The Democrats’ Contempt for the Poor
Will college-educated voters ever wake up?
by Melissa Mackenzie
October 13, 2022, 10:38 PM
Barack Obama’s economy in 2011 stunk. Mitt Romney should have had an easier time running against his rather lazy opponent with little good news to his name. But Romney was a bad candidate for the times. Members of the working and middle classes viewed him as the Boss — the rich guy running things, buying out their companies, killing their jobs, and sending the factories overseas. He was the supercilious money guy, picking filet mignon from his teeth. They did not trust him. Obama, like Romney, was a good-looking technocrat. “At least he was black,” thought the working class. “At least he can relate to our struggles.” Alas, this wasn’t true. Obama is a trust-fund kid and has much more in common with the monied class than with the average American bloke — you know, those guys who bitterly cling to their Bibles and guns.
I bring all this up because this year’s election, like in 2011, feels closer than it should be, if the polls are to be believed. The Republican Party should have been in a stronger position then, and it definitely should be in a strong position now. What gives? To oversimplify: college-degree holders. Their unemployment rate is currently 2.2 percent. During the worst of the Obama recession years, their unemployment rate never crested 5 percent. While others experienced an unemployment rate upwards of 11 percent, the college grads were fine, and they vote. They make up a solid 30-plus percent of the country.
The most loyal Democratic constituency is the college-educated single woman. She will vote, and happily, for President Joe Biden and progressives like him. She was specifically marketed to during the Obama years with the former president’s misbegotten Julia campaign. She’s whom the Democrats are relying on again for their fortunes. She is progressive, socially liberal, relatively wealthy, and scared of everything. She’s the neurotic heart of the Democratic Party. Vaguely socialist, fearful of the climate change bogeyman, she drives a Prius, shops at Whole Foods, drinks pumpkin spice lattes, and watches the Real Housewives shows with her gay best friend. She has a Coexist sticker; believes all women (except the ones accusing Biden and former President Bill Clinton); is vaccinated and probably suffers from long COVID now, but it’s totally worth it; and has a Ukraine flag in her bio that replaced her black square for the now passé Black Lives Matter.
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https://spectator.org/democrats-contempt-for-the-poor/