason, et. al.).
They work to suppress truth and fact based opinions that do not support their ideology. They attack the education system as "elite" because most highly educated professionals have the ability to research and use facts to support their opinions, and question "authority" when necessary.
If that makes me and other well educated individuals "polarized" from those who don't share our respect my/our principles, I am happy to accept that moniker. And I challenge anyone to prove what is wrong in that way of thinking.
6
"The politics of economic self-interest that underpinned the New Deal era". What a stretch - the New Deal, like WW2, was about working together collectively for a higher good to solve existential threats to our system of government. It wasn't about the "politics of self interest."
5
There is no serious internal conflict between wanting more tax revenue to fund better education for all students and still wanting your own children to enjoy the best education possible. The spread of charter schools that operate using public money but operate in a manner quite like private schools in deciding which students they "allow" to enroll it is good public policy to continue to allow those middle class parents who want to send their children to quality neighborhood public schools to do so.
These middle class parents are very aware that simply pushing students from less advantaged backgrounds into classes where they do not have the requisite skills to keep up with the rest of the class is not the best way to really integrate middle schools. This is an example of sacrificing quality schools for deceptive "optics." Until significantly more students in NYC grow up within communities that are marked more by well-functioning institutions...primarily well-functioning families...than by poverty, violence and all the other dysfunctional aspects of contemporary society...facile attempts to create integrated schools without integrated classrooms are a gigantic waste of time and resources that could be better spent improving the communities where the families of the children who desperately need better schools and opportunities for positive interactions with people from different social strata.
1
A number of issues merit further exploration. In what ways, if any, does/can higher education effect both knowing as well as understanding issues of concern to the person, his/her party membership/identification, as well as one's political behaviors? What are the potential as well as actual relationships between a person's higher formal education and their types, levels and qualities of engagement in, and enabling of a WE-THEY culture of violating created, selected, "the others;" ethnic-racial, gender, gender-identity, religious, age,"haves/have nots," etc?" This article' style, inadvertently, or not, describes its created groupings as if each of them is homogeneous. What are the types, levels and qualities of relevant diversities within each of them? In what ways, if any, does a person's past as well as current daily living/working environments effect their political overt identy and behaviors, as well as potential "hidden" ones? There is surely a great deal more that needs further exploration in order to understand the interaction between the dynamics, complexities and multidimensionalities of what is being discussed. Lastly, for example, how are the ongoing dimensions of reality- interacting uncertainties, unpredictabilities, randomness and lack of total control over known, relevant parameters, no matter types, levels and qualities of one's efforts-considered and weighed when partisanship, identity-politics,and a range of an individuals' behaviors are studied?
Does this then explain the fact that so many Republican voters who are not wealthy still vote against their best interests? The Republican Party does nothing to make their lives better.
1
A growing body of research shows that racism not economics is what binds the white working class to Trump. Conservative media is essentially a propaganda tool of the GOP. The mainstream media refuses to achnowldge thisfact, which has given Fox a legitimacy it does not deserve.
Mr. Edsall encounters perplexing attitudes and opinions because of his antiquated frame of reference. Regarding higher taxes as simply “redistributive policies” projects the whole issue as a kind of national charity for the poor. In reality it is a matter of providing a sensible foundation for economic and societal stability and prosperity for all income levels. A large, complex, technologically integrated nation needs significant resources to function effectively and right now this burden is not sensibly shared across income levels. As scholars like Joe Stigliz have quantitatively shown, gross inequality leads to a less efficient economy for all citizens. This is not a matter of ideology – it’s direct logical thinking. I believe that larger numbers of citizens at all economic and educational levels are beginning to sense this and trying to adjust. That’s why analyses like Mr. Edsall’s will continue to yield perplexing results until they learn to ask the right questions.
6
Mr. Edsall,
You ask "Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies _seemingly_ adverse to their own interests?", citing a choice to raise their own taxes as an example. Far from being against their self-interest, these citizens recognize the many benefits of higher taxes that they will enjoy. Improving public schools expands where they can live. A real social net could reduce the homeless who increasingly crowd our streets, and effectively address the many medical afflictions suffered by our veterans and those caught in addiction. And who does not want safer bridges and trains, let alone better paved roads?
You get the point.
Thank you.
6
Higher taxes can buy better government. Better government means better infrastructure, better education, better healthcare, better parks and museums, a better safety net for my poor debt-laden millenial children and grandchildren, fewer homeless sleeping in the bushes, cleaner water and cleaner air. And so on! It's practical! I have a PhD but I don't need one to figure out the answer to the question of higher taxes. I'm happy to pay them, because good government is worth it.
4
CDT, You should have learned that "can buy" and "will buy" are not related. If there was a direct correlation then countries that take everything and give enough back to barely allow their citizens a substandard income would be the best governed nations. Since you have a Ph.D. perhaps you can understand that after a few years of study.
Part of the problem for this question is that people believe that the purpose of taxes is to pay for government operations. If you ask yourself the question "Where does the money I use to pay my taxes come from in the first place?", you will see you are putting the cart before the horse.
The federal government can create as much money as it needs. It then spends this money on government operations, e.g. the military, roads & bridges, research, education, etc. In this way money gets to you.
Now while there is no theoretical limit on the creation of money, there is a practical one. If too much money is sent to the private sector, there will be excessive inflation. Taxes take some of this money back. Hence the purpose of taxes is to adjust the amount of money in the economy.
Note, however, if the budget is balanced, there will be no new money sent to the private sector to support a growing economy. Even worse, if the government shows a surplus & pays down the debt, money will be leeched out of the private sector. If enough money is taken out of the private sector, the economy will crash. This has happened every time, 6 times, the debt has been paid down 10% or more.
Also, money has been flowing out of the country. Hence to support a growing economy, the deficit must be larger than the amount leaving the country.
Except for a brief period in 2003, this condition was not met from 1996 to 2008. And the economy crashed.
"educated," insofar at it includes both knowledge and the critical skills of analysis and debate is the wrong term here.
the increases of temper and intolerance, the shift from issues to identities are marks rather of the "indoctrinated," those who have taken on sets of opinions and do not want and, more likely, have not, alas, acquired the habits of mind that mark educated men and women, the critical skills to deal with, shadings and alternatives...a breath drawn in the current climate (or cloud, if you will) around our campuses, marked by intolerance for free inquiry, is all it takes to feel the burn.
1
In the Middle Ages the more educated you were the more likely you were to believe that the earth revolves around the sun so I guess that education contributed to the polarization of science then.
Republicans have long stopped using logic or facts to support any of their political positions so of course you are going to see a difference in education correlated to the difference in political beliefs.
When those whose opinions differ from mine use truth, facts, and logic to support their beliefs my regard for them will increase tremendously.
3
Its all well and good to measure ideology and partisanship and the degree of emotional involvement in ones political affiliation. Its not valid however to pretend that one can measure these things and come up with hard and fast conclusions such as "increasing levels of education leads to increasing polarization". To conclude that one would have to consider that the political platforms of each party had held relatively constant over the measurement period of time-- and they have not. The increasing capture of the government by big money and oligopolic influences, and the draining and hollowing out of civic institutions and programs for the poor and working classes are what is driving increasing political polarization. The educated who are not members of the oligopoly can see where we are headed, if we continue as we have, and if wealth gets ever more concentrated at the top: aux barricades, citoyens.
2
Its 'cultural': "Winning isn t everything it's the only thing." (Vince Lombardi) or, 'The end justifies the means'. or, 'You can't accomplish anything if you're not in power.'
So winning becomes and end in itself. And what you do when you win, is simply plan, work, on your next win. Its a purposeless pursuit without substance.
1
"...more knowledgeable people have more informational ammunition to counter argue any stories they don’t like."
In other words, educated people are better able to think for themselves.
Leave it to a political scientist to twist that simple concept into something problematic.
2
I strongly oppose the way this column is written. Edsell completely ignores actual reality, data, history & logic. Let's take his opening question:
"Should taxes on households making $250,000 or more a year be raised? "
See, there actually is a real world answer to this question at any point in time, like today.. One that is good for the economy of the US of A as a whole, One that is supported by data, history & logic. Now that does not PROVE it is the right answer. You can't really PROVE things in the real world, but it certainly is a good bet to go with the answer that makes the most sense.
Why is it not reasonable to suppose the more education a person has, the more likely it is he will support the right answer? If this is not true, why educate people at all?
Obviously, some educated people with be influenced more or less by emotion or ideology and get it wrong, but is it too much to hope that education will help people to get it right?
The media carries way, way, too many articles like this one which avoid presenting data, history & logic on the questions, and are only concentrated on vague sociological arguments where most of the terms are not even defined.
For example, we could be told things like:
1. Has the economy done better under Democrats than Republicans or vice versa?
2. How did the economy do when tax rates on the Rich were very high?
3. In the history of the world, how have countries with extreme inequality fared? Is there any correlation here?
Etc.
6
my family is wealthy enough that we use trusts to avoid estate taxes. we're all democrats. anyhow, income tax is for poor people, because rich people don't have jobs. Rich people worry about estate and capital gains taxes.
