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I think Nate Silver's categorization of people into Riverians (free-thinking tech bro types) and Villagers (DC & academic establishment) is too simplistic. It completely leaves out the trad-cons, e.g. the traditional morals and religious people, and the economic progressives, e.g. Bernie Sanders, AOC & co., both of which are pretty large voting blocs in their own right.
This paragraph was also strange to me:
Villagers think very lowly of the Riverians’ faux desire for competition since they so often see games being rigged in their favor, and not actually risking that much; Riverians benefit from existing social hierarchies and are too blind to their own privileges.
This seems really weird because most people would say that it's the DC & academic elites that have so much of the game rigged in their favor.
Is Silver's book primarily about an inter-elite struggle, leaving out the concerns of most average people?
right, I accept much of that -- and, I believe, Silver would too. He's not saying these are by any account ALL or EXCLUSIVE camps, just you know general outlines of groups.
I agree with you that the DC/Aca elites have rigged things crazy -- but how much of that is because of my own Riverian goggles? The Villagers type would point to different things but draw the same (reverse) conclusion, you know.
He's walking that kind of tightrope a lot, trying to fairly explain how a radically different worldview (Villagers) see things
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