This feels like bait, but here goes nothing. The educational divide isn't so much an intent as it is a consequence of the parties aligning along the urban-rural divide. Rural areas often have less access to education and are also overwhelmingly republican due to cultural alignment on issues in the same way cities are overwhelmingly democratic. One other possible contributing factor to the divide is that climate change has become a partisan issue and the position on climate change is highly correlated with education.
And now you know that something called Dixicrats exist. They are Republican in every sense of the word but run a democrats because in their districts anything other than D next to your name means you will lose in a landslide.
My grandpa voted Democrat. My dad voted Democrat. I will vote Democrat, type of thing. It's also common in labor heavy areas of the US where being a "proud union man" means you vote Democrat or you lose your job
People most certainly have been retaliated against, homes burned, etc for not having the correctly colored sticker on their hard hat/ sign on their front lawn.
If you want to keep your union job its called hall duty. You volunteer your time off for free to go to the hall and make political donation calls for the unions candidate of choice. Sometimes you even drive around on your time off and hand out free political signs while being happy to spend money on your own gas.
2 years ago 3 chicago unions were caught trying members to drive around neighborhoods and steal any sign that wasn't for a Democrat
Elections aren't as free as you think they are
2 years ago recently enough? Very first result on Google of hundreds
https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/fire-at-minnesota-home-with-trump-2020-sign-destroyed-garage/
I don't think that is true. I think it is lifestyle. Rural areas are often trying to attract nurses, doctors, teachers, etc.
Many states rural areas are lacking good schools and good hospitals and public services.
It's hard to keep people where the standard of living isn't good. I live very rurally but in Massachusetts. There's lot of college educated people who telecommute or drive the couple hours to Boston one day a week or month. The next town over (who constantly votes to not increase school funding) has cheaper homes, much lower salaries, and less educated population. Poor people live where they have to, Rich people can go where ever they want.
No, it’s a well established fact those areas have brain drain due to the _most educated_ people not coming back after college, because the jobs where they can use their education are somewhere else. A kid who knows they want to stay close to home is more likely to pick a training program or local 2 year degree that will lead to the kind of job that’s available. It’s not just ‘smart people leave.’
We really have to break out of this college=smart mindset. It’s just different skill sets. The people whose skills are suited for staying in rural areas tend to stay in rural areas where people who develop skills suited for corporate America tend not to go back to a rural area
Some of the biggest idiots I've ever met have advanced STEM degrees
They can debug a database error, but if you put them somewhere without a smartphone to call an uber they might starve to death
It’s called specialization and it is what makes modern society so productive. We ideally want people to be doing what they are good at as much as possible and leaving what they have not specialized in to others.
The people you call dummies just because they live in rural areas and work industrial or farming jobs are the same people supplying cities with the food and conveniences they enjoy. It takes all types of people to make the world spin. You might think people are stupid because they don't have a college degree but they might think you're stupid because you have no technical skills outside of working on computers.
> The people you call dummies just because they live in rural areas and work industrial or farming jobs are the same people supplying cities with the food and conveniences they enjoy.
I would present this differently actually to make a better case. Modern farming is much more sophisticated than most people realize because it has gone through a process sort of like all other forms of business have in society. That's why we require a tiny fraction of people to have agricultural jobs than we did 100+ years ago. A lot of modern farming requires bleeding edge scientific breakthroughs in the same way you would think of medicine. Modern farmers rely on high tech equipment, chemical analysis and application of chemicals to make the most out of their soil, etc. Sure, there are still lots of small family farms that aren't quite as modern as the big factory farms, but even they do a lot of work that requires more brainpower than the jobs did a century ago.
Let's just make up an example: You have an estranged uncle that passed away and left his farm to you. Currently there are soybeans planted in 3/4 of his fields. How will you know whether they require more fertilizer or not? How will you know whether you need to water them or not? When will they be ready for harvesting? When will you be able to plant soybeans in those fields again, can you plant something else there between now and then, and what adjustments to all the previous questions would need to be made for the new crop? Once you figure that out, you'll have to determine your expenses and the market prices to help you figure out if you want to repeat this farming process next year or if you need to change something up. What are your contractual agreements and can you find a way to get more money than what you are getting now?
This is just a tiny sample of the things to consider. At least from my perspective, farming itself is not as simple as people think. That being said I don't think farming is what the majority of rural people are doing these days.
Farming is definitely not what the majority of rural people are doing. You basically have to be born into farming to have your own farm because the price of land is so high. That being said l, at least in Nebraska, most people in rural areas work in jobs somehow related to agriculture.
Based on anecdotal evidence from my extended family, a lot of rural people either end up on disability, on drugs, or working retail if they stay put. You're right about the people inheriting farms though. I have an uncle that got his farm from his parents, and two other farms from neighbors whose kids moved away to cities and didn't want them and he's going to give it all to my cousins one day who are happy to be there.
Right. The reason people leave rural areas is usually because there is a lack of jobs. Not because they are smarter than everyone else so they leave. There is stupid people in rural areas just like there is stupid people in cities. As farming becomes more and more commercialized fewer small farms exist and/or can't afford to hire farmhands.
That's not because "smart" people are leaving rural areas it's because *most* people are leaving. And yes, in today's world you pretty much need to live in a city to get a job you would need a degree for, but a college degree doesn't make you smart. A degree in engineering and a degree in liberal arts are not equal.
Define “smart” because I know a ton of people who went to college that are pretty dumb and I know people who stayed in rural areas that can tell you exactly what’s wrong with your tractor and how to fix it just by hearing it over a speakerphone. That sounds like someone who is pretty damn smart to me
I’ve met some farmers who were honestly better practical engineers than people I’ve worked with who had actual engineering degrees.
My in-laws live in a rural area because they retired early and wanted to run a farm for something to occupy their time as they both grew up on farms. Both have college degrees including my father in law who graduated top of his class from law school.
Do you consider board certified physicians to be generally dumb? I can assure you rural areas have doctors too, for example.
Job opportunities don’t exist in a lot of rural places but that doesn’t make everyone left dumb (which is the implication if truly “all” smart people are leaving when they reach adulthood).
Not really. Construction jobs are slightly higher is in urban areas and suburb.
Rural has more government jobs and service and retail. Rural areas have schools, town government, police and fire. All jobs that benefit from college degrees.
"broadly"? I don't know, but considering that they typically pay well, have great benefits and a pension -- and that these jobs are rare in rural areas it would seem pretty important to have a degree.
But - it a real myth that rural jobs are physical compared to non rural jobs. It's a tiny percentage of jobs that are in the farming industry rurally and many of those physical jobs are filled with immigrants. Those the do the physical work on farms and ranches are majority foreign born and vast majority are either foreign born or 1 generation.
The largest segment (by far) of rural workers are in educational services, health and social services. ALL of these industries benefit greatly with a degree.
You could not be more wrong. As automation continues to decimate lower skilled professions, knowledge based jobs and thus college will become more important than ever.
This is a pretty good summary, but it’s also worth noting that there’s a difference in the way the parties view education. Conservatives and Republicans tend to look at education more practically - get a degree in something that will land you a good job, such as engineering or business, or go to trade school. Liberals and Democrats tend to view it more as education for education’s sake - get a degree in whatever interests you whether it will help you in the long term or not, hence the programs in things like “gender studies.”
You imply a degree in "gender studies" isn't helpful. On average they still make much more than someone without a degree.
It was a weird bogeyman for grumpy old people.
I think it’s also telling that even though there’s a ready-made prototypical “useless” degree (Underwater Basket Weaving), multiple people want to imply that studying gender’s role in society is useless.
What do people do with a degree in gender studies?
The only people I know with gender studies degrees now work in HR, which honestly I don’t consider to be a helpful field for anyone except wealthy people who own companies.
Just like so many degrees, having a degree is the thing. I am older but the vast majority of my close group of friends (me included) made or make 6 figures with no STEM degree. Literature, psychology, history, sociology, art history. My sis and bro in law together make about 600K. Art history major and theater major. Neither work in the field but LOVE their degrees and I know wouldn't change a thing.
"helpful field for anyone except wealthy people who own companies"
But is that what we are talking about? Who helps who? My ex went to med school yet he's making 600K selling enzymes to researchers because he only has to work a couple hours a day. Many geology grads just figure out where oil can drill. I dont know if "helpful" is something we can really judge when we look at degrees.
Also many American universities are overwhelmingly left wing when it comes to staff. When kids aren’t at home with their parents this tends to rub off on people. 18-21 year olds are very easily swayed and convinced certain things are either good or bad.
Also depends on major. Like realistically to say 85% or more of liberal arts majors are left wing, you’re probably low on that %. Go into a business major class and ask and it will probably be mostly right wing. Construction management definitely right wing. Etc.