4
Good heavens, the author of this article is blinded to what is actually going on in this country and the world by erroneous notions of self interest. Since when is supporting the common good against anyone's self interest, unless someone is interested in obtaining more than their fair share by taking advantage of others, and then justifying their bad behavior by blaming those who have been taken advantage of? This is a narrow view that does not take into account that we are all stuck together on this little planet, and in spite of the constant growth fantasies of a subset of economists, it is a zero sum game here. Economists and politicians who are so narrowly and poorly educated that they do not understand this really basic fact of human existence, are dangerous to our country and the world.
6
I used to be a true believer. I would vote Democrat every time.
I had fallen into the trap of convincing myself that the Democratic Party represented all of my values just because they were the standard bearer for a few of them.
I have come to realize it is all a big con. In comparison to the Republicans they appear to be the right choice for me but when I actually see their policies I realize they represent a form of nihilism.
They 'oppose' the wars yet do nothing to stop them. They 'support' the environment but pass no meaningful legislation. They talk about 'helping' working people but import tens of millions of people who undercut wages and raise the cost of living.
I used to be able to ignore those facts because I was convinced that the Republicans only cared about the mega-wealthy.
I have come to realize that power supports power. The Democrats could never live up to the fantasy party I had built in my head. No party could.
I have come to realize that the basis of my vote must be self-preservation and personal benefit- with the fervent hope that policies that help me will help most. Emotions, feelings and personal values cannot be part of the equation- because such things cannot be measured or judged and we are all prone to self-delusion.
4
In real life, Obama doubled investments in clean energy (today, twice as many Americans already work in the solar energy industry, compared to coal), and he's the main force behind the world's very first international climate agreement.
If you believe that this isn't "meaningful legislation" and "a form of nihilism", could you please explain why?
And the same goes for Obamacare: 40,000 lives saved a year, 20 million more Americans insured (= who don't have to choose any longer, concretely, between a vital treatment when a parent gets sick, or pulling their kid back from college or selling their home).
How cynical do you have to become to call this "a form of nihilism" ... ??
@Ana,
The Democrats support half-measures on every issue.
Doing next to nothing on the environment is better than doing nothing- sure. But I want more than next to nothing. And I will no longer tolerate a party taking credit for not being worse than they could be.
The Affordable Care act was a decent moderate-Republican plan. Mitt Romney would have given us the same or better.
Again- next to nothing is no longer sufficient for me. I want better. I want a party that will FIGHT for better.
1
There's a false assumption here that economic self-interest is limited to (a) immediate financial gain, and (b) the form that the interest takes. Better educated voters may better understand that (a) a better funded government will provide better non-monetary services such as clean air, better roads, public safety, public education, etc. and (b) it is in their, and their families', longer-term interest to reduce the social, economic, and political consequences of income and wealth inequality.
7
For your first question, why do rich people support higher taxes, one answer is that they understand that more money doesn't matter. You get into the six digits and you're in the comfort zone. Most of the problems are external, and that's where the identity divide shows up. You have people who want collective answers to things like violence in the city, or homelessness, or education. Then you have the people who want individual action for the same things. One looks to the government, while the other buys guns. Paying more taxes _is_ acting in self interest when the problem is something that individual action can't address.
4
Social scientists discover that being sufficiently educated to understand how tax policy effects our ability to address climate change, expand access to health care, or maintain infrastructure, creates a bias or increased respect for people similarly informed. And creates a willingness to pay more tax for the benefit of others? I really see no solution to this. I'll really worry when those do-gooder tax paying elites show up at rallies carrying AR 15's, wearing tee shirts that say "Poor Kids Suck" or "Build a Wall Around Kentucky".
1
I find there is a group of people who are very snobby — they are proud of buying the “greenest” products, shopping at farmers’ markets, slow cooking and their inclusive values. When my children started at our local school I was shocked at how important recycling was. It strikes me none of this was about passionate commitment to helping the planet or a joy in farmers’ markets — it was just about class and feeling good about themselves.
I find it sad that these same people who purport to be concerned for the poor are voting against affordable housing in California. I am watching the same thing happen in my own neighbourhood.
The best people are still able to listen and be compassionate. My son has a teacher who really cares about the environment but she emphasizes that you don’t want to bully people who doubt or are choosing to use different products. For her it’s not about snobbery or us versus them.
I have doubts about climate change and it disturbs me in comments sections how free people are to denigrate that. I don’t want anything bad to happen to the planet; I don’t want big oil to hold all the cards, either.
It is the same with abortion, trans rights, affirmative action, sex education and so many other issues. For me these are all grey zone issues but each side now seems to have a strident orthodoxy. It’s becoming sectarian.
6
Identity politics has ruined activism. This has done more to divide than unite people. When you go to talks about environmental issues, there are typically only gray hairs. When young people who aren't paying attention to the environmental crisis start to pay more attention, it will be too late. A lot of scientists believe it already is. Youth need to engage in being part of the solution to the problems that they are going to inherit. Many of the social problems they are engaged in are more reversable than the much more dire environmental problems, and this is even more urgent with the Trump administration accelerating the wholesale destruction.
5
I live in a college town, and I see young people everywhere with their faces aimed downwards (curious about what this new adopted posture will produce evolutionally) and eyes glued to their phones. I hope they're all busy reading about and actively planning to fight climate change - but I seriously doubt it.
1
This article assumes that "interest" equals self-interest, which is individualistic and reductive. While I of course want to make a good living, live in a nice home, and have health insurance, I want that for everyone too! And even "nice" is relative, yes? Nice might not entail a 20-room mansion, but simply a home whose pipes are not leaching lead into the bodies and brains of my loved ones. My success does not, should not, depend upon others remaining downtrodden.
Educated progressives can be a bit snobby (c'mon let's admit it), but the goals are real: willingness to pay more for a functioning and supportive government, national healthcare for everyone, good public education for all, civil rights for minorities and LGBTQ, the list goes on and on. We recognize that "interests" can apply across the whole, and that by working towards the "whole-interests", our "self-interests" will also be served. It's working towards the Good of the Many, which in turn serves the Good of the One. If we get a little strident about it, well that's only because it is simply unfathomable that conservative others seem utterly disconnected from, if not actually malevolent towards, contributing to the uplift of our society, for ALL of its citizens!
4
I don’t see the demonstration of a causal relationship between more knowledge through education and more extreme views, only correlational.
Another correlation could be that college graduates have spent time in a more diverse environment than their home- economically, racially, politically, etc. Perhaps they formed stronger opinions based on personal experience with other groups. Or perhaps in a more diverse environment they needed to identify more strongly with a group to provide intellectual or emotional security or even to provide a starting point for interactions with others.
Could the competitive environment of weed out classes with increasingly diverse student bodies play a role increasing insecurity?
Also the economic risks of paying for higher education have been increasing which could also impact insecurity and fear of other groups.
5
I take strong issue with the assumption embedded in the taxation example. I do not see how higher taxes are antithetical to my interests, financial or otherwise. Our current government fiscal situation, the lessons provided by the history of nations, the needs of our infrastructure and economic inequities in our society demand higher taxation, particularly among higher earners. Higher taxation would improve our economy in the long run, and ensure my children have some semblance of a future. That is, higher taxes are in my best interest, regardless of my education level or income.
4
But wouldn't trust funds and a lot of family property do just as well for your children as improved infrastructure and a healthy economy? If my children have multi-million dollar trust funds, they will have a future, even if the rest of the country does not. Just sayin'.
@ richguy
Money can't buy you a city where it's good to live in because there are no homeless people, the crime rate is low, education good and affordable, and sick people get the treatment they need, whereas appropriate global climate change measures make it possible for your children and grandchildren to continue to find fish and fruits and a healthy, diverse food stock close to their homes ...
And then we're not even talking about being truly happy, which, as studies have shown, is essentially a function of having your basic material needs met, combined with very deep spiritual practices cultivating self-compassion and compassion ... . Your children will need those too, to "have a future" worth living, and probably more than a multi-million dollar trust fund...
1
Ana,
I'm not a hippie. I'm a goth. I'll have little goth babies. We'll all listen to NIN on Sunday.
I get your points, but the super rich don't always live in cities. I wouldn't encounter many homeless people in Darien CT or New Canaan CT.
I want someone to make an argument without any spiritual dimension. I'm a hardcore atheist.
To my mind, the biggest contributor to climate change is overpopulation, which is a problem among religious people. I am an atheist. I would never have more than two children. To me, biological greed (wanting 5 to 7 children) is even worse than financial greed. For that reason, I fear the Vatican more than I fear Wall Street.
Can anyone give me a pro-taxation argument that doesn't involve some appeal to spiritual improvement or moral duty? Is there some Bentham-ite or Rawls-ian argument in favor of it?
Thomas Edsall's essay is more notable for what it omits.
No mention of what some (like political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson) call "asymmetric polarization" -- the thesis that, contrary to the decorous (and false) line popular in American journalism and academia, polarization is not equally distributed between right and left. Conservatives have willfully driven further right than liberals have left.
This view is supported by a growing body of research that Mr. Edsall surely knows. The chart purporting to illustrate the growth in partisanship seems to directly deny these findings, suggesting that moves left and right have been roughly equal. That simply isn't supported by the evidence. (A notable problem in that chart: it is based on data from 1972 through 2012. Why that range? And does anybody think that conservative or liberal in 1972 is the same as in 2012?)
