Civics: “People with post-graduate degrees but lower-to-middle incomes”
In today’s newsletter, I argue this is the sweet spot for the DSA. DSA members are very college-educated (80% BA+) but not particularly well-off (45% HHI incomes below $60K). Their class status is ambiguous. But they tend to be very liberal on culture as well as economics.
——-
Downwardly mobile elites are the bread-and-butter of the Dems.
——-
Rather, we identify a key operational channel: the experience of being a small business owner leads people to adopt conservative views on government regulation.
——-
There is a ton of discussion about this today. But note that while THE BEST cohort for Dems is low-income ppl w/ a graduate degree, there is only a 4 percentage point gap to the highest income cohort. What this shows more strongly is that advanced education is associated with leftism.
——-
This is where your DSA problem is coming from, right here. It’s all people who grew up upper middle class, or who inserted themselves into a traditionally upper middle class milieu, and then found out that no one wants to pay them $150k to hear them spout off Critical Theory.