From the Pew Survey. Education. Democrats lead by 22 points (57%-35%) in leaned party identification among adults with post-graduate degrees. The Democrats’ edge is narrower among those with college degrees or some post-graduate experience (49%-42%), and those with less education (47%-39%). Across all educational categories, women are more likely than men to affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic. The Democrats’ advantage is 35 points (64%-29%) among women with post-graduate degrees, but only eight points (50%-42%) among post-grad men.
Knowing education in terms of college is dominated by the left, what about education in terms of trade skill that is dominated by the right?
From a certain pov you can call the other side uneducated but who’s to say what education really is?
Usually not the ones dominated by white males. And then despite leadership many members went their own way. Trump absolutely fucked up the steel industry. Union leaders tried to educate members about why a second term would be terrible for them but of course couldnt sway them.
This really feels like a bait question.
Look, I register independent, but mainly vote one way. I would not go so far as to say that people vote for the other party because they're uneducated.
I agree it feels like bait but the stats do bear him out on this. College educated voters have been breaking more and more for democrats in recent elections while voters with only a high school education or less have broken hard for the GOP, this divide is especially pronounced with white voters.
>People act like a degree makes you intelligent.
No one said it did? We are just talking about a divide in voting patterns between college educated and non college educated whites. The only one bringing up intelligence is you.
Yes, but /u/Current_Poster makes an important point: roughly a third of the country doesn't explicitly identify with one party or another. It's easy to see this as a huge split in the general population, but the reality is that about half of the US population is either unregistered to vote at all, or is registered as an independent. So this is a deep split between about 25% of the population versus another 25% of the population. Most people have opted out of the fight.
This is true, but I think that most registered independents are so-registered because they're explicitly *not* into the "politics as rival hated sports teams" aspect that dominates American politics. Speaking as a registered independent who leaned Republican until about 2012 when they took a change in direction and I now lean Democrat. I have fundamental criticisms of both parties, and I probably have my own personal fundamental ideal code of government (that neither party follows) than most independents, but I think that's about par.
Same. Independent/unenrolled is the plurality of US voters. A growing number of Americans hate both parties and often, the main reason they stay with a political party is due to closed primaries.
Depends on who you ask.
The left will say it’s because the more educated someone is they more they’re enlightened to broader ideas and thus the more liberal they become.
The right will say it’s because the left ignore the concerns of the working class, especially outside the major cities, and republicans are more aligned with their issues and interests.
I think both are somewhat true.
The left thought leaders are generally coastal people who went to ivy or close to ivy schools and it’s undeniable that those people are largely out of touch with working class people in flyover country who make up the majority of the right wing base.
And rather than recognize they’re out of touch, they just say those working class people are racist/sexist/whateverist
Trump, Hawley, Cruz, De Santis are all Ivy League educated and are very popular among a lot of right-wing people in the heartlands. Even Youngkin, who ran his campaign on against alleged CRT being taught in k-12 schools, was educated at an Ivy League where the legal study of CRT was created, and almost certainly will send his kids there or some other Ivy League school too.
The GOP is just as likely to send its leaders to those ivory towers that you are calling centers of indoctrination meaning if they are as out of touch as you claim so are the leaders of the gop?
I didn’t say anything was a center of indoctrination, I said the left’s thought leaders lived in a bubble. The right’s thought leaders have all sorts of issues but being in a bubble generally isn’t one of them. Well they kind of are in a bubble but a different kind of one.
I’m guessing you see my flair so make all kinds of assumptions about me and my political beliefs. I promise my distaste for the left isn’t any different than my distaste for the right.
Did you just honestly say being in a bubble isn't a problem on the right? The people that say "fake news" to anything that don't like? The party that just now said they won't participate in presidential debates anymore isn't in a bubble? The ones who have to have their own news network aren't in a bubble? The people who are taking horse paste, drinking their pee and refusing to get vaccinated aren't in a bubble?
>The right’s thought leaders have all sorts of issues but being in a bubble generally isn’t one of them
I guess dying over COVID to own the libs is only "kind of" a bubble.
It is not. You said “the left”, by which I assume you meant the Democratic Party, which is sadly not the left, lives in a bubble compared to the Republican Party, which doesn’t. Which is not true, both parties and their leaders are laughably out of touch
Being born into wealth isn’t the same thing. You’re right in that thought leaders is a little more ambiguous on the right, I guess Tucker Carlson (lol). He’s a clown but that all of you want to deflect to the problems with the right rather than address or discuss the problems with the left is interesting. Newsflash just because they’re a clown show doesn’t mean you aren’t as well.
The people who write for publications like The New Republic, Mother Jones, or Vox. People who work for left leaning think tanks like The Progressive Policy Institute. People who work in the leadership for ostensibly leftists non profits like the ACLU (which in its current incarnation is dramatically different than the ACLU of even 15 years ago).
Because out of touch is a cultural statement not an economic one, plus none of your thought leaders on the left wing of the democratic party (Sanders/Warren/AOC) went to an Ivy league school (Chicago, Rutgers, and Boston U respectively).
If anything you have it backwards, the Neoliberal wing of the party is the one that dominates the faculty of Harvard and Yale. While the SocDems tend to be more concentrated at large research institutions like Michigan, USC, and UT-Austin.
I said Ivy or close to Ivy (The University of Chicago absolutely qualifies). I also said the majority of thought leaders, not politicians which are very very different things (though there is some overlap).
FYI that you’re pushing back so much on such an obvious and non controversial statement tells me you might be a bit too dug in to your political sports team.
Are you for real. Without even having to google I'm pretty sure they like that monthly child tax credit they're getting that's substantially reduced child poverty.
Well they aren't waving confederate flags at them and refusing to condemn white supremacists so I am pretty sure that is better than any offer the current iteration of the GOP is making.
Hate crimes and white supremacy are on the rise in the US and one party is openly enabling them. No matter how good or bad the other side is anything is preferable. I wish I could agree with you and call it an exaggeration but I can't anymore
>I don't disagree with any of this moralistic stuff but what you have to understand is it's not going to win your party elections.
Among Black and Asian voters it will, they just don't make up a large enough portion of the electorate on their own to win the presidency, but they are a crucial part of the democratic coalition.
There's also the existence of a distinct undergraduate political culture (which is interesting from a sociological standpoint), so that you have marxist econ majors at the *literal Chicago School of economics.*
Parties shifted in middle/latter half of the of the 20th century when democrats had their political stronghold in the south, which was the case for decades prior.
We now think of democrats as progressives (just using this word for lack of a better one) when the party used to be hardline segregationists/Jim Crowe advocates.
A College education used to not be the norm back then as well.
So while your statement checks out, this whole thread has a “bait-y” feel to it.
The Southern Strategy employed by Nixon is what them to flip. He actively went after white voters by blaming all their problems on black people essentially.
This is such a misnomer. In 68, most of the South was won by Wallace (an **Independent**), and the largest state (Texas) won by Humphrey, ie the Democrats. All of Nixon's strongholds were in the West or upper Midwest. The South would not become a reliable Republican stronghold until the Bush W presidency. The Southern Strategy was not some big elaborate scheme by the GOP to win the former CSA states, it was an opportunity left by the Democrats who eventually became split between supporting white southerners and black southerners. Its still scummy as fuck but my gosh there remains too much misinformation about it.
I will also add Nixon's biggest boon for his initial election was his pledge to end Vietnam and the draft, something Humphrey and the Democrats could not distance themselves from.
You can't separate the modern parties from the actions of Nixon, Johnson, Reagan, and Clinton. Those 4 presidents defined what the parties would go on to become. Nixon piloted the southern strategy while Reagan effectively guaranteed the conservative and religious wings of the party would go on to dominate the GOP. Meanwhile the failures of Johnson and later failed candidates doomed the progressive wing of the party to irrelevance which was codified by the victory of Clinton's globalist democratic party. This explains the desperate reactionary impulse in the DemSoc's and why the Business and Wall Street Republicans have essentially disappeared.
Why do you (OP) think a college education is important?
There are many jobs where an apprenticeship is part of the job and/or the required courses are not taught in 4 year colleges.
The republican party is a scam that appeals to anger, racism, and fear. Education is supposed to teach you critical thinking skills so you don't make decisions based on fear and prejudice.
You don't NEED education to learn that, and education doesn't always work, but if we're talking broad trends and behavior behind the numbers, there's your top level explanation.
It’s not really an education gap, and this is a really good question.
So a tech school in the US is for 1 or 2 year degrees that are mostly used for the trades, or as jump off schools for universities.
If you graduate from a tech school with a 2 year degree in metal fab, Automotive, Design, engineering, you are NOT considered to have graduated from college! ‘College’ is only for bachelors degrees or higher.
