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Notes -
I am generally inclined to agree with your assessment of “luxury beliefs” and who practices them.
A great recent example is the mayoral election in Chicago, which is one of the most direct elections on the issue of crime. Looking at only white voters (to account for demographic confounding), the wealthy voted for Vallas, while the status-poor voted for Johnson. If you read between the lines, it’s well broken out in this FiveThirtyEight article. Their Bo-Ho is essentially what you characterize as the “Outer Party.”
Henderson’s original conception does better capture their insulation, though. Bo-Ho Chicago crime has risen dramatically since 2020, and their votes have contributed to that, but it would be unfair to say that they are the ones paying for it. The costliness of the signal is dramatically reduced by their geographical isolation from the areas devastated by their policies. 2019 saw 25 white homicide victims, while the peak in 2020 was only 32. In contrast to black homicide victims going from 415 to 627, it’s clear the white Johnson voters aren’t really “reaping what they’ve sown.”
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