I believe in moral progress. I think smarter and more sophisticated people are able to make better moral judgements than their dumber and less sophisticated brethren. I believe that as understand more about the world, we understand better what kind of policies effectively promote human flourishing. An important caveat to this is that it’s totally possible to be dumb and still have progressive beliefs by accident / not as a result of having really weighed the issues for yourself.
On the other hand, I also believe in selfishness. I believe that people’s beliefs are strongly, if unconsciously, influenced by what is good for them personally.
I believe that progressive policies are objectively correct in terms of being better solutions for promoting human flourishing.
Thus, I believe that the smarter and more sophisticated someone is, the more likely they are to support progressive policies. However, there is one big confounder here: the more money someone has the more incentive they have to support right-wing economic policies that will harm the country overall but benefit them personally. And there is also at least some correlation between being smart and sophisticated and having more money.
So that’s how we get to our two-dimensional breakdown of the political spectrum: “social issues” are those that you support more the smarter and more sophisticated you are and which having more money doesn’t cause you to turn against. “Economic issues” are those for which having more money turns you around on and makes you support inferior policies out of self-interest.
Everyone is of course on a spectrum between rich and poor and smart and dumb. But let’s simplify a bit and divide people into four categories:
1) Rich and smart
First let me say this is a dope category to be in. This is a libertarian sort of group, in favor of progressive social policies, but not the sort of progressive economic policies that would be good for the country but would entail raising taxes on the rich.
2) Rich and dumb
These are the rich people you don’t hear about as much because they tend to have less interesting stories, and make less of an effort to be involved in politics. This is a hyper-conservative group, with backwards social views and ultra-right economics untampered by any qualms the smart rich people might have about the effects of those policies on the country.
3) Poor and smart
Socialists! These are the people who are smart enough to be progressive across the board, and poor enough that their self-interest lines up with that of the majority, rather than leading them towards the selfish policies of the rich.
4) Poor and dumb
Trump supporters! Or more broadly, the Republican base. These folks have regressive social views, and tend towards conservatism economically, though are nowhere near as conservative as their rich and dumb counterparts. They are the people who are always manipulated into voting against their economic interests for the Republican Party out of concern for the social issues that they’re on the wrong side of.