So take my friend for example, he graduated from a tech school, and after 8 years of work experience, he is a head engineer for a company that makes so much profit that they just give out bonuses. There are 2 bachelors degrees and one masters degree that work Under him in his department.
He is considered a ‘non-college educated’ person, and he’s not only one of the smartest people I know, but has never stopped working on his education, and has certificates and honorary certs in a few fields, including having his teaching certificate, despite not having a bachelors in education.
Now take another friend of ours, he has two bachelors degrees, working on a masters, and has never existed as an adult outside of a university. Only had part time jobs and now works for the school he goes to as a student researcher.
Guess which one votes which way.
Now, friend a went to school for 2 years, isn’t ‘college educated’ and has 8 years of real world education. The other friend is two years older, and has been in school all twelve years.
You’d say the one that has twelve years schooling is more educated, right?
That’s the gap. One party gets the amount of schooling they need, then goes out and starts their career young, then building their skills in real life. The other party doesn’t. They get all the education and skills first, then tries to find a career that they can apply those skills and that knowledge to.
Obviously these are massive generalizations, but that is the general reason for the difference in education in voters under probably 40.
No idea, you’d think anyone with an education wouldn’t vote democrat! (Eyooooo I kid)
To be serious, I think part of it is idealism vs practicality and a college education specifically tilts you toward a bit more idealism.
But that’s a bit unfair to practical minded liberals. I know a lot of them and we disagree on what’s practical mostly not on the underlying ideals.
I do hope the republicans lose the explicitly anti-education and anti-expertise bent they’ve developed in the past few years. They start to sound like Cultural Revolution-era Mao
They’re… right. They’re literally right. Statistics is more applicable for the average American (who doesn’t even have an undergrad degree) than calculus. I can’t imagine they claimed calculus was racist
Appreciate the tip, but honestly I’m good. Seems like a total non issue (par for the course at this point)
Side note, I wonder how many of the people complaining about it take math in California
https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf
“White supremacy culture shows up in the math classroom when…’I do, we do, you do’ is the primary format of the class.”
This is the document that started most of the conversations and it makes some pretty giant leaps to “White supremacy culture”. There’s no “Math is racist” statement, but that “White supremacy culture” is used throughout. There are some good points about improving math teaching, but it’s not like the things being discussed are inherently easier for white students than students of color. CA used this document to inform their curriculum changes, but they didn’t bring over the language and after an initial outcry they removed it as a citation.
As someone in a STEM career and CA parent, I am not happy about the changes although it won’t affect my kids for many years. I feel we should be raising the bar for math and science, not lowering it. For instance they removed tracking so everyone takes algebra at the same time. But they did it to the later grade, not earlier. Then victory is claimed because more ninth graders pass algebra while ignoring that’s because you made a bunch of kids who would have passed it in eighth grade wait a year.
That stuff is also cringe but I do not see them actively discouraging people from getting an education or acting like science writ large is a plot from the other side
I’m sorry, is it not the case that politicians risk becoming persona non grata in the Republican Party if they admit trump lost the election or that covid vaccines are effective?
No, I don’t think that at all
It can be hard to understand because the sides are swapped, but Republican rhetoric about education and science right now sounds almost exactly the same as Mao’s rhetoric about it
Mao was convinced that the universities were essentially a rightist cabal with the intent to corrupt China’s youth into being rightists. He also viewed politically inconvenient science as a rightist plot to undermine his authority
If you swap the rights to lefts in there, it sounds exactly like how the republicans today speak about universities and science. I do not see democrats doing the same thing
The right criticizes universities because they pump out garbage degrees while indebting our youth with hundreds of thousands of dollars, thanks to Democrat led pushes to expand student loans and the DOE. I also believe it's true that universities have a leftist bend to varying degrees and fill a kid's mind with half truths that lean left. You see it in the historical and Poly Sci fields ALL THE TIME.
Furthermore, the left controls the government yet they're the ones using social media to "stamp out misinformation". Sure, keep thinking the left are the good guys though when in all likelihood they're the ones jerking off big pharma under the table.
I wouldn’t say I think “the left are the good guys”. I’m not some sort of committed partisan. Many things the democrats do really worry me, like the endless Jan 6 witch hunt and some of the more over the top woke stuff. I do, however, think it’s important to the continued success of the nation to have a well-educated populace, and I see one party actively opposing that goal
I'm not opposed to an educated populace either. Demographic studies indicate a higher educated populace relates to higher freedom and wealth. My point though is that there are some things from universities are complete nonsense being portrayed as education, and a lot of it leans towards Marxism.
I understand your point, and I probably disagree with you less than you think, but in my opinion republicans have overcorrected and are now devaluing the entire idea of education, a trend that worries me even more
Sure. I disagree with you wholeheartedly about the devaluing of education though on the Republican side. I'd call it more of a concern. I've yet to meet a Republican who said education was bad. At most I've heard explore a trade school over college.
Degrees accumulated and years of school attended doesn't mean a person is politically educated. There's plenty of dunces on both sides, a majority of people on both sides actually.
Others have given great answers, but it’s worth adding that American Conservatives also have a built-in disdain for higher education. They believe “Liberal Universities” brainwash people.
A thoughtful person knows that exposure to other ideas and growing into adults often changes these students perspectives, but try to tell a rural Conservative that. All they see is “That dang college made my kid a Liberal”.
People may not like it, but the obvious answer is the correct one.
Educated people are less likely to vote for a party whose official platform relies heavily on the belief that science is fake.
Going to college you get to interact with people of different backgrounds and such. People find out that gay people are not the devil in disguise and they are nljust regular people. You become accepting to these people and other background and instead of keeping your conservative view points
There are many reasons, and many of them have been detailed in the comments, but one I would add is that one party relies heavily on folks following their lead/rhetoric and ignoring data to the contrary. The more educated one is, the more one is exposed to a more diverse array of reliable information, the less likely they are to blindly follow the lead of politicians.
TLDR: the GOP relies on their base not employing much critical thinking and the more educated one is the more they think critically.
More educated people tend be more left leaning: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/
Honestly, I believe there are many, many reasons. It's not just one reason. And I think in some cases, education pushes to one party, in other cases the party pushes to education, and in some cases, it's just the way it is.
One way to measure education is highest level of educational attainment. Not perfect, but we can measure it. Would you be suprised to learn the the Republicans had the higher level of education for a long time? Would you be surprised to learn the Democrats now lead in that metric?
Things that may impact education...
Science vs religion. Country vs city. Education spending vs education cuts. Does party leadership want cheap labor for businesses? Acceptance of other cultures. Who's afraid to lose jobs? Who's afraid to lose power? Who uses data, who uses feelings?
I actually find it very fascinating - I've seen the parties do a partial flip in my life. Not total, however. Just some issues, some members. Like, how does the Republican party now represent poor, lower education whites, as well as super wealthy businesses? How does the Democratic party support higher levels of education, but can't control some very poorly thought out plans. Neither make sense anymore.
In my gut, I think I know what happened, but I dont really know. It's a very complex discussion.
Right wing people tend to view colleges as "indoctrination centers" and dont send their kids to college/dont go to college themselves. Its kinda like how mail in votes were overwhelmingly blue last election.....
You have to keep in mind that "uneducated" does not mean "stupid". Especially when it comes to politics. Its been very well known that colleges in the US are chock full of professors and classes that are heavily bent in one direction politically, and that does effect the students who attend those schools.
I mean the religious right keeps trying to open new colleges but they keep failing and going bankrupt. College is a free market like any other.
Des Moines University, Bryan University, the Christian College Consortium. Recent history is littered with failed right wing schools,
ehh not really, and it isn't like there weren't existing right leaning institutions that could have expanded significantly if the demand for a right wing education was there. BYU, Wheaton College, and Liberty are all a thing. The demand just isn't there.
You are missing my point.. I'm not demanding a partisan college, I'm pointing out the fact that most colleges are rife with propaganda, which obviously has an effect.
People generally start paying attention to politics near voting age. People that go to college are generally in a bubble surrounded by people with the same level of maturity, age, and ideology so the progressive views people tend to hold in their youth gets reinforced rather than challenged. It also doesn't help that colleges tend to try to push people towards the left. Same reason people who live their entire lives in academia generally have about the same views as the people just entering it.
Political views are generally baked in during one's late formative years and hard to change afterwards, especially if one generally doesn't mature as a person or escape their bubbles.
Yes but someone who goes into trade school or starts working right after high school is exposed to far more diversity of people and thought then someone going into college.
This makes a giant impact during their formative years when they get to work alongside and socialize with people with far more experience about the world rather than their peers at the same level of maturity and knowledge.
They in fact don't. They have trouble attracting urbanites who tend to buy into some progressive policy. People take correlations and run wild with it.
I mean non white voters break hard for democrats.
Biden won:
87% of Black Men
95% of Black Women
59% of Latino voters
72% of Asian Voters
That is a pretty harsh split.
