There are three things seared into my mind whenever elite or mass opinion are mentioned. Will Wilkinson talking about how the average voter is a mass of knee jerk reactions, prejudices, and biases that amount to no coherent ideology at all. Bryan Caplan's Myth of the Rational Voter with all the inherent biases of folk marxism and folk psychology that people hold, including the handful of PhDs I know with scarcely above 100 IQs. Third, the posts Arnold made more than 15 years ago about Philip Converse and “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass publics.” - https://www.econlib.org/archives/2006/12/notes_on_critic_1.html
Yeah, a quarter of Britons claim to want travel agencies nationalized but that also means *three-quarters* don't. Ditto that *two-thirds* might oppose nationalizing internet providers, and I would be willing to bet that the portions who support those positions are far more likely to be socially liberal than socially conservative in the Murrian sense. There's plenty of polling that indicates the poor to lower-middle class in the US have long opposed the social policies advanced by the Democrats even though they tend to vote for that party (for now). Proposition 8 (gay marriage ban), even though eventually overturned by the judiciary, won in California in the same year the state voted for Obama and majorities voted Democratic in most other state and federal elections. The more recent shifts in Hispanic voting patterns would also seem to indicate they are more supportive of economically and socially conservative policies, to the extent that the Republican Party can be identified with those.
People tend to be conservative about what they know best, and I trust that extends to people understanding what would improve their economic circumstances. Murray's observation is not true just in rhetoric but extends to elite support for policies that enable the behaviors they eschew. That makes them far more pernicious than Billy Bob who supports the 2nd Amendment, opposes gay marriage, and wants a trade war with China.
I keep hearing about right wing populists that want to implement socialism, but I haven't actually seen this happen anywhere. Mostly they seem to cut taxes.
I have a feeling right wing populist economic policy may differ a bit from libertarian orthodoxy on trade and immigration, but I don't think we are going to see a lot of industries nationalized. They may push back against woke capital, but I think that is pro-capitalist (I don't want corporations being political). And admitting you are never going to scrap Medicare is not so different from lying about the fact that you will never scrap Medicare.
I'm going out on a limb and predicting the managerial class is going to care about the poors a lot, and soon, as the poors are going to be beating down their doors. This is because nearly half the country is going to be broke: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/what-lurks-below-surface-reason-concern
The idea that Liberals "preach" the "misbehavior" they "tolerate" but hypocritically d not themselves engage in is a funny "conservative" idea. It is true that Liberals want to reduce the consequences of much "misbehavior"/bad decisions/minority lifestyle choices and it is a good question when the reduction goes too far. I wish "progressives" would contemplate the possibility that in many contexts the reduction has gone too far or is misdirected. Likewise I wish "conservatives" would be less angry about these misdirected reductions but realize that indeed some reduction is optimal.
I've consistently disagreed with Murray on "UMC liberals are really conservative". I think the proof is in the pudding of the fact that they marry and have children a lot less often. People are often fooled by a lack of divorce, but that is mostly because they aren't getting married and marrying very late.
Probably the closest to the truth is that they do genuinely not like poor people and are willing to write checks but otherwise want little to do with them. But that is pretty remote.
Tim Groseclose seems to have an opinion similar to West, "Groseclose combined his own findings and existing research to calculate that the average American voter has a “natural” PQ, or Political Quotient, of around 25-30, which is firmly in the conservative range."
There are three things seared into my mind whenever elite or mass opinion are mentioned. Will Wilkinson talking about how the average voter is a mass of knee jerk reactions, prejudices, and biases that amount to no coherent ideology at all. Bryan Caplan's Myth of the Rational Voter with all the inherent biases of folk marxism and folk psychology that people hold, including the handful of PhDs I know with scarcely above 100 IQs. Third, the posts Arnold made more than 15 years ago about Philip Converse and “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass publics.” - https://www.econlib.org/archives/2006/12/notes_on_critic_1.html
"But West is suggesting that liberal sympathies for the poor are superficial."
This was demonstrated in no uncertain terms by the recent Martha's Vineyard fiasco.
In re populism
Yeah, a quarter of Britons claim to want travel agencies nationalized but that also means *three-quarters* don't. Ditto that *two-thirds* might oppose nationalizing internet providers, and I would be willing to bet that the portions who support those positions are far more likely to be socially liberal than socially conservative in the Murrian sense. There's plenty of polling that indicates the poor to lower-middle class in the US have long opposed the social policies advanced by the Democrats even though they tend to vote for that party (for now). Proposition 8 (gay marriage ban), even though eventually overturned by the judiciary, won in California in the same year the state voted for Obama and majorities voted Democratic in most other state and federal elections. The more recent shifts in Hispanic voting patterns would also seem to indicate they are more supportive of economically and socially conservative policies, to the extent that the Republican Party can be identified with those.
People tend to be conservative about what they know best, and I trust that extends to people understanding what would improve their economic circumstances. Murray's observation is not true just in rhetoric but extends to elite support for policies that enable the behaviors they eschew. That makes them far more pernicious than Billy Bob who supports the 2nd Amendment, opposes gay marriage, and wants a trade war with China.
I keep hearing about right wing populists that want to implement socialism, but I haven't actually seen this happen anywhere. Mostly they seem to cut taxes.
I have a feeling right wing populist economic policy may differ a bit from libertarian orthodoxy on trade and immigration, but I don't think we are going to see a lot of industries nationalized. They may push back against woke capital, but I think that is pro-capitalist (I don't want corporations being political). And admitting you are never going to scrap Medicare is not so different from lying about the fact that you will never scrap Medicare.
I'm going out on a limb and predicting the managerial class is going to care about the poors a lot, and soon, as the poors are going to be beating down their doors. This is because nearly half the country is going to be broke: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/what-lurks-below-surface-reason-concern
The idea that Liberals "preach" the "misbehavior" they "tolerate" but hypocritically d not themselves engage in is a funny "conservative" idea. It is true that Liberals want to reduce the consequences of much "misbehavior"/bad decisions/minority lifestyle choices and it is a good question when the reduction goes too far. I wish "progressives" would contemplate the possibility that in many contexts the reduction has gone too far or is misdirected. Likewise I wish "conservatives" would be less angry about these misdirected reductions but realize that indeed some reduction is optimal.
I've consistently disagreed with Murray on "UMC liberals are really conservative". I think the proof is in the pudding of the fact that they marry and have children a lot less often. People are often fooled by a lack of divorce, but that is mostly because they aren't getting married and marrying very late.
Probably the closest to the truth is that they do genuinely not like poor people and are willing to write checks but otherwise want little to do with them. But that is pretty remote.
Tim Groseclose seems to have an opinion similar to West, "Groseclose combined his own findings and existing research to calculate that the average American voter has a “natural” PQ, or Political Quotient, of around 25-30, which is firmly in the conservative range."
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-biased-is-your-media/