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The White House and the Pauline Kael Syndrome. Short version: In 1973, all six major US class segments were centrist. Over the next 35 years, five of the segmen

The White House and the Pauline Kael Syndrome. Short version: In 1973, all six major US class segments were centrist. Over the next 35 years, five of the segments moved slightly to the right, but "Intellectual Upper Class" moved far out to the left. https://www.aei.org/publication/the-white-house-and-the-pauline-kael-syndrome/ https://www.aei.org/publication/the-white-house-and-the-paul... https://web.archive.org/web/20160221064932/http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/01/09/professors-moved-left-but-country-did-not/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160221064932/http://heterodoxa... The essay below makes an outstanding point about polarization. The thesis is that the Western Right's outgroup is people who aren't Westerners. BUT the Western Left's outgroup is the Right. It's the best explanation I've ever heard at this link. A bit long but worth reading every word because it answers SO many questions. http://archive.is/QRJ6m http://archive.is/QRJ6m [links fixed, I need that extension that auto-archives your bookmarks]

throwawaygh 6y ago
"The leftist elites are out of control" is not even close to a new idea, and it's not exactly an apolitical viewpoint. AEI is hustling goods on this one. The thesis is plainly wrong (or, at least, wildly incomplete): + On most social issues, for example, the country -- all of it -- has moved substantially to the left since 1973. The sort of rhetoric regarding homosexuality that was commonplace 30+ years ago will get you side eyes at all but the most fundamentalist churches these days. Quantitatively, there was a 30 point swing in opinion polling on gay marriage just from 2002 until 2018 [1]. Support for gay marriage was so radical and fringe prior to the 1990s that it wasn't even polled. And even a lot of the early polling in the 90s asked only about "acceptance" rather the marriage. Homosexuals were still being charged with sodomy in the 1980s [2]. It's impossible to understate the shift in opinion on homosexual rights between 1973 to today. And the shift to the left is even more pronounced in gender politics sans abortion. Stuff like [3] is unfathomable today. + Ditto drugs. + The country has moved substantially to the Left (or, anyways, away from the 1970s Right consensus views) on trade issues. It's easy to forget that pre-NAFTA it was overwhelmingly the leftists who opposed free trade. The development of a left-leaning bloc that is liberal on both immigration policy and trade policy is very much a Clinton-era thing (that, perhaps, might already be in retreat within the Democratic party). + And there are a lot of other issues where movement is more leftward than not. E.g., race. Remember that actual segregationists were out of national majorities but still held considerable regional power throughout the 70s, and some even held onto some elected offices into the 21st century. Strom Thurmond was still serving in the US senate in 2003, and his electoral support eroded monotonically throughout the last two decades of the 20th century. The country hasn't moved to the left on every issue, but saying it's slightly right of where it was in 1973 is, for most of the biggest issues in contemporary politics, absolutely false. It's my experience that discussions of the Pauline Kael Syndrome are mostly ahistorical or even anti-historical. Which is somehow quite ironic. Also, 2 of your 3 links are broken. [1] https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-ga... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowers_v._Hardwick#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowers_v._Hardwick#Background [3] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/forty-years-ago-women-had-a-hard-time-getting-credit-cards-180949289/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/forty-years-ago-wo...
golemotron 6y ago
And, sadly, the author of that last link was out-grouped right off the internet.
unethical_ban 6y ago
Anecdote time! My father thinks that Trump is the best president in 100 years. He thinks that helping the coal industry is great, being tough on immigration and China is too, and so on. He thinks the Left is out to get Trump because they rabidly hate any conservative. When I talk to him about issues, though, things change. He thinks "no one should die from being poor" - in the context of healthcare. He thinks there should be price controls on drugs, better pricing transparency, and perhaps even price controls on doctor salaries. I explained to him that "defund the police" can mean different things, but that the moderate, Dem Party version of it involves reallocating funds from police to social services, and reducing the kinds of calls cops get. He said "that's the first time I've heard anyone describe it that way". Despite that being pretty much one of two ways that the entire Left sees the idea, and despite the fact he watches "news" hours a day. (Fox). When I told him that even the radical "defund" camp doesn't want a total lack of law enforcement, but a total teardown and rebuild of police culture and procedures, he understood! He didn't buy into it 100%, but acknowledged the issues with police corruption, and the idea that good cops who hold others accountable will get run out of the system. What does this all mean? He is a victim of far-right media manipulation, and hyperpartisanship. On many of the most pressing issues in this country, he is a Democrat by all accounts. But he sees the "radical left" as part of the big tent, and hears about those boogymen day in and day out, and takes a contrarian view on certain progressive ideas, and boom. Trumpian Republican. My money on fixing this is to have voting reform that allows new political parties to vibrantly exist, so we can have new parties with a better mixing of ideas. Coalitions should exist as groups of political parties, not as one big tent.
- Tiltowait-- 6y ago
  He likes Trump because Trump is a 1980s Democrat. The Left treats people like him as The Other and is very loud and rude about it. See: http://archive.is/QRJ6m http://archive.is/QRJ6m
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - unethical_ban 6y ago

