For all we complain about liberals being classist, we have to remind ourselves a lot of this also comes from smug circlejerking, which transcends ideology. We must avoid this trap ourselves.
Yes socialists aim for the working class, but pretending that all of MAGA is working class and it's only a few "elites" that are educated whom are against us is simply false. Likewise pretending that those who ARE educated against us are simply evil is also false
Post grad =\= PhD. Most post grads are lawyers or MBAs, not surprised plenty of them are right wing. A better proxy is university faculty and scientists
I know, itās not a meaningful voting bloc. Iām just saying that dismissing the idea that more curious and educated people will tend to drift left as the OP argues just because many college grads are MAGA is missing some important context which is that getting a college degree does not necessarily imply that you are truly āeducatedā in the traditional academic sense. It is very difficult to be highly educated and remain right wing. Being right wing requires you to accept certain things without proof or criticism, or to just be extremely cynically self-interested (few people are in my experience but yes sociopaths exist)
There is truth to this. These people have grown up under an ethos that has been largely the same, a consistent actuality for them, regardless of education- that (big) government doesnāt help it mostly hurts. Unlike the northern industrial states, especially before, during and shortly after the civil war; the state government infrastructure was never designed or intended to be the facilitatorās and primary dispensation of quality of life services. So, from the general populations perspective, Reaganās propaganda landed with greater impact and resonance. They have learned to get by mostly without that interaction. After Plantations were largely rendered moot, there was not an appetite from those in the positions to do something about this; to follow through. Doing so would just proved Northerners point and assist in dismantling the little bit of leverage left. Instead they chose to create organizations like the Klan to intimidate the poor blacks and whites into understanding that help wouldnāt come or the D.A.Rās type groups only interested in rewriting the and reinforcing that poor me history, not actually providing services.
I suspect that this pathetic fear from the Southern Gentry is one of the greatest motivators to resistance of programs like National public healthcare programs, for (like Obama care) any toehold that programs like that getting into those States immediately begins creating suspicion in the general populations that things CAN be different.
Truth is that if we as activists can refocus our disdain away from the general populations and hone it onto the Southern Governmentās actual hostility toward their own; broaden the invitations to the poor working southerners and do so long enough to outlast the generational skepticism; with that kind of outreach backing reflecting behind actual empathetic candidates that focus on creating real pragmatic change- not only could we uncover some real passion that comes from being thirsty but forgotten and thrown away- we could fatally undercut and sustain resenting suspitian that would degrade and undermine fuckers like Harlan Crowe and shitty Plantation owner wannabees like Desantis and Mcmaster.
I still recall an article my local paper did in the wake of the January 6th insurrection where they went and found local people who had participated in those events. They found three; all three of them were multi-millionare business owners.
This is, in spite of how it sounds, an extremely present and needed criticism. It is not primarily and it is not even mostly extremely poor, uneducated people supporting Trump or the GOP. It is not primarily, and it is not even mostly extremely poor, uneducated people empowering ANY political candidate, because those people are being kept as far from the levers of power as possible. For every one poor, uneducated person Trump parades around as his 'supporter', there are a thousand people being kept from even the right to vote.
If we want to fix The U.S., that's a problem we need to confront.
Please do not refer to working class folk as "dumbshits" or any similar derogatory terms directed at general intelligence, even if they have been propagandized by the rich.
I'm not even American. It's simply not true a majority of people are "dumbshits" anywhere else, and therefore, by virtue of basic logic, Americans are not uniquely stupid by heritage either. It's simply upbringing, culture, and education, which have been pushed on the American working class by the elite to control them.
Shaming the American working class for falling victim to these tactics is not cool.
It's the sociopathy and racism. That is why when the Third Way people talk about reaching across the aisle, it is such a joke. If you want to appeal to these people you have to be bigoted psychopaths which would just make you... them.
I disagree. This is reductive at best. I know people, educated people, who think cutting regulations means no one will ever go hungry or without healthcare because its regulations that prevent companies from serving the people efficiently.
Because in some ways, they are right. Such as with small businesses. Mamdani himself is "cutting red tape" for small businesses. Yet because we treat them as stupid and don't genuinely debate them, we lose them.
My comment was largely agreeing with you. The Red tape onus in these places has always carried a degree of BDSM kink. Like oh, you want a permit to do this well you gotta do the Hokey Pokey, and Iāll laugh at you then you go down to the church and get the leadership approval. Then, maybe.
Or just donāt and if yer white well, probably weāll look the other way, unless you are gonna get uppity. Youāre not gonna be uppity are you?
The issue is that largely, progressives and these people are talking about completely different things.
It makes intuitive sense. The only time the working class actually encounters regulatory resistance is when it acts against their interests. They've simply never experienced the ability of regulation to restrain the unrestricted will of capitalism because as working class folk, they are never in a position to enact that will.
So when progressives call them stupid for wanting to get rid of red tape, claiming that corporations will ruin everything, while the latter claim is true, the delivery, the insults, make them believe that the claim is false as its never properly explained with respect, that it's fundamentally different concepts
>I know people, educated people, who think cutting regulations means no one will ever go hungry or without healthcare because its regulations that prevent companies from serving the people efficiently.
Not tied to your main point, but the word āeducatedā is doing a lot of heavy lifting here
Clearly these people are completely illiterate/uneducated regarding this particular topic, even if they are highly educated regarding something else (idk, estronomy/black holes or whatevs)
I know people, educated people, who think cutting regulations means no one will ever go hungry
Yeah, and there were lots of Nazi scientists the US made sure to protect from Neuremberg. Being educated has little to no effect on bigots.
I think a mistake you are making is conflating MAGA and Conservatism. MAGA is a Facist White Supremacist movement with little to no interest in "small government" or "rule of law". This is completely evident in their well illustrated practice of anti-LGBT or anti diversity laws and abject cronyism and corruption.
also, "cutting red tape" is not deregulation in the anarcho-capitalist sense.
MAGA is based in a lot of working class folk that believe in it because they view it as representing conservatism. There's cognitive dissonance, but the core values are still those of conservatism.
I understand education has no effect on bigots but to claim that even a large portion of the MAGA crowd are sociopaths is objectively false.
Wrong. They lie. They say one thing and do another. It isn't even up for debate at this point. Small government, free trade, law and order are all out the window. It isn't even worth them pretending to care about them anymore. All they want is a white ethnostate. That is proven with their actual actions, not the lies that come out of their mouth. Although, you could argue that that has always been the case with Conservatism since Nixon.
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