Elitism, Liberals, and the Poor

[MikeF]

One big difference between the uneducated people and educated liberals, in the USA, are the educated liberals have huge student debts to go along with their "higher education credentials". They were told to eat the seed potato, learning how to be pretentious.

One of the ironies I see is that educated Liberals boast about their education, but they are the first to censor people who do not agree with them. If they were intelligent, instead of just educated or indoctrinated, they would enjoy the creative challenges offered by free speech. Instead they do their best to prevent free speech, less free speech betray their lack of open minded ingenuity that better education can provide.

I tend to think Educated Liberals are pretentious. This explains why they claim to know best, but never seem to fix anything. Instead they tend to create new problems that did not exist, before they meddled.

The Left runs the education system in the USA. During Obama, the Liberals pushed to increased enrollment into colleges at the expense of the trades. This increased demand for higher education goods and services and drove up the costs leading to huge student debt. Those in the trades, may not have the credentials, but they also have no college debt and many are now working on their summer homes. The latter are being asked to help the educated deal with their debt through the tax payers. Who was smarter?

The "smart" people are not even smart enough to follow the money connected to their student debt. If they had half a brain they would see it ended up in the coffers of the universities and not in the tax payer's wallet. Yet their solution is to steal from the tax payer and not go after those who have their money. They were conned by other educated Liberals who offer an injustice solution.

It appears the Liberals universities are training con artists and thieves. They can't even see through the scams coming from their own kind.

Currently there is a melt down over Twitter allowing free speech under new management. This will make it harder to pretend to be smart. If you are the only show in town, even a poor show is entertaining. Now they will now need to demonstrate intelligence and self reliance in the field, which is not being taught in Liberal Education.

What value is there in a silly rant against "educated liberals"? Both sides of the political spectrum have myopic, problematic policy goals.

Would it not be better to drop the labels and simply talk directly about an issue? If your issue is student loan forgiveness, then address that and lay out your ideas as to why it is a bad idea, or perhaps a good idea taken too far.

This stance that one political extreme is always wrong or at fault and the other virtuous and true does not reflect the reality that different people prioritize issues differently which means realistic and rational compromise is required to solve problems.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Those people tend to be nuts though.

No not at all.

They are people who earn slave wages, or poor disability or SS payments.

They can't afford the extravagantly high rents in the nation so they opted for living in their vehicles on a permanent basis and actually keep some of their money rather than having it grabbed away by others.


It's something I will do myself as a contingency plan if things go south for me.

Van life and RF living is a viable alternative for those who are poor and or find themselves in a homeless situation. Many are happy and can even have the ability for saving money.

I'm very intrigued by minimalist and off grid living and it's not as bad of a life as people think. I lived out of my truck for many years OTR.

 

[Stevicus]

Good points. The "Liberals," sixty or eighty years ago, were mostly the Democratic party, which represented the interests of the working and middle classes. This is no longer the case, though. The Democratic party abandoned the working class and now represents the technical or professional classes. The working classes -- with very real problems and concerns, were left flapping in the wind, with noöne in their corner, no explanation, and noöne to blame for their job losses, stagnant wages, increased cost of living, &c.

Enter the Republicans, organized and opportunistic. They remain the party of Big Business and banking, but they know how to appeal to the working classes. They present a united front, speak to them in their own language, reflect their values and are sympathetic with their plight. They paint a picture of a once great but now victimized and oppressed class -- and they name the oppressors: The "radical liberals" and Democratic Party. Plus, they offer simple and direct remedies, that will restore their class to their rightful place as the Real Americans.

The Democratic party plays right into this, of course. Not unified, always arguing with each other, not offering simple explanations, remedies or blame. They speak in a techno-babble of studies, statistics, history, long chains of causative factors and multi-step fixes. They're perceived as effete élitists with their heads in the clouds; completely out of touch.

Never mind that surveys show overwhelming support for the policies they advocate, among all classes. They are not liked, and are easy targets of blame.

So who really supports the interests of the working classes? These would be those radical Socialists and "Social Democrats" -- who are probably closet commies and not to be trusted.

It was the "socialists" like Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower that created the middle class to begin with, and the prosperity that made America great. But the "robber barons" and "economic royalists" the two Roosevelts battled were not going to accept defeat, and have been steadily clawing their way back to dominance, by any means possible.
Economic disparity is greater today than it was in the Gilded Age -- and it's not the 'liberals' behind it.

