How have Republicans been able to convince people that Democrats are "the party of the elite" when Democratic voters in cities are no better of economically than Republican voters in the Heartland? That Republicans have been able to do this is especially baffling given that most Republican elected officials tend to be very wealthy and the leader of the Republican party is a billionaire who literally lives in a house covered in gold.

If you look at the average income of Democratic voters and compare this number with the incomes of independents and Republicans, you see that Democrats actually make LESS than their Republican counterparts. This is often because they live in large cities or urban areas where the cost of living is high. So even though they make more money, they end up spending far more than the average Republican voter on housing, and other non-discretionary costs. Moreover, Democratic voters get less for the money they do spend. For instance, buying a home for $350,000 in Los Angeles proper probably gets you a dilapidated 3 bedroom in serious need of repair. Meanwhile, the same money can get you a beautiful mansion in Columbia, South Carolina.

Even those Democrats who decide to spend the same $350,000 on a house located in the LA suburbs pay a cost. They may end up getting a bigger home, but they now must deal with a 3-4 hour roundtrip commute. This eats into time with family, the ability to work out and ends up costing a lot in terms of maintaining and operating a vehicle. Meanwhile, should a Republican voter analog in Columbia decide to move to the suburbs (say, Ermo, South Carolina), they not only save money (you can get the same Columbia mansion mentioned earlier for $100,000 less in Ermo), but must deal with less traffic and only a 20-30 minute commute time on the worst of days.

So, economic power and income aren't really the reason Democrats are the elite. In fact, by that logic, both Republican voters and their elected leaders are. This means Republicans have relied on some other kind of convincing metric (or set of metrics) in order to convince Americans that Democrats are the party of the elite.

Social Power vs. Economic Power

Indeed, what the Republican party has done is focus on the social power that Democratic voters have and compared it to the political power that Republican voters have.

In many ways, a Democratic voter is a social elite. When the average Democratic voter turns on the TV they see people that look like them, talk in their urban accent, and do the things they do. Popular culture today is arguably a validation of the preferences of Democratic voters. When was the last time a Marvel superhero movie featured someone with a southern drawl or an Appalachian twang? Meanwhile, many independent voters and some Republican voters may see a different image of their life. On most television shows, people from the Deep South or Midwest "need fixing", they are hoarders, or run restaurants that Gordon Ramsay comes in to fix. Even the new Queer Eye, a great show about helping people overcome a variety of personal difficulties, is set in the South.

Popular culture today is arguably a validation of the preferences of Democratic voters

Meanwhile, the majority of Republican voters and independents (especially in swing states) have a kind of political power that Democratic voters in cities could only dream of, especially in presidential elections. A Democrat voter in Los Angeles, Houston or any large city has little incentive to head to the polls on Election Day, because her vote is often irrelevant. Democratic voters are concentrated in cities and in some cases, if even 20% of the Democrats vote, they will carry the district for the Democratic Party. Why go vote when your vote doesn’t count?

Now contrast this with a Republican voter in a state like Wyoming (which is overwhelmingly Republican). Wyoming has a population of around half a million people. These half a million people are distributed over eight Electoral College votes. Down to the Electoral College Member level, this means that each Electoral College Member represents 62,500 Wyoming residents. Now contrast this with California (which is overwhelmingly Democrat), which has a population of about 40 million and 55 Electoral College votes. This means that each Electoral College Member for the state of California represents about 727,272 voters. A lot more!

Voting power by state in a U.S. presidential election. Darker = more political power. Credit

A Californian voter's interests are diluted. It takes a lot fewer Wyoming residents to obtain an Electoral College vote, and a lot more Californians to obtain the same vote. In other words, Californians must spend more votes to "buy" a voice in the political process.

What the Republican Party has done is say, "look at these Democratic elites in California. They determine YOUR cultural landscape. The TV shows you watch, your fashion preferences, and the what things are important to you. But guess what? Though they have social power, they don't have anywhere near as much political power as you do. YOUR vote matters when deciding who will be the President of the U.S. The President you choose will act on your social preferences. So exercise your political power to obtain the social power you lack."

Today

And this has played itself out. Today, the President doesn't have fancy "social elite" dinners at the White House with celebrities. He invites over baseball teams and gives them Big Macs. Today, Trump is the first President in 36 years to skip the high-brow annual White House Correspondents Dinner, instead he attends rallies where he speaks crassly, and plainly, to his base. Today, conservative independents and Republican voters have the social power they did not earlier this decade. They have a voice that is reflected in popular culture ... in shows that discuss the issues that matter to them. Just look at tv shows like Roseanne, which are made (and then unmade) on national television on a regular basis now.

Today, Republican voters have more social capital than they did half a decade ago, and Democrats have less political power. Democrats don't control the White House, the Senate, or even much of the judiciary. The magic of the Republican message has been to convince their base and other independents that elitism no longer means economic power alone. One can be relatively poor, or even middle class, and enjoy unprecedented social power.

Sadly, none of this excuses the lengths to which some conservative politicians have gone to secure the vote - relying on xenophobia, racism and other underhanded tactics to convince voters of this message.