Remarkably, neither Mr. Edsall nor the researchers cited consider the possibility that expressiveness or identity might correlate with position on the socioeconomic ladder. Talk to a teacher on strike or to someone old enough to remember the violence directed at union organizers to get a sense of how central to identity position on the socioeconomic ladder can be.
4
And don't forget to notice that in the chart showing the "respect" versus "bias" that each group has toward people defending a different political opinion, in function of education, clearly shows that conservatives' intolerance is 25% higher than liberals, when you look at those with a college degree.
Edsall, for one or the other reason, preferred to omit that too ...
2
I find it incredibly naive in this day and age that we still group people based on their overall income instead of where they live and what the cost of living is in their area. A $100,000 annual income in Mississippi is not the same thing as making $100,000 in Silicon Valley. One person would be living a very nice lifestyle while the other struggles to find a place to live. I have no problem with people making more money paying higher taxes (the caveat, of course, is that if the money was wisely spent by the government which is really hard to say) but I would much rather it be based on your area's cost of living instead of just your income. For example, the median household income for Fairfax County in Virginia is ~$105K while the median household income in Mississippi is ~$37K. I do not think it's fair for those living in Fairfax to be taxed higher than those in Mississippi simply because they make more--they also have to spend more because cost of living is so much higher in Northern Virginia.
2
Please don't insult my intelligence. My support for higher taxes comes from a recognition that things like schools, police, roads, firefighters, social security need to be paid for. There was a time when Conservatives acknowledged this too. Ultimately they are voting against their own interests without realizing it when they drive down a street filled with potholes on the interstate, a bridge falls down, a subway or rail line derails because signal systems have never been upgraded. They (and you!) don't seem to grasp that today's Republicans are turning our great nation into a 3rd world country.
21
Hi Cathy, you are right on everything except that conservatives used to acknowledge this basic fact - ever since the days of FDR republicans have been selling their voters the con that they can give the American people everything that the democrats want to give people (in fact they'll give even more - and make it better) but that they'll do it without anyone having to pay for it.
2
I went to a small college in a small southern town in the seventies and could feel a cultural disconnect between myself and many of the students who grew up in more rural areas. Some of them had a cultural disdain for so called "city folks" from Atlanta.
I never understood where it came from but now 40 years later I feel that same disdain in my Republican "city folk" friends and acquaintances.
They have a lot of resentment and it has very little if anything to do with politics. They have been conditioned by right wing media to believe that liberals are out to destroy their way of life and more importantly that liberals look down on them.
When I think back to that small southern school I have a much better understanding of how some of those rural people were thinking because it's the same way many suburban republicans think today.
5
A better-educated population is not necessarily a smarter one. Close-minded ideologues from both parties are far less aware and far less informed than independent thinkers. Intelligent people are thoughtful, nuanced, curious, patient, and civil. Most importantly, they are good listeners and voracious readers.
3
This "analysis" of polarization does not consider the effect of religion on political positions. The most intractable people I know are driven by their religious beliefs. Education, notably critical thinking, promotes more objectivity.
6
This article misses some important points. Globalization and lack of government leadership to control its most negative aspects to the work force have been the driver of our divisions. Instead of addressing new economic strategies for a new economic climate our politicians have used negative social, economic and racial dividing as a tactic to stay in power and thus just continue the 'same old same'. Instead of analyzing compartmentalized groups of voters we need to spend serious time analyzing the larger global systems contributing to the economic upheavals and come up with policies that address the new realities and thus the frustrations of the electorate. Unfortunately from this voter's perspective there is no will to do this as long as our politicians can continue to divide us and win.
1
I found this article deeply annoying. I am very aware of my own tribalism. It is the Republicans who have moved away from me due to issues that I care deeply about. We must address climate change. We need to do make sure everyone has access to basic health care. Living in Michigan; I often vote in Republican primaries in an attempt to promote candidates who are not anti-science. So far it has been exercise in futility to get a Republican I could actually vote for. My home town of Ann Arbor MI cares deeply about good schools; I can't remember the last time we said 'no' to a school millage.
10
But look at California. Major tax increases have been voted in by a large majority across the State. In California there is the ability to put significant issues on the ballot by the initiative process, regardless of political party. Jerry Brown did not simply impose taxes on the wealthy, he put the legislation in an initiative voted on by the entire population of voters. The majority of voters, educated or not, voted for responsible government.
The problem in national politics is that they don't reflect the real wishes of the people. Take, for example, a ban on assault weapons, supported by a large majority of voters, but adamantly rejected by most of the Republicans in Congress. And look at Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, who won't allow legislation with bipartisan support to even come to a vote in Congress. The polarization of the voters is due largely to espousal of hatred from the Republicans, compounded by reliance on lie after lie, now clearly demonstrated by Trump. Democrats, on the other hand, are only too ready to criticize their own leaders and often split their votes on legislative issues and administration appointees. It is only in response to Republican bloc voting that Democrats have resorted to that as well, as a defense to the incredible destruction of our democracy by the Republicans. The Republicans "win" not because of lack of education, but because of gullibility.
6
I could not disagree more. The definition of self interest is narrow and biased, therefore, rendering any argument based on it a fallacy. Higher income people willing to entertain and back a redistributive economic policy even when it may mean paying more taxes themselves is not contrary to self interest when long a with comes the delayed gratification choices to plan for a safety net to be there when and if one needs it. It is called long term vision. Lower income earners, here sited as voting in their own self interest are in fact, the ones voting not in their own interest when not backing redistributive policy. Given this gross miss-definition of self interest, there is no basis to determine polarization of any degree. Rather, look to the intentional failure of opponents of redistributive policy to accurately portray the true benefits of that policy for the very wealthy (who are not included in any of the comes discussed here) at the expense of the middle and lower classes for the root of polarization. The right is furious that more and more people are figuring this out hence stirring the hornet's nest in the Middle East and Asia. The rentier class needs distractions of this magnitude to distract from their swindle of just about everybody else.
5
The article asks: Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests? This is easy. It’s because they can pay the increased taxes without affecting their present prosperity or long-term ability to accumulate wealth. They’ll still afford that $7 latte and their kids will still go to good schools. But consider a hard-working couple where he’s car mechanic and she’s a beautician. Tax increases have immediate and detrimental effect on their prosperity. Similarly, the wealthy cruise through higher gas prices while others much cut back elsewhere.
And the chart that shows the correlation between education and polarization? To me that shows there’s no relationship whatsoever between intelligence and education on the one hand and wisdom on the other. If there were such a correlation, Hillary would be president.
6
Yes, well off Democrats know that they can afford to pay higher taxes without a lot of pain. Well off Republicans know this too. Only they're too selfish and short-sighted to support progressive taxation.
The well off Republicans instead invest their money in convincing the mechanics and beauticians that it's in their interest to shoulder the lion's share of the tax burden.
1
In real life, a whopping THREE QUARTERS of the American people support higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-tax/three-quarters-of-americans-favo...
Why?
Because the very essence of the concept of "taxes" is to obtain a civilized country.
"Civilized" means that you decide to benefit from the fact that we're all living together in the same country, by using the profits of what we produce in order to create a vast insurance system, protecting each individual against the dramatic consequences of bad luck in a primitive society.
And you obtain this kind of insurance system when thanks to taxes, all American kids get access to a high-quality education and healthcare, and all adults get access to a decent house, water, electricity, food and a job.
Once these opportunities are guaranteed rather than merely staying a matter of good or bad luck, it's still up to each individual to use them and create the life you want, or to not work hard and lead a meaningless, sad life.
So contrary to what Edsall presupposes here, people don't support paying more taxes because it would HURT them, they support it because they know that it allows us to become a more civilized society, creating less crime and a more human life for ALL, precisely because in the end, we're all in this together, and "nature", when left alone, IS blind and unfair.
16
You surmise the desire to increase civilization motivates support for increased taxes. That's a nobel but airy motivation. I surmise it’s held mostly by those who’ve already achieved a self-satisfactory level of prosperity and can afford to spend a few bucks on increasing their sense of nobility.
Perhaps the desire for increased taxes by most is just an economical calculation. Maybe they support higher taxes because they think somebody else's wealth will be redistributed to themselves and they'll come out ahead.
2
@ Son of Liberty
What you're saying doesn't contradict what I wrote.
Of course, if you weren't lucky in life and you're struggling, you'll ALSO support higher taxes on the wealthiest citizens because it will concretely give you a better "insurance" system in life - including better access to college and healthcare and jobs for yourself and your kids.
The whole idea of higher taxes isn't to acquire "somebody else's wealth", it's to STOP the current system, where a whole body of laws systematically shifts the profits of the work most ordinary citizens are day after day doing, to a handful of shareholders and CEOs, without forcing them in any way to reinvest it in their companies (let alone its workers).
So the STARTING point, the situation we're in today, is a situation where for decades already the wealthiest citizens have been able to control DC more than the others, and as such made it perfectly legal for them to systematically take away the wealth produced by (and as a consequence in theory owned by) ordinary citizens.
