Chapter 11 politics

the sentimental elite During the 2008 election, I heard two narratives every day.One of the first things I hear is, "If candidate X or candidate Y were a little warmer and friendlier, I'd vote for him or her." The second thing I hear is, "I like candidates who can ask questions. This is an important election, and what we need is a president who can really identify our problems and actually fix them." Which of these two statements do you think is the statement of the doctors in the United States?Is it a statement that cares about individuality, or a statement that cares about problems?

Believe it or not, what the Ph. D.s say is a word about individuality.The reason for this is that there is an interesting phenomenon among voters in the United States where people's attitudes are reversed.America's elite, the wealthiest and most educated people in our society, are less concerned with America's economic and strategic issues and more concerned with the personalities of the candidates.At cocktail parties for the elite, they discuss the most important issues about the presidential election.I guarantee that the topics they talk about are all about the personality analysis of each candidate.I say this for good reason: the concerns of today’s elites are no longer the major concerns of the vast majority of Americans, such as health care, college tuition, unemployment, and childcare.The issues that the elites care about may always be different from the issues that the public cares about. However, in the meritocratic political system of the United States in the 20th century, the elites are all people with special education. They all become elites through their own struggle. They are all very appreciative of people who work hard.In short, they were serious people, they lived through World War II, and they cared about serious real-life and political issues.Today's elites grew up spoiled, they have not experienced the struggles of their parents and grandparents.

Today's elites know Tom Friedman's (The World Is Flat) from books, while the American masses know it first-hand.The elite saw unprecedented economic success, while the conditions of those working at the bottom did not improve. Income data disclosed in March 2007 showed that 10% of Americans were high earners, and their income was increasing every year, while the income of the top 1% increased the fastest (about 14%). Ninety percent of Americans are low-income earners whose incomes have been decreasing.In reality, a rising tide won't lift all boats. This state of affairs creates a particularly ironic phenomenon. Ask elites why they care about individuality and they will tell you that "voters"—that is, low-income and less educated Americans— Don't understand the question, so they have to vote on personality.However, this claim is far from the truth.America's so-called mass population is more educated than ever, and they are more concerned about problems than ever before.In political activities, the standard American voter will never discuss the issue of individuality.Voters were concerned about health insurance, education, and friends who served in Iraq.Their knowledge of Medicare, Medicaid, the school system, and the global economy would put many PhDs to shame. In early 2007, Hillary Clinton set up a public website, and she received 11,000 questions, 10 of which asked her what food she likes to eat and what movies she likes to watch, and the contents of the remaining 10,990 questions are all are the real problems people face and how she can help solve them.Today's elites often look down on ordinary people, but I have noticed that elites often form their opinions easily regardless of a lot of facts, while the masses form their opinions based more on facts, values ​​and experience.College students will always have their own opinions, and they will always change their opinions after they leave school and have life experiences.Today's elites have not experienced the rigors of everyday American life, so they are like college students who will never change their minds.Therefore, it is much easier to discuss the problems of American elites than the problems of American voters.

One day I was on the phone with a reporter for an elite newspaper who kept telling me about the importance of a president's personality.He said, "A professor sent me an e-mail discussing this." I said, "Professor—does that mean that your thinking is what the average American thinks?" Ideas are what they think non-college-educated voters think, and non-college-educated voters think exactly what professors should be saying.When I questioned the reporter's other views, he said he had consulted "other journalists" who shared his views.Elites pay attention to what other elites think to reinforce their own belief that the way they see life is how the other 90 percent of Americans experience life.

This is not just my opinion, let's take a look at the data. A standard question about voting intentions that I ask in every campaign is what are the most important considerations for people to vote for a candidate: (1) Questions (2) Personality (3) Experience.I ask this question because all three are important to leaders, and it is difficult to rank them in order of importance. According to a recent poll we did, a significant number of voters — 48 percent — believe that a candidate’s obsession with issues is the most important thing, followed by personality at 32 percent.What is consistent among voters is that they all put the issue at the top of their ballots, regardless of whether they went to college, their religion, or their race.The difference is the difference in income.As soon as voters reach the magic line of $100,000 in annual income, a significant number of people's top choices shift to personalities.As shown in the table below, among those earning less than $100,000 a year, 51% of them prioritize issues and 30% prioritize personality.However, as soon as the income reaches $100,000, the proportion of top choices will change, with 45% of people will choose personality as the top choice, while 37% will choose problems as the top choice.

