Rockefeller GOP I solute you in your cause of disproving the democrats propaganda that the majority of republican voters are poor uneducated whites.
True. Also, keep in mind Evangelicals of virtually all education levels (I suppose I'm not sure about PHD's) tend to vote Republican. There are far too many simplifications along the lines of "The GOP is just uneducated rural white rednecks," even though it certainly has a degree of truth to it.
I think what's annoying to many is that 1) it's still not that true at all, and 2) Democrats have been pushing that narrative for a LONG time, starting way back when it DEFINITELY wasn't true (2000 and earlier).
Good point. For sure, before 2000, that narrative was quite silly, when states like Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee were backing Clinton. Now, it still is pretty silly because it ignores the nuances of different types of suburbs (exurbs vs inner suburbs) as well as the surprising conservatism of the urban white vote south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Nonetheless, it's not hard to see how the stereotype emerged. The media and major academic institutions have been liberal for a
long time. Furthermore, a lot of "latte liberal" upscale areas have also voted Democratic for quite some time (Upper West Side, Seattle, Bay Area, etc.), which exert a disproportional influence on our culture. A lot of folks in those spots may have noticed less-educated, more working-class, and more Republican rural folks miles away and extrapolated into unreasonable conclusions that hold up less in other parts of the country (for instance, income is strongly correlated with Republican voting in Texas, but in media-heavy areas like Virginia and a lot of the left coast, this hasn't been the case).
The other thing is that the "uneducated" stereotype seems to only really apply among whites. In more "liberal" areas, the perception is that even among white males, the only conservatives are those who are without a college degree and from a rural area or are Evangelical, or both. Among older white males, the lean is GOP even at high education levels.
