Abstract:
The two major parties have become polarized by educational attainment over the past two decades, with college-educated voters becoming more likely to identify as Democrats and whites without college degrees increasingly supporting the Republican Party. Over the same time, major corporations and other private-sector institutions have increasingly adopted the social norms favored by most well-educated professionals—especially deference to the policy-making authority of credentialed experts and left-of-center positions on cultural subjects like race and gender. The intersection of these trends has complicated corporate America’s relationship with a stylistically populist Republican Party that remains supportive of the economic policies favored by big business but remains firmly on the conservative side of the contemporary culture war, openly criticizing “woke capitalism” and even entertaining its increased legal regulation.