That's a 29-point change that the polls could not have revealed more clearly. While "personality" can sometimes embody some of a person's most important qualities, such as dependability and decency, it can also often mean something ephemeral and superficial, such as liking a beer with someone.Of course, likability and charisma are important factors in choosing a president.But are they more important than fixing health care and creating jobs?Most Americans would think otherwise.Frankly, only the very rich would say yes.There are also media columnists who hold a positive attitude. Newspapers such as The New York Times felt that they had been too serious in the past and missed the trend of focusing on the individual, so the New York Times now has Maureen Dowd, a columnist who writes about the psychology of people, News Journalist Mark Leibovich's essay on the candidate's personality also hit the front pages of newspapers. The New York Times is simply following in the footsteps of the Washington Post, whose reporters, like Lois Romano, began focusing on individuality years ago. problem. In March 2007, even the Wall Street Journal ran about Barack Obama's outfits, about John Edwards' doll looks and Rudy &#8226 ; Essay on Rudy Giuliani's relationship with powerful people.Suddenly, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal were running gossip articles, while the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Kansas City Star were running in-depth articles. Analysis of the problem of the article.In the eyes of today's elites, Woodrow Wilson is too rigid for leadership of a popular peace movement.

In many ways, wise men have become fools, and fools have become wise.How many talk show guests make less than $100,000 a year?How many journalists talk to the masses who make less than $100,000 a year?While elite information circles are largely made up of the top 10% of earners, and while elites have pushed discussions on more substantive issues in the past, they are doing just the opposite today.Today's elites are more keen on rambling, they no longer discuss substantive issues, they lead the discussion to superficial issues. If the phenomenon of "Tabloid Papers of Record" and "Real-News Rags" mentioned above is not a weird phenomenon, then it may explain a problem, the elite and the public view leadership The different ways in which those who voted have had a growing effect on the distortions of the presidential election.As a result of changes in campaign contribution laws aimed at separating money from politics, a new class of "increasingly important donors" has emerged, able to exert greater influence than ever on candidate selection and campaigns influences.Today, a small number of donors donating large sums has been replaced by large groups of donors giving under $10,000.Each of these donors earned more than $100,000 a year. (Who but them can donate $2,300 each to a politician's primary and general elections after tax?) As noted above, this suggests that hardly any of them are mainstream voters.

Now look at how important the new breed of political donors can be. After the Watergate incident in 1974, in order to clean up the chaos of political donations, Congress passed a series of bills reforming campaign donations to limit the amount of campaign donations and increase the transparency of donations.But the bills make no provision for "soft money" -- political donations used for general "party-building activities" -- such as the use of soft money to garner votes.So, for decades, the clause on soft money has been abused. In 2002, Congress passed a set of reform bills that eliminated soft money but doubled the maximum amount of "hard money" -- personal donations to candidates. (Taking 2007 as an example, the limit for each person to donate to each candidate is $1,300 for the primary election and the general election; the limit for each person to contribute to each political party is $28,500, and the limit for donations to the federal election within two years $108,200) However, this Congress did not regulate donations to nonprofit organizations, which are political groups organized under Section 527 of the tax code.Now, 527 groups (such as the right-wing "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" [SwiftBoatVeteransforTruth], "ProgressforAmerica" ​​[ProgressforAmerica]; the left-wing "MoveOn" [MoveOn.org], Service Employees International Union [ServiceEmployeesInternationalUnion] ) can raise unlimited money from wealthy party loyalists, and can use those funds to do what political parties have done before, such as defending certain issues, airing targeted commercial television, and Get votes, etc.

I think the reforms of 2002 inspired two kinds of people to give and raised the importance of their giving.The first type of person is "the Mega-Donors", that is, people who are very rich and feel obliged to donate.Now, instead of donating money to the full-time staff of the political party, they donate the money to the 527 group that supports a certain political party, and they call themselves shooters. In the 2006 mid-term elections, the 527 groups raised approximately $380 million, an increase of at least one-third compared to the amount raised in 2002.According to reports in 2004, five large donors, two of them a married couple, contributed as much as $78 million to the Democratic-leaning 527 group, about a quarter of the total donations received by the Democratic Party.

The second type of people is "Elite Donors", that is, people whose husband and wife earn more than $300,000 a year and can donate $10,000 without hesitation.They are well-educated professionals, and the issues faced by ordinary voters are basically irrelevant to them.They have health insurance, schools, and housing.Most of them are the upper 5% of the population and most of them are the top 1% of the population.A political candidate in the United States may spend half of his dinner time with these people, while the other half of the time belongs to the other 95%. In this way, large donors who donate to 527 groups and increasingly powerful elite donors combine to form a new type of donor group that is playing an increasingly important role in politics--whose statistics show that they have nothing to do with what voters think Nothing in common.Not only did they disagree with voters, but they steered the discussion toward more superficial issues.The elites of the past started PBS, but today's elites don't watch PBS.

The classic description of a leadership group that is completely out of touch with the masses is that the tyrant Nero was still playing the harp while the city of Rome was on fire, but our situation is not as severe as it is now.But the other side of all this proves even more clearly that the principle that voters are not fools is fully applicable to voters in general.The mass voter is smarter, better informed, better educated, and more down-to-earth than ever before.So, if you put aside the talk of elitists and unrealistic journalists, you can talk to some very smart people.