Effort:Success divide in our politics?

[ProgressiveModerate]

This is something that is hard to quantify, but I feel is generally true anecdotally; I'd be curious if someone has data to back this up (or challenge it).

Basically my theory is that those who achieve more financial success than you'd expect given their "effort" tend to lean R, whereas those who have underwhelming financial circumstances given their "effort" lean D. Logically, this sort of makes sense, since traditionally a large part of conservative messaging is "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" and personal responsibility. If you are someone who achieved financial success with relative ease, you might not actually realize how much easier your path was compared to others and can't imagine why others can't do the same. It's not because you're a bad person, but because you have no other frame of reference than your own life experience

"Effort" basically means how much someone invested in education/acquiring unique skills.

https://www.zippia.com/advice/democratic-vs-republican-jobs/ - This is the data I'm using for reference. Imperfect but should help give a general sense.

Perhaps college becoming more expensive for the relative financial return is part of the reason college educated voters as a whole have been shifting left. Especially in humanities fields where the educational investment - financial sucess ratio is pretty low. There are jobs where you need education that still lean R, but they tend to have extremely good financial returns such as CFO, certain types of doctors, and finance/real estate investor.

Some might argue this is just the education divide but I beg to differ. What I'm saying is that if you have 2 people who invest equally in their education, but one ends up with 10 times the income of the other, then they're significantly more likely to lean R.

I think this also explains why a lot of the ultra-wealthy suburban communities didn't really shift much to the left and still lean notably more right than their 100k-200k counterparts.

EDIT: I also want to make clear, this thread is not to say Republicans are lazier than Dems or anything. It could just be Conservatives tend to be more strategic with their career path orienting it for money, or financial success is more important to a conservative person than a liberal.

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

https://www.zippia.com/advice/democratic-vs-republican-jobs/ - This is the data I'm using for reference. Imperfect but should help give a general sense.

Nice to have a 2023 version of this. Interesting that founder/CEO is 71-29 D while orthodontist has a typo in the chart and is 71-29 R in the data table

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://www.zippia.com/advice/democratic-vs-republican-jobs/ - This is the data I'm using for reference. Imperfect but should help give a general sense.

Nice to have a 2023 version of this. Interesting that both orthodontist and founder/CEO are now 71-29 D…

It seems like a lot of these doctor careers where you can make good money and even start your own practice tend to lean R. Surgeons leaning R is def interesting, but perhaps that's because Surgeons lean more male, namely men who can handle gore.

The divide between CEOs (heavily D) and CFOs (moderate R) is also interesting. I wonder if this could be in part due to the fact there are a ton of small businesses that just don't have CFOs - I'd be curious if there's a relationship between business size and CEO's political leanings.

[WalterWhite]

https://www.zippia.com/advice/democratic-vs-republican-jobs/ - This is the data I'm using for reference. Imperfect but should help give a general sense.

Nice to have a 2023 version of this. Interesting that both orthodontist and founder/CEO are now 71-29 D…

That's the crazy thing to me. Suregon, Optmisitrist, Urologist, ect are actually R leaning while Orthodonists lean heavily D.

The divide between CEOs (heavily D) and CFOs (moderate R) is also interesting. I wonder if this could be in part due to the fact there are a ton of small businesses that just don't have CFOs - I'd be curious if there's a relationship between business size and CEO's political leanings.

I thought CEOs would be a Safe R demographic

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://www.zippia.com/advice/democratic-vs-republican-jobs/ - This is the data I'm using for reference. Imperfect but should help give a general sense.

Nice to have a 2023 version of this. Interesting that both orthodontist and founder/CEO are now 71-29 D…

That's the crazy thing to me. Suregon, Optmisitrist, Urologist, ect are actually R leaning while Orthodonists lean heavily D.

The divide between CEOs (heavily D) and CFOs (moderate R) is also interesting. I wonder if this could be in part due to the fact there are a ton of small businesses that just don't have CFOs - I'd be curious if there's a relationship between business size and CEO's political leanings.

I thought CEOs would be a Safe R demographic

I think it's prolly because most CEOs aren't actually the head of some giant finance company. Anyone who is the head of a company or small business can be considered a CEO, but def still more D-leaning than I expected.

[WalterWhite]

Wait...blue-collar jobs are leaning Republican and white-collar jobs are leaning Democratic? I thought it would be the opposite. (Blue-collar workers are generally less affluent than white-collar workers.)

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

Wait...blue-collar jobs are leaning Republican and white-collar jobs are leaning Democratic? I thought it would be the opposite. (Blue-collar workers are generally less affluent than white-collar workers.)

GOP is the middle income + 1% party, Dems are the lower income + professional class party.

Michael Lind also has an interesting theory of a double horseshoe class structure:

https://twitter.com/notmusa2/status/1491185465286098948?s=20

[pikachu]

I don’t buy those CEO numbers. The definition of CEO is either way too expansive or the data is bad. Intuitively, a demographic that’s mostly Gen X white men being >70% D doesn’t make sense. Analysis of the donations of S&P 500 CEOs shows they lean heavily Republican and I don’t see the logic of why that wouldn’t continue as you go down the revenue chain and management has less reason to care about publicity. Same with an analysis of the C-Suite, which shows a 69-31 R advantage.

[Skill and Chance]

I don’t buy those CEO numbers. The definition of CEO is either way too expansive or the data is bad. Intuitively, a demographic that’s mostly Gen X white men being >70% D doesn’t make sense. Analysis of the donations of S&P 500 CEOs shows they lean heavily Republican and I don’t see the logic of why that wouldn’t continue as you go down the revenue school and management has less reason to care about publicity. Same with an analysis of the C-Suite, which shows a 69-31 R advantage.

This has to be a ton of random self-employed people netting near the median income from their work calling themselves "CEO", right?

[Skill and Chance]

I don't actually think this is true.  Among wealthy people, heirs lean way more left than the 1st generation rich.  A lot of the lower-earning college grads also fit this paradigm in a lesser way because their lives tend to be heavily subsidized by UMC parents/grandparents/spouses.  Indeed, perhaps they felt confident choosing a lower-earning career path for this reason.

When it comes to having money, "What did I do to deserve this?" = left, while "I busted my butt for 25 years to build this business!" and "I never once ate in a restaurant until I had paid off my 6 figure school debt and saved up enough to buy a house in NYC" = right.