The talking heads were undoubtedly exploding yesterday as Donald Trump mounted a successful foray into the Bronx. Looking at the video from the event, it was evident that a whole lot of everybody was in attendance. Many of those people are among the demographics that the Left has traditionally claimed as its own by virtue of their skin color, country of origin, or income bracket.
Progressives have always had a love/hate relationship with the poor and minorities. On the one hand, they make for terrific object lessons about the dangers posed by cold-hearted conservatives versus the blessings that will one day be imparted by compassionate leftists, and they can be counted on to vote for all of the “right” candidates. On the other hand, the Left also wants to enjoy those people from a comfortable distance. They want their charges to be educated and empowered but not too educated and empowered. And they are also completely clueless about the lives of those outside of their orbit.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that a recent poll by Scott Rasmussen shows that 69% of the Carr’s Water Cracker crowd (the one-percenters) holds that only people with college degrees should be able to vote. During an interview on the Daily Signal Podcast, Rasmussen described this group as those who hold post-graduate degrees and live in densely populated urban areas with approximately 10,000 people per square mile in a given zip code. This group also makes at least $150,000 a year.
Rasmussen found a subset within that group that he calls the “politically-obsessed elites.” Rasmussen previously described the group as a whole as those who also contend that people have too much individual freedom and have a high level of trust in the federal government. They are also blissfully unaware of their disconnect:
Perhaps the funniest finding of all is we ask the question, “Do most Americans agree with you on most important issues?” Now, if we ask voters, about half say, “Yeah, I think most people agree with me.” Among the politically obsessed elites, 82% of that group thinks that most Americans agree with them on most issues. It’s not even close to true, but they’re looking in a mirror. They see what they want to see.
What’s scary about that, if you think about it in context of the administrative state, if these people believe that their views are representative of America, it justifies them cheating a little bit or bending the rules because they can say, “We’re fighting for the American people.” In fact, they’re fighting against the American people.
According to Rasmussen’s poll, 64% of these elites believe that Americans would happily hand over an additional $250 each year to combat climate change, 57% hold that most voters want to live in an area where guns are outlawed, 55% contend that most voters want to see the sale of gas-powered cars banned, and 41% believe that most voters agree that biological men should be able to compete in women’s sports. Oh, and 71% are under the impression that most voters trust the federal government. Rasmussen also predicts that should Trump win in November, these elites will be among the loudest complainers that the election was stolen.
It would be interesting to see what these people would think about people with post-graduate degrees from schools like Hillsdale or Liberty being permitted to cast their ballots. After all, they do meet the shibboleth of the higher education requirement, but they would fail the other litmus tests, provided one could get the elites to believe that such people even exist.