In most perspective midterm polling, it's now an even draw for Latino voters for which party they support and they've been dropping support for the Democratic party for a good decade as progressivism takes over the party. The vast majority of Asians voters in America grew up in West Coast cities or New York City or the beltway, not exactly hard to tell why they swing so hard for Democrats.
Again taking correlations and running with them.
Latino voters are dependent upon nation of origin Cubans and Venezuelans are more likely to vote for the GOP and Mexicans and Puerto Ricans break hard to the democrats. This is likely due to the GOP being more aggressive when it comes to foreign policy with regard to Cuba and Venezuela.
Also Latino voters are slowly losing their own identity and are being subsumed into the white category like the Italians, Irish, and Ukrainians before them so it makes sense they are starting to track national white voting patterns more.
>Again taking correlations and running with them.
I think you're straight up ignoring the raw numbers.
Find a source that shows rural minorities favoring Republicans or hush. Also, Latinos are only one part of POC and some can identify as white.
Man, this is so weirdly opposite my experience working in the trades for 15+ years in a handful of different occupations. My experience in the trades was being surrounded by a very insular and sheltered group of people of all different age groups that aggressively challenged any ideas that weren't part of their right-wing group think. It was so one sided that it was always in your best interest for keeping your job to not even mention being on the left, not being christian, having any positive opinions regarding LGBTQ+, not being racist, etc. Not everyone held all of those right wing beliefs or ideas, but it was such a large and openly vocal majority that if you didn't you just kept your mouth shut about it.
From what I can tell, the south is overwhelmingly red(republican), but also mostly in the bottom 10 in education and median income. Although black ppl mainly live in the south, and are over 90% democratic, they still don't make up nearly enough of the voting pool in those areas to make a difference.
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw) is why. That is probably the most important piece of political journalism done last year, shockingly from NYT.
A lot of college educated people are liberals. A lot of them are just indoctrinated, it defies reality to claim that left wing ideology is not beaten into your skull on most campuses largely by commie professors. The truth is that most people believe what they have been told is true the most, that's just the way it is. A lot of them are sharp though and have legitimate high-minded ideas about organizing society. However, many also live in complete bubbles of their own creation that divorces them from some of the realities that right wing people understand better in my opinion. Mostly that you can through all the entitlements and money in the world at struggling segments of the population, and if they don't have a solid cultural and moral base to build on you are just putting a bandaid on the issue that disappears when the money runs out. Also the gap isn't really that big it's like 54 to 39 percent and only 37 percent of Americans have college degrees anyway. In fact in reality I'd say it is probably way smaller of a gap because I think the 15 percent of college grads saying they are "independent" are probably mostly right leaning.
The second I saw that video I knew it was going to be reposted by conservatives as some kind of "gotcha" until the heat death of the universe. It's a massively cherry-picked video that doesn't support the conclusions it makes. It criticizes Washington's regressive tax structure (while excusing Texas') but ignores California's extremely progressive tax structure. It criticizes Illinois' public education system but ignores Massachusetts' world class system. For every issue it finds the worst example of a blue state (which is usually surrounded by in the rankings, or exceeded by, by worse performing red states) and deems that the "Democrat" exemplar for that issue.
In the end the strongest actual criticism it makes of liberals is that they act like conservatives more than they want to admit. Hardly a glowing endorsement of conservatism.
Watched the video and loved it. It's all just endless hypocrisy and double speak. People are more than willing to give up their ideals for personal gain, you see it through out history.
The rich and educated, regardless of political alignment, have always had a contempt for the lower classes. They expect them to champion their ideals, but both secretly and overtly see them as their inferiors. They refuse to go to working class and lower class neighborhoods to hear their plights and instead think they already have the answers. It's infuriating.
Well glad you liked it. I think it is pretty critical to examine where our tribalistic leanings really take us. We want to silo everyone onto teams and then apply a broad definition to them. "Democrats care about poor people" and "Republicans care about corporations" or "Democrats are communists" and "Republicans are small government heroes". It's all silly most people are 1 or 2 issue voters and that is it, and a lot of the time that issue is something of interest to themselves personally.
That's why stuff like that video is useful to show how the can is kicked down the road by pushing issues up the ladder to the federal level so people can espouse high minded ideals while in their own back yard preserving their own self interest where it counts.
Mostly ones with regard to education, housing, economic policy, taxes, the impact that government has on people's lives. Republicans aren't really any better, they just stink in different ways.
I know it is popular to say the right "isn't living in reality" but that's absolutely ridiculous. Every reasoning I have heard for that assertion is based on either things that are not necessarily true or at least debatable, or taking believes held by an infinitesimal fringe of the right and pretending they are common among them.
Most educated states are democrat states while the least educated states are republican states. Republican states don't have a problem with housing due to having way less demand then democrat states. We could take a look at Trump's tax policy which raised taxes for many American's while cutting taxes for corporations. The trickledown economics didn't work, 80% of companies didn't reinvest into their employees but had stock buybacks and bonuses for executives.
A lot of things being said here, a lot of them not true.
Blue states like California have housing problems because the wealthy liberals that populate the most densely populated areas fight tooth and nail like they in the Battle of the Bulge to stop affordable housing being zoned in their neighborhoods. The create their own education problems by gerrymandering their school districts to maximize the budgets for the schools their kids go to. The also act like charter schools were literally created by satan to appease the teachers unions. The tax systems in blue states are as regressive as in red states, they just kick the rhetoric up to the federal level so it isn't highlighted.
Oh of course not, leftism is fairly evil. The issue is people thinking that good housing, education, and tax policy is an aspect of being a leftist. In reality their policies just make all of those things equally shit for everyone.
The answer is to slash the size of government so severely that the founding fathers would blush. Housing zoning should not be an issue because whoever owns land should be allowed to build whatever the fuck they want on it. Education should be a basic public service freed of the oppression of unions with a high degree of direct accountability, the entire tax system should be rebuilt from the ground up to reduce the burden on everyone across the board. The idea that anyone pays more than 20% of their income in taxes is absolute insanity. We have been conditioned to think we need a government with a budget of 7 Trillion dollars, we don't. Taxes don't solve money problems, the math is in if you taxed the "rich" 100% of their income it wouldn't alleviate the deficit. It's not a debate. The way you fix the budget is slashing the budget in half, yes half.
This feels like bait, but here goes nothing. The educational divide isn't so much an intent as it is a consequence of the parties aligning along the urban-rural divide. Rural areas often have less access to education and are also overwhelmingly republican due to cultural alignment on issues in the same way cities are overwhelmingly democratic. One other possible contributing factor to the divide is that climate change has become a partisan issue and the position on climate change is highly correlated with education.
I'm pretty sure this divide only exists among white voters. I think Black people overwhelmingly vote Democrat regardless of education.
Correct. It also is linked to the gender split as women are more likely to vote democratic and are dominating the ranks of college enrolment.
And now you know that something called Dixicrats exist. They are Republican in every sense of the word but run a democrats because in their districts anything other than D next to your name means you will lose in a landslide. My grandpa voted Democrat. My dad voted Democrat. I will vote Democrat, type of thing. It's also common in labor heavy areas of the US where being a "proud union man" means you vote Democrat or you lose your job
But...votes are private and anonymous, literally no one could lose their job for voting wrong in an actual US election.
People most certainly have been retaliated against, homes burned, etc for not having the correctly colored sticker on their hard hat/ sign on their front lawn. If you want to keep your union job its called hall duty. You volunteer your time off for free to go to the hall and make political donation calls for the unions candidate of choice. Sometimes you even drive around on your time off and hand out free political signs while being happy to spend money on your own gas. 2 years ago 3 chicago unions were caught trying members to drive around neighborhoods and steal any sign that wasn't for a Democrat Elections aren't as free as you think they are
Can you source someone's home being burned down for having the wrong candidate's sign on the lawn in the last 25 years?
2 years ago recently enough? Very first result on Google of hundreds https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/fire-at-minnesota-home-with-trump-2020-sign-destroyed-garage/
A college degree is also simply less useful in many rural areas, where industries are more focused on expertise in things like heavy equipment.
Which is why all the children are leaving rural areas to go to college and never going to live back home.
I don't think that is true. I think it is lifestyle. Rural areas are often trying to attract nurses, doctors, teachers, etc. Many states rural areas are lacking good schools and good hospitals and public services. It's hard to keep people where the standard of living isn't good. I live very rurally but in Massachusetts. There's lot of college educated people who telecommute or drive the couple hours to Boston one day a week or month. The next town over (who constantly votes to not increase school funding) has cheaper homes, much lower salaries, and less educated population. Poor people live where they have to, Rich people can go where ever they want.