Higher taxes means finally allowing ordinary, hard-working citizens to KEEP a BIT more of the money they're generating, you see?
The idea is to end the systematic upward redistribution of wealth, and to start allow the middle class to keep a bit for themselves once again.
I am not sure who these folks surveyed or how they analyzed whatever data they accumulated, but rooting for the common good isn’t overriding one’s self interests. It’s in all our interest to have a decent, equitable standard of living across societies.
24
This might be my tribal entrenchment talking, but I'm having trouble believing that a belief in equity and long-term planning is the result of personal bias.
14
If the question is changed to “Do you support higher taxes by elimination of the long term capital gains preferential tax,” then see what the result is. I think consistent with this data. Then change it by adding at the end, “as was done under President Reagan,” and test the result. The true disparity in taxes is just the long term capital gains tax. Eliminate it and you have a fairer system as did, remarkably but for a limited time, the Reagan administration.
5
Capital gains are altogether untaxed until realized.
I understand that Thomas Edsall can only offer a summary of recent academic research, but (as his observation of Professor Iyengar's paper indicates), questions of identities and politics are likely more nuanced, variable and complicated than some of the broad brush conclusions suggests. We all have multiple identities and belong to multiple "tribes" that have different and potentially conflicting group norms, biases, values and identity markers. A wealthy banker or hedge fund portfolio manager that thinks of her or himself as a liberal Democrat can be pulled in different directions on strongly re-distributive or regulatory policies. A liberal Jewish Democrat can be conflicted when it comes to criticism of Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians. Things are further complicated by the facts that even highly educated people have biases and limited time and attention, and resort to heuristics and are often selective as to the information they choose to process. And the direction and positions of a Democratic party dominated by urban elites, cultural liberals and urban minorities is of course further complicated by candidates' need for money and donors.
6
This seems lie a muddled argument to me. Perhaps more educated Democrats support more income distribution because it is a good policy, and is likely to benefit all of society in the long run? Maybe affluent liberals really are less self interested than conservatives? Does the benefit or lack have anything to do with this commentary, or is it all about political gamesmanship?
10
Students of human nature can see that every penny of government spending is someone's income, which is why anti-tax people invest in influence-peddlers to get the money spent on them.
1
The essence of this article is that it is tribal identity and not issues that drive political action. I find this offensive. Perhaps more educated people are liberal because they consider issues and read more. I am greatly encouraged to see many “democrats” questioning the party and not blindly following. Perhaps this author should focus on why we only have two parties in this country and how that restricts our expression on issues.
9
When asking whether white wealthy liberals will continue to support Dems next time they control DC and increase taxes for the wealthiest Americans a little bit, Edsall seems to ignore all the latest research about altruism.
Studies about partisanship aren't enough to know the answer to this question. You need other types of studies too:
1. studies made by historians, analyzing whether in the past Dem politicians were rewarded by the wealthiest liberals in this country each time they increased their taxes a little bit in order to make education/healthcare/... more affordable for the 99%, or not (and as many comments below already suggest, there's actually no reason to believe they wouldn't, as the fact that the Democratic Party is the only one today to support these things is precisely one of the main motivators to vote for them in the first place)
2. studies about altruism versus egoism.
For an overview, see for instance Matthieu Ricard's latest book about altruism.
It turns out - as even Darwin already observed, by the way - that in many situations, actively taking other people's interests into account IS the best way to make sure that you're taking your own interests into account.
Human being are actually hard-wired to be compassionate - and the more you developed your self-compassion skill, the more you'll behave in a compassionate way toward others.
So it's science itself that shows that the GOP bias supposing that egoism and altruism are opposites, is wrong ...
7
Humans are evolved social animals living in a co-evolved culture. We are the most software-driven animals on Earth. We program ourselves from the experience of life.
@ Steve Bolger
Put in that way, you'd have to say that the "software" that the GOP is proposing to its voters today, and that even some of the highest educated conservatives are now installing into their "devices", is inherently flawed and not fact-based at all ... and Edsall seems to have become part of that group.
So we may indeed be the "most software-driven animals on earth", that in itself, however, doesn't guarantee that we're better at surviving than a society of chimpansees, for instance.
The good news, however, is that altruism and compassion do are hard-wired, in human beings (and chimpansees alike, it turns out). All that is needed to obtain individuals that realize that fact and develop it in their own interests, is the right "software" to cultivate it and make it a main driver of our actions - including the way we vote.
If, on the other hand, you force people to have an "experience of life" where tools to cultivate it are totally absent, this skill will remain underdeveloped, and their acquired software will tell them that altruism and egoism are "by nature" incompatible.
I'm a self-identified "progressive liberal" who believes that in order to deal with "economic inequality" we need to restore "progressivity" to the income tax rates. And yes, I'm also angry about SALT (aka state and local taxes) because as a upper middle-income retiree (24 percent tax bracket and 77 years old) I'm one of the "losers" in the unfair tax giveaway to the very rich. In fact, when those wealthy New York FOBs (aka Friends of Trump) complained, he then lowered their tax bracket by over 2 percent to compensate! There's no inconsistency here. There's the principle of fairness. Our taxes like everything else in government today are way out of balance to the "tipping point" where we are already an oligarchy where just three (!) Americans have as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the nation. It's unfair; it's destabilizing; it's an outrage. If it's not fixed soon we will, as Trump would have it, become an economic autocracy (aka an oligarchy).
10
If I were a European, I would be considered a moderate. I favor higher, but not excessive, taxes on the rich, universal health care, immigration based on merit (not race), honoring our duty to take in our share of political refugees, sex education, gun control, more spending on education and infrastructure, and (where possible) market-based solutions to environment problems. Some of these policies run against my personal economic interests, but hardly proves that I’ve gone “tribal.” I support these policies because I want to live in a society that’s just, fair, and stable.
In the US, this makes me a liberal, and possibly an extreme liberal. It might appear to outsiders than I’m reflexively rejecting everything Trump and the Republican Congress propose, but I’m not. It’s just that I, after careful consideration, disagree with almost all of their policies.
20
The academics cited here are effectively claiming that all political positions are equally unprincipled, that none of us has judgment or agency, and that the electorate is as corrupt as our politics, only the electorate gets nothing out of it except emotional satisfaction.
In this world, there there are no actors and money -- no Kochs, no Trumps. And if there are dupes, they have no puppetmasters.
Trust a social "scientist" to mistake the world, in favor of theory. Too bad there are consequences worse than not getting tenure.
5
Like many folks, I've gotten more conservative as I've gotten older, although I would never vote Republican. Only since Trump's election have I realized that liberals are just as "bad" as the other side as they hurl insults and call people names and behave as poorly as the Lee Atwaters of the world ever did. It is disgraceful.
The fact of the matter is, we live in a capitalistic nation where a certain safety net is accepted, but trying to stretch the safety net too much is a fool's mission. That's why stuff like SNAP and WIC has worked while ACA has failed. If we provided health care to everyone, rich, poor, in-between, at an affordable per-capita price (which is to say, a lot less than we're paying now), it would not be controversial. Instead, ACA made worse a system where the rich, as always, don't have to worry, the folks on the bottom tiers get help while everyone else pays for it with no relief from outrageous medical costs. For many folks, the Democrats don't seem to have anyone's backs except the poor and organized labor, and that's not enough to win elections.
2
In real life, the ACA is insuring 20 million more Americans and saving 40,000 more lives each year.
How can you call that "failing" ... ?
And Republicans aren't just calling people names. They also try VERY hard to pass HC bills that would destroy the HC of a whopping 30 million Americans, whereas their tax reform bill creating a $1.5 trillion deficit only to lower the taxes for the wealthiest Americans even more, already destroys the healthcare of 13 million Americans all while increasing premiums for the others by 30% (and the ACA, overall, seriously curbed cost increases, as predicted by the CBO...).
It's because THIS is the fight that is being fought today that Democrats don't have the political capital yet to install single payer (even though the ACA already today allows any state who decides to do so to sign it into law).
And if you don't see this and stay focused on Dem "ideals" alone, THEN you can start believing that Democrats are "as bad" as Republicans.
The only way to entirely accomplish those ideals, however, is to start paying attention to who's doing what in DC, and then join the fight where it's being fought TODAY, rather than sticking to false generalizations and equivalences ...
1
Ana,
ACA is failing because healthcare costs in the United States continue to skyrocket with no end in sight. Folks in one of the richest nations in the world, even those with insurance, are putting off healthcare and otherwise scrimping because they can't afford it. You don't need info from interest groups to know this. All it takes is living here to know that the cost of going to see a doctor, or filling a prescription, is utterly ridiculous, and it keeps getting worse.
That's why ACA is a failure. Sure, it has helped some folks, and that is a good thing, but it's a cruel joke on the rest of of us who believed that promise of affordable--repeat, affordable--healthcare made by Democrats. As I suggested in my original comment, it's a stretch of the social safety net mainly for the benefit of the less fortunate, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but call it that. Don't try selling voters obviously false bills of goods by pretending that ACA has benefited most Americans. It has not. And pretending otherwise simply gives ammunition to the GOP.
you can always test to the results you want. so many people have both conservative and liberal views and don't fit into the cookie cut model. where are the tests to measure those views?
