ArcaMax

A dear millennial friend and I once had a fraught conversation. It came back to me upon reading that the demographic most receptive to socialist candidates and their far-left agenda was the urban "downwardly mobile elite."

My friend, the son of hard-working immigrants, possessed an Ivy League degree. He was miffed that a couple he knew struggled to pay for child care.

At a certain point in this story of injustice, I tried to ascertain the extent of his friends' need for government-sponsored child care. I asked my friend about the couple's combined income.

He responded with silence.

I asked again. Again, silence.

He knew that the answer would not help his case. The father and mother were both employed in tech, as was my friend. Their combined income was probably well north of $200,000. The parents had "high-value skills" they could take almost anywhere.

Listen, I'm not averse to government-sponsored child care extending up the economic ladder. It would be socially useful for children of college-educated parents to sit in the same classes as poor kids. But I doubt these professionals would put their children in a truly diverse day care with kids of impoverished single mothers. After all, their resentment centers on not feeling upwardly mobile. They are looking skyward at what they don't have, not downward at the service workers who would love to change places.

The concern among many Democrats is that this scary-sounding ideology turns off the American mainstream. The radical agendas get a lot of attention and hurt the Democratic brand. That they almost never come to fruition is no skin off the back of their supporters.

Barack Obama touched on the political problem these movements pose. "You could be as progressive and socially conscious as you wanted ... and you did not have to pay a price. You could still hang out in Aspen and Milan and travel ... and still think of yourself as a progressive."

The people paying a price are the less affluent. Politics that offend working-class values help elect politicians who take away health benefits for those who need them. Go ahead, you downwardly mobile elitists, and say that these modest folk are voting against their own interests. That might be true, but by nominating candidates that majorities find toxic, you are also voting against their interests.

One recalls a rally Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders held in Queens during the 2020 presidential campaign. It was surely no accident that they chose a working-class neighborhood overwhelmingly populated by "people of color."

The crowds were enthusiastic and big. Over 20,000 people attended, according to Bernie. The participants represented every shade of white people.

There is widespread angst over the cost of housing, and it is understandable that the downwardly mobile elite would share it. But this group does manage to put a roof over their heads. It may not match the grandeur featured in their social media feeds, but honesty demands acknowledging that in the quest for "affordable housing," they are pricing the non-elite out of theirs.

The government services that some of these elites want and imagine the left can provide do cost money. The potentially bad news for them is that they have, to the outside world, rather impressive earnings. The taxing authorities don't really care whether you feel downwardly mobile or not. They are looking at your numbers, and the downwardly mobile elites, though far from the top 1%, still have respectable adjusted gross incomes.

And so eyes are mostly dry over the struggling professionals' lot. A look in the mirror should tell them that whether upwardly mobile or downwardly mobile, an elite is still an elite.

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Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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