More on the Party of the Rich
Written by Sam on December 2nd, 2007Some of our Democrat readers had to be hospitalized after reading my previous post pointing to a study that showed the “Party of the Rich” label often given to Republicans by the left is nothing more than an antiquated myth. Well, the LA Times, hardly a Republican friendly news outlet, just let the cat out of the bag.
Rather, gentry liberalism reflects the interests and values of the affluent winners in the era of globalization and the beneficiaries of the “financialization” of the economy. Its strongholds are the tony neighborhoods and luxurious suburbs in and around New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco and West Los Angeles.
Just as the number of industrial workers and traditional middle-class households has declined, the ranks of the affluent class have grown. From 2000 to 2005, the number of millionaires in the U.S. rose 26%. Meanwhile, households with incomes of more than $100,000 a year were the most rapidly growing income category, according to Ogilvy & Mather demographer Peter Francese. From 1994 to 2004, the number of six-figure-income households jumped 54%.
Although many of the newly affluent are — as is traditional — politically conservative, a rising number of them are turning left. Surveys done by the Pew Research Center indicate that an increasing number of households with annual incomes greater than $135,000 — the nation’s top 10% — are moving toward the Democrats. In 1995, there were nearly twice as many Republicans (46%) as Democrats (25%) in this category. Today, there are as many Democrats (31%) as Republicans (32%).
The political upshot is that Democrats now control the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional districts, according to Michael Franc of the conservative Heritage Foundation.
In part, this is because the Democratic gains in the 2006 elections were in affluent districts once held by the Republicans. In Iowa, for instance, the three wealthiest districts now send Democrats to Washington, and the two poorest are safe Republican seats.
Perhaps the best indicator of the growing political power of gentry liberals, however, is their ability to generate campaign contributions. Chiefly drawing on Wall Street, Hollywood and the Silicon Valley, this year’s Democratic presidential candidates have raised 70% more money than their GOP counterparts, according to the Wall Street Journal. The securities industry, which awarded Republicans 58% of their campaign dollars in 1956, gave the GOP only 45% in 2006. In the newest sectors of the securities industry, most notably hedge funds, Democrats are favored. This year, hedge fund managers have given 77% of their contributions to Democrats in congressional races, reported the Journal.
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Basically our politics are becoming more culturally defined instead of economically defined. This puts people like myself who economically to the right and culturally to the center or left in a weird situation.
The Republican Party has become defined as being the culturally conservative party while shedding its economic conservatism and any care about competency. The Democrats seem to be having something of a similar crisis in their ranks.
While I doubt I could ever join the Democratic Party, if the Republican Party continues to drift towards being the party of the values voters, big government, protectionism, etc., I will probably become an independent.
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Ryan, there has certainly been a stratification of conservatives that was not present 15 or 20 years ago. In the 80s, you were conservative or not. Today, there are SoCons, FisCons, DefenseCons and probably dozens of other weird Cons. I think this is problematic.
If the Republican party was just Conservative–socially and fiscally–you would probably have a bit of a problem with the social aspect, but you could easily live with it because of the fiscal issues. The SoCons may have problems with the lack of government intervention regarding fiscal issues, but they would live with it because the Democrats are so out of step with them on social issues.
That is why I want a generally conservative to win the nomination for President. I would like to see the party unified as a conservative party both socially and fiscally and only a conservative at the top will do that.
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you can easily change that into saying the most economically productive parts of the country vote democratic, so i think conservatives should lay off this.
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“you can easily change that into saying the most economically productive parts of the country vote democratic”
What the heck? Please explain this strange statement.
So what? The point is that economically CONSERVATIVE–meaning restrained government spending and lowering taxes–are the core of the Republican party. This has nothing to do with “economically productive” (even if that statement is correct, which I don’t believe). You certainly would not argue that these areas that you claim to be the most productive and vote Democrat are fiscally conservative, are you?
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higher incomes (wealth) are products of higher economic productivity, and has always been so, so wealthier areas of the country on a per capita basis (california, new york, Massachusetts) are liberal areas while the south remains lower income. people in these places can sometimes be fisically conservative but vote for democratic because they are socially liberal or don’t care for republican foreing policy. I’m not saying their is a causal relationship between political leanings and wealth here since these areas gain alot from their universities, but something to think about. now their is alot more that goes into good economic management then simply lower taxes and lower spending, so a liberal sometimes can be a better mayor then a conservative. and your claim that fisical conservatism is the base of the republican party, has not been true for atleast a decade now.
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Higher productivity has nothing to do with fiscal conservatism. Therefore wealth has nothing to do with whether or not someone is liberal or conservative–that makes the line of discussion irrelevant to the discussion on what is necessary to save the GOP, unless we feel that it must appeal to the wealthy (I don’t).
“your claim that fisical [sic] conservatism is the base of the republican party, has not been true for at least a decade now.”
Interesting. It certainly as not been the base of the Democrat party. I would say that fiscal conservatism has been lost for several years. Yet that is one of the primary reasons that the GOP lost in 2006. My point is that a return to fiscal conservatism (while not losing social conservatism) is what will “Save the GOP”.
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Joel… I completely agree. I would go along with the social conservative agenda if they would go along with the economic conservative agenda. This is because the social conservative agenda in a milder and less concentrated form is not horrible in my book.
I think the Republicans risk becoming a minority party if they do not offer some balance. By giving up their fiscal conservative/good government roots, they have written off a significant portion of the population that used to vote for Republicans on the coasts.
An interesting thing to ponder is whether we are on the verge of a political alignment where the Democrats move more fiscally to the right while the Republicans move in a more populist direction. Will education become the primary factor in determining political support?
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OK. I think I see where you are coming from.
Have you seen anything that would indicate that the Dems are even thinking about fiscal conservatism? They have learned to TALK about fiscal conservatism, but when they govern, they still want large programs, government intervention, and higher taxes.
It is more probable that if the Republicans do not rediscover their true roots that the libertarians or ? come up and become the (fiscal) conservative party. By the way, I consider this a bad thing since it will really destroy voting majorities (or significance) for a long time.
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I would argue that forming another party is pointless and would hurt the cause.
I think the Democrats could be on the first steps towards moving more fiscally to the right. At least they are talking the talk at the moment. The Republicans did not even talk the talk for eight years under Bush.
Essentially, if the current Republican drift continues, my voting patterns will become less consistent. I will support economic conservatives first and if there are no economic conservatives, I will vote for the most moderate on social issues.
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http://us.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html
Once again, Sam is feeding you a bunch of garbage. The sixth table down (”Votes by Income”) clearly shows the proportion of Bush votes monotonically increasing with income. Sam can spin this however he wants, but the facts are self-evident.
The Republican party platform has consistently favored the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Any idiot knows this. However, Republican spin doctors have been increasingly good at getting poor, ignorant people to vote AGAINST their own best interest by diverting their attention to the pile of crap (like gay marriage and abortion) they feed everyone because they’re scared to talk about bread-and-butter issues. If Democrats were better at keeping people focused on real issues, they’d win every election hands down.
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An EXIT POLL from a news organization with a proven agenda is not reputable statistical analysis. Try again.
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Is it the Communist News Network or the Clinton News Network these days? You listen to too much Rush Limbaugh.