2
Upscale Democrats often lack common sense if they have lived sheltered lives. If, for example, a life long criminal claims he was beaten by a correction officer in an article in the TImes, he will be taken at his word. The upscale are also hypocritical about their support of good causes. Those taxes they will gladly pay do not make up for the shortfall in their charitable contributions compared to the middle class. Apparently, they want to make a public show of their generosity while ignoring all kinds of deserving causes. And the upscale have drawn all kinds of lines in the sand. Not in my backyard. My school district should be made up of other upscale folks like me. And my health benefits should be top of the line.
The upscale support the deserving and undeserving poor. But they draw a line to protect their valued interests. They are partisan to a point. But otherwise it’s all about narrow self interest.
1
This is a somewhat confusing issue for me. I identify as a "lifelong liberal Democrat" and trace the roots of that back to FDR and the New Deal by way of LBJ and the Great Society. But I am by no means an "across-the-board" liberal.
For example, I favor capital punishment, for white-collar crime as well as violent crime. I think some of the "masters of the universe" who ruined the economy in 2008 and destroyed the dreams and retirements of millions of Americans should have been subject to the ultimate penalty.
Because I have seen so many non-English-speaking immigrants ripped off, I favor English as our country's official language, and would like to see government-run schools created to teach immigrants English for nothing.
I'd like more secure borders, and I'd also like a permanent, constant mechanism for universal military service. I think if more than 1% of us bore the burden of military misadventures, we'd be less likely to have them.
None of those are traditionally liberal views, nor are they progressive, but they are mine. In one aspect, however, I am liberal to the core: I will never - never - vote for a Republican in any election.
3
If the educated, or highly educated are to blame for the mess we're currently in -- then we're in far more trouble than I previously thought.
For this reason alone, I take exception to the argument proposed here, since we're already seeing what comes about when the "poorly educated" are left with the task of electing a president who has shown nothing but how 'uncivil' and prejudiced he can be with almost every word that comes out of his mouth...or tweet.
And while there may be a modicum of truth in what Ms. Mason argues as far as "identity centric" political commitment goes, I find it hard to entirely blame education for the type of polarization and political tribalism that is currently tearing at this nation's seams.
To a great extent, I blame 'humanity' for that.
5
Would be interested to see what percent of liberal or conservatives making over 250k are in favor of raising their own taxes???
Easy to be in favor of something that benefits you with no impact.
1
What an insulting article. If the author treated Pacific Islanders to the same reductionist analysis he would be rightly chided for being intellectually arrogant and culturally insensitive. I got a PhD in US history with a minor field in Latin American history. Over the last forty years I have become increasingly concerned that the Republican Party is harming our nation and the entire world through both its foreign policies (Iran Contra, Iraq War, withdrawal from the Iran agreement) and domestic policies (resistance to universally available health care, cutting taxes to the point that we will not be able to support basic social services, dismantling of environmental protections). The most recently elected Republican President has done nothing to make me more sympathetic to the GOP approach to governance. Does that make me a "tribal" liberal or does it just mean that I have been paying attention?
711
Thank you Daniel R. Miller for articulating what many of us with advanced degrees think.
36
The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks. And, in doing so, he helpfully illustrates the point that "Political knowledge tends to increase the effects of identity as more knowledgeable people have more informational ammunition to counter argue any stories they don’t like." I don't hold any advanced degrees, but I'm an extreme liberal and a top 20%er with a college degree, and I wasn't offended by this article. If you disagree with the research and conclusions, what is your alternative explanation for the pattern exhibited in the chart embedded in this article?
9
And also those without ;)
Thomas Edsall, I open with a simple admission: In November I will vote for whatever the Democratic Party offers me. Nothing in your column can affect that. I also am devoting much more attention to learning how to vote in a Swedish national election, my first - only local in all the preceding years - in September.
But two questions about two of your sentences: One question per submission.
1) TBE: "Why are well-off Democrats the most supportive of policies seemingly adverse to their own interests?"
Youi do not list policies, you open with one question only - about taxes. EdM (first comment notes what you are missing). I would happily pay more US tax and do so in my own self interest even though I am only in the USA for 1 month each year.
22 years in Sweden has made me so used to a lower-income higher than US standard of living that I want higher taxes on all US citizens above some level and will gladly pay more myself IF:
1) This would provide Swedish level Universal Health Care
2) Provide Swedish level renewable energy policy and technology.
3) Provide Swedish level support for asylum seekers.
4) Provide Swedish level infrastructure.
If the Democratic Party cannot provide a plan for at least one of these why should I vote?
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
5
“I asked Luttig how reliable upscale Democrats will be if the party regains control of Congress and seeks to enact legislation that threatens the financial or social status of the upper middle class?...” Great question. The Democrats will lose the rest of their shrinking base just like the State of Connecticut is losing its population. All the NIMBYs will proudly display the red hat.
1
None of this offers an explanation of why this is happening in American politics, however, which comes from elite level (party polarization in Congress) and societal levels (the great sorting and processes of value change).
The poll asked whether taxes should be raised on households making above $250,000, which is getting into top 1% territory. The vast majority of affluent college educated households make less than that, so their support for higher taxes on the $250,000+ crowd does not necessarily go against their economic self-interest—in fact, people are often most antagonistic to the class just above them; many working class people resent the professional class while admiring 1%-ers like Trump, and many professional class people resent 1%-ers.
Ultimately, the Democrats are going to be more redistributive than the Republicans but they will not go far left because of who their base is. Another example of that was how Obama wasn’t able to cut the tax break on college savings accounts. I find this reassuring, because lurching between the far right and far left would not be good.
Bernie Sanders ran a campaign on principles that were mainstream back in the 1960s. People who still remembered the devastation of the Great Depression were still willing to accept taxation for the general good. A lot of us still believed the government could help ordinary people when we faced tough times.
Because we saw the smog and rivers catching fire, we were willing to accept regulations to curb the profit-motive of businesses. Environmentalists were seen as the wave and the hope of the future.
We saw black people being attacked with dogs and fire hoses and applauded the civil rights movement. De jure discrimination was repugnant.
The extreme right, please don't call them conservatives, were beyond the political pale. Think of how the John Birch Society used to be regarded.
A lot has changed since then. The very rich have played a role manipulating public opinion. The Supreme Court has given license to optimize the right of the very rich to affect our politics.
Public opinion has moved to the right. I think the appropriate question is: How did that happen?
It has more to do with Republicans than with Democrats, no matter how wealthy. It also goes beyond enlightened self-interest.
Climate change and economic inequality are two issues that must be urgently addressed. They are not just issues here in the USA; they affect the world.
Democracy is the only hope, but it seems to have been perverted. Prejudice and fear displace reason.
5
So, highly educated Democrats will support a party platform that requires them to sacrifice some of their economic interests.... until they won't? Is this what passes for sophisticated social science research today?
I fail to see how any Democratic strategist could use this research to plot a course of action for the upcoming elections. High taxes on the affluent do not alienate upscale liberals, but they react differently to threats to their property values caused by the introduction of low-cost housing into their neighborhoods?
Cultural and ethnic conflicts clearly do help establish partisan boundaries in politics, and it also makes sense to argue that personal identification with a party deepens the split between voters. But disagreements over taxes and other economic issues also matter, and the studies cited by Edsall provide little guidance for interpreting the impact of those disagreements. Nowhere, for example, do the scholars explain why affluent voters would express more support for higher taxes on the rich than do working-class Americans.
This column does not meet the usually high standards of Professor Edsall's op-ed pieces.
3
Of course Democrats can retain their college-educated liberals and still appeal to lower income folks. The college-educated liberals will certainly impose social policies and lifestyles from which they will isolate themselves, by discipline and/or gated communities where housing prices effect the appropriate segregation, all the while preening their social justice commitments. That shell game has been going on for years. One reason black Republicans, successful conservative women, and Republican Latinos are all carefully airbrushed out of the news. It would smash the illusions so cultivated by the elite.
1
Why don't all the other first world countries have this problem?
2
With all due respect to the various sociologists-etc Mr. Edsall quotes, these studies deal with extremely "squishy" - soft and pliable - aspects of human nature. Yet he and they present them as if they were physics or earth science studies, based on completely objective, empirical evidence. No so.
There is also a problem - perhaps a larger one - in calling Republicans "conservative," because at this point they are, in reality, absolutely radical in their policies and principles. And these have been foisted onto a poorly educated contingency who listen to only Fox "news" and likes of liars like Rush Limbaugh.
It's one thing to study and try to make sense of the mental processes involved in coming to opposite conclusions, but beware of analyses based on ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room whose name is "willful ignorance" and "denial of facts."
All bets for a healthy democracy are off under this circumstance, which has been ongoing for decades!
4
Your article ends with the words, 'economic inequality', and that is certainly the defining issue of our time (coupled with climactic devastation).
We cannot be democracies without equality; those two don't dance. Democracy requires an equality of power and influence, not just a vote (though that too is under siege). Due partly to our Supreme Court's 5-4 Citizens United decision, the rich and powerful own elections, through advertisements, donations to candidates and the ever-powerful PACs. Shameful it all is.
