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History Dept.
HOW 1980S YUPPIES GAVE US DONALD TRUMP
If it weren’t for the young urban professionals of the 1980s, we’d never have
MAGA.
Illustration by Ryan Inzana for POLITICO
By Tom McGrath
06/04/2024 05:00 AM EDT
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Tom McGrath is a Philadelphia-based journalist and author. His new book, Triumph
of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation,
will be published this spring by Grand Central Publishing.
Adapted from TRIUMPH OF THE YUPPIES: AMERICA, THE EIGHTIES, AND THE CREATION OF
AN UNEQUAL NATION, by Tom McGrath, published on June 4,
2024. Copyright © 2024 by Tom McGrath. Used by arrangement with Grand Central
Publishing. All rights reserved.
A wealthy New York real estate mogul may not have seemed particularly well
suited for the role of populist hero, but Donald Trump’s historic realignment of
white working-class voters not only delivered him the presidency in 2016, but
changed the GOP as we know it. A recent Gallup survey indicates that more
Republicans now identify as working or lower class than Democrats. And white
voters without a college education, once a core Democratic constituency, remain
a key element of Trump’s reelection bid heading into November.
But for all the ink spilled over Trump’s connection to the white-working class,
it’s actually a very different demographic that explains his ascension: Yuppies.
Donald Trump and his then fiancee Marla Maples watch second round action at the
US Open tennis tournament on Aug. 28, 1991. | Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty
Images
If you really want to understand Trump’s appeal, you need to go back a few
decades to examine the social forces that shaped his rise as a real estate
developer and remade American politics in the 1980s. Specifically, you need to
wind back the tape to the 1984 Democratic primary, the almost-pulled-it-off
candidacy of Colorado Senator Gary Hart and the emerging yuppie demographic that
made up his base. They don’t remotely resemble the working-class base we
associate with Trump today. But together, they helped shift the Democratic
Party’s focus away from its labor coalition and toward the hyper-educated
liberal voters it largely represents today, eventually creating an opening for
Trump to cast Democrats as out-of-touch elites and draw the white working class
away from them. In fact, if it weren’t for 1980s yuppies and the way they
shifted America’s political parties, the modern MAGA GOP might never have arisen
in the first place.
The ’84 race would, Democrats believed, be a referendum on Reaganomics, and if
that were the case, the American people might be glad to reverse course and put
a Democrat back in charge. | George Widman/AP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the beginning of 1984, the yuppie phenomenon had been quietly building in
America for several years. For nearly a decade, a small but distinct subset of
baby boomers — well-educated college grads often hailing from the country’s most
elite schools — had been settling in urban neighborhoods across America. Once
upon a time, many of them had been part of (or at least identified with)
late-’60s counterculture, but by now their values and priorities had shifted.
Disillusioned by Watergate and the war in Vietnam, bruised by the rough economy
of the late ’70s, they’d left their idealism behind and were focused squarely on
their own success. They were intent on building amazing careers that compensated
them handsomely, and on living with a kind of cosmopolitan sophistication —
eating only the best food, buying only the best products, keeping their bodies
toned at the upscale health clubs opening across America. They wanted lives, as
the saying went, “on the fast track.”
Despite the new tribe’s relatively small numbers — just a few million of the
roughly 75 million members of the baby boom generation — the media took notice.
In January 1984, two young writers published a tongue-in-cheek paperback called
The Yuppie Handbook: The State-of-the-Art Manual for Young Urban Professionals.
The authors, Marissa Piesman and Marilee Hartley, hadn’t created the term
“yuppie” — it had first appeared in print nearly four years earlier — but their
book injected the term and the concept of yuppieness into the cultural
mainstream. Within weeks of publication, Time did a big story on yuppies, as did
at least a dozen newspapers across the country.
Grand Central Publishing
Of course, for all the hype yuppieness was receiving in those early months of
1984, it could have been yet another here‐today‐gone‐tomorrow media fad — the
sociological equivalent of the Hula‐Hoop or Pet Rock. But then came the 1984
presidential campaign, and everything changed.
