There's a profound social gulf in the Democratic party
The upscale liberals who revere Obama have spent
their lives championing equality and opposing privilege
But they’ve smashed the old WASP social hierarchy
only to create a new educational one
Are you a Bobo? [see bottom of page]
Working-class Americans see themselves as shafted in an economy dominated as never before in the memory of most families by the upper middle classes and the wealthy.
Those people — many of the college-educated liberals who favor Sen. Obama — are seen as taking an ever-widening slice of the economic pie and leaving crumbs for those near the bottom.
In that sense, they are viewed almost in the same light as upscale Republicans.Privileged Liberals Patronize Poor Democrats
Fifty-five years ago, 80 percent of American television viewers, young and old, tuned in to see Milton Berle on Tuesday nights. Tens of millions, rich and poor, worked together at Elks Lodges and Rotary Clubs.
Millions more, rural and urban, read general-interest magazines like Look and Life. In those days, the owner of the local bank lived in the same town as the grocery clerk, and their boys might play on the same basketball team. Only 7 percent of adult Americans had a college degree.
But that’s all changed. In the decades since, some social divides, mostly involving ethnicity, have narrowed. But others, mostly involving education, have widened. Today there is a mass educated class.
The college educated and non-college educated are likely to live in different towns.
They have radically different divorce rates and starkly different ways of raising their children. The non-college educated not only earn less, they smoke more, grow more obese and die sooner.
Retailers, home builders and TV executives identify and reinforce these lifestyle clusters. There are more niche offerings and fewer common experiences.
The ensuing segmentation has reshaped politics. We’re used to the ideological divide between Red and Blue America. This year’s election has revealed a deep cultural gap within the Democratic Party, separating what Stuart Rothenberg calls the two Democratic parties.
In state after state (Wisconsin being the outlier), Barack Obama has won densely populated, well-educated areas. Hillary Clinton has won less-populated, less-educated areas.
For example, Obama has won roughly 70 percent of the most-educated counties in the primary states. Clinton has won 90 percent of the least-educated counties.
In state after state, Obama has won a few urban and inner-ring suburban counties. Clinton has won nearly everywhere else.
This social divide has overshadowed regional differences. Sixty-year-old, working-class Catholics vote the same, whether they live in Fresno, Scranton, Nashua or Orlando.
The divide has even overshadowed campaigning. Surely the most interesting feature of the Democratic race is how unimportant political events are.
The candidates can spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising, but they are not able to sway their opponent’s voters to their side.
They can win a stunning victory, but the momentum doesn’t carry over from state to state. They can make horrific gaffes, deliver brilliant speeches, turn in good or bad debate performances, but these things do not alter the race.
In Pennsylvania, Obama did everything conceivable to win over Clinton’s working-class voters.
The effort was a failure. The great uniter failed to unite. In this election, persuasion isn’t important. Social identity is everything. Demography is king.
Over the years, different theories have emerged to describe the educated/less-educated divide.
Conservatives have gravitated toward the culture war narrative, dividing the country between the wholesome masses and the decadent cultural elites.
Some liberals believe income inequality drives everything. They wait for an uprising of economic populism. Other liberals divide the country morally, between the enlightened urbanites and the racist rednecks who will never vote for a black man.
None of these theories really fit the facts. It’s more accurate to say that the country has simply drifted apart into different subcultures.
There’s no great hostility between the cultures. Americans have a fuzzy sense of where the boundaries lie. But people in different niches have developed different unconscious maps of reality.
They have developed different communal understandings of what constitutes a good leader, of what sort of world they live in.
They have developed different communal definitions, which they can’t even articulate, of what they mean by liberty, security and virtue. Demographic groups have begun to function like tribes or cultures.
We can all play the parlor game of trying to figure out why Obama, a Harvard Law grad, resonates with the more educated while Clinton, a Yale Law grad, resonates with the less educated.
I’d throw in that Obama’s offer of a secular crusade hits a nerve among his fellow bobos, while Clinton’s talk of fighting and resilience plays well down market.
But these theories only scratch the surface. The mental maps people in different cultures form are infinitely complex and poorly understood even by those who hold them.
People pick up millions of subtle signals from body language, word choice, facial expressions, policy positions and biographical details.
Efforts to rebrand a candidate to appeal to down-market voters are inevitably crude and counterproductive.
The core message is that even if you take away the ideological differences between the parties, you are still left with profound social gulfs within the parties.
