Education, tribalism, and voting

An interesting observation from The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics by Salena Zito and Brad Todd.

In counties with far more than the national average of 29.8 percent of adults with bachelor’s degrees, Trump fared poorly. Of America’s one hundred most educated counties, he carried only nineteen — Romney had carried twenty-six in defeat and outpolled Trump in almost all of them by significant margins. Simply put, Americans who live their lives among a group of friends and neighbors with varied educational backgrounds preferred Trump more than Clinton or Romney, while college-educated Americans who live exclusively among other degree holders were less likely to support Trump, even if they were otherwise Republican.

It would be interesting to drill down further. Is it just education attainment level or does the nature of the schools where degrees were earned factor in as well?

The bubble around the highly educated is pretty robust. But there are nuances. My wife and I, both products of elite universities and grad schools, have independently and anecdotally observed that younger alums seem to be more prone to emotional opinionating rather than rational, logical and evidence-based reasoning. The issue is two-fold. First that the conversation is closed - they wish to express an opinion rather than explore facts and experiences. Second, is that the opinion is sacrosanct and based on emotion.

We have laughed the impression off as simply evidence of advancing curmudgeonliness on our part. But perhaps not.

I also observe graduates from less prestigious schools who do seem to still be obtaining an education which is grounded in facts, logic, and reason.

Hence my curiosity. If opposition to Trump is primarily centered among those with higher education attainment, might it be the case that the opposition is even more concentrated among those with higher education attainment from institutions formerly noted for their prestige? I am wondering whether a PhD in Economics or Cyber Security or something like that from State U might, in terms of voting, look a lot more like the average voter than the PhD in Anthropology or Masters in Gender studies from Ivy League U. In addition, I am wondering whether there are material voting differences between older and younger alums. I am guessing that there likely might be more support for Trump from older alums, not just because they are older but because they came out of a tradition of rigorous inquiry rather than ideological emotionalism.

If those suppositions are true, then this has less to do with education and intelligence than it has to do with affiliative networks and class. Just curious. Could easily be wrong.

My other thought riffing off of Zito's observation has to do with the role inversion between the parties over the past fifty years. In my youth, Democrats were the party of the common man and Republicans were the party of the business elite. They now have traded positions.

Zito notes that the hundred most educated counties were also the strongest in their opposition to the revolt of the masses as reflected by Trump. You can easily conjure all the public policies espoused by such locales. Recycling, diversity, affirmative action, sanctuary cities, bicycle lanes, public transport (for others), high minimum wages, climate change is existential, income inequality is a crisis, tough zoning is needed, inclusiveness, no plastic bags, needle sharing centers, universal minimum income, police are the enemy, everyone is a racist, homophobe, xenophobe, transphobe, etc.

Any one of these arguments has its merits and demerits but the ethos of the educated elite is coercion. "This is what we think is good for the hoi polloi and they should do what we tell them" is the general sentiment. I would wager there is an exceptionally high level of support for any and all of these intellectually dubious propositions in those places with the highest education attainment. Think Marin County or San Francisco in California.

So what to make of the idea that the most intellectually credentialed counties support the most intellectually questionable ideas AND also oppose an outsider insurrectionist like Trump. It is an odd juxtaposition of ideas, more provocative than illuminating but it does make you think.