And Worse Than Merely Anti-Intellectual
The Encyclopedia Britannica explains that “The scientific method is critical to the development of scientific theories, which explain empirical (experiential) laws in a scientifically rational manner. In a typical application of the scientific method, a researcher develops a hypothesis, tests it through various means, and then modifies the hypothesis on the basis of the outcome of the tests and experiments. The modified hypothesis is then retested, further modified, and tested again, until it becomes consistent with observed phenomena and testing outcomes. In this way, hypotheses serve as tools by which scientists gather data. From that data and the many different scientific investigations undertaken to explore hypotheses, scientists are able to develop broad general explanations, or scientific theories.” Civilization and civilizational progress are based on it. In 2022, the opposite could be summed top in one word: QAnon… or, if you’d prefer: GOP.
Baseless conspiracy theories don’t move civilization forward; quite the contrary. And that sums up reactionary movements the world over— and all through history. In this morning’s Washington Post, Theodoric Meyer, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Tobi Raji reported about the yawning gap between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to education.
The trio of reporters began in Wisconsin, noting that "When Democrat Tony Evers defeated Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2018, he won Dane County overwhelmingly. When Evers won reelection earlier this month, though, he did even better: He carried Dane— Wisconsin’s second most populous county— with 79 percent of the vote, up from 75 percent four years earlier. The shift might seem slight, but it reflects a significant political realignment, as voters with college degrees nationwide move toward Democrats and those without them gravitate toward Republicans."
Wisconsin, which promises to be a hard-fought battleground once again in 2024, offers a case study of this trend.
Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has a higher share of residents 25 and older who hold at least a bachelor’s degree than any other county in Wisconsin and all but 48 other counties in the country. It’s one of many highly educated counties that shifted a little further in Democrats’ direction this year, continuing a trend that’s been playing out for years:
President Biden won Dane County with 75 percent of the vote in 2020 after Hillary Clinton carried it with 70 percent in 2016.
Democrat Mandela Barnes won 77 percent of the vote in Dane County this year in his race against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson; former Democratic senator Russ Feingold carried the county with 72 percent of the vote when he lost to Johnson in 2016.
“Dane County has done a stunning triple axel of having higher and higher turnout, higher and higher Democratic vote margins and larger and larger populations for multiple cycles running,” said Wisconsin Democratic Chairman Ben Wikler. “Every cycle I think we must be hitting the ceiling and I’m proven wrong.”
The pattern is the same in Ozaukee County, a Republican stronghold in the Milwaukee suburbs that has the second-highest share of college-educated voters in the state. Evers won 44 percent of the vote there, up from 36 percent four years ago.
In rural, less educated counties, the opposite happened.
Evers lost Grant, Richland and Crawford counties in southwestern Wisconsin this year after winning them in 2018. Fewer than 24 percent of residents 25 and older hold bachelor’s degrees in each county, compared with more than 52 percent in Dane County and nearly 50 percent in Ozaukee County.
Voters without college degrees make up a much bigger share of the electorate than voters with them, “so Democrats have to be able to do well with non-college-educated voters to be able to win in Wisconsin,” Wikler said. “And Gov. Evers does.”
A nationwide trend
The midterms offered fresh evidence that voters with bachelor's degrees and those without them are diverging.
In the 2018 midterms, 56 percent of voters with college degrees and 51 percent of voters without them voted for Democrats, according to the Associated Press’ VoteCast survey— a gap of five percentage points.
This year, the gap widened to 10 points: 52 percent of voters with college degrees supported Democrats while 42 percent of voters without degrees did so. The split echoed the gap between college-educated and non-college-educated voters’ support for Biden in 2020.
Voters with and without college degrees were more likely to support Republicans this year than in 2018— a stronger year for Democrats. But voters without college degrees shifted more sharply toward the GOP than college-educated ones across racial and gender lines:
White voters without degrees moved seven points toward Republicans this year, while college-educated ones moved three points
Black voters without degrees moved eight points toward Republicans this year, while college-educated ones moved four points
Latino voters without degrees moved 10 points toward Republicans this year, while college-educated ones moved five points
Men without degrees moved seven points toward Republicans this year, while college-educated men moved one point
Women without degrees moved eight points toward Republicans this year, while college-educated women moved seven points
Non-college-educated voters’ increasing willingness to back Republicans didn’t prevent Democrats from holding the Senate or limiting Republicans’ gains in the House, but Republicans are hopeful they’ll have a bigger impact in future elections.
Republicans’ inroads with Hispanic voters “may only matter in a few districts, but it will matter in some important states in 2024,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster who is working on a book on the party’s gains with working-class voters.
...Meanwhile, the trend was apparent in highly educated counties across the country this year:
Johnson County, Kan.: Democrats Rep. Sharice Davids won reelection by 12 points in her district in the Kansas City suburbs, a much bigger margin than she expected. (More than 80 percent of her constituents live in Johnson County.) Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly won the county with 59 percent of the vote, up from 55 percent in 2018, helping her win a tight reelection race. And Republican Sen. Jerry Moran lost the county to his underfunded Democratic challenger, six years after carrying it with 55 percent of the vote.
Hamilton County, Ind.: When former Democratic senator Evan Bayh ran against Republican Rep. Todd C. Young to reclaim his old seat in 2016, he won 36 percent of the vote in this county in the Indianapolis suburbs. When Democrat Tom McDermott challenged Young this year, he won 41 percent of the vote in Hamilton County despite spending a fraction of what Bayh did.
Douglas County, Colo.: Democratic Gov. Jared Polis nearly won this Republican bastion in the Denver suburbs this year after winning less than 41 percent of the vote there in 2018. “That was shocking to me,” said Angela Taylor, the Democratic county chairwoman. “I will tell you, it was shocking.”
Polis’s margin of victory helped Democrat Robert Marshall narrowly defeat a Republican state representative. Marshall, a former Marine Corps lawyer, is emblematic of the county’s shift: A former Republican, he refused to vote for Donald Trump in 2016 and quit the party a year later. Last year, he became a Democrat.
