Partisanship and Wealth

A few days ago, over at FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver posted the graphic shown above. (See here for a larger view.)

He concludes that liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans are both at the higher end of income distribution - thus they are NOT at opposite ends of the spectrum economically. Though it appears that rich Republicans are, on average, bringing in more income than Rich Democrats. (Liberal, moderate, and conservative in this study are self-identified labels.)

For conservatives, X-party, it's a strange dichotomy. The most conservative Republicans are the richest. The most conservative Democrats are the poorest.

(Liberal Republicans are close to extinct, and have been for a while.)

Silver bipassed the opportunity to take conclusion-drawing to the next level.

I won't.

Conservative Republicans have political views in keeping with their own self-interest. They are rich, they are greedy, and they like it. End of story.

Conservative Democrats have political views that are strongly against their own self-interest. They are poor, and I will posit that they are, for the most part, ignorant and uneducated. They probably watch Fox news and believe what they hear from Brit Hume and Bill O'Reilly.