We cannot have such horrendous concentrations of wealth and have democracy. The billionaires of luxury and those caged in poverty are signs that the country is mired in a deep sickness. We the People have become the slaves of avarice and mammon.
I am on the side of love, compassion and, their necessary companion, equality.
1
Fogedda about liberal and conservative & ask the question are higher taxes on the Rich good or bad for the US economy. The answer is clear.
Economists have a concept called the velocity of money. It is the frequency, how often, that money changes hands in domestic commerce.
Here's an example. Suppose the government gives Scrooge McDuck a Billion for advice on the comic book market, If Scrooge puts the bucks in his basement, and forgets about it, that doesn't help the economy at all. That Billion has a velocity of 0. Also, if Scrooge loses a financial bet to Daddy Warbucks, and the Billion moves from Scrooge's basement to Daddy's, that is a change, but the velocity does not change because it is not a useful change. It doesn't affect commerce.
Money going to the Rich has a lower velocity than money going to the non-rich. The Rich spend a lower percentage of their money. What's a guy or gal who already has so many houses he can't remember how many & an elevator for his horse gonna spend his money on? The answer is he is going to use it to speculate.There is a correlation between inequality & financial speculation. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1661746 Speculation is bad for the economy. That money has a very low velocity. AND it increases risk which we have seen in 2008 ain't a good thing.
Since 2007, the velocity of money has plunged. https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2016/04/a-plodding-dollar-the-recent-dec...
3
I am one of those university-educated, northeastern suburbanites who has morphed over the years from being a party-loyal Republican, to being a mixed-vote Independent, to being one who now holds the Republican party in contempt. That is because I sense the Republican party leadership to have changed. It now represents only the dull witted who fail to grasp the need to curb greenhouse gas accumulation, the need for universal health insurance, and who cling to jingoistic fantasies about playing global policeman. They are stuck in a time warp!
4
I'm a rich guy, and although I no longer live in the US (we moved to Canada when Trump was elected) I was always supportive of higher taxes for the rich to support social safety nets for the poor because it’s an economically prudent investment.
It is not “antithetical to [my] economic interests” to want higher taxes. As a rich guy, I already am an economic winner in this game. Paying higher taxes so that there is more government revenue for programs helping the disadvantaged is not only a more humane way of treating your fellow man, it is simply akin to paying premiums on an insurance policy.
If the poorer classes have insufficient funds to put a roof over their heads or put food on the table, then crime will increase, riots will soon follow, and eventually, there will be anarchy and political overthrow of the very system that allows me to live a privileged life.
History is replete with examples of empires falling because the wealthy forgot that pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered.
658
Well said. In the same way that we all benefit from a (tax-funded) fire department, so we all benefit from a well-educated population, and a healthy one.
46
Short of riots and anarchy it is hard to see how homeless improve the quality of life in our cities or how cuts in education improve our childrenf’s live or cuts in social services improve our health and safety
12
Excellent comment, touche, sir.
4
But the most interesting answers to "Should taxes on households making $250,000 or more a year be raised? " are bound to come from those making between $250K and $1million. Why was that left out? Could it lead to showing liberal hypocrisy?
3
Two things missing in this article. Where are the demographic data points? How are the 'educated affluent' referred to in these studies proportioned among democrats, republicans, and independents. I am becoming very suspicious of the fruits of insight derived from this type of study analysis. In particular, Liliana Mason argues that the better educated have more "informational ammunition to counter argue stories they don't like." This may explain the oily, crafty lies of Kellyanne Conway and her ilk, but how many Kellyanne Conways are there out there? The truth is that one political party has lying for gain as its pillar, and one doesn't. The sifting into partisan camps among the educated, therefore, is between those who are comfortable with power through any means necessary versus those who want rule of law and common decency as well as prosperity. All the rest of these statistics are meaningless in the face of this fundamental difference. I'd further argue that the well educated who fall into a liberal subset know that the redistribution of income through money spent on education and other liberal aims will in the end raise all incomes, including their own. You can be pro social justice as well as your own pocketbook.
2
I'm constantly tired of the notion that liberals and conservatives are both fair stewards of reasonable policy, when the past few decades have made clear the Right is moving the goal posts further and further away from anything rational.
Conservatives (unfortunately propped up by the worst of Fox News and their ilk) are anti-science, much more comfortable with racists, homophobes, and those intolerant of non-Protestant religions. They have a clear track record of being an enemy of the environment and public education. Their tax cut orthodoxy is constantly inflicts pain on those Americans who don't make more than six figures.
Liberals recognize these faults and have stood firm in countering them. But as time goes on we have to stop giving cover for their terrible ideas by giving them weight under the conservative umbrella and just call these ideas what they are; wrong.
If that makes me intractable and rigid so be it, but at least I'll be "wrong" but fighting for the good of my fellow citizens (and the world)
3
I am member of the “tribe” Mr. Edsell thrashes in his column today. I have a post-graduate degree and a six-figure income. I would like to be taxed more by a government that I can trust to use my money wisely to provide a quality education, health care, and a functional infrastructure to ensure equal opportunities for success to all Americans.
Mr. Edsell tries to manipulate my motivation into something nefarious. He suggests that I feel too strongly about this and I am too strident in my advocacy for equal opportunities for those who have less than I have. I don’t buy it.
If I have enough information to understand that extreme inequality causes conflict and violence and those who have been deprived of that information do not, I refuse to be denigrated for my knowledge. Spare me your lectures.
5
"Expressive partisanship, in effect, allows the most committed to override their own circuitry and support policies antithetical to their economic interests."
The whole thrust of this article and the studies upon which it is based make me wonder if a more appropriate title might no be: "The Narcissism of Not Being Narcissistic".
This research sounds like it comes off of Fox News, rather than a serious academic study, it reeks of the "elite liberals", "intellectual elitists" and the rest you hear from right wing media and how the 'liberals' refuse to hear "their voices" (the fact that Fox News claims to be fair and balanced tells a great deal). This study might use research terms and the like, but this seems more like trying to find a way to justify the anger of the working class, less educated whites and their attitudes towards those that are well educated then really studying behavior. Among other things, the white working class routinely supports policies that hurt them as well, the people complaining they can't affford healthcare support killing ACA, the people who have lost manufacturing jobs and have seen mass layoffs support the shareholder management that was responsible for more than a bit of that and want to 'kill the government" when they rely heavily on it.
I think also that the lack of self interest in upper class democrats is overstated. Yes, upper income/well educated people will support higher taxes on the rich, knowing what that is used for, but they also aren't happy when it hits them, they will support things like integration but live in very segregated areas..and the white working class can support things that hurt themselves, but also basically want things for themselves but deny them to others, so they are selfish, too.
1
When they think they are spending other people’s money, progressives are self righteously supportive; when the issue is wind power off the Cape in their sailing back yard, not so much. Self interest is their governing credo.
2
It is inaccurate to say that lower-income people who are “wrong” in Kansas are voting against their self-interest. As the scrabble to live ok and be good people, they blame the perceived grifters and lazy bones around them more than the super rich. Fertile ground for deplorable ideas held by good people.
Ever notice that 4 of the 5 states with education funding problems are Republican states that cut taxes for the wealthy?
Kansas - Republican and the original Sam Brownback experiment
West Virginia - Republican
Oklahoma - Republican
Arizona - Republican
Colorado - Democratic
2
”... the authors found that the grief of Republican partisans after their party lost the presidential election in 2012 was twice that of “respondents with children” immediately after “the Newtown shootings” and “respondents living in Boston” after “the Boston Marathon bombings.”
Well. How does this unsparing emotional attachment to party and ideology not surprise me? The authors of this paper write that the loss of a child pales in comparison with a national electoral defeat.
This palpable grief is driving the load of corrosive political, financial and social agendas of the G.O.P. It would seem that compromise and politesse are not dynamics that are foreign to conservatives. As long as a (perceived) mean-spirited repression is the template of the Republican Party, we'll always have a society that's divided not by right or wrong or decency and fairness as opposed to unrelenting opposition to progress but by (D) or (R). When is anyone always right or wrong?
Elsewhere in this essay, it is written that "The[se] effects of identity-based ideology on political evaluations are psychological and emotional, and help explain how “liberals” and “conservatives” may dislike each other for reasons unconnected to their opinions.
The big question, I think, is redistributive. Most people believe that people at the bottom of the economic ladder deserve their place and is neither a liberal nor conservative position but an ethical, moral one. Democrats are not immune to the call of tribe.
Just reading through the comments, I believe Mr. Edsall has hit a tender spot. No one wants thier altruism sullied with suggestions of vanity. The commentariat doth protest too much.
2
There seems to no longer be a middle ground, or more likely, it's completely ignored. So-called white privilege is highly questionable, but so too is the idea that only whites are prejudiced. How does Edsall's arguments hold for those Trump supporters who still don't blame him for the swamp; instead they choose to see it as 'Washington'?
To say that those who are intelligent are to blame is a bunch of nonsense. Are the Koch Brother's intelligent or greedy? They show a self-centered, self-motivated desire to use their money to divide and shape the country to their views. They want taxes cut but they're spending that money to take from everyone else. They gleefully sow seeds of hate and have succeeded in bribing Congress to work against the American people. Robber barons extraordinaire.
