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Notes -
American Elites
https://www.rmgresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Elite-One-Percent.pdf
I found this recent Rasmussen presentation, it focuses on subsections of the elite. It was funded by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a libertarian thinktank. One might consider them elite heretics or counter-elites (and sure enough they have a slide at the end saying ‘oh there are some elites who are good and trustworthy'). Us non-Gold Circle normies only get the slides, so it's a little unclear what they mean.
Anyway, they define elite as postgrad urbanite with 150K per year income. They further split elites into those who went to 12 top colleges and the ‘politically obsessed’ (definition unclear but I imagine it means they spend a certain number of hours reading/watching/discussing political media). For instance, I imagine we would be considered ‘politically obsessed’.
As you might expect, the elite are the ones who approve of Biden and Congress. They trust the government to do the right thing. I imagine that even if they don’t think the government’s doing a great job they’re friends with high ranking officials and feel a certain amity for them. In my experience, their brother might be an ambassador, they might have an AI regulator over for lunch. Even if they’ve been astonished by the stupid questions journalists ask them, they’ve still got fairly positive impressions of the prestige press and read at least two or three newspapers.
Elites are also much more likely to say ‘there’s too much individual freedom in the US’ than voters, especially the politically obsessed elites. Likewise, they favour strict restrictions on private usage of gas, vehicles, meat and electricity. It’s bizarre that 55% oppose non-essential air travel since this class is the most likely to go on overseas holidays, I don’t understand how this works. Anyway, they want restrictions on everything except border security, which they couldn’t care less about. Plebs hold the opposite beliefs.
I was most surprised by how 29% of the elite thinks that China is an ally, compared to 9% of ordinary voters. I would’ve thought the elites were the hawks! Maybe some of them have commercial interests in China or they want to work with China on climate change or they’re ethnically Chinese, anyway this is really odd to me. The hawk faction may be in control but the doves haven’t been totally eviscerated. Does anyone have any explanations or observations on this matter?
35% of the elite would rather cheat than lose a close election, rising to 69% of the ‘politically obsessed’. Only 7% of pleb voters would cheat. That seems like an underestimate to me – who goes and says ‘I would rather cheat than lose an election’ on a poll? Wouldn’t people be embarrassed (or tactical) and lie – they’re cheats after all! Again, I don’t know the exact definition of cheat but I imagine many more would do something subversive like hold back successful COVID vaccine results until after the election or engage in various procedural manipulations. Edit for an example of what I mean for 'non-cheating' manipulation: https://twitter.com/stevenmackeyman/status/1764876192648499220
I think it’s clear that these are the people with actual power and influence, the ones who set the agenda, the key actors in tech, media, government and law. They create outcomes, or lack thereof. Just about every judge would be elite by this definition, along with nearly all AI workers (OK maybe not the work-from-home guys in the Colorado mountains). All lobbyists, the heads of most NGOs, the most important lawyers – everyone except the right-wing politicians who seem unable to achieve any of their goals.
It’s not like it’s hard to close the US border. The US is a global power after all. The US seems to think it can defend Ukraine’s borders against the Russian army from the other side of the world and secure Taiwan’s borders against the PLA, it must be at least 1000x easier to defend the US border against stateless, unarmed mobs. They just don’t care, indeed their energy seems to swing the other way – see the recent US-Texas standoff over barbed wire and the border. The survey said not one respondent cared about the border as a priority, presumably some think immigration is quite a good thing and want more, illegal or otherwise.
On other fronts, we observe these creeping changes – everyone seems to need a college degree if they want to do anything. That’s not the will of the majority but it is what the elite want. You can see these articles that go ‘relax nobody’s coming to take your gas stove’, how they struck down the federal bill. But the state legislation in New York and other cities is proceeding, it’s clear that this is the path that the US is on. Likewise, the disputes over the 2020 election. I'm suspicious but can't prove that the election was rigged, or that Epstein didn't kill himself. Nevertheless, US democracy doesn't seem in very good shape if its elites are so willing to win by fraud.
So others have written the obvious reactions to this poll (including pointing out that the stats are massaged). But to go a bit lateral: a common take I hear from the dissident right is that the West declined into tyranny as the franchise expanded. I often see tweet threads from @KulakRevolt implying that the cause of modern ills is that people without a fixed interest in the system started getting a say in its regulation. In other words, they side with the Grandees in the Putney Debates.
This idea sounds plausible on its own, but it co-exists in the DR with a ravenous hatred of "elites" and "globalists". How does that make any sense? For all its faults, this poll does expose a fundamental truth: ideas like racial/gender quotas and open borders are coming from the top of society, the "aristocrats", not the middle. If you were to limit the franchise to the modern equivalent of the Second Estate, a far-left social and economic planning program would be implemented by Thursday.
This is an interesting analysis of the dissident right, but keep in mind that this poll wasn't created by or for the dissident right -- the authors of it have never heard of them and would hate them if they had.
There's the mainstream right, that wants low taxes, libertarian policy, and military might. That's the "GOP Establishment," or as their enemies call them, "RINOs." There's the nationalist right, that wants more manufacturing and less foreign wars. That's the "Trumpist" right, or as their enemies call them, "MAGA Republicans." Then, and only then, there's the dissident right, that wants actual racism. That's the extremely-online version that doesn't exist among conservatives in person. Maybe at those weird right-wing parties in New York, but if you think "people at New York parties" are representative of the right, I'm prepared to offer you a sweetheart deal for the Brooklyn Bridge. I disagree with him on how far he takes it, but I agree with @HlynkaCG totally that the identitarian right in this sense is more of a sect of dissident blue tribers than anything truly red tribe. And I say this as a born and raised red triber from Jesusland (and, if I'm being honest, a pretty hardcore nationalist rightist despite my misgivings about Trump personally).
This poll was created by the mainstream right, with occasional nods to concerns of the nationalist right. The dissident right isn't even on their radar.
Slightly more subtle than that. The meme driving this study is "the elites screwing you over are schoolteachers in Manhattan, not the multimillionaire CEO who times your toilet breaks." This is a meme that the GOPe uses to keep the mainstream right and the nationalist right in the same tent - Oliver Anthony and his supporters in the country are perfectly happy hating both sneering Manhattanites and arsehole bosses, so to get him to vote for the bosses' candidate requires advanced lying skills. (Getting Oliver Anthony to vote for the Manhattanites' candidate would also require advanced lying skills, which the Dem establishment don't have.)
My multimillionaire CEO isn't timing my toilet breaks, so the other group is a much greater problem. Timed toilet breaks are also a much easier thing for an individual to solve: if you don't want your toilet breaks timed, don't work for Bezos or McMillon.
Unless you live in NY yourself, ordinary middle-class Manhattanites are not the people screwing you over either. It sounds like the people who are screwing you over mostly live in places like Fairfax County VA, Palo Alto, and the deep blue tony suburbs of your State capital. According to Rasmussen's somewhat curious definition, none of those people are elite.
If you don't want to be bothered by Manhattan schoolteachers sneering at you, stop reading their tweets.
What's your definition of elite?
Wait, you think it's the schoolteachers' tweets that people have a problem with?
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