I found this Op-Ed in Politico, yesterday. I think it makes some very interesting points: Opinion | How Orwell Diagnosed Democrats’ Culture War Problem Decades Ago

You make some excellent, cogent points here. The article was also spot on, and this part also chimed with me:


In another time, organized labor — which represented a third of all workers back in 1960 — was a visible, potent part of the Democratic Party. Those who worked with their hands, who worked in mines, mills and factories, also provided the foot soldiers and the funds to keep Democrats competitive. Today, organized labor represents less than 10 percent of private workers; it’s the public services — schools, government offices — that now provide the bulk of organized labor. Indeed, the tension between public sector workers who are paid with tax money and private sector workers who provide that tax money, is one of the significant unspoken conflicts within the Democratic Party.

Democrats have another problem that Orwell might have recognized; its “messaging” is increasingly crafted by people who are too much like me: born and raised in the big city, product of an elite law school, a working life whose tools are words, ideas — not hammers and nails. To say that my friends, colleagues and I are distant from the life of “regular” Americans is a significant understatement.

I think it was different for Democrats and liberals of previous generations, because many of us still remember our parents' or grandparents' "proletarian roots," so to speak. The battle between left and right was often waged generationally, but it was still "all in the family," so to speak. Now, it's completely different families and sub-cultures.

 

[sayak83]

Is it just me, or do many self-identified liberals seem to look down on poor people and others from communities who have low or no access to education?

Almost every time there's a major event such as the pandemic, U.S. elections, or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I see a subset of liberals quickly blame the "uneducated and ignorant" people who hold certain views about a given event.

Now, make no mistake: there are absolutely many misinformed, inaccurate, and/or downright harmful beliefs that one can hold, but when a portion of society have been disenfranchised, denied access to basic education, and been abused and neglected by the same governmental and media institutions they're supposed to trust, what else can we expect?

People can thumb their noses all they want at a poor person who genuinely believes that a COVID vaccine will kill them or that the GOP have the solution to their poverty, but it seems to me that beliefs don't originate in a vacuum. Moralizing and invariably attributing such people's disillusionment to some condemnable ignorance doesn't help when under different circumstances, many of them would have markedly different worldviews.

I saw this first-hand when I was in the army. A fellow conscript from a rural area, who was illiterate, said that one of his biggest wishes was to be able to read and write. Expectedly, he also had religiously conservative views per the norm in his largely poor rural area.

Blaming him for being "uneducated" would simply miss the point. Of course he is; nobody is born with a master's or a PhD. This is someone the education system, social security, and society at large have largely failed. Realistically, is he going to be a religious conservative, or is he going to listen to liberals in suits and air-conditioned lecture halls talking about how ignorant and reprehensible he and people like him are for having the views that they do?

I feel like some liberals could benefit from studying and understanding the social, economic, and political conditions that shape people's perspectives instead of clinging to a one-dimensional narrative that moralizes more than it makes an effort to realistically analyze why and how people hold the beliefs that they do--and how to go about changing the problematic aspects thereof in a practical way.

Discuss.

Is there any evidence that poorer people hold rightwing views in greater proportion than middle income or rich people? In USA non-college educated people need not be poor.

 

[VoidCat]

I think certain liberals do this, while certain conservatives look down on poor folks as "lazy." It appears to be a class issue rather than political.

Reminds me of one of my high schools I went to. I grew up poor and at the time I lived in an area where a lot of rich folk. This school was mostly filled with rich folk. I meanwhile lived with my grandma who wasn't rich she just lived on Social security. I over heard these students brag to each other about how much their shoes costed. One of them said they had shoes that were over $160. They were making fun of poor folk talking smack about them. They assumed I was rich cuz I was riding the bus with them and most the rich folk lived in the same gated community I did. They asked me how much my shoes costed. Well. I always shopped for my clothes at consignment shops and I never had spent more than 30 bucks on shoes. In fact the shoes I was wearing I got free at a garbage dump.

My response? "I got these at a garbage dump free. They fit quite well I don't see the point in buying another pair at this point. I can't imagine buying shoes for $160 seems wasteful and not a flex but hey you do you."
They shut up immediately.
I think I'd agree with you it's more of a class issue not a political one cuz that wasn't the only situation I been in like that.

 

[Stevicus]

Is there any evidence that poorer people hold rightwing views in greater proportion than middle income or rich people? In USA non-college educated people need not be poor.

I've seen some threads citing studies which suggest that liberals tend to be better educated and/or more intelligent than conservatives. I'm not sure I buy into such notions myself, and I'm also not sure about the evidence used to support such conclusions.

But I've seen it quite often where someone might suggest that people hold right-wing views because they're uneducated and ignorant. Or it might be observed that they're rural folk who live in the hills, suggesting that they're socially isolated and unsophisticated, not like the big city folk who become liberals.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

One big difference between the uneducated people and educated liberals, in the USA, are the educated liberals have huge student debts to go along with their "higher education credentials". They were told to eat the seed potato, learning how to be pretentious.