Those who feel they should pay higher taxes more than likely have a more empathetic personality. They study the issues and are not motivated by selfishness, but rather, the greater good.
I don't know of anyone who wants to pay taxes, but taxes pay for much needed public goods and safety. That is critical to a continuing strong, democratic government. Based on current trends we will not be able to compete globally because we have abandoned public education. Senior and future generations are surely to die earlier and earlier deaths because we are removing all foundations for safety and good health, be it environment, social security, medical care, etc.
1
This just reads like more false equivocating and academic nonsense. The so-called liberal world view recognizes what the conservative world view does not - irrespective of the immediate and tangible self-interests at stake, the republican platform is an equal and inevitable threat to ALL but the top .1%. If things keep heading in this direction, our current upper middle class will be living in the ruins (poor infrastructure, unaffordable healthcare, defunded public education, etc.) of a once thriving middle class-based democracy.
1
Supporting higher taxes is painless with tax free deductions for 401k and other savings and state taxes coupled with a hefty savings account and equity in a house. Those at the bottom Democrat rung don't have these assets so they split into the government support is good crowd because they directly benefit or don't raise taxes yet, because they're not yet in that financially secure group. Studies show neither group is as altruistic when compared to their conservative cohorts who give more with nearly no financial incentives. Nor are they as religious or accepting of outside views, i.e. affluent Upper west side intolerance. For progressive partisans theres an assumption that everyone games the system and life's pretty good except for conservatives who won't go along and must be selfish / stupid. Conservatives meanwhile see this as theatrics and hypocrisy as they bear the brunt of costs proposed by and avoided by progressives. Giving options via different state policies keeps them apart, but when federal policies encroach on state prerogatives, eliminating alternative life styles and choices, rancor is the result.
The behavior of affluent Denocrats "when the stakes are raised" is indeed the critical issue. It actually doesn't cost much for affluent liberals to support slightly higher taxes and a bit more of a social safety net, and hence that support is not surprising as a way for liberals to square their genuine support for greater equality with their own wealth and privilege. Unfortunately the impacts of slightly higher taxes on the wealthy and safety net spending on the lives of those at the other end of the economic spectrum are also pretty small, especially when compared with the kinds of actions that do come with significant losses for the affluent, such as the kind of housing reform that could affect property values.
This is not lost on less affluent swing voters who cannot afford to live where the jobs are. Democrats really need to tackle nimbyism if they want to hold their coaliton together in the long term.
Not everyone is motivated by greed. If you have a deep concern for others and a truly charitable nature does that mean you are driven by attitudes that are against your self-interest? Because I am willing to pay more taxes as long as the revenue is used to fund entitlement programs am I acting against my own self-interest? Because I welcome the integration of my white neighborhood am I acting against my own self-interest because real estate values may decline? Many Democrats are not obsessed with having their side "win." They just care about the less fortunate, and believe that the government has an obligation to address the needs of the less fortunate - sentiments not shared by many conservatives.
3
I stopped reading at the 4 paragraph when Mr. Edsell used what by now is the overused and misused word "elite;" and I just couldn't go any further. Referring to people in higher income brackets as "elite" is incorrect. "Elite" refers to a part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or quality. There is nothing inherently elite about rich people. They may be many things, but "elite" isn't necessarily one of them. As Trump himself epitomizes, wealth has nothing to do with ability or quality.
Both the left and the right use the word to describe voters who are somehow removed from the rest of us, who are oblivious to the problems of regular people and who are entitled and privileged. The word has taken on a negative connotation that was never part of it's original meaning. Pulitzer Prize winners are elite. Nobel winners are elite. People who have attained greatness in their life, regardless of their income, are elite. It's misuse only disparages the truly elite among us, who have attained distinction through their ability and the quality of their minds, their work and their genius, not their wealth.
9
It is really disgusting to see people "opposing their self-interest" dismissed as a weird psychological oddity with a cumbersome behavior-science name like "prejudice" or "identity-centric politics." Some of us are still willing to sacrifice narrow self-interest (e.g., paying more taxes) for the common good (e.g., better government services). This is also enlightened self-interest: living in a better, healthier society, rather than building our own little castles in a messed-up world, raising the drawbridges, and leaving it to others to suffer for the unbridled greed of the rich. It is also common sense: we have had tax cuts for the rich under Bush the Younger and Trump, and we have growing budget deficits, which are bad. Might there be a connection, and an obvious way to get more money? Duh.
4
Paragraph 4 confusingly declares that there is a “redistributive agenda,” muddling the rest of the commentary.
At this point, any tax increase would effectively reduce debt and nothing else. It wouldn't get “redistributed” anywhere. The status quo is, in a sense, the real “redistributive agenda” because it moves the compounding burden of debt service onto future generations.
3
I like Warren Buffet's idea on taxes, a flat rate applied across the board. That way nobody can say they're paying more then their fair share.
As to having more education makes you have more opinions, then having less education should make you less worried about things so you should be happier and live longer.
Let’s start taxing ASSETS instead INCOME and rich Dems will change their tune.
6
All the more reason to have a viable third party!
4
When self-interest is purely economic, liberal elites will vote for redistribution through higher taxes, as a tangible expression of otherwise abstract values. But when self-interest involves the fabric of daily life, many elites will experience a visceral reaction that causes them to oppose locating subsidized housing near their homes, desegregating their children's schools, and implementing affirmative action programs within their industries.
4
I have a serious problem with Prof. Henry and Napier's use of the term "political prejudice". Gordon Allport defined prejudice as "feeling,favorable, or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on actual experience". When you apply this term to political or religious ideas then the idea itself, if understood, provides the experience that one can base a judgement on. Of course there may be cases where one does not know the details of a position and judges that position unfairly but this is minimized by education. When I judge a person who rejects the human contribution to global warming on the ground that God would not allow this to happen without it being part of his plan, which some do, then I have everything I need to make a judgement about those that hold these views as long as the view is the subject of the judgement. We make a fatal mistake when we put religious ideas beyond the range of criticism by seeing them not as ideas but as identities. This is what allows the NY Times to publish essay after essay by Ross Douthat simply assuming the truth of one form of Christianity. We aggravate that mistake if we go on to see political judgement as assaults on identity. I would identify myself as falling within the category of "extremely liberal" according to the ANE survey but I will be disadvantaged if I can not be confronted by challenges to Keynesian economics for example.
It is a rather silly thing to ask anybody if they believe those earning more should pay more tax! We know the general answer before we ask the question.
1
This is unsustainable.
#calexit - it's time to start acting reasonably.
Put succinctly: Dogma is dogma no matter whose dogma it is.
Or in more common terms: red or blue, it doesn't matter....another pathetic sheep following the herd.
I do appreciate this article though. As someone who suffers volleys from both sides of this bi-polar country I'm weary to the bone of "educated" folk informing me that across the board my information is biased, incorrect and just plain wrong. Of course their information source is completely accurate and unimpeachable. It matters not to them that I, too, have an education.
I have found a way to cause these pundits to sputter though. I ask them to first define their labels so that we can discuss the matter calmly and intelligently, i.e. What is 'rich'? What is 'conservative'? The conversation then turns to this rather than a heals dug-in, finger pointing soliloquy and - amazingly - common ground isn't so hard to find.
No one, not even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is always right or always wrong and doG knows civil discourse has disappeared before in our history (look to the John Adams - Thomas Jefferson presidential election for an example!), but each of us has within us what it takes to think for ourselves and not be just another pathetic sheep.
One last quote, from the wise Mr. Twain: "Don't let schooling interfere with your education".
1
People vote their pocketbooks??? Sure, tell THAT to all the folks that voted for an alleged Billionaire. They could not have voted for a worse Candidate to protect their interests. As usual. A little blame and a lot of racism and sexism goes a long, long way. Seriously.
3
I argue for me that "well-being" and "economic well-being" are synonymous!
A long term view takes into account my children and grand-children. To do well we need a prospering integrated society and a healthy environment.
Without social justice society in the long run society will disintegrate (witness the French Revolution) and if the spoils of capitalism or overly unequally distributed society will disintegrate.
Thus my subscription to liberal values is pure self-interest.
2
According to Tom Edsall, we are all supposed to chase shiny objects in exchange for our jobs. And give up our inheritance for a bowl of savory stew. Right, Esau?
2
And, yet, wealthy liberals' kids attend schools that are segregated, live in wealthy segregated enclaves and can afford tax professionals to navigate any tax increase that comes along. (Many don't seem to happy with the loss of their property tax deduction, but that's likely more tribal partisanship.)
Moreover, they hold views that are not always helpful to lower income Americans, as on marriage, abortion and single parenthood. Guess my point is they can afford to hold these tribal views because of the privileged tribe in which they exist.
4
"Political knowledge tends to increase the effects of identity as more knowledgeable people have more informational ammunition to counter argue any stories they don’t like."
This article is so silly! Could it be that our 'informational ammunition' actually makes them better critical thinkers? Of course more highly educated people are more fiercely left-leaning. Could it be that they have read and studied and therefore actually know something? Sheesh.
