Replies

Here’s the calculus Ras uses to define political class and mainstream:

“The Political Class Index is based on three questions. All three clearly address populist tendencies and perspectives, all three have strong public support, and, for all three questions, the populist perspective is shared by a majority of Democrats, Republicans and those not affiliated with either of the major parties. We have asked the questions before, and the results change little whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge of the government.

In many cases, the gap between the Mainstream view and the Political Class is larger than the gap between Mainstream Republicans and Mainstream Democrats.

The questions used to calculate the Index are:

— Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more - the American people or America’s political leaders?

— Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group?

— Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?

To create a scale, each response earns a plus 1 for the populist answer, a minus 1 for the political class answer, and a 0 for not sure.

Those who score 2 or higher are considered a populist or part of the Mainstream. Those who score -2 or lower are considered to be aligned with the Political Class. Those who score +1 or -1 are considered leaners in one direction or the other.

In practical terms, if someone is classified with the Mainstream, they agree with the Mainstream view on at least two of the three questions and don’t agree with the Political Class on any.”

The question I now have, is what are the relative numbers or percentages of these two of the electorate? I would guess Mainstream is much larger but I haven’t see those percentages.