Are you a Democratic Elite who lost America to Trump?
Take this easy test
Jeffrey Denny
“Democratic Elites Blame Everyone But Themselves for Historic Collapse,” goes a headline in the progressive In These Times magazine.
The “political and media class” of party brass and corporate consultants instead blame the victims, such as transgender people, immigrants, powerless minority groups, and wokism, the piece declares.
Ouch. As a moderate-left college-educated professional, in Washington no less, I may be one of those horrible Democratic elites, even if I don’t blame the marginalized for Trump. It especially stings to be shamed by a publication that’s funded, led, and written by elite college-educated professionals with superior values.
But if we want to save America, let’s set aside our internecine fragging that leaves the Democratic party powerless, leaderless, rudderless, and hapless, and unite around our shared elite values:
— We’re smarter, more enlightened, more humanistic, and care more about democracy than most Americans. They voted for Trump! Twice!
— We have few, if any, working- or middle-class Americans among our friends or colleagues, and certainly no Trump voters, over half of America.
— We get most of our information, understanding, and opinion about the working and middle-class, and the public policies they need, from research, studies, academics, speakers at our panels and roundtables, nonprofit advocacy organizations we support, and, like MAGAs, from our media that feed our views.
— We worry that Trump tariffs are driving up food prices for working families. But we never shop for low prices or buy store brands at their corporate grocery chains. Or notice a dollar or two. We prefer the often more expensive Trader Joe’s, farmers’ markets, specialty food shops, and sometimes — gasp! — even Whole Foods (while denouncing its greedy, Trump-complicit, press-censoring, worker-hurting billionaire owner). From our food emporiums to our hot restaurants and delivery, we somehow can afford to pay top dollar to eat better than most Americans.
— We politicize everything.
— We hate Chick-fil-A. We hate that people love it, especially when our Gen Zs do.
— We hate cars. Even if we eventually need them to cart our kids to a multitude of activities we’ve signed them up for so they can succeed in this highly competitive society and economy, and wonder why they’re so anxious.
— We feel guilty about driving. We shouldn’t need to, since our costly urban villages have high walkability scores, ample public transit, and networks of rarely used bike lanes. All of which we demanded for ourselves.
— We care deeply about affordable housing. We say “All Are Welcome” to our communities. But once we own a home, we bitterly fight housing progressives and NIMBY against more housing. We pull every lever in the democratic process, which we enjoy and we’re skilled at thanks to our overabundance of lawyers, regulators, and retired policy experts with time, experience, and expertise lying fallow.
— We get huffy that we’re not NIMBYs. We have powerful studies, rhetoric, yard signs, and a protest playbook to combat the threat the housing poses to our children, the climate, and the character of the community.
— We turn our private interests into public interests so we don’t seem selfish but instead selfless for fighting threats to the community. We love to say community. Even if we barely know our neighbors.
— We believe in social justice. We backed defunding the police after the murder of George Floyd. But adult Democratic elites living in wealthy, mostly white urban communities get huffy with the police for failing to stop a rash of robberies, carjacking, and organized gangs sweeping our favorite stores, which happens a lot less there. Their progressive kids fear the police who protect them.
— We despise Trump and his rapacious billionaire economic policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. However, as high earners in high-tax Blue states, we don’t mind the windfall from the Trump tax bill, which quadrupled our state and local tax deduction.
— We worry about climate change. We take pride in flying to climate conferences. To compensate, we install $50,000 solar systems on our $1–5 million, 3,000-4,000-square-foot homes and spend an additional $300,000 to make them net-zero, just like our vacation homes. Unlike the working class, which can’t afford all that, we save thousands of dollars a year on utilities. On gas too because our homes charge our $100,000 Tesla Model X Plaids.
— We feel guilty about the Tesla because, you know, Musk. However, we put a “Here for zero emissions, not Elon” sticker on it to keep greenwashing.
— We believe Europe does everything better. We agree when Europeans call Americans stupid. We’d rather live in Europe. The lovely parts, where we vacation, visit for climate conferences, or did senior year abroad, not the ugly parts like Charleroi, Belgium.
— We don’t mention that living in Europe means giving up our 4,000 square foot homes, most of our 6–7 figure incomes to higher taxes, and premium concierge medical services with top specialists and private hospitals.
— We struggle, stress, and spend like the dickens, pull out every stop, and tap every personal or professional connection, to get our kids into exclusive $60,000/year private schools so they can get into top $100,000/year exclusive private colleges for a degree to write for In These Times. Then, because they’re entering the worst job market in history, we pay their exorbitant Brooklyn rent until they’re over 30, when we put money down for their first home.
— We worry about elite privilege and the widening U.S. economic divide as we perpetuate it.
— We sigh when our kids declare they’re socialists and sneer at late-stage capitalism’s extreme inequality, commodification, and corporate power. Which they learned about in college.
Being an elite Democrat, old or young, moderate or progressive, isn’t easy. There’s always someone blaming you for Trump.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