There’s poignancy to that. The upscale liberals who revere Obama have spent their lives championing equality and opposing privilege. But they’ve smashed the old WASP social hierarchy only to create a new educational one.
Class Conflict in the Democratic Party
They really must be elitist and out of touch. How else can all the current handwringing about the "role of race" in the Democratic primary battle be explained?
The implication of articles in the New York Times and Washington Post, and in the opinions of some commentators is, of course, that Hillary Clinton had better quit before she alienates African Americans by attacking Barack Obama and kills the party's chances in November.
As usual, most of those commenting on the motivations of white working class voters — who are reluctant to embrace Sen. Obama — have had so little contact with working class people they have no clue what anyone is thinking in small-town Pennsylvania.
There is racism in America, to be sure, but are those people likely to vote for any Democrat? No, they aren't. They haven't for decades; why should they start now?
Among working class Democrats, the issues are strictly economic, stupid.
Working-class Americans see themselves as shafted in an economy dominated as never before in the memory of most families by the upper middle classes and the wealthy.
Those people — many of the college-educated liberals who favor Sen. Obama — are seen as taking an ever-widening slice of the economic pie and leaving crumbs for those near the bottom.
In that sense, they are viewed almost in the same light as upscale Republicans.
Working class Democrats also are contrasting their own prospects with those of people with similar backgrounds from about 1950 to 1980, and they find that their options have shriveled.
Social Security, which they need more than college professors or attorneys or medical professionals, is being dismantled. So is Medicare. Likewise, access to affordable, dependable health care and to higher education.
Elementary and secondary public education, meanwhile, is being starved for funding while private schools flourish with hefty donations.
The working class voter sees jobs vanishing to China or elsewhere and feels it much more than the college-educated.
The idea of upward mobility in America suddenly seems absurd, with doors constantly closing and ladders being pulled up.
They also see traditional religious values and patriotism as ignored, scoffed at or berated by some of their fellow Democrats, and they tend to look for telling signs that a candidate actually loves the USA.
Finally, rightly or wrongly, they see Hillary Clinton (who did spend 20 years in Arkansas) as someone who can relate to them and who will fight harder for their issues than anyone else.
In fact, they are more comfortable with the idea of a battle with the Republicans than with warm notions of compromise and co-existence.
They don't want our long philosophical struggle over the nation's future to end until they also are counted among the winners.
Somehow Barack Obama has to show he can reach these voters and that he understands where they are coming from.
Since he remains the favorite to win the nomination, the Illinois senator has much work to do before the fall campaign or the Democrats are doomed.
Thus far, he hasn't made a serious effort, which means it might not be in him.
Back to the handwringing over fears blacks will bolt the party in November: That is possible, but doesn't anyone worry that women will be enraged that the first woman candidate was dumped in favor of a — of course, younger — candidate?
Women are an even larger segment of the Democratic base than blacks.
And think about this: Had Sen. Obama not entered the race this year, Sen. Clinton would have solidly behind her African Americans, Hispanics, women, young people (for the first woman candidate); most party liberals, older voters and the working class whites that Sen. Obama has trouble convincing.
If the party winds up playing the blame game in November, Democrats, especially liberals like Ted Kennedy, should be forced to consider that rallying around the New York senator might well have been their party's best option in 2008.
Bobo: Bourgeois Bohemian
A fairly affluent or educated person who repudiates, denies, or rejects the background from which he or she comes and embraces that of another, most likely lower or less educated, socio-economic one so as to not appear snobbish.
Bobos, from the French term “bourgeois bohémien” often graduate from private schools, live in hip, but somewhat sketchy neigbhorhoods, marry an ethnic or ‘other’to upset their parents, or espouse unconventional food or cultural traditions to prove that they are above their bourgeois upbringing.
As soon as the going gets tough, however, their breeding will show, and they will watch your napkin placement and use at the dinner table.
Example
Jack tries so hard. First he spent those three years digging latrines in Nicaragua with that exchange group until his Nana paid him to come home and go to SMU law.
He is really quite a bobo. He married that Mexican women–she went to Dartmouth, and her uncle was president of Mexico, but now *he* is all about Mexican realness and is an ardent supporter of the Zapatistas and refuses to let their 2 yr old speak English.
I heard that he had to recently go to Boston to attend a Raytheon shareholders meeting so that’s why he was buying suits at Brooks and got his beard trimmed.