On p. 47, there is this:
For one reason or another the following people and institutions fall outside the ranks of Bobo respectability: Donald Trump, Pat Robertson, Louis Farrakhan, Bob Guccione, Wayne Newton, Nancy Reagan, Adnan Khashoggi, Jesse Helms, Jerry Springer, Mike Tyson, Rush Limbaugh, Philip Morris, developers, loggers, Hallmark Greeting Cards, the National Rifle Association, Hooters.
That is David Brooks, copyright 2000. Unless you think I have a photographic memory, I did not recall this sentence when I first wrote that the 2016 election was along the Bobo vs. anti-Bobo axis.
What did Nancy Reagan do to belong on this list? Sure us Gen X’s snickered at the Just Say No campaign back in the 1980s but she was a fine First Lady. And it was Barbara Bush who lost to the more modern HRC in 1992.
Even a lower class urbanite, I find David Brooks completely out of touch as I don’t think he understands what has happened to this nation after the Bush reelection in 2004.
I for one thought that book was extremely perceptive when I read it back in 2006-07.
Except the ‘bobos’ were in a coalition with a lot of minority voters who are clearly not bobos. But among white voters, bobo vs non-bobo seems on target. And it’s a good catch to find Trump being identified as beyond the pale for bobos long before his presidential run (and back while he was hobnobbing with and supporting the Clintons).