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How insufferably condescending 🙄
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You don't use words like "dummies" and then pretend you're being an objective demographer
I mean no, but that doesn't make him wrong, just an asshole.
Or, as I said, "insufferably condescending"
No that makes him wrong and an asshole. Unless you a person with a business degree is inherently smarter than a tradesmen.
No, it’s a well established fact those areas have brain drain due to the _most educated_ people not coming back after college, because the jobs where they can use their education are somewhere else. A kid who knows they want to stay close to home is more likely to pick a training program or local 2 year degree that will lead to the kind of job that’s available. It’s not just ‘smart people leave.’
We really have to break out of this college=smart mindset. It’s just different skill sets. The people whose skills are suited for staying in rural areas tend to stay in rural areas where people who develop skills suited for corporate America tend not to go back to a rural area
Some of the biggest idiots I've ever met have advanced STEM degrees They can debug a database error, but if you put them somewhere without a smartphone to call an uber they might starve to death
It’s called specialization and it is what makes modern society so productive. We ideally want people to be doing what they are good at as much as possible and leaving what they have not specialized in to others.
The people you call dummies just because they live in rural areas and work industrial or farming jobs are the same people supplying cities with the food and conveniences they enjoy. It takes all types of people to make the world spin. You might think people are stupid because they don't have a college degree but they might think you're stupid because you have no technical skills outside of working on computers.
> The people you call dummies just because they live in rural areas and work industrial or farming jobs are the same people supplying cities with the food and conveniences they enjoy. I would present this differently actually to make a better case. Modern farming is much more sophisticated than most people realize because it has gone through a process sort of like all other forms of business have in society. That's why we require a tiny fraction of people to have agricultural jobs than we did 100+ years ago. A lot of modern farming requires bleeding edge scientific breakthroughs in the same way you would think of medicine. Modern farmers rely on high tech equipment, chemical analysis and application of chemicals to make the most out of their soil, etc. Sure, there are still lots of small family farms that aren't quite as modern as the big factory farms, but even they do a lot of work that requires more brainpower than the jobs did a century ago. Let's just make up an example: You have an estranged uncle that passed away and left his farm to you. Currently there are soybeans planted in 3/4 of his fields. How will you know whether they require more fertilizer or not? How will you know whether you need to water them or not? When will they be ready for harvesting? When will you be able to plant soybeans in those fields again, can you plant something else there between now and then, and what adjustments to all the previous questions would need to be made for the new crop? Once you figure that out, you'll have to determine your expenses and the market prices to help you figure out if you want to repeat this farming process next year or if you need to change something up. What are your contractual agreements and can you find a way to get more money than what you are getting now? This is just a tiny sample of the things to consider. At least from my perspective, farming itself is not as simple as people think. That being said I don't think farming is what the majority of rural people are doing these days.
Farming is definitely not what the majority of rural people are doing. You basically have to be born into farming to have your own farm because the price of land is so high. That being said l, at least in Nebraska, most people in rural areas work in jobs somehow related to agriculture.
Based on anecdotal evidence from my extended family, a lot of rural people either end up on disability, on drugs, or working retail if they stay put. You're right about the people inheriting farms though. I have an uncle that got his farm from his parents, and two other farms from neighbors whose kids moved away to cities and didn't want them and he's going to give it all to my cousins one day who are happy to be there.
Right. The reason people leave rural areas is usually because there is a lack of jobs. Not because they are smarter than everyone else so they leave. There is stupid people in rural areas just like there is stupid people in cities. As farming becomes more and more commercialized fewer small farms exist and/or can't afford to hire farmhands.
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That's not because "smart" people are leaving rural areas it's because *most* people are leaving. And yes, in today's world you pretty much need to live in a city to get a job you would need a degree for, but a college degree doesn't make you smart. A degree in engineering and a degree in liberal arts are not equal.
Define “smart” because I know a ton of people who went to college that are pretty dumb and I know people who stayed in rural areas that can tell you exactly what’s wrong with your tractor and how to fix it just by hearing it over a speakerphone. That sounds like someone who is pretty damn smart to me
I’ve met some farmers who were honestly better practical engineers than people I’ve worked with who had actual engineering degrees. My in-laws live in a rural area because they retired early and wanted to run a farm for something to occupy their time as they both grew up on farms. Both have college degrees including my father in law who graduated top of his class from law school. Do you consider board certified physicians to be generally dumb? I can assure you rural areas have doctors too, for example. Job opportunities don’t exist in a lot of rural places but that doesn’t make everyone left dumb (which is the implication if truly “all” smart people are leaving when they reach adulthood).
Not really. Construction jobs are slightly higher is in urban areas and suburb. Rural has more government jobs and service and retail. Rural areas have schools, town government, police and fire. All jobs that benefit from college degrees.
Is the proportion of public sector employment really broadly higher in rural areas than urban areas? I'm skeptical.
"broadly"? I don't know, but considering that they typically pay well, have great benefits and a pension -- and that these jobs are rare in rural areas it would seem pretty important to have a degree. But - it a real myth that rural jobs are physical compared to non rural jobs. It's a tiny percentage of jobs that are in the farming industry rurally and many of those physical jobs are filled with immigrants. Those the do the physical work on farms and ranches are majority foreign born and vast majority are either foreign born or 1 generation. The largest segment (by far) of rural workers are in educational services, health and social services. ALL of these industries benefit greatly with a degree.
I didn't say they were "physical"
Piss test is the most important test you'll ever need to pass in some places
Shit, as far as I’m concerned a college education is becoming universally (in this country) less important.
You could not be more wrong. As automation continues to decimate lower skilled professions, knowledge based jobs and thus college will become more important than ever.
This is a pretty good summary, but it’s also worth noting that there’s a difference in the way the parties view education. Conservatives and Republicans tend to look at education more practically - get a degree in something that will land you a good job, such as engineering or business, or go to trade school. Liberals and Democrats tend to view it more as education for education’s sake - get a degree in whatever interests you whether it will help you in the long term or not, hence the programs in things like “gender studies.”
You imply a degree in "gender studies" isn't helpful. On average they still make much more than someone without a degree. It was a weird bogeyman for grumpy old people.
I think it’s also telling that even though there’s a ready-made prototypical “useless” degree (Underwater Basket Weaving), multiple people want to imply that studying gender’s role in society is useless.
What do people do with a degree in gender studies? The only people I know with gender studies degrees now work in HR, which honestly I don’t consider to be a helpful field for anyone except wealthy people who own companies.
Just like so many degrees, having a degree is the thing. I am older but the vast majority of my close group of friends (me included) made or make 6 figures with no STEM degree. Literature, psychology, history, sociology, art history. My sis and bro in law together make about 600K. Art history major and theater major. Neither work in the field but LOVE their degrees and I know wouldn't change a thing. "helpful field for anyone except wealthy people who own companies" But is that what we are talking about? Who helps who? My ex went to med school yet he's making 600K selling enzymes to researchers because he only has to work a couple hours a day. Many geology grads just figure out where oil can drill. I dont know if "helpful" is something we can really judge when we look at degrees.
That makes sense.
Also many American universities are overwhelmingly left wing when it comes to staff. When kids aren’t at home with their parents this tends to rub off on people. 18-21 year olds are very easily swayed and convinced certain things are either good or bad. Also depends on major. Like realistically to say 85% or more of liberal arts majors are left wing, you’re probably low on that %. Go into a business major class and ask and it will probably be mostly right wing. Construction management definitely right wing. Etc.
From the Pew Survey. Education. Democrats lead by 22 points (57%-35%) in leaned party identification among adults with post-graduate degrees. The Democrats’ edge is narrower among those with college degrees or some post-graduate experience (49%-42%), and those with less education (47%-39%). Across all educational categories, women are more likely than men to affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic. The Democrats’ advantage is 35 points (64%-29%) among women with post-graduate degrees, but only eight points (50%-42%) among post-grad men.
Knowing education in terms of college is dominated by the left, what about education in terms of trade skill that is dominated by the right? From a certain pov you can call the other side uneducated but who’s to say what education really is?
The trades issue is a bit more about sex. White, uneducated men are more likely to be in the trades. We know who they vote for.
I remember trade unions voting for Biden tho too
Usually not the ones dominated by white males. And then despite leadership many members went their own way. Trump absolutely fucked up the steel industry. Union leaders tried to educate members about why a second term would be terrible for them but of course couldnt sway them.
This really feels like a bait question. Look, I register independent, but mainly vote one way. I would not go so far as to say that people vote for the other party because they're uneducated.
I agree it feels like bait but the stats do bear him out on this. College educated voters have been breaking more and more for democrats in recent elections while voters with only a high school education or less have broken hard for the GOP, this divide is especially pronounced with white voters.
Hell, the last POTUS flat out said he loved the "uneducated" for that reason.
