Re: From The New Yorker: Subaru Socialists and the Great Disappointed

[Edited Message Follows]
[Reason: Edited second para]

On Wed, Aug 5, 2026 at 10:25 AM, Charles wrote:

> 
> The inability to imagine a middle-class life—especially for the Subaru
> Socialists right on the cusp of comfort—seems to be what’s behind a slate
> of recent electoral victories for the Democratic Socialists of America. In
> a recent post on his Substack, Nate Silver analyzed *data from the
> Cooperative Election Study and found that the group of people most likely
> to vote Democratic were postgraduate-degree holders who had a household
> income between thirty thousand and sixty thousand dollars. Much of the
> membership of the Democratic Socialists of America, Silver pointed out,
> sat squarely within that band: more than eighty per cent of the members
> above the age of twenty-four had a bachelor’s degree, and forty-five per
> cent of all respondents lived in households earning less than sixty
> thousand dollars a year. (Silver found that, according to C.E.S. data,
> only about nineteen per cent of all college graduates in America make that
> little.)*

I believe Charles missed the point in the text he underlined. It shows that about 81% of college graduates make *more* than the DSA members parodied not only by this article but throughout the mainstream media and within the frightened Democratic party establishment as pampered rich white kids living in gentrified urban neighbourhoods.  In fact, they represent the lowest fifth of US college graduates who account for roughly 40% of the college-age population.

The politics and lifestyle of the older retired professionals which predominate on this list myself included, mirrors that of the younger so-called Subaru socialists with one glaring exception: our job prospects and employment conditions and lower cost of living were far superior to those facing today's precariat heavily represented within the DSA base.

We were lucky to come of age when the welfare state was expanding and college educated labour was in demand in health, education, public administration and other sectors. Our children and especially our grandchildren reached working age as the welfare state came under assault from a ruling class no longer under pressure from a unionized industrial proletariat and an international Communist movement.  The unaffordability crisis is well documented.  I don't recall much or any talk of an affordability or homeless crisis when I was their age. I walked straight out of graduate school into a full-time job as a beat reporter at the Toronto Star - completely unheard of today.

So let's not be so goddamn smug in parroting the current line seeking to discredit today's younger disaffected radicals.


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