The harsh liberal reaction to DOGE has all but ignored details of the inefficiencies uncovered. And it is dominated by white college-educated women. Much has been written about the gender gap in political views, but what may be most striking is the gap between college-educated and noncollege-educated white women. On almost all measures related to the Trump Administration there is a fifty-point difference between these two groups of women: on their views of Donald Trump, JD Vance, Elon Musk, and the Republican Party. This is particularly true of their views on DOGE. Whereas among white working-class women, there is a favorability rate of +11, among college-educated women it is -39.
Historically women were said to be more family and particularly child oriented. From this perspective, it follows that they would be more committed to government policies that aid children and families. However, while in general working-class white women have more traditional family values than professional white women, they reject liberal child and family government policies.
Some on the left explain this contradiction by suggesting that working-class white women are still dominated by traditional patriarchal values to follow the lead of their husbands and other men. Right after the 2022 election, an article on the voting patterns of white working class women had as its lead: “With this election being a referendum on women's autonomy, we look with apprehension and alarm at a not-so-independent female voting bloc.” After her loss in 2016, Hillary Clinton said,
[Democrats] do not do well with white men, and we don’t do well with married, white women. And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party, and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.
This is the typical reaction of left-wing professionals when working class votes don’t support the favored policies. The men are manipulated by the media misinformation they are fed on rightwing broadcasts while the women are manipulated by the men in their lives. No wonder that many in the working class have contempt for liberals!
Rather than look at the alleged deficiencies of working-class white women, we should look at what has shaped the values of college-educated white women. A disproportionate share major in the humanities, education, and most of the social sciences. In many of these areas, given the political values of their liberal instructors, moral and aspirational attitudes are emphasized and notions of group victimization flourish.
For many of these graduates, the emphasis on moral and aspiration goals became dominant. After all, if you survey the books selected in the reading groups in which these women participate, they are almost exclusively nonfiction, with an emphasis on moral and aspirational themes. More often than not, there is little nuance that would soften the moral critiques offered. This breeds an attitude that social policies to eliminate injustices, eliminate economic and social inequalities, should never be dictated by cost-benefit analysis. Thus, I would argue that a core explanation for the vehement opposition to DOGE by college-educated white females is that cost-benefit analysis is being applied by the Trump Administration to government programs that have a socially-desirable goal.
This is not to say that all of Trump’s cutbacks will be based on cost-benefit calculations. For example, his administration is planning on eliminating Head Start even though studies consistently show that it provides substantial educational and social benefits for its graduates: less criminal involvement and greater educational attainment than for children who did not attend a pre-K school. Maybe the proliferation of state-funded pre-K alternatives make Head Start redundant, like the proliferation of TV channels may make PBS redundant. However, it also may be simply an ideological decision that sacrifices the higher quality of Head Start (and PBS) because they are organizations run by very liberal administrators.
Moreover, cost-benefit analysis is not appropriate in all cases. Indeed, historically family obligations often trumped it. We have historically had obligations to parents and children which require us to make unjustifiable choices if measured by cost-benefit calculations. This is certainly the case when we spend untold sums on seriously ill children even if the best-case scenario is that they may live only a few more years.
With these qualifications in mind, it should be clear that many white professional women are uncomfortable with any discussion that incorporates costs into their calculations. This is not simply with programs that respond to the deficiencies experienced by poor Americans. It also reflects attitudes about immigration where the social and economic cost inflicted on cities and the job competition experienced by native-born workers is dismissed as overblown and transitory. However, unless we weigh the costs against the benefits of government programs, we may be sacrificing the wellbeing of society for the aspiration goals of a liberal professional class.
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