The left is composed of two factions, not one. The left is the high within society aligned with the low in society to destroy the middle in society. [1]

When the power of the upper class is not secure, or somehow threatened by a middle class, the upper class forms an alliance with the lower classes. Today, you see the highly capitalized media powers (like Big Tech and primary media corporations) and other "woke" corporations forming an "alliance of the fringes" with historically marginalized groups, against the more traditionalist middle class. In the past, Kings would form an alliance with peasants to fend off nobles.

Bertrand de Jouvenel described this dynamic early in the 20th century, but it's a common refrain throughout history.

Neoabsolutism is a modern framework for understanding this dynamic.

[1] https://neoabsolutism.wordpress.com/2017/07/03/high-low-vers...

Actually, this - class consciousness / false consciousness; the understanding (or lack of it) of the role and interests of the class you're in - was one of key concepts of Marx writings, too bad that this association currently makes many people automatically discard these ideas even if they actually are quite relevant to their interests.

If you think about your life that one-dimensionally, you're poor in a way that Marxism can't fix.

You're talking as if they rejected the idea. They don't even know what the idea is.

A sizable amount of working class Americans have no idea that people die. They have no idea that their grandparents died. They have been to wakes and have seen the corpse of their grandparents or whomever, but when I talk to them they say their grandparents are elsewhere and enjoying themselves. They do not mean this metaphorically, or that they live on via children or their works or memories. They have no concept that these people are not around any more, permanently. They go to churches where a man stands in front and says this, I guess they believe him. This would be part of false consciousness, although not a needed component of them. They are as ignorant of death as they are of their economic exploitation. They are ignorant and uneducated. If you want to call them stupid as you do, that's your right.

The working class is inconsistent with your model of them. It's your model that's wrong, not the working class.

I think the point I'm having difficulty with is the thin majorities in the study. Does the study say much? Or did pew do a study and publish its research just because...well...that's what it does?

If that puts me in some hivemind, so be it.

"To these men and his other supporters, Catiline offered the policy they longed for - cancellation of debts. It was precisely the policy to win him the support of the desperate from all ranks of society - and one that no respectable politician was prepared to offer"

Catiline has supporters both from the upper classes, where they had borrowed too much money and fallen into debt, and from the lower classes where they didn't have enough money in the first place, as well as dispossessed former soldiers.

It makes me think of some left contingents today where they are supported alike by upper-middle class children who have become burdened by inescapable student loan debt and lower class people who were just always burdened by poverty.

Because Republicans put more money back in the pockets of low wage workers with kids. Most people don't have the luxury of voting along idealistic lines, they vote based on finances out of necessity.

Low-wage workers with children were those most hurt by the Obama's ACA Mandate penalty tax, piled on top of not being able to afford health insurance. Republicans removed that ACA penalty plus doubled the child tax credit. People who afford health insurance are out of touch with this segment of people.

"All taxpayer income groups with incomes of $75,000 and under — that’s about 65 percent of taxpayers — will face a higher tax rate in 2027 than in 2019."

"People with incomes between $10,000 and $30,000 — nearly one-quarter of Americans — are among those scheduled to pay a higher average tax rate in 2021 than in years before the tax “cut” was passed. The C.B.O. and Joint Committee estimated that those with an income of $20,000 to $30,000 would owe an extra $365 next year "

Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/opinion/republicans-biden...

It's a NYT Opinion piece by a Nobel recipient.

So in some ways your acquitances are not that odd. Voters cluster, they are not randomly distributed.

I voted for myself and have been getting a lot of shit for it for some reason.

As a rough approximation, almost everyone in your social circles having a college degree.

An individual’s likelihood of being a Democrat decreases with every additional dollar he or she earns. Democrats have a huge advantage (63 percent) with voters earning less than $15,000 per year. This advantage carries forward for individuals earning up to $50,000 per year, and then turns in the Republicans’ favor — with just 36 percent of individuals earning more than $200,000 per year supporting Democrats.

https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/economic-demogra...

A large slice of voters self identify as independent, but their voting habits don’t match that self identification. It’s that classic independent streak myth so popular among Americans.

"In the 2016 election, a wide gap in presidential preferences emerged between those with and without a college degree. College graduates backed Clinton by a 9-point margin (52%-43%), while those without a college degree backed Trump 52%-44%. This is by far the widest gap in support among college graduates and non-college graduates in exit polls dating back to 1980."

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trum...

https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2012/results/president/exi...