Throughout much of 1982 and 1983, Democrats had been optimistic about their
chances of regaining the White House. President Ronald Reagan’s approval ratings
were low, the Democrats had done well in the midterm elections and the misery of
the 1981-82 recession was still palpable. The ’84 race would, Democrats
believed, be a referendum on Reaganomics, and if that were the case, the
American people might be glad to reverse course and put a Democrat back in
charge.
Going into the primaries, Jimmy Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, a
classic New Deal Democrat, was the clear front‐runner to win the nomination; he
had a double‐digit lead over other Democrats in national polls and a string of
endorsements from unions and party insiders.
But not everyone was willing to hand the nomination to Mondale, including Gary
Hart, the 46‐year‐old senator from Colorado. On one level, Hart’s decision to
enter the race seemed like folly. His name recognition was nearly nonexistent.
He wasn’t tapped into any sort of national network of supporters. He was only
two years into his second Senate term.
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What most distinguished Gary Hart was the fact that he wasn’t a traditional New
Deal Democrat. | AP
But Hart believed the time was right for a candidate like himself. Support for
Mondale might be broad, he reasoned, but it was thin — few people seemed
passionate about putting Fritz Mondale in the White House. Even more
significantly, there was a history of unexpected outsiders becoming the
Democratic nominee. George McGovern — whose 1972 presidential campaign Hart, not
coincidentally, had managed — came from nowhere to win the nomination; and four
years later, Jimmy Carter, despite being a little‐known governor from Georgia,
managed to win the presidency. Why couldn’t Hart do the same?
What most distinguished Hart, though, was the fact that he wasn’t a traditional
New Deal Democrat. While he was a decade older than the oldest members of the
baby boom generation, he shared a sensibility with those who’d come of age in
the 1960s — and particularly with those well-educated young professionals who’d
been flooding into American cities over the last several years. He was liberal
on social issues like women’s rights, abortion and the environment, but he
wasn’t afraid to question Democratic Party orthodoxy on things like defense (he
didn’t want to cut spending, just refocus it) and the economy (where he
questioned the clout of Big Labor and put a premium instead on innovation and
technology).
The first sign that something was really happening with Hart came in December.
His polling in Iowa and New Hampshire started to tick up, and political
reporters began to pay more attention.
In late February, at the Iowa caucuses, Hart proved the reporters’ instincts
right. While Mondale easily won the night with nearly 45 percent of the vote,
Hart finished a surprising second with 15 percent. His performance was so much
better than anticipated that the media made him the story. Hart’s confidence,
bordering on arrogance, only added to the buzz. “I told my daughter that if we
finished second in Iowa,” he boasted, “we were going to win the nomination.”
A week later, in the New Hampshire primary, Hart backed up his bravado: He won
that race with 41 percent of the vote, 12 points ahead of Mondale. Just like
that, he was Mondale’s main opponent, and an avalanche of Hart coverage ensued.
Hart supporters celebrate his victory in the Maine Democratic caucus at Hart
campaign headquarters on March 4, 1984 in Portland, Me. Hart upset front-runner
Walter Mondale by a small margin. | Merry Farnum/AP
Initially, the Mondale camp ignored Hart. But as he surged over the next few
weeks — winning Maine, Vermont and Wyoming, and taking six Super Tuesday
contests compared to Mondale’s three — they could see the nomination slipping
away.
Mondale campaign aides quietly started talking to reporters, trying to poison
the well about whether Hart was really an authentic Democrat. He had, they
pointed out, limited appeal to the traditional Democratic base — he did OK, not
great, in white union households, and he had virtually zero backing in the Black
and Latino communities. Hart’s biggest support, the Mondale operatives noted,
was actually based on age and class: He was the candidate of the affluent young
professionals everyone had been reading so much about.
And so began a spate of Gary‐Hart‐Is‐the‐Yuppie‐Candidate stories. The Wall
Street Journal. The Boston Globe. Time. CBS News. They all did pieces noting
that Hart’s campaign had risen based on the support of young professionals —
yuppies who wanted nothing to do with old‐school Democrats like Mondale.