One of the ironies I see is that educated Liberals boast about their education, but they are the first to censor people who do not agree with them. If they were intelligent, instead of just educated or indoctrinated, they would enjoy the creative challenges offered by free speech. Instead they do their best to prevent free speech, less free speech betray their lack of open minded ingenuity that better education can provide.

I tend to think Educated Liberals are pretentious. This explains why they claim to know best, but never seem to fix anything. Instead they tend to create new problems that did not exist, before they meddled.

The Left runs the education system in the USA. During Obama, the Liberals pushed to increased enrollment into colleges at the expense of the trades. This increased demand for higher education goods and services and drove up the costs leading to huge student debt. Those in the trades, may not have the credentials, but they also have no college debt and many are now working on their summer homes. The latter are being asked to help the educated deal with their debt through the tax payers. Who was smarter?

The "smart" people are not even smart enough to follow the money connected to their student debt. If they had half a brain they would see it ended up in the coffers of the universities and not in the tax payer's wallet. Yet their solution is to steal from the tax payer and not go after those who have their money. They were conned by other educated Liberals who offer an injustice solution.

It appears the Liberals universities are training con artists and thieves. They can't even see through the scams coming from their own kind.

Currently there is a melt down over Twitter allowing free speech under new management. This will make it harder to pretend to be smart. If you are the only show in town, even a poor show is entertaining. Now they will now need to demonstrate intelligence and self reliance in the field, which is not being taught in Liberal Education.

Hey four "free speeches" in a broken tirade. That makes bingo!

Anyway, university isn't at the expense of trade. And trade schools (run by either party) have plenty of records of predatory tuition, too. There were big lawsuits that sunk a bunch of for-profit trade schools not long ago. And both Democrats and Republicans alike in office have been ramping up state licensing requirements that requires more schooling (and thus more money) in partnership with both public and private for profit schools.

The problem of student debt and low social escalation due to inaccessibility to higher schoolinv required fields isn't 'pretentious liberals,' since the problem alao exists in Republican controlled states and areas. It's uncontrolled capitalistic greed. And something that doesn't exist in countries which don't allow maximally profit driven schooling, and give everyone low or no cost access to college.

This is why so many doctors in the US are made up of migrants, btw. Get cheaper but no less high quality med school in another country then move to the US witbout crippling student debt.

And, again, if anyone actually thinks Elon Musk cares about making Twitter a free speech haven I have some dogecoin to sell them. But it's super ironic going off about pretentious liberals and buying the free speech narrative without bothering to do the barest bit of research.

 

[Debater Slayer]

So is it many liberals or just a sub set?

A subset, which is still many. Liberals are quite a large group.

Also, you seem to admonish this group of liberals for pointing out that uneducated people make poor choices while then agreeing with them.

I agree on the unsoundness of some choices. This doesn't mean I hold contempt for everyone who makes them: sometimes they're a result of malice and prejudice, and sometimes they're merely an expected outcome of certain socioeconomic conditions.

Finally, it is not only the uneducated and poor that believe "the Covid vaccine will kill them or the GOP can solve poverty."

I know. Nowhere did I state that.

I think the "liberals" you references are frustrated with anyone who does not share their same values or goals, exactly the same way every other human being on this planet does, regardless of their politics or economic status.

The expressions of this frustration vary and sometimes have different stated reasons as well. I'm often interested in exploring those, whether for liberals, conservatives, or any other group.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I perceived that the OP was referring to a commonly used tactic of ridicule and mockery which generally tends to attack the person or group rather than the ideas or arguments under discussion. I'm not sure what you mean by "liberals" in this context, however, in my own observation and experience, I've seen liberals change from what they once were. It's not because they're "liberals," but because the culture and direction of the country have changed, and liberals along with it.

I put the word "liberal" in quotes to specifically reference the OP's use of the term and his intended meaning.

Are the terms liberal and conservative even that useful? In the United States, what percentage of the population would fall under the label of liberal, and of those so labeled, how uniform would their political beliefs be?

I can't really speak to the usefulness of the terms like liberal and conservative. I think the OP was referring to those who self-identify as liberals. I think it's mainly just related to observations of certain trends in public rhetoric and debate where some people might be upper class and also liberal feel the need to rub the ignorant hillbillies' noses in the dirt. It's a common trope in political mudslinging these days, as it has been for quite a number of years.

