I wrote about Republican disdain for people who work as employees -- even if they earn high incomes. But I didn't have enough space to speculate about why this is 1/ nyti.ms/2ktOYDy
Part of the answer is that movement conservatism -- the array of media organizations, "think" tanks, lobbying firms, etc that goes far beyond the GOP proper, and offers a safety net to loyalists, aka wingnut welfare, is largely funded by billionaires 2/
It's also true, however, that small business leans strongly Republican smallbusiness.com/policy/small-b… This influences who R politicians talk to and hear from. But why that lean? I'd suggest that it has to do with two facts about determinants of voter attitudes 3/
We know that other things equal, higher incomes make voters more Republican, but higher education makes them more Democratic. people-press.org/2015/04/07/201… The latter effect probably has to do with GOP anti-intellectualism and social illiberalism. But anyway those are the realities 4/
So think about who earns high incomes. If they're employees, they tend to be highly educated professionals, so their education level counters the pro-GOP effect of their income. But even small business owners are often high-income, without necessarily having high education 5/
I'm not making any kind of value judgement here. Just saying that business owners are a sort of natural base for the modern GOP, which easily feeds into a sense that mere employees don't rate equal treatment 6/
