Monday, May 2, 2022

Voting Our Pocketbooks

Glenn Greenwald has tweeted a table from a recent PBS Marist poll and I was intrigued by the numbers.

You can find the poll pdf here.

As you can see from the tweet, college educated people and blacks tend to prefer Democrats. Latinos and whites tend to prefer Republicans.

I wonder if we are talking about race politics here, or just pure economic benefit.

Suppose that blacks and college-educated people vote Democrat because blacks benefit from racial quotas and educated people benefit from working in government education and bureaucracy.

Suppose that the non-college-educated and Latinos vote Republican because they are getting absolutely hammered by the double-whammy of COVID and Bidenflation?

Here area a few more numbers from rows just below the cutoff in the tweet.

GroupSub-groupDemsGOP
Race and EducationWhite - Non College Grad33%55%

White - College Grad51%43%
Gender, Race, EducationMen - White - Non College Grad28%58%

Men - White - College Grad46%48%

Women - White - Non College Grad37%52%

Women - White - College Grad57%38%
GenerationGen Z/Millennials45%46%
Gen X41%50%
Baby Boomers45%48%
Silent - Greatest51%39%

Now, when I look at those party preferences it seems to me that they are explained mostly by the moolah.

Men White Non College Grad? Doesn't get too much moolah from the gubmint. Women White College Grad? Probably working for government education or human welfare or in some sort of job where gubmint spending and/or regulation is intimately involved,

Now, I would say that the key thing about government moolah is that the wider -- and shallower -- you spread it the less that people appreciate it or get much out of it. So it's hard to really spread it out into the non-college crowd and really get them to appreciate it and really have it drive their vote for the big government party.

So, the most enthusiastic supporters of government are, of course, those who are getting the most out of it, whose income is totally, or mostly, from government.

Thus the most enthusiastic supporters of the Democrats are Blacks, Women College Graduates, and Silent - Greatest Social Security and Medicare recipients.

QED. 

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