“Yuppies have become the strike force of the Hart campaign,” CBS News reporter
Bob Simon said in a piece that aired nationally in late March. Simon used the
story as an opportunity to introduce evening news viewers to what, precisely, a
yuppie was — and to let a handful of yuppies explain what they saw in Hart.
“We’re fairly sophisticated and educated and well‐read,” a young woman in
Connecticut said, “and I think that’s who Gary Hart appeals to.”
In the New York Times, reporter Steven Roberts went even deeper in a piece
headlined, “Hart Taps a Generation of Young Professionals.” Roberts noted
specific voter outcomes — in Florida, Hart had won among young voters, college
grads and those making $50,000 a year or more.
“He appeals to people who grew up with Vietnam and Watergate,” said a
26‐year‐old who worked in banking. “I think the events bred cynicism into a lot
of young people, and Hart represents an attempt to address that cynicism and
overcome it.”
To still other young professionals, Hart’s appeal didn’t seem much different
from that of yuppie status symbols like Perrier or nouvelle cuisine or hardwood
floors. Supporting him was trendy, and it signaled that you were not part of
your parents’ bland, middlebrow world. “We’re part of the ‘Me Generation,’ and
people don’t want to take on the titles others had,” said a young woman who
worked in advertising. “The establishment is Republican and the working class is
Democratic, and being independent sounds a lot cooler.”
A supporter for Hart shows off her handful of stickers at the Portland caucus on
March 4, 1984 in Portland, Me. | Pat Wellenbach/AP
The impact of Hart’s candidacy was twofold. First, it took the term “yuppie”
from the features section of the newspaper to the front page. Second, it
signaled a shift that was taking place, announcing that the massive baby-boom
generation — or at least the well‐educated portion of it — had arrived
politically. Those Boomers, who had questioned all the rules in the ’60s and
turned inward in the ’70s, were now ready to exert their influence at the ballot
box.
Within the political classes, people were scrambling to understand whatever they
could about the new demographic — even though it was a decided minority of the
Boomer generation. Richard Darman, a young special assistant to Reagan, was
reading The Yuppie Handbook and telling anyone who’d have anything to do with
Reagan’s reelection campaign in the fall that they needed to do the same.
Meanwhile, in an editorial, the New York Times was announcing the dawn of a new
era. “This truly is the Year of the Yuppies, the educated, computer literate,
audiophile children of the Baby Boom,” the Times wrote. “By definition, not all
baby boomers are Yuppies. But the Yuppies are numerous — 20 percent of the vote
in New Hampshire, 10 percent in Illinois. And they possess atypical affluence
and influence: These are the people who created the counterculture. They still
listen to rock music, still wear wire‐rimmed glasses. Does their politics of the
left also endure? Or does turning gray mean, as for other generations, turning
right?”
The answer, the editorial continued, likely depended on the issue. Citing a
recent survey, the paper said yuppies “strongly favor the equal rights amendment
and freedom of choice on abortion, and oppose employment discrimination against
homosexuals.” But on other issues, they were more conservative or more
self‐absorbed. They were less concerned about unemployment than other age
groups, and more inclined to favor further cuts in federal spending. As for
social welfare issues, they were less likely than older Democrats to support
income maintenance programs.
The important point, the Times concluded, was that no matter what their
positions were, as a political force, they were here to stay.
After arriving in Wilkes-Barre on a steam-engine from Scranton on April 8, 1984,
Democratic presidential hopeful Hart hands roses to supporters from the train's
caboose. | Amy Sancetta/AP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the campaign trail, Mondale and Hart, along with Jesse Jackson, the third
remaining candidate, battled one another as April and May went on. In many ways,
it was a proxy fight for the soul of the Democratic Party. Would it continue, as
Mondale and Jackson advocated, in the New Deal-Great Society tradition of FDR
and LBJ, using government to help meet the needs of labor, people of color and
the working class? Or would it transform itself, as Hart argued, so that it was
focused on a new economy and new ideas?
