the GOP is FAR more open to populism (seeing things as “the people” vs. ‘The elite”) than Democrats.
But dig a little deeper into the results and some interesting contrasts are seen. Among GOP staffers, for example, approval of populism reached 65 percent, compared to only 26 percent of Democrats. Similarly, a majority of males, 53 percent, expressed approval, while only 39 percent of women did so.
Among Hill aides expressing disapproval of populism, the splits look like this: Fully 74 percent of Democrats turned thumbs down, while just 35 percent of the GOPers did so. And a big majority, 70 percent, of staffers over the age of 30 expressed disapproval, versus 54 percent of those under 30.
The Democrats have become the anti-populism crowd–just trust the “experts” and “the elite” and certainly don’t think for yourself! But Conservatism looks askance at “nobility” and claims of “smarter-than-thou-so-I-should-have-a-privileged-position.”
Conservatism is FAR too fairness- and data-oriented for that. It is very empirical, and demands verifiable results rather than asserted privilege.
In fact, we see that in my field, psychology. In general, the more technical one’s practice is, the more conservative the practitioner is. So if I am a forensic psychologist or one that focuses on sleep or feeding problems or one that works mainly with personality disorders, I tend to be much more conservative than “Jill the friendly helper” who one can talk to about how one is mistreated in the break room by that mean guy at work.
General trend: The more technical and results-oriented the work is, the more conservative the laborer. Are there individual exceptions? Of course. But that is the trend.