Commenter Twinkie disputes the assertion that the rapid increase among liberal whites in support for preferential job treatment for blacks at the expense of whites is necessarily indicative of ethnomasochism. White elites tend to be liberal. They compete with Asians and with high-achieving whites from working and middle class (and relatively conservative) backgrounds. They don’t compete with blacks or Hispanics, so they aren’t hurt by pro-black affirmative action like Asians and white plebs are.

My initial reaction was to point out the obvious–even though many white elites are liberal, most white liberals are not elites. But as Twinkie insinuates, it is middle and upper class white liberals who are extraordinarily supportive of black preferential treatment. Liberal whites of more modest means don’t much care for it. The following graph shows support by class and by political orientation among non-Hispanic whites during The Great Awokening:

In Red State Blue State Rich State Poor State, professor and statistician Andrew Gelman pointed out that the culture war was primarily a conflict between local elites in red states and cosmopolitan elites in blue states (see my exchange with him about a potential confounding variable his work overlooked here).

The book was written in mid-2008, before Barack Obama’s trouncing of the late John McCain, so he should be cut some slack for failing to anticipate the largest fissures in the cultural landscape of 2019 America. He was writing about a different country in a different era.

And besides, he wasn’t all wrong. To the contrary, his insight is spot on in the context of this post. The gulf between white leftist elites and white conservative elites is enormous. Even though the upper class sample is small (211), the distinctions are clearly sharp.

GSS variables used: AFFRMACT(1-2)(3-4), RACECEN1(1), HISPANIC(1), YEAR(2012-2018), CLASS