I'm going to start republishing some posts here in the forum that were originally on my now closed culture and politics website. This was originally published October 26, 2019.

In Think Republicans are disconnected from reality? It’s even worse among liberals from The Guardian, there are several interesting nuggets. (Then the article devolves into a lament for the sad and oppressed liberal elites who are struggling to cope with the current state of the country. But we work with what we can get around here.)

The article cites information from a recent study by the think tank More in Common. The Perception Gap tried to determine how accurately Democrats and Republicans could assess the beliefs of the other side. You can click over and see lots of charts and graphs if you enjoy that kind of thing. The results are quite interesting, but one statistic stands out.

First, they point out this:

But what’s startling is the further finding that higher education does not improve a person’s perceptions – and sometimes even hurts it. In their survey answers, highly educated Republicans were no more accurate in their ideas about Democratic opinion than poorly educated Republicans. For Democrats, the education effect was even worse: the more educated a Democrat is, according to the study, the less he or she understands the Republican worldview.

And then this very significant nugget:

“This effect,” the report says, “is so strong that Democrats without a high school diploma are three times more accurate than those with a postgraduate degree.” And the more politically engaged a person is, the greater the distortion.

Why is this so important?

Think about it.

Who is driving the news cycle? Who is running the main media outlets? The major newspapers? They are almost exclusively run by highly educated Democrats, most of whom are probably very politically engaged.

In other words, the people who are by and large responsible for the 24/7 political and cultural narrative in this country have absolutely no idea how to portray the beliefs of people who are from the other party.

This is why they were completely gobsmacked the night of the 2016 election. They never saw it coming because they completely lack the ability to accurately assess the other side with fairness and empathy. This is why they were on the air saying stupid things about a “whitelash” and suggesting that people who voted for President Trump hate people of other colors, etc. They were truly clueless as to the real reasons people voted for President Trump.

They never cared to research the Trump rallies during the election cycle. They never took Trump supporters seriously. And yet according to this study, the average Democrat without a high school diploma was probably three times more likely to see this coming than the highly educated Democrat elites who spend endless hours on television, in print, and online telling us how things work politically in this country.

And what about the incessant yammering from morally superior liberals about everyone getting along and breaking down barriers? Do they live up to their demanding standards? Surely they must be moving to places where they can make meaningful connections with those they profess to champion. And they certainly must be better than the nasty Republicans who obviously hate anyone who isn’t white and Christian.

Think again.

What could be going on? Bubble-ism, the report suggests. Even more than their Republican counterparts, highly educated Democrats tend to live in exclusively Democratic enclaves. The more they report “almost all my friends hold the same political views”, the worse their guesses on what Republicans think.

So do they believe in sticking with their own? No. When asked in a Pew survey whether it’s important to live in a place “where most people share my political views”, half of conservatives and only a third of liberals agreed. Although in principle more tolerant of political diversity, highly educated – and mostly urban – Democrats live, ironically, with less of it.

So just remember in the coming days and weeks as the various investigations finally reveal the truth and the liberal media elites are totally clueless about what is actually happening, it’s because they have listened to each other bloviating for over three years. They all think they are experts in what is happening in this country.

They aren’t.

If you really want to know what is happening, find the nice Democrat in your average church or neighborhood in flyover country. He or she will have a much better grip on what is going on in our country and what the other side is thinking.