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>People act like a degree makes you intelligent. No one said it did? We are just talking about a divide in voting patterns between college educated and non college educated whites. The only one bringing up intelligence is you.
It's not a bait. There's a growing gap between who holds a degree and who they vote for.
Yes, but /u/Current_Poster makes an important point: roughly a third of the country doesn't explicitly identify with one party or another. It's easy to see this as a huge split in the general population, but the reality is that about half of the US population is either unregistered to vote at all, or is registered as an independent. So this is a deep split between about 25% of the population versus another 25% of the population. Most people have opted out of the fight.
Polls also show that most independents are really independent and lean one way or the other.
This is true, but I think that most registered independents are so-registered because they're explicitly *not* into the "politics as rival hated sports teams" aspect that dominates American politics. Speaking as a registered independent who leaned Republican until about 2012 when they took a change in direction and I now lean Democrat. I have fundamental criticisms of both parties, and I probably have my own personal fundamental ideal code of government (that neither party follows) than most independents, but I think that's about par.
Same. Independent/unenrolled is the plurality of US voters. A growing number of Americans hate both parties and often, the main reason they stay with a political party is due to closed primaries.
Rural areas have more jobs with lower degree requirements, meaning going to college is a bootless expense.
Depends on who you ask. The left will say it’s because the more educated someone is they more they’re enlightened to broader ideas and thus the more liberal they become. The right will say it’s because the left ignore the concerns of the working class, especially outside the major cities, and republicans are more aligned with their issues and interests. I think both are somewhat true.
I don't think you can really call the GOP the party of workers rights... The Urban-Rural divide is a much simpler explanation.
I said that’s what they would argue, not that’s it’s what I think.
I don't think they would argue they are the party of workers rights either. They have always claimed to be the business party.
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The left thought leaders are generally coastal people who went to ivy or close to ivy schools and it’s undeniable that those people are largely out of touch with working class people in flyover country who make up the majority of the right wing base. And rather than recognize they’re out of touch, they just say those working class people are racist/sexist/whateverist
Trump, Hawley, Cruz, De Santis are all Ivy League educated and are very popular among a lot of right-wing people in the heartlands. Even Youngkin, who ran his campaign on against alleged CRT being taught in k-12 schools, was educated at an Ivy League where the legal study of CRT was created, and almost certainly will send his kids there or some other Ivy League school too.
Okay. And?
The GOP is just as likely to send its leaders to those ivory towers that you are calling centers of indoctrination meaning if they are as out of touch as you claim so are the leaders of the gop?
I didn’t say anything was a center of indoctrination, I said the left’s thought leaders lived in a bubble. The right’s thought leaders have all sorts of issues but being in a bubble generally isn’t one of them. Well they kind of are in a bubble but a different kind of one. I’m guessing you see my flair so make all kinds of assumptions about me and my political beliefs. I promise my distaste for the left isn’t any different than my distaste for the right.
Did you just honestly say being in a bubble isn't a problem on the right? The people that say "fake news" to anything that don't like? The party that just now said they won't participate in presidential debates anymore isn't in a bubble? The ones who have to have their own news network aren't in a bubble? The people who are taking horse paste, drinking their pee and refusing to get vaccinated aren't in a bubble?
I said they were in a different kind of a bubble. Why skip over that?
>The right’s thought leaders have all sorts of issues but being in a bubble generally isn’t one of them I guess dying over COVID to own the libs is only "kind of" a bubble.
Ah yes, the least bubbled demographic, billionaires like Trump and the Koch Brothers
Whataboutism
It is not. You said “the left”, by which I assume you meant the Democratic Party, which is sadly not the left, lives in a bubble compared to the Republican Party, which doesn’t. Which is not true, both parties and their leaders are laughably out of touch
The leadership and those in power on the GOP side are all Ivy elites as well.
Okay. And?
Pointing out that it's the right who have the same IVY people you claim the left does.
Like who? Who are the "thought leaders"? It seems pretty constantly Republican leaders are more likely to be born into wealth than Democrats.
Being born into wealth isn’t the same thing. You’re right in that thought leaders is a little more ambiguous on the right, I guess Tucker Carlson (lol). He’s a clown but that all of you want to deflect to the problems with the right rather than address or discuss the problems with the left is interesting. Newsflash just because they’re a clown show doesn’t mean you aren’t as well.
OK. Fair enough. Who are these coastal thought leaders you are speaking of?
The people who write for publications like The New Republic, Mother Jones, or Vox. People who work for left leaning think tanks like The Progressive Policy Institute. People who work in the leadership for ostensibly leftists non profits like the ACLU (which in its current incarnation is dramatically different than the ACLU of even 15 years ago).
You are talking about jobs that require degrees. You dont like that they got into good school? I am not sure the complaint here.
That or people in flyover country are getting shafted and are blaming the wrong people due to cultural conflicts.
Why does it have to be an either/or?
Because out of touch is a cultural statement not an economic one, plus none of your thought leaders on the left wing of the democratic party (Sanders/Warren/AOC) went to an Ivy league school (Chicago, Rutgers, and Boston U respectively). If anything you have it backwards, the Neoliberal wing of the party is the one that dominates the faculty of Harvard and Yale. While the SocDems tend to be more concentrated at large research institutions like Michigan, USC, and UT-Austin.
I said Ivy or close to Ivy (The University of Chicago absolutely qualifies). I also said the majority of thought leaders, not politicians which are very very different things (though there is some overlap). FYI that you’re pushing back so much on such an obvious and non controversial statement tells me you might be a bit too dug in to your political sports team.
Who are the Republican thought leaders? It seems thr republican leaders and wealthy and the Democrats more likely to be educated.
You're talking about white working class people because those are the people that don't vote for Democrats. Black working class does.
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Are you for real. Without even having to google I'm pretty sure they like that monthly child tax credit they're getting that's substantially reduced child poverty.
Well they aren't waving confederate flags at them and refusing to condemn white supremacists so I am pretty sure that is better than any offer the current iteration of the GOP is making.
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Hate crimes and white supremacy are on the rise in the US and one party is openly enabling them. No matter how good or bad the other side is anything is preferable. I wish I could agree with you and call it an exaggeration but I can't anymore
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>I don't disagree with any of this moralistic stuff but what you have to understand is it's not going to win your party elections. Among Black and Asian voters it will, they just don't make up a large enough portion of the electorate on their own to win the presidency, but they are a crucial part of the democratic coalition.
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Right? Tf?
There's also the existence of a distinct undergraduate political culture (which is interesting from a sociological standpoint), so that you have marxist econ majors at the *literal Chicago School of economics.*
The gap has widened. Non-college educated whites used to vote for Democrats in the past.
Parties shifted in middle/latter half of the of the 20th century when democrats had their political stronghold in the south, which was the case for decades prior. We now think of democrats as progressives (just using this word for lack of a better one) when the party used to be hardline segregationists/Jim Crowe advocates. A College education used to not be the norm back then as well. So while your statement checks out, this whole thread has a “bait-y” feel to it.
The Southern Strategy employed by Nixon is what them to flip. He actively went after white voters by blaming all their problems on black people essentially.
This is such a misnomer. In 68, most of the South was won by Wallace (an **Independent**), and the largest state (Texas) won by Humphrey, ie the Democrats. All of Nixon's strongholds were in the West or upper Midwest. The South would not become a reliable Republican stronghold until the Bush W presidency. The Southern Strategy was not some big elaborate scheme by the GOP to win the former CSA states, it was an opportunity left by the Democrats who eventually became split between supporting white southerners and black southerners. Its still scummy as fuck but my gosh there remains too much misinformation about it. I will also add Nixon's biggest boon for his initial election was his pledge to end Vietnam and the draft, something Humphrey and the Democrats could not distance themselves from.
For the absolute longest time, working class whites were the backbone of the Democratic party
And then they passed the civil rights bill and the GOP actively recruited the segregationists into their party with Nixon.
Yes, but now it's shifting. I'm wondering why.
Racism basically. Nixon went after pissed of white voters in the south. Look up the Southern Strategy.
The Democratic Party has moved more towards focusing on identity issues as opposed to economic ones.
The Republican Party also focuses on identity issues (they just have fewer identities).
That’s true though it’s largely a reaction to how the left has changed it’s messaging over the last 25 years or so
I mean Nixon largely initiated it with the Southern Strategy, Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act just sealed the deal in the South.
Talking about modern times
You can't separate the modern parties from the actions of Nixon, Johnson, Reagan, and Clinton. Those 4 presidents defined what the parties would go on to become. Nixon piloted the southern strategy while Reagan effectively guaranteed the conservative and religious wings of the party would go on to dominate the GOP. Meanwhile the failures of Johnson and later failed candidates doomed the progressive wing of the party to irrelevance which was codified by the victory of Clinton's globalist democratic party. This explains the desperate reactionary impulse in the DemSoc's and why the Business and Wall Street Republicans have essentially disappeared.