throwawaygh 6y ago

"The leftist elites are out of control" is not even close to a new idea, and it's not exactly an apolitical viewpoint. AEI is hustling goods on this one. The thesis is plainly wrong (or, at least, wildly incomplete): + On most social issues, for example, the country -- all of it -- has moved substantially to the left since 1973. The sort of rhetoric regarding homosexuality that was commonplace 30+ years ago will get you side eyes at all but the most fundamentalist churches these days. Quantitatively, there was a 30 point swing in opinion polling on gay marriage just from 2002 until 2018 [1]. Support for gay marriage was so radical and fringe prior to the 1990s that it wasn't even polled. And even a lot of the early polling in the 90s asked only about "acceptance" rather the marriage. Homosexuals were still being charged with sodomy in the 1980s [2]. It's impossible to understate the shift in opinion on homosexual rights between 1973 to today. And the shift to the left is even more pronounced in gender politics sans abortion. Stuff like [3] is unfathomable today. + Ditto drugs. + The country has moved substantially to the Left (or, anyways, away from the 1970s Right consensus views) on trade issues. It's easy to forget that pre-NAFTA it was overwhelmingly the leftists who opposed free trade. The development of a left-leaning bloc that is liberal on both immigration policy and trade policy is very much a Clinton-era thing (that, perhaps, might already be in retreat within the Democratic party). + And there are a lot of other issues where movement is more leftward than not. E.g., race. Remember that actual segregationists were out of national majorities but still held considerable regional power throughout the 70s, and some even held onto some elected offices into the 21st century. Strom Thurmond was still serving in the US senate in 2003, and his electoral support eroded monotonically throughout the last two decades of the 20th century. The country hasn't moved to the left on every issue, but saying it's slightly right of where it was in 1973 is, for most of the biggest issues in contemporary politics, absolutely false. It's my experience that discussions of the Pauline Kael Syndrome are mostly ahistorical or even anti-historical. Which is somehow quite ironic. Also, 2 of your 3 links are broken. [1] https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-ga... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowers_v._Hardwick#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowers_v._Hardwick#Background [3] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/forty-years-ago-women-had-a-hard-time-getting-credit-cards-180949289/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/forty-years-ago-wo...

golemotron 6y ago

And, sadly, the author of that last link was out-grouped right off the internet.

unethical_ban 6y ago

Anecdote time! My father thinks that Trump is the best president in 100 years. He thinks that helping the coal industry is great, being tough on immigration and China is too, and so on. He thinks the Left is out to get Trump because they rabidly hate any conservative. When I talk to him about issues, though, things change. He thinks "no one should die from being poor" - in the context of healthcare. He thinks there should be price controls on drugs, better pricing transparency, and perhaps even price controls on doctor salaries. I explained to him that "defund the police" can mean different things, but that the moderate, Dem Party version of it involves reallocating funds from police to social services, and reducing the kinds of calls cops get. He said "that's the first time I've heard anyone describe it that way". Despite that being pretty much one of two ways that the entire Left sees the idea, and despite the fact he watches "news" hours a day. (Fox). When I told him that even the radical "defund" camp doesn't want a total lack of law enforcement, but a total teardown and rebuild of police culture and procedures, he understood! He didn't buy into it 100%, but acknowledged the issues with police corruption, and the idea that good cops who hold others accountable will get run out of the system. What does this all mean? He is a victim of far-right media manipulation, and hyperpartisanship. On many of the most pressing issues in this country, he is a Democrat by all accounts. But he sees the "radical left" as part of the big tent, and hears about those boogymen day in and day out, and takes a contrarian view on certain progressive ideas, and boom. Trumpian Republican. My money on fixing this is to have voting reform that allows new political parties to vibrantly exist, so we can have new parties with a better mixing of ideas. Coalitions should exist as groups of political parties, not as one big tent.

Tiltowait-- 6y ago
He likes Trump because Trump is a 1980s Democrat. The Left treats people like him as The Other and is very loud and rude about it. See: http://archive.is/QRJ6m http://archive.is/QRJ6m
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- unethical_ban 6y ago