  No college degree Obama: 51%
  Some college Obama: 49%. 
  College Romney: 51%
  Postgrad. Obama: 55%

PS: Split tickets in 2020 are another indicator of more topical voting behavior.

It's one thing if you have a college degree and half of your acquaintances don't. It's another if you rarely have meaningful interactions with anyone who doesn't; in that case you're in a subculture that has very different experiences than the average American.

What's the plan to get there?

Urban populations, sure. Not particularly coastal aside from the fact that there's more urban population on the coasts, as county-level maps show pretty clearly.

“Elites” are more dubious. Sure, Democrats and Republicans (counting leaners) are closer to parity for voters with less than a college degree, with college grads and even moreso postgraduate degree holders strongly favoring Democrats.

OTOH, Blacks, who are overwhelming not elites, overwhelming are (and even more overwhelming lean) Democratic, and the same is true predominantly (though less overwhelmingly) of Hispanics.

So, yes, to the urban part, not particularly independently true of the “elite” or “coastal” part.

I think that's actually the rub. Blacks and Hispanics are voting less and less for Democrats, and that is true more for this last election than 2016 [1]

Despite the very visible rhetoric of racial equality and other movements, the Dems are becoming the party of rich white people.

[1] - https://news.yahoo.com/exit-poll-black-men-drifted-204522278...

Clinton won greater than 90% of the black vote in 2016, as did House Democrats in 2018; there's indications that Biden did a little worse this year. specifically among black men.

> the Dems are becoming the party of rich white people.

Good verified voter data for 2020 will take a while, but in 2016 Trump won 55-39 among whites with over $150K income; the Republicans (while they have support elsewhere, as well) are very much the party of rich white people. Meanwhile, even if they've lost some ground with some of these groups compared to some point in the past, Democrats remain heavily favored, nationally, by blacks, asians, and hispanics.

Agreed and my above source is (probably) using exit poll data, which we should be a bit suspicious about. This is early and it's going to take a few weeks to get and unpack data.

> in 2016 Trump won 55-39 among whites with over $150K income;

And he seems to have taken losses there in 2020

> even if they've lost some ground with some of these groups compared to some point in the past, Democrats remain heavily favored, nationally, by blacks, asians, and hispanics.

I was reading an analysis today that suggested Dems may continue to lose these groups - and they will be losing them to the Republicans ( [2] but note the source and that's it opinion and give the appropriate grain of salt). Given how uncomfortably close 2020 has been for the Dems, I would not rest on my laurels and assume we'll just continue to come out ahead in these groups.

It's starting to seem like there is something the Republicans are selling that are picking up these groups, and the Dems are failing to hold onto them despite their messaging.

[2] - https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/what-if-americas-...

Normally, exit polling aren't too problematic, but exit polls in this election when "vote in person" vs. "vote by mail" has been a matter itself of intense partisan division, well... There's a fairly obvious built-in bias compared to the electorate at large.

> I was reading an analysis today that suggested Dems may continue to lose these groups - and they will be losing them to the Republicans ( [2] but note the source and that's it opinion and give the appropriate grain of salt). Given how uncomfortably close 2020 has been for the Dems, I would not rest on my laurels and assume we'll just continue to come out ahead in these groups.

I'm not sure there is a grain of salt large enough for "analysis" from the Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Examiner which rests on no apparent actual data. That said, I think complacency is never good, and I think the Democratic Party should be active asking how it can serve all kind of communities better, including black, hispanic, and other racial/ethnic minorities (and the working class generally, and...)

But there's a difference between that and believing that there is clear (or even strongly suggestive) evidence of a particular problem with certain particular communities (I think there is, but more with the working class than race/ethnic minorities, right now; but I think that means we need greater additional effort in the "working class" area, not an absence of it in the others.)

Firstly "Hispanics" is way too diverse a demographic to ever vote as a block. Cuban Hispanics in Miami vote very differently to people of Mexican extraction in California. That in itself will cause some variation election-to-election.

Secondly, and specific to this election: Republicans were very effective in their door-to-door registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns in "new voter" Hispanic communities in Florida and Texas. The Democratic party avoided this because of COVID-19 and it cost them badly.

By the census definitions, which don't separate out suburban as a separate category, but encompass what would normally be thought of that way as part of urban. If you look at the urban core counties in the Pew list below and a by-county election map of the US, there's a pretty close correlation, visually at least.

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/07/29/prior-to-covid-19...

Urban mostly means "denser than suburban tracts of single-family homes".

