Few explanations for the Republican Party's upset victory in Virginia are as compelling as this 30-second clip from the opening sketch of last week's episode of Saturday Night Live.
"My win in Virginia proves that people are deeply concerned about education," says the actor portraying a smirking Glenn Youngkin, the GOP governor-elect who defeated Democratic challenger Terry McAuliffe earlier this month.
"And who are most of your voters?" asks the fake Judge Jeanine Pirro on her fake Fox News program. Fake Youngkin delivers the punchline: "People who didn't go to college." And the crowd goes wild.
It's only a stupid joke, but it would be hard to find a better example of the smug condescension and sneering elitism among Democrats and their media allies that so many Americans find repulsive. It is designed to appeal to SNL's bespoke fanbase, which is predominately white and college-educated. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans are "people who didn't go to college," who are still allowed to vote and care about what their children are being taught in grade school.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, just 33.1 percent of Americans over the age of 25 have a bachelor's degree or higher. As you might expect, it's not a very diverse demographic. Nearly 80 percent of Americans with at least a bachelor's degree are white. They are wealthier than most Americans and significantly more likely to use words and phrases such as "Latinx," "white privilege," "structural racism," and "my pronouns are..."
It's a demographic that looks and sounds a lot like the Democratic Party, which in recent years has seen a surge in support among college-educated voters while non-college voters—a much larger and more diverse demographic—have flocked to the Republican Party. Democrats have been doing their best to reward their educated supporters by pushing student loan forgiveness, giving tax breaks for rich people in blue states, and insisting that Americans earning $400,000 a year—six times the median household income—are "middle class."
Republicans can only hope that Democrats will continue to embrace their role as the party of smug elites and nominate Pete Buttigieg for president in 2024. The Harvard and Oxford educated 39-year-old is a media darling and beloved by rich white liberals. His fluency in foreign languages and his ability to cite examples of structural racism from literature (however dubious)—never mind his actual record on race relations as mayor of South Bend—make him ideally suited to court white college grads who follow Ibram X. Kendi on Twitter and can afford a $40,000 electric car.
Until then, good luck in the midterms!