1
It's likely that the lower income workers extrapolate their life experiences onto those with higher incomes. Thus, since those with lower incomes know the effect of losing even a small amount of money in taxes, they assume the higher income folks feel the same pinch. Those in the higher income bracket know that the loss in a few extra dollars in higher taxes won't make much difference in their lives, but could contribute greatly to the general good. Those in the highest income bracket are simply greedy and shameless.
Gosh, didn't Thomas Frank write about this in his wonderful book "What's the Matter with Kansas?" published in 2005. Here's a little blurb about the book : "'What's the Matter with Kansas?' is a vivid portrait of an upside-down world where blue-collar patriots recite the Pledge while they strangle their life chances; where small farmers cast their votes for a Wall Street order that will eventually push them off their land; and where a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs has managed to convince the country that it speaks on behalf of the People."
It's a great read and much more fun than all the academics' papers and articles cited in this article.
Most elite democrats live in or near major urban centers in the north or long the west and east. As a person born, raised and still living in such an area myself, I can tell you that wealthy so called liberals are some of the most bigoted people I have ever come across.
It is why job discrimination, segregated housing, segregated schooling, discrimination in access to transportation, police brutality , wage disparity and discrimination in public services is actually higher in these so called liberal areas.
These same liberals pretended globalism was a moralistic and progressive goal when in fact it was designed to undermine civil, women and labor rights won during the civil rights era. They were just as indignant as any rightwing conservative that the peasants dared to demand more than staying in their place.
Pretending you care about working people is completely different from actually having to pay them fair wages.
3
Simple. We know that higher taxes on high earners is not "adverse to our own interests". Exactly the opposite, as long as we elect responsible public officials who will direct the funds in ways that benefit our community, state, and country. For the vast majority, in other words. 'Spread the wealth', dirty words to republicans and conservatives.
Psychologist, disavowing expertise on the intellectual and moral merits of particular ideologies and seeking to secure their reception as objective scientists, have strongly tended to view ideologies as prejudicial -- all equally do. However, as Edsall documents here the most educated --those with post graduate educations- tend to be liberal. Moreover, as the Republican party has moved Right and toward and with Trump, we not only see a large proportion of Leading Conservative intellectuals breaking with it, we see a large share breaking with rigorous espousal of the the GOP, and Conservative, boiler plate of recent decades. We know that large proportions of conservative and Republican hold believes contrary to scientific consensus. Not all ideology is equally unreasonable and ignorant.
1
Political polarization in this country has grown in direct proportion to the influence that social media has had on the population. There is a saying that familiarity breeds contempt and perhaps that is why as we've become more familiar with the "low information" bunch that gave us the likes of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, we've also become more disdainful of them.
Educated is not wise or prudent, Mr. Edsall. We have many educated folks whose side we would not want to be on. They are the ones who are unable to relate to and connect with the less educated. It's imperative we remember that less educated means someone is wrong. Commonsense plays a far greater role than many educated elites think.
1
I don't identify with either of our major parties. The Republicans propose and pass bad policy while the Democrats roll over and play dead. I have always voted for Democrats or people of more liberal parties. However, after the shenanigans of the DNC in the 2016 election, and the do-nothing Democrats in Congress, I am wondering if I should ever bother voting again.
2
Stipulating to the argument, there is a simple explanation
Better educated people are better able to understand news, which is a complex thing, and therefore are better able to understand how awful, truly evil, the GOP is
Example: Polling data shows that most Americans are in favor of higher taxes , esp on the rich, to strengthen soc sec
However, this fact is rarely reported in the main stream media; only someone who has time and energy to search will find this out
The schism began under the Obama Administration's support for transgender/gay rights. The same people who had voted # 44 in, spun on their heels to vote # 45 in. I admit that this isn't a perfect correlation however just as most Americans don't want to be perceived as a bigot, they privately don't agree with this radical form of identity politics.
1
Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist, in a conversation with Frank Bruni said, "Frank, there are not 10 voters in America who know who Scott Pruitt is."
One does not need an education to know who Scott Pruitt is or what he has done at the EPA. Even if one does not have a full grasp of the policies he has dismantled, how much education does it take to know that he built a sound-proof phone booth, travels only first class because he is worried other travelers will mock him, and has rented a condo from a lobbyist's wife.
Let us not blame education as a factor factor; it is lack of attention to information, the inability to separate fact from fiction, and just plain gullibility that is the root cause. Watching Fox & Friends and Alex Jones 24X7 will numb even the sharpest brain.
I fear the dumbing down of America has begun. It is not the Iranian nukes that worry me as much as the dumbing down of America.
The worst thing is that if YOU are not polarized then some of the polarized ones attack you! I am critical of some of Trump's policies but I do not hate the man since it seems clear that he is doing well on some issues like employment or Korea.
But Trump haters who find out that I am not a Trump hater go after me hammer and tongs, even though I share many of their political views.
And yes, these are all people with master's degrees or doctorates.
2
Education, whether it be formal or open minded self education, produces understanding of science and history so that best fit solutions to problems can be understood and tackled effectively. Charlatans like Trump, Ryan, McConnell, Limbaugh, etc. are then easily dismissed. Intelligent people like Kerry, Obama, etc. are embraced. However, as is well known and written everywhere, conservative people are generally ruled by emotions, often fear, tend to be less educated as they have no counter to these emotions.
It is really strange that this article does not allow for people to vote against their self-interest if those people can see it benefiting society as a whole. I don't understand why that's so hard to accept, and I don't think it relates merely to partisanship. What if - gasp! - not everyone's goal in life is to become filthy rich, hoard it, and laugh on the graves of others? This article reads like someone donating to charity would be seen as an aberration, and I think annoyingly only focuses on upper-class dems. Is it because upper-class democrats tend to favor social programs, and are therefore irrational in the economic lens of this article?
In general, I am irritated by the abundance of "America is divided" articles in the media, like this one, that have an extremely narrow viewpoint (here: economics). I know that split does exist, but I can't help but feel like the constant discussion re: partisanship adds to it.
Our well to do Democrats would rather pay than address problems themselves. So they support government programs to help others, as long as they can stay in their bubble. A weekend or two of soup kitchen work is preferable to a homeless family next door.
2
What is right and what is wrong? What is good and what is bad? What is viable and what is not? Who is despicable and who is not? The play is a tragedy and a comedy floating on a sea of implicit assumptions unexamined by the players. Culture and subcultures shape and drive our play of masks while we strive on, unaware of those deeper forces. Which side is this perspective on?
If you want to know how these beliefs play out in real life, drop the surveys and the political scientists, and spend some time in an actually affluent progressive community.
It’s a fascinating experience. I live it and love it. The contradictions and hypocrisy alone make it fascinating, but for a secret right winger who votes his pocket book, it’s actually a pretty good deal.
For instance, even though black people are virtually non-existent in this community, Black Lives Matter signs abound. This might make you think law and order was viewed with skepticism, but personally I’ve never met a group of people more paranoid about low grade property theft than this one. Everyone has cameras, and when there is a B&E, the social media groups explode with fury and there’s no holding back on the race of the perpetrators. Outreach to the police is immediate and robust.
Or consider education. They talk a good game about being for teachers and public education, but as soon as their kid winds up with a teacher from
an urban background and doesn’t speak impeccable English, or present a youthful energy, they not only flip out but they often pull the kid out and place them in a private school! It really is crazy!
Or consider personal finances. For a group that’s supposed to be all for taxing and spending, if you ever need a reference for an accountant, a financial advisor or a tax free saving scheme, they’ve got your back!
This column is right. Their politics are merely a cover.
1
Edsall is a fascinating read, as always. But I do wonder about some of the terms that get tossed around here. If it is a form of "ideological prejudice" for me as a well-educated Democrat to believe that GOP obstruction of climate action, attacks on the safety net and fealty to donors are sick and portend disaster for our nation, that's one form of bigotry I will happily own.
1
I would like to have Mr. Edsall examine "Justice as Fairness," by John Rawls (A Theory of Justice). Then I would like to have him examine greed, self-interest, and sharing taken across party lines. Throw in racism.
How do we arrive at a just and fair society? a civilized and (dare I hope) happy and content society?
Academic blather of the worst sort. Psychologists decide the problem is psychology and come up with a psychological explanation, without ever considering reality. The reality is that, as Republicans became more radical, highly educated Democrats responded, not with a psychological mirror to Republicans, but to the slow-motion horror show that took us from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. As for the conclusion that wealthy Democrats are so tribal that they vote against their self-interest and for raising taxes, has anybody considered the possibility that educated Democrats see value in quality teachers, roads without potholes, and a social safety net that protects everybody? The phenomenon being explored in self-indulgent academia is far more easily explained as educated people responding to reality than as a psychological phenomenon. But that would never get published in a peer reviewed journal, so never mind.
Absolutely fascinating. Evangelicals continually voting against their economic self-interest has always perplexed me. Now we are hearing about privileged also ostensibly voting against their own economic self-interest as well. Some sort of tribal identification at work, apparently in both cases.
Seems like we would have a better chance of addressing economic inequality if we could just eliminate the tribes and let people vote their "pocketbook" as we used to say. That appears unlikely to happen so what can we do?