It seems to me the pattern is that where population density increases the people tend to be more politically leftward-leaning.

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/132625098113116979...

I'm from flyover country, one of those three states that went Biden this year surrounded by a sea of red. You know, one of the three states that elected half the members of 'the squad'. Sure, California rich people can throw in a lot of money, but that's true for both Republican and Democratic parties. Don't dismiss our importance in the Democratic party. We turn up & do the work, including the work of talking with our 'red' neighbors and actually trying to work things out in this country.

As for high & low vs middle, it just doesn't make sense to me. Lots of rich people supporting the Republicans -- lots, lots, lots. Lots of rich people supporting the Dems. Poor people split by race and geography. Middle class people split by race and geography. The split by geography and race is more significant than the split by income, in almost every presentation of data that I see.

Although there is something to what you say; the income gap between Republican and Democratic voters did narrow substantially in 2016.

One person with $100 million income has a higher average income than 999 people with a $100K annual income.

Averages aren't particularly useful here.

So while I'd rather the media reported the median income than the median income, it's the number we have and hopefully it's a useful approximation.

Sure, but there's also a couple with over an order of magnitude more.

> So while I'd rather the media reported the median income than the median income, it's the number we have and hopefully it's a useful approximation.

It's not a useful approximation of anything, and we have a lot more detailed information that “average income of voters of one side vs. the other" on the relationship between income and voting / party preference. And it tells a more complicated story (e.g., in 2016, Clinton won significantly among those with income of $150K+ and under $30K, was nearly even among those with $100-150K and $50-75K, lost significantly among those with $74-100K and $30-50K.)

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/30/a-voter-dat...

  Sure, but there's also a couple with over an order of magnitude more.

Biden actively courted high-earning, educated voters with his free college and student loan forgiveness policies, which amount to a wealth transfer to people who already have higher lifetime average earnings and are at a competitive advantage in the employment marketplace. Not very progressive:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/opinion/student-debt-forg...

He also pledged to fund it by raising corporate income taxes, which will reduce the profitability (and therefore, the value) of all publicly traded companies in the US, which means anyone with a 401(k) or IRA will indirectly be paying for this, even if they don't have student loan debt or a college degree at all.

> https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2020/1027/As-college-...

And as I pointed out, it's not solely for the reasons college-educated progressives are eager to suggest ("ignorant, uneducated people vote republican"). Student loan forgiveness is a flatly a regressive policy, amounting to a handout to people who are already economically advantaged.

> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/09/student-loan-forgiveness-cou...

> Biden laid out a narrower plan, saying he would forgive $10,000 in student debt for all borrowers, and the rest of the debt for those who attended public colleges or historically Black colleges and universities and earn less than $125,000 a year.

Imagine being a non-college educated voter earning $60-70k a year, and reading that people earning upto $125k a year will get a handout.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-display/educa... - note the associate degree and "some college" levels.

> He also pledged to fund it by raising corporate income taxes, which will reduce the profitability (and therefore, the value) of all publicly traded companies in the US, which means anyone with a 401(k) or IRA will indirectly be paying for this,

That's not how it works. The stockmarket is a comparative market where higher profitability compared to other companies is what affects stock price. This means tax increases to all companies don't drop stock prices.

Also the amount of tax increase is so small it is unlikely to be noticeable on the P&L anyway.

Can you provide evidence for this? I was under the impression that price is dictated by long-term underlying company value. That is to say, time-discounted, risk-adjusted dividends, including buy-outs. Dividends are just paid out via stock-buybacks these days because the dividends are taxed more, despite them being functionally equivalent.

It's true that price is determined by long-term value, but long-term value isn't sorely dictated by dividends. Expected price appreciation itself is a factor for growth stocks. Growth stocks include some very large companies, including Google and Facebook.

Earnings is seen as an indication of future value (and future dividends if it is an income stock rather than a growth stock)

https://finance.zacks.com/profits-reflect-stock-prices-8263....

The value of any stock (or bond or other financial asset) is its expected future cash flows discounted back to the present at a rate that reflects the risks associated with those cash flows. This is corporate finance 101. Higher taxes for US companies means lower cash flows, and lower values for those assets, unless the discount rate is lowered enough (e.g., lowering interest rates further, even going negative) to compensate. Companies with more US exposure will become less valuable, and money will flow to other assets, including bonds, foreign stocks, etc., to reflect the shift in value.

Indeed, this is a good point too. 401K managers are aware of this and can just shift allocations.