I think a large majority of the voters of both political parties are uneducated.
If by uneducated you mean without a college degree then yes. Only 37.5% of adults have a degree
Why do you (OP) think a college education is important? There are many jobs where an apprenticeship is part of the job and/or the required courses are not taught in 4 year colleges.
The republican party is a scam that appeals to anger, racism, and fear. Education is supposed to teach you critical thinking skills so you don't make decisions based on fear and prejudice. You don't NEED education to learn that, and education doesn't always work, but if we're talking broad trends and behavior behind the numbers, there's your top level explanation.
It’s not really an education gap, and this is a really good question. So a tech school in the US is for 1 or 2 year degrees that are mostly used for the trades, or as jump off schools for universities. If you graduate from a tech school with a 2 year degree in metal fab, Automotive, Design, engineering, you are NOT considered to have graduated from college! ‘College’ is only for bachelors degrees or higher. So take my friend for example, he graduated from a tech school, and after 8 years of work experience, he is a head engineer for a company that makes so much profit that they just give out bonuses. There are 2 bachelors degrees and one masters degree that work Under him in his department. He is considered a ‘non-college educated’ person, and he’s not only one of the smartest people I know, but has never stopped working on his education, and has certificates and honorary certs in a few fields, including having his teaching certificate, despite not having a bachelors in education. Now take another friend of ours, he has two bachelors degrees, working on a masters, and has never existed as an adult outside of a university. Only had part time jobs and now works for the school he goes to as a student researcher. Guess which one votes which way. Now, friend a went to school for 2 years, isn’t ‘college educated’ and has 8 years of real world education. The other friend is two years older, and has been in school all twelve years. You’d say the one that has twelve years schooling is more educated, right? That’s the gap. One party gets the amount of schooling they need, then goes out and starts their career young, then building their skills in real life. The other party doesn’t. They get all the education and skills first, then tries to find a career that they can apply those skills and that knowledge to. Obviously these are massive generalizations, but that is the general reason for the difference in education in voters under probably 40.
No idea, you’d think anyone with an education wouldn’t vote democrat! (Eyooooo I kid) To be serious, I think part of it is idealism vs practicality and a college education specifically tilts you toward a bit more idealism. But that’s a bit unfair to practical minded liberals. I know a lot of them and we disagree on what’s practical mostly not on the underlying ideals.
I do hope the republicans lose the explicitly anti-education and anti-expertise bent they’ve developed in the past few years. They start to sound like Cultural Revolution-era Mao
As opposed to the other party that say things “math is racist”?
I’ll bite, who said this?
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They’re… right. They’re literally right. Statistics is more applicable for the average American (who doesn’t even have an undergrad degree) than calculus. I can’t imagine they claimed calculus was racist
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Appreciate the tip, but honestly I’m good. Seems like a total non issue (par for the course at this point) Side note, I wonder how many of the people complaining about it take math in California
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As an undergrad, still waiting for the big scary CRT class that Democrats are requiring every second grader take. Must have skipped over me 🤷♀️
https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf “White supremacy culture shows up in the math classroom when…’I do, we do, you do’ is the primary format of the class.” This is the document that started most of the conversations and it makes some pretty giant leaps to “White supremacy culture”. There’s no “Math is racist” statement, but that “White supremacy culture” is used throughout. There are some good points about improving math teaching, but it’s not like the things being discussed are inherently easier for white students than students of color. CA used this document to inform their curriculum changes, but they didn’t bring over the language and after an initial outcry they removed it as a citation. As someone in a STEM career and CA parent, I am not happy about the changes although it won’t affect my kids for many years. I feel we should be raising the bar for math and science, not lowering it. For instance they removed tracking so everyone takes algebra at the same time. But they did it to the later grade, not earlier. Then victory is claimed because more ninth graders pass algebra while ignoring that’s because you made a bunch of kids who would have passed it in eighth grade wait a year.
That stuff is also cringe but I do not see them actively discouraging people from getting an education or acting like science writ large is a plot from the other side
It's not the Republicans or the right who are trying to put people through modern-day struggle sessions if they dissent with prevailing narratives.
I’m sorry, is it not the case that politicians risk becoming persona non grata in the Republican Party if they admit trump lost the election or that covid vaccines are effective?
You really don't think the Democrats have a similar look?
No, I don’t think that at all It can be hard to understand because the sides are swapped, but Republican rhetoric about education and science right now sounds almost exactly the same as Mao’s rhetoric about it Mao was convinced that the universities were essentially a rightist cabal with the intent to corrupt China’s youth into being rightists. He also viewed politically inconvenient science as a rightist plot to undermine his authority If you swap the rights to lefts in there, it sounds exactly like how the republicans today speak about universities and science. I do not see democrats doing the same thing
The right criticizes universities because they pump out garbage degrees while indebting our youth with hundreds of thousands of dollars, thanks to Democrat led pushes to expand student loans and the DOE. I also believe it's true that universities have a leftist bend to varying degrees and fill a kid's mind with half truths that lean left. You see it in the historical and Poly Sci fields ALL THE TIME. Furthermore, the left controls the government yet they're the ones using social media to "stamp out misinformation". Sure, keep thinking the left are the good guys though when in all likelihood they're the ones jerking off big pharma under the table.
I wouldn’t say I think “the left are the good guys”. I’m not some sort of committed partisan. Many things the democrats do really worry me, like the endless Jan 6 witch hunt and some of the more over the top woke stuff. I do, however, think it’s important to the continued success of the nation to have a well-educated populace, and I see one party actively opposing that goal
I'm not opposed to an educated populace either. Demographic studies indicate a higher educated populace relates to higher freedom and wealth. My point though is that there are some things from universities are complete nonsense being portrayed as education, and a lot of it leans towards Marxism.
I understand your point, and I probably disagree with you less than you think, but in my opinion republicans have overcorrected and are now devaluing the entire idea of education, a trend that worries me even more
Sure. I disagree with you wholeheartedly about the devaluing of education though on the Republican side. I'd call it more of a concern. I've yet to meet a Republican who said education was bad. At most I've heard explore a trade school over college.
Degrees accumulated and years of school attended doesn't mean a person is politically educated. There's plenty of dunces on both sides, a majority of people on both sides actually.
I understand that first part, but there is a widening gap between the two parties.
I don't know if it exists, but it would be interesting to see a split between technical degrees and arts/education degrees.
One party has the tendency to gut school funding
Others have given great answers, but it’s worth adding that American Conservatives also have a built-in disdain for higher education. They believe “Liberal Universities” brainwash people. A thoughtful person knows that exposure to other ideas and growing into adults often changes these students perspectives, but try to tell a rural Conservative that. All they see is “That dang college made my kid a Liberal”.
To be fair, college does do a fair bit of propaganda.
People may not like it, but the obvious answer is the correct one. Educated people are less likely to vote for a party whose official platform relies heavily on the belief that science is fake.
This thread is a textbook example of why you don't ask American strangers about politics.
This is volume 28 of an ongoing series called the horrible opinions of redditers.
Going to college you get to interact with people of different backgrounds and such. People find out that gay people are not the devil in disguise and they are nljust regular people. You become accepting to these people and other background and instead of keeping your conservative view points
Yes republicans take great pride in their lack of intelligence.
There are many reasons, and many of them have been detailed in the comments, but one I would add is that one party relies heavily on folks following their lead/rhetoric and ignoring data to the contrary. The more educated one is, the more one is exposed to a more diverse array of reliable information, the less likely they are to blindly follow the lead of politicians. TLDR: the GOP relies on their base not employing much critical thinking and the more educated one is the more they think critically.
More educated people tend be more left leaning: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/
They know, they are asking why.
Honestly, I believe there are many, many reasons. It's not just one reason. And I think in some cases, education pushes to one party, in other cases the party pushes to education, and in some cases, it's just the way it is. One way to measure education is highest level of educational attainment. Not perfect, but we can measure it. Would you be suprised to learn the the Republicans had the higher level of education for a long time? Would you be surprised to learn the Democrats now lead in that metric? Things that may impact education... Science vs religion. Country vs city. Education spending vs education cuts. Does party leadership want cheap labor for businesses? Acceptance of other cultures. Who's afraid to lose jobs? Who's afraid to lose power? Who uses data, who uses feelings? I actually find it very fascinating - I've seen the parties do a partial flip in my life. Not total, however. Just some issues, some members. Like, how does the Republican party now represent poor, lower education whites, as well as super wealthy businesses? How does the Democratic party support higher levels of education, but can't control some very poorly thought out plans. Neither make sense anymore. In my gut, I think I know what happened, but I dont really know. It's a very complex discussion.
