Elites

Talking heads and republicans always talk about the elites who support democratic party candidates and policies.  It’s so commonplace that you sort of have to stop and think about the term, “elites,” to see just how strange the word is when applied to democrats.

 

Is the elitism a matter of money?  There’s no doubt that there are rich people on the democrats’ side of the ledger.  But to suggest that wealth is peculiar to democrats to the exclusion of republicans is . . . so obviously nonsense that it’s not even worth arguing against the idea.  Still, consider which pair of candidates boasts millionaire and billionaire status.  According to a Time Magazine article this past July, just two or three weeks ago, Kamala Harris is worth about eight million bucks.  Her republican counterpart claims that he’s worth some ten billion dollars.  In the VP horse race, the headline to an article in 8 August of this year, in Fortune magazine, says it all:  “Tim Walz’s net worth is less than the average American’s.”  By contrast, according to Forbes as reported in a July article in Time Magazine, J. D. Vance is worth around ten million dollars.  So the top of the democratic ticket is poorer—an odd word in this context!—than the bottom of the republican ticket.

 

The same economic differences and equivalencies are no doubt spread throughout the wider membership of the two parties.  Nonetheless, there is no doubt at all that the great business magnates are predominantly in favor of republican candidates because they see republican policies as benefitting them and the wealth that they do not want to share with the rest of us via a more equitable tax structure.

 

So much for economic elitism.

 

Is the elitism a matter of familial descent, a sort of American version of European aristocracy?  I honestly do not know about the familial history of any republican or democrat.  Sure, we know that the Kennedys are supposed to be American royalty—but the familial influence of the Kennedys begins with the wealth of Joseph Kennedy, who is JFK’s father and RFK Jr.’s grandfather.  That’s not exactly a long-standing aristocratic heritage.  And, in point of fact, it is as “established” as is the pedigree of the Trumps.  Donald’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, founded the dynasty; Fred Trump, Donald’s father, increased the wealth of the family; Donald himself benefitted from that wealth in the same way that Joseph Kennedy’s kids benefitted from his wealth.  Are there other dynastic families in the two parties’ followers?  Sure.  The Roosevelts—oops, apparently all gone, and in any case evenly divided between republican and democrat; the Bushes; the Rockefellers; anyone else?

 

So much for “aristocratic” elitism.

 

Is the elitism a matter of education?  Here there does seem to be a difference that “privileges” followers of the democratic party.  According to the Pew Research folks, in the 2022 election, 49% of democratic voters did not have a college degree, whereas 63% of republican voters did not.  I assume that that difference leads to the differences in the votes among suburbanites, insofar as, again I assume, a college degree makes possible the middleclass status that leads to the ability to move to the ‘burbs.  Again according to Pew, in 2022 the democratic suburban vote was 57%, whereas the republican suburban vote was 53%.  Not a huge difference, to be sure, but large enough to make a difference in electoral outcomes when the margins between winners and losers are as slim as they have been for many years. Whether being able to afford to live in a suburb means that the person is “elite” is a different question, of course.  Is it the case that the American self-identification as a middleclass society is no longer valid?

 

I’m tempted to say so much for “educational” elitism here, although there is a fillip of support for the notion that democrats have a higher degree of college education than do republicans.

 

One final question:  is the “elitism” a matter of race?  I want to preface this by saying that to my mind there is nothing “elite” about any racial category, except insofar as some of those categories have institutional and historic privileges that matter a great deal.  In that contex, and with that limitation, then, Pew indicates in 2022 non-Hispanic whites represented 85% of the republican electorate and 64% of the democratic electorate.  That means that “minorities” voted for republicans at the rate of 15%, whereas for democrats at the rate of 36%.

 

So finally we have a clear “elite” advantage for democrats, in the rate of minority participation.