Basement Whatever

About a political group underrepresented in the Trope Land of garbage that passes as major media discourse these days:

For a full decade now, American society has been discussing either the Ivy League elites who have lost touch with salt-of-the-earth Americans or the hoi polloi themselves; those denizens of Rust Belt towns slowly collapsing under the weight of globalization and shifting demographics…But we haven’t talked a lot about a very large, influential, and important segment of American society: the state school upper middle class.

And

In inflation-adjusted terms, this cohort earns slightly more on a per-household level than their socio-cultural ancestors. With that money, they can afford to live a life that’s similarly slightly better in relative terms. What I mean by that is that the level of expectations, in terms of the lifestyle you can afford on your income, have moved in parallel with the rising standard of living….

And

That sense of doing okay is an important component of analyzing this group of people because it informs their worldview. Their reality meets expectations; the life they expect to have is the life they do have.

And

They want stability, consistency, and competence. Moreover, the ideas that the state school upper middle class exhibit in their lived experience—marriage, children, stable employment, education—that used to be associated with red-leaning voters are now likely to be found among reluctant, unenthusiastic Kamala Harris voters.

And

the state school upper middle class may not be the elites who set trends and determine morals, they are the ones who make up a large share of home purchases across the country, they are the ones to whom corporations pander, they are the ones who can break the tie in an off-season election. In short, these people are important, and I get the sense that, due to their relatively silent existence, they are being underdiscussed in the intellectual space.

Interesting, and I agree we don’t hear much about this group. More here.