It's not just American academia which is turning to the Left
Why are conservatives disappearing from the professions? One explanation is that Left-modernist cultural sensibilities once confined to academics and bohemians have diffused more widely among the elite.
Academic Kevin Bass this week drew attention to the fact that just 3.4% of American journalists described themselves as Republican in 2022. Among academics, the figure was just 6%. Even among medics, nine in 10 political donations go to the Democrats.
The figure below examines trends within a broader range of American professions. Higher scores on the database‘s scoring system signify a pro-Republican bias, with lower ones revealing a Democratic tilt. Notice that professionals in almost all sectors, even engineers, now trend Democratic. The George W. Bush (post-2000) and Donald Trump (post-2016) eras were accelerants, but the trend is a steady one. While we don’t have similar data for the UK over time, the share of journalists and academics who lean Left in Canada and Britain is largely similar to the US.
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Eric Kaufmann is professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and an adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute.
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