The Them-vs.-Us Election – WSJ

In an interview Wednesday with CNBC, Mr. Dimon took issue with a disconnected liberal elite that scorns MAGA voters. The Democrats have done a pretty good job with the deplorables hugging on to their bibles, and their beer and their guns. I mean, really? Could we just stop that stuff, and actually grow up, and treat other people with respect and listen to them a little bit?

The powerful, the intellectual and the lazy have long said that the divide in this country is between rich and poor. They divvy up Americans along traditional lines related to wealth college, no college, white-collar, blue-collar, income then layer on other demographics. This framing has given us the diploma divide and the new suburban voter and Hillbilly Elegy. It s sent the political class scrambling to understand Donald Trump s forgotten man again, defined economically.

That framing fails to account for the country s unsettled electorate. There s a better description of the shifts both between and within the parties, a split that better explains changing voter demographics and growing populist sentiments. It s the chasm between a disconnected elite and average Americans. This is becoming a them-vs.-us electorate and election. Political candidates, take heed.

via www.wsj.com

Kimberley A. Strassel