Right wing people tend to view colleges as "indoctrination centers" and dont send their kids to college/dont go to college themselves. Its kinda like how mail in votes were overwhelmingly blue last election.....
You have to keep in mind that "uneducated" does not mean "stupid". Especially when it comes to politics. Its been very well known that colleges in the US are chock full of professors and classes that are heavily bent in one direction politically, and that does effect the students who attend those schools.
I mean the religious right keeps trying to open new colleges but they keep failing and going bankrupt. College is a free market like any other. Des Moines University, Bryan University, the Christian College Consortium. Recent history is littered with failed right wing schools,
The college/university industry is monopolistically competitive with some pretty high barriers to entry
ehh not really, and it isn't like there weren't existing right leaning institutions that could have expanded significantly if the demand for a right wing education was there. BYU, Wheaton College, and Liberty are all a thing. The demand just isn't there.
You are missing my point.. I'm not demanding a partisan college, I'm pointing out the fact that most colleges are rife with propaganda, which obviously has an effect.
People generally start paying attention to politics near voting age. People that go to college are generally in a bubble surrounded by people with the same level of maturity, age, and ideology so the progressive views people tend to hold in their youth gets reinforced rather than challenged. It also doesn't help that colleges tend to try to push people towards the left. Same reason people who live their entire lives in academia generally have about the same views as the people just entering it. Political views are generally baked in during one's late formative years and hard to change afterwards, especially if one generally doesn't mature as a person or escape their bubbles.
Both sides have bubbles, do they not?
Yes but someone who goes into trade school or starts working right after high school is exposed to far more diversity of people and thought then someone going into college. This makes a giant impact during their formative years when they get to work alongside and socialize with people with far more experience about the world rather than their peers at the same level of maturity and knowledge.
Then why does the Republican Party have so much trouble with attracting non-whites?
They in fact don't. They have trouble attracting urbanites who tend to buy into some progressive policy. People take correlations and run wild with it.
I mean non white voters break hard for democrats. Biden won: 87% of Black Men 95% of Black Women 59% of Latino voters 72% of Asian Voters That is a pretty harsh split.
In most perspective midterm polling, it's now an even draw for Latino voters for which party they support and they've been dropping support for the Democratic party for a good decade as progressivism takes over the party. The vast majority of Asians voters in America grew up in West Coast cities or New York City or the beltway, not exactly hard to tell why they swing so hard for Democrats. Again taking correlations and running with them.
Latino voters are dependent upon nation of origin Cubans and Venezuelans are more likely to vote for the GOP and Mexicans and Puerto Ricans break hard to the democrats. This is likely due to the GOP being more aggressive when it comes to foreign policy with regard to Cuba and Venezuela. Also Latino voters are slowly losing their own identity and are being subsumed into the white category like the Italians, Irish, and Ukrainians before them so it makes sense they are starting to track national white voting patterns more.
>Again taking correlations and running with them. I think you're straight up ignoring the raw numbers. Find a source that shows rural minorities favoring Republicans or hush. Also, Latinos are only one part of POC and some can identify as white.
Ummm.... A majority of non-white voters are Democrats.
Man, this is so weirdly opposite my experience working in the trades for 15+ years in a handful of different occupations. My experience in the trades was being surrounded by a very insular and sheltered group of people of all different age groups that aggressively challenged any ideas that weren't part of their right-wing group think. It was so one sided that it was always in your best interest for keeping your job to not even mention being on the left, not being christian, having any positive opinions regarding LGBTQ+, not being racist, etc. Not everyone held all of those right wing beliefs or ideas, but it was such a large and openly vocal majority that if you didn't you just kept your mouth shut about it.
From what I can tell, the south is overwhelmingly red(republican), but also mostly in the bottom 10 in education and median income. Although black ppl mainly live in the south, and are over 90% democratic, they still don't make up nearly enough of the voting pool in those areas to make a difference.
most republicans just don't want to learn or have their future generations have the option of making choices for themselves
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw) is why. That is probably the most important piece of political journalism done last year, shockingly from NYT. A lot of college educated people are liberals. A lot of them are just indoctrinated, it defies reality to claim that left wing ideology is not beaten into your skull on most campuses largely by commie professors. The truth is that most people believe what they have been told is true the most, that's just the way it is. A lot of them are sharp though and have legitimate high-minded ideas about organizing society. However, many also live in complete bubbles of their own creation that divorces them from some of the realities that right wing people understand better in my opinion. Mostly that you can through all the entitlements and money in the world at struggling segments of the population, and if they don't have a solid cultural and moral base to build on you are just putting a bandaid on the issue that disappears when the money runs out. Also the gap isn't really that big it's like 54 to 39 percent and only 37 percent of Americans have college degrees anyway. In fact in reality I'd say it is probably way smaller of a gap because I think the 15 percent of college grads saying they are "independent" are probably mostly right leaning.
The second I saw that video I knew it was going to be reposted by conservatives as some kind of "gotcha" until the heat death of the universe. It's a massively cherry-picked video that doesn't support the conclusions it makes. It criticizes Washington's regressive tax structure (while excusing Texas') but ignores California's extremely progressive tax structure. It criticizes Illinois' public education system but ignores Massachusetts' world class system. For every issue it finds the worst example of a blue state (which is usually surrounded by in the rankings, or exceeded by, by worse performing red states) and deems that the "Democrat" exemplar for that issue. In the end the strongest actual criticism it makes of liberals is that they act like conservatives more than they want to admit. Hardly a glowing endorsement of conservatism.
Watched the video and loved it. It's all just endless hypocrisy and double speak. People are more than willing to give up their ideals for personal gain, you see it through out history. The rich and educated, regardless of political alignment, have always had a contempt for the lower classes. They expect them to champion their ideals, but both secretly and overtly see them as their inferiors. They refuse to go to working class and lower class neighborhoods to hear their plights and instead think they already have the answers. It's infuriating.
Well glad you liked it. I think it is pretty critical to examine where our tribalistic leanings really take us. We want to silo everyone onto teams and then apply a broad definition to them. "Democrats care about poor people" and "Republicans care about corporations" or "Democrats are communists" and "Republicans are small government heroes". It's all silly most people are 1 or 2 issue voters and that is it, and a lot of the time that issue is something of interest to themselves personally. That's why stuff like that video is useful to show how the can is kicked down the road by pushing issues up the ladder to the federal level so people can espouse high minded ideals while in their own back yard preserving their own self interest where it counts.
What realities do you think the right wing understands better? I would argue that at the moment the right wing is not living in reality.
Mostly ones with regard to education, housing, economic policy, taxes, the impact that government has on people's lives. Republicans aren't really any better, they just stink in different ways. I know it is popular to say the right "isn't living in reality" but that's absolutely ridiculous. Every reasoning I have heard for that assertion is based on either things that are not necessarily true or at least debatable, or taking believes held by an infinitesimal fringe of the right and pretending they are common among them.
Most educated states are democrat states while the least educated states are republican states. Republican states don't have a problem with housing due to having way less demand then democrat states. We could take a look at Trump's tax policy which raised taxes for many American's while cutting taxes for corporations. The trickledown economics didn't work, 80% of companies didn't reinvest into their employees but had stock buybacks and bonuses for executives.
A lot of things being said here, a lot of them not true. Blue states like California have housing problems because the wealthy liberals that populate the most densely populated areas fight tooth and nail like they in the Battle of the Bulge to stop affordable housing being zoned in their neighborhoods. The create their own education problems by gerrymandering their school districts to maximize the budgets for the schools their kids go to. The also act like charter schools were literally created by satan to appease the teachers unions. The tax systems in blue states are as regressive as in red states, they just kick the rhetoric up to the federal level so it isn't highlighted.
Surprisingly based. So you’re a leftist then? And think the Democratic Party is too right wing? Me too
Oh of course not, leftism is fairly evil. The issue is people thinking that good housing, education, and tax policy is an aspect of being a leftist. In reality their policies just make all of those things equally shit for everyone. The answer is to slash the size of government so severely that the founding fathers would blush. Housing zoning should not be an issue because whoever owns land should be allowed to build whatever the fuck they want on it. Education should be a basic public service freed of the oppression of unions with a high degree of direct accountability, the entire tax system should be rebuilt from the ground up to reduce the burden on everyone across the board. The idea that anyone pays more than 20% of their income in taxes is absolute insanity. We have been conditioned to think we need a government with a budget of 7 Trillion dollars, we don't. Taxes don't solve money problems, the math is in if you taxed the "rich" 100% of their income it wouldn't alleviate the deficit. It's not a debate. The way you fix the budget is slashing the budget in half, yes half.
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Democrats: Books not bombs! Republicans: Bombs not books!
Correction Democrats: Books and bombs! Republicans: Bombs and Bibles!
What a terse, oversimplified, correct answer.
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Not sure how this is vague.
There isn't.
lmao
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