We hear a lot of grumbling about the so-called ‘liberal bubble’. The idea seems to be that many Democrats live in a certain state of political and social isolation.
The details vary, but we can sketch out certain features of the liberal bubble. It’s supposed to look like this: major urban area or college town, highly educated population, mixed income but higher class standing (i.e., not proletarian), strong cultural amenities, and strongly Democratic at the ballot box.
What are these places like? If they exist, so what? Are they a problem?
Let’s start with an example. I live in Iowa City, Iowa. I think my little city is the sort of place people have in mind when they talk about the liberal bubble. So let’s take a look.
Iowa City: A Liberal Bubble
Urban Area or College Town?
Check. Iowa City is home to The University of Iowa, the largest public university in the state. Our overall population is about 75,000, and the university dominates the local economy.
Highly Educated Population?
Check. People in Iowa City are twice as likely as the national average to have a bachelor’s degree. And about half of those people go on to earn a higher degree. There’s a reason why it’s a common local joke that your cab or bus driver has a humanities PhD.
Mixed Income But Higher Class Standing?
Mostly Check. Median income is a bit on the low side, as I pointed out in a post on tenants unions. But the local residents aren’t especially proletarian. Lots of people work poorly paid positions with non-profit or service groups. There’s also a lot of part-time work. People don’t make much money, but that doesn’t show, ipso facto, that they’re proletarians. It often means they’re highly educated, poorly paid managers.
Strong Cultural Amenities?
Check. We have the Englert Theatre, Hancher Auditorium, Prairie Lights Bookstore, The Haunted Bookshop, Iowa Writers’ House, Riverside Theatre, Summer of the Arts, et al. We’re the only UNESCO City of Literature in the United States. We’re easily the cultural capital of eastern Iowa, and we’re probably the cultural capital of the entire state.
Overwhelmingly Democratic at the Ballot Box?
Check. Iowa City is the most liberal city in the most liberal county of the state of Iowa. We were the only Iowa county to vote against Terry Branstad in 2014. There are zero Republicans elected in office representing Iowa City at the city or county level. Hillary Clinton won 72% of the vote in 2016, and 78% of the vote in my precinct. Enough said there.
Liberal Bubble and Conservative Bubble
And so, the liberal bubble is a thing. But is it more of a thing than the conservative bubble? Are rural areas the flip side of this?
Maybe. However, I think there’s a bit less of a case for it.
Why?
One, I think there’s a fair bit of hidden liberal and leftist opinion in rural areas. Hidden in the sense that it’s not counted on election day. I showed in an earlier article that Trump’s base is both relatively wealthy and very rural. But rural areas aren’t very wealthy overall.
This means that there are a lot of people in rural areas who are poor and/or working class and don’t vote. These people are likely more left-leaning than you might think. Maybe even more left-leaning than liberal bubble residents. We know that non-voters lean more liberal than voters. I’d advance the hypothesis that rural non-voters, in particular, are likely to be very liberal. Why? Their vote is unlikely to make a difference and the Democratic Party ignores them.
Two, a person living and working in a rural area is more likely to see a wide range of political opinions in daily life. I’ll provide some anecdotal support here. At my present job, almost everyone is a generic Democrat. I suspect Clinton won 90+% of the vote. But before I moved to Iowa City in 2007, I grew up in rural Indiana. My own extended family includes multiple New Deal Democrats, a right-wing Trump supporter, a swing voter, a moderate Republican, several liberals, and at least a few Religious Right voters.
Not many Iowa City families can say that. Or, at least, if they can say that, the parts of their family with differing opinions live in other parts of the state.
Three, conservatives move to liberal areas more often than vice-versa. Some rural conservatives attended college and spent 4-6 years in a liberal bubble. And given that cities are central to the American economy, many higher income rural people spend time in them. But unless they’re from one, it’s unlikely that a left-leaning American has spent much time in a conservative rural area.
Proviso and Recap
Let’s not exaggerate. Many conservatives live in bubbles. Some of the liberal opinion in rural areas is so suppressed that conservatives don’t engage with it. Also, many rural conservatives go out of their way to engineer a non-diverse life. And even when they do move to college towns or urban areas, many conservatives retain the ability to ignore issues, particularly issues of race.
But I think the fact remains that liberal bubbles are greater in number and severity than conservative bubbles.
So Is It a Problem?
Okay, so there’s a liberal bubble. And I live in one. So what? One way to respond is this: you’re goddamn right I live in a liberal bubble, and it’s great! There are lots of things to do and interesting people to meet. I’ve lived here for most of 12 years, and I want to stay here.
And that’s fine. There’s a certain level of social sorting that happens in the world. People want to live in communities that feel good to them. That’s part of what creates a liberal bubble.
But I think there are certain negative political effects worth considering. The liberal bubble does create divisions, which we might call pockets of ignorance, around certain issues rural people (including rural leftists) care about.
Gun Control and Health Care
I’ll talk about two of those here.
The first issue is gun control. Right now gun control is extremely popular among liberal bubble residents. It’s less popular in rural areas, even among rural leftists. Because the Democratic Party’s gun control debate is dominated by liberal bubble residents, gun control policies tend to be poorly thought out. Rather than focusing on, say, suicide prevention (which is by far the largest gun violence issue in the US), Democrats tend to support assault weapons bans. Assault weapons bans, however, don’t work. Suicide prevention is more relevant and effective.
The second issue is health care. Residents of the liberal bubble promote Medicare for All. One candidate for Iowa Governor ran a campaign on it. And that’s great. We should have it. But for rural people, including rural leftists, health insurance is only one part of the puzzle. Another major part is access to doctors and facilities. For many rural people, having health insurance won’t change the fact that the nearest facility is an hour, two hours, or more away from them.
The Error Theory
The gun control and health care disconnect, only two examples among others, relate in large part to personal experience. People in the liberal bubble live in low crime areas. There’s just not much gun crime in these neighborhoods. We also live in areas with good health care facilities. The University of Iowa has a fantastic hospital about a mile away from me.
And so they have serious gaps in their opinions. It’s not that we have zero gun crime, though it’s close to that. It’s not that we have zero health care access issues, because we do have problems. But the problems are different, and it’s easy not to notice the problems in rural areas.
Consequently, insofar as the liberal bubble is a problem, it’s that sort of problem. The liberal bubble cuts itself off from certain perspectives, even those of fellow liberals or leftists in rural areas.
Postscript: The Liberal Bubble and Race
One issue I haven’t addressed in great detail here is race. Liberal bubbles are typically white. There are many non-white neighborhoods in the US with some features of a liberal bubble. In particular, there are many that vote Democratic.
But non-white neighborhoods, particularly in urban areas, tend to be heavily proletarian in class terms. And so, for that reason alone, they’re not part of the liberal bubble discussion. There are other reasons if you go through the above checklist.
These non-white areas also don’t suffer from what I call ‘pockets of ignorance.’ For various reasons, many people in non-white neighborhoods are informed about the world around them. Usually for reasons of basic life, such as employment or housing.