It doesn't necessarily speak to the point of what percentage of the population would be liberal, nor would it imply uniformity of political beliefs. I don't believe it's as cut-and-dried as that. It's more of a spectrum of beliefs, along with varying degrees of emphasis on different beliefs and goals. But I've heard it said that people tend to vote more based on what they fear than upon what they love.

And this is likely true on both sides of the spectrum, as both sides have their own sets of fears about the other side. I don't know how many people this affects, but it's enough to be noticeable.

@Stevicus is correct in pointing out that my intended usage in the OP refers to a subset of self-identified liberals. As far as I can see, the label encompasses a wide variety of people, from advocates of social democracy to die-hard advocates of capitalism. Here, I'm pointing out a specific approach toward poor people rather than the specific beliefs of said subset of liberals in other areas.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Tis always a good idea to avoid believing & saying
nasty prejudicial things about people based upon
the group one has deemed them part of.

This is far broader than just liberals.

It seems to be a universal human issue, for sure. I'm often interested in seeing what the reasoning behind it is for different groups, including liberals and conservatives.

 

[Koldo]

No not at all.

They are people who earn slave wages, or poor disability or SS payments.

They can't afford the extravagantly high rents in the nation so they opted for living in their vehicles on a permanent basis and actually keep some of their money rather than having it grabbed away by others.


It's something I will do myself as a contingency plan if things go south for me.

Van life and RF living is a viable alternative for those who are poor and or find themselves in a homeless situation. Many are happy and can even have the ability for saving money.

I'm very intrigued by minimalist and off grid living and it's not as bad of a life as people think. I lived out of my truck for many years OTR.

But then you are not talking about people that desire to live off the grid...

 

[Twilight Hue]

But then you are not talking about people that desire to live off the grid...

I'm talking about both. Those that want to and those that don't.

 

[Debater Slayer]

As a self-identified liberal I feel looked down upon, stereotyped and dismissed unfairly by @Debater Slayer 's characterizing liberals if we were all the same with the same intellectual and emotional faults. This is what I expect from Trump supporters and MAGA bigots.

Referring to the OP, I worded it thus:

Is it just me, or do many self-identified liberals seem to look down on poor people and others from communities who have low or no access to education?

Almost every time there's a major event such as the pandemic, U.S. elections, or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I see a subset of liberals quickly blame the "uneducated and ignorant" people who hold certain views about a given event.

Now, make no mistake: there are absolutely many misinformed, inaccurate, and/or downright harmful beliefs that one can hold, but when a portion of society have been disenfranchised, denied access to basic education, and been abused and neglected by the same governmental and media institutions they're supposed to trust, what else can we expect?

People can thumb their noses all they want at a poor person who genuinely believes that a COVID vaccine will kill them or that the GOP have the solution to their poverty, but it seems to me that beliefs don't originate in a vacuum. Moralizing and invariably attributing such people's disillusionment to some condemnable ignorance doesn't help when under different circumstances, many of them would have markedly different worldviews.

I saw this first-hand when I was in the army. A fellow conscript from a rural area, who was illiterate, said that one of his biggest wishes was to be able to read and write. Expectedly, he also had religiously conservative views per the norm in his largely poor rural area.

Blaming him for being "uneducated" would simply miss the point. Of course he is; nobody is born with a master's or a PhD. This is someone the education system, social security, and society at large have largely failed. Realistically, is he going to be a religious conservative, or is he going to listen to liberals in suits and air-conditioned lecture halls talking about how ignorant and reprehensible he and people like him are for having the views that they do?

I feel like some liberals could benefit from studying and understanding the social, economic, and political conditions that shape people's perspectives instead of clinging to a one-dimensional narrative that moralizes more than it makes an effort to realistically analyze why and how people hold the beliefs that they do--and how to go about changing the problematic aspects thereof in a practical way.

Discuss.

Every single instance of referring to the specific attitudes I'm talking about is qualified with "some," "many," "a subset," etc. I'm not sure where you saw the stereotyping, characterizing, or looking down upon liberals as a group in general, especially considering that my own positions often lean closely toward liberalism in a lot of ways.

Tagging @Secret Chief in this clarification post, as the rating on your post makes me believe you both might have understood it differently than I intended it. Hopefully pointing out the qualifiers I used as well as what I intended to communicate clears that up.

 

[Revoltingest]

It seems to be a universal human issue, for sure. I'm often interested in seeing what the reasoning behind it is for different groups, including liberals and conservatives.

I've observed that there's no reasoning at all.
It starts with prejudice, & is then rationalized
with mistaken impressions & bias confirmation.

 

[Koldo]

I'm talking about both. Those that want to and those that don't.

It is one thing to desire to live in a car. Quite another to be pretty much forced to live in a car.

 

[Twilight Hue]

It is one thing to desire to live in a car. Quite another to be pretty much forced to live in a car.

The point is, there is a viable way to survive without it being a waking nightmare.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Here in the U.S the illiberals use Black deaths as a political tool to support their anti gun proposals even though Black women are the most at risk.
The poor they seem to see as illiterate and disposable other than a useful and malleable vote, a perfect example is when Joe Biden, a White millionaire politician proclaimed if you didn't vote for him then "you ain't Black". Merriam Webster describes "ain't" as a word that is regularly used by the less educated.
This is what they think of you

Who are the "illiberals"? Are they a specific percentage of self-identified liberals, or do they include anyone who disagrees with a conservative worldview? Your other posts attacking the left and liberals don't make the above statements sound nuanced or based on evidence at all.

 

[Debater Slayer]

They do. Look how they treat nomads and those who desire to live off grid cheaper and remove themselves from society.

How do they treat them, and who are "they"? From the occasional instances I've seen of someone expressing desire to live off the grid, a lot of the support they've gotten has been from people who lean environmentalist, and many of those are quite liberal.

 

[Debater Slayer]

One big difference between the uneducated people and educated liberals, in the USA, are the educated liberals have huge student debts to go along with their "higher education credentials". They were told to eat the seed potato, learning how to be pretentious.

One of the ironies I see is that educated Liberals boast about their education, but they are the first to censor people who do not agree with them. If they were intelligent, instead of just educated or indoctrinated, they would enjoy the creative challenges offered by free speech. Instead they do their best to prevent free speech, less free speech betray their lack of open minded ingenuity that better education can provide.

I tend to think Educated Liberals are pretentious. This explains why they claim to know best, but never seem to fix anything. Instead they tend to create new problems that did not exist, before they meddled.

The Left runs the education system in the USA. During Obama, the Liberals pushed to increased enrollment into colleges at the expense of the trades. This increased demand for higher education goods and services and drove up the costs leading to huge student debt. Those in the trades, may not have the credentials, but they also have no college debt and many are now working on their summer homes. The latter are being asked to help the educated deal with their debt through the tax payers. Who was smarter?

The "smart" people are not even smart enough to follow the money connected to their student debt. If they had half a brain they would see it ended up in the coffers of the universities and not in the tax payer's wallet. Yet their solution is to steal from the tax payer and not go after those who have their money. They were conned by other educated Liberals who offer an injustice solution.

It appears the Liberals universities are training con artists and thieves. They can't even see through the scams coming from their own kind.

Currently there is a melt down over Twitter allowing free speech under new management. This will make it harder to pretend to be smart. If you are the only show in town, even a poor show is entertaining. Now they will now need to demonstrate intelligence and self reliance in the field, which is not being taught in Liberal Education.

Your post started by creating this group called "educated liberals," which basically can be taken to mean anyone with a college degree and liberal leanings, and then expanded that to bash "liberal universities" (whatever that is supposed to mean) even though it's demonstrably incorrect that they "train con artists and thieves." If that were the case, the U.S. would have millions of "con artists and thieves" graduating from its universities, which is so factually incorrect as to not even need consideration.

As for Twitter and "free speech," I will simply echo what I've said in other threads about that:

No, I don't believe Musk's aim is to "liberate" Twitter. In general, he has demonstrated that he doesn't uphold free speech when he doesn't like its results:

Elon Musk ruthlessly cleaned house of any Tesla workers who disagreed or got in his way, a new book says

Elon Musk calls British diver in Thai cave rescue 'pedo' in baseless attack

This story is also reported both in conservative- and liberal-leaning sources:

Tesla fired an employee after he posted driverless tech reviews on YouTube

Tesla employee fired after driverless tech YouTube reviews

I don't use Twitter and believe it has always been toxic, so I don't care much about this news. I only hope that the acquisition doesn't allow one individual to exert disproportionate or harmful influence on social and political discourse through his wealth. This specific situation wouldn't be the first instance of such even if that happened, though.

I also believe a few of the notions of "free speech" commonly touted in American politics, especially by conservatives, are fundamentally flawed and unrealistic.

 

[Twilight Hue]

How do they treat them, and who are "they"? From the occasional instances I've seen of someone expressing desire to live off the grid, a lot of the support they've gotten has been from people who lean environmentalist, and many of those are quite liberal.

Try buying a plot of land in New York or just about any Blue state and try living permanently off grid in your RV or Trailer.

The Democrats will have the authorities at your doorstep in a heartbeat. Fine or even jail you.