Mondale’s and Hart’s differences on policy, particularly around economic issues,
were telling. When it came to the millions of manufacturing workers who’d lost
their jobs in recent years, Mondale said the country needed to revisit its trade
policies so such jobs could be protected; Hart suggested such jobs were never
coming back and advocated for retraining workers. On the issue of the bailout
the federal government had given to Chrysler several years earlier, Mondale said
it was exactly the right thing to do, since it saved so many good‐paying union
positions. Hart called it a mistake, saying that government should be supporting
new technology and new industries, not propping up struggling companies in dying
industries.
If there was a turning point in the race, it came in the first half of April,
when Mondale won the delegate‐rich New York and Pennsylvania primaries. | Leith
B. Srakccic/AP
“Hart’s people have christened his core constituency as ‘Yuppies,’ young urban
professionals,” the Indianapolis Star wrote in an editorial that framed the race
as a battle between new and old. “Such people are liberal, on the whole, but not
in the ‘old’ sense. Mondale is perfectly right when he accuses Hart and his
‘new’ constituency of lacking ‘compassion.’ The word ‘compassion’ is another
code word. It means re‐distributing the income to the various parts of the ‘old’
constituency: urban blacks, old people, minorities generally, out‐of‐work
teenagers. The college‐educated Young Professional does not thrill to that
program.”
If there was a turning point in the race, it came in the first half of April,
when Mondale won the delegate‐rich New York and Pennsylvania primaries. The race
ground on for two more months, with Mondale finally amassing enough delegates to
secure the nomination in early June.
Still, if Mondale had won the battle, there was a feeling among many that he and
his supporters might not be winning the broader war that was taking place.
As the Star wrote, “[Yuppies] are a growing constituency. … However the race
comes out, Hart has demonstrated an important thing conclusively: the growing
weakness of the old liberal coalition as it rapidly passes into history, into
the past.”
If Mondale had won the battle, there was a feeling among many that he and his
supporters might not be winning the broader war that was taking place. | AP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heading into the fall, a big question was which way yuppies would go in the
general election. There was a case to be made that the yuppies would, and
should, support Mondale. When it came to social issues, many young professionals
retained their idealism and liberal values from the ’60s.
But the Reagan camp was intent on attracting as much Boomer support as possible,
despite Reagan, at age 73, being the oldest president in history.
As the campaign progressed, it became clearer that many of the baby boomers
who’d been so excited by Hart’s fresh vision were ready to vote for Reagan. In a
poll of voters between 18 and 34 who made more than $25,000 per year, Reagan
held a 24‐point lead in a head‐to‐head matchup with Mondale.
Some voters in the yuppie demographic went on to support Ronald Reagan's
presidency. | AP
For some young professionals, their support was based on Reagan’s manner and
leadership style. But equally important was Reagan’s handling of the economy.
College-educated young professionals had done better than most over the last
four years, and seven in 10 of them believed Reagan was more likely than Mondale
to keep making them better off financially.
On Election Day, the president soared, ultimately winning 49 states and
trouncing Mondale by 17 million votes. It was the second‐largest landslide
victory in American history.
Six weeks later, in its final issue of 1984, Newsweek’s cover story summed up
the mood of the moment. The magazine proclaimed it not the year of Ronald
Reagan, nor the year of America’s economic comeback. It was, instead, “The Year
of the Yuppie.”
Still, Newsweek’s story— written with a snarky tone that reflected the eye rolls
yuppies were starting to elicit — took pains to make one thing clear: For all
the attention yuppies had gotten, they represented just a small slice of the
baby boom generation. And that generation, overall, was struggling.
Indeed, between 1979 and 1983, median income for families in the 25 to 34 age
bracket actually fell 14 percent. And compared with their parents at the same
age, two‐thirds of baby boomers were actually worse off economically. The real
story of the baby boom generation was not about achievement or success or
boutiques or renovated brownstones or fitness classes or choosing from among a
hundred types of cheeses. It was about downward mobility.
Forty years after the fact, the election of 1984 stands as a clear turning point
in America, particularly for Democrats. | Don Rypka/AFP via Getty Images
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forty years after the fact, the election of 1984 stands as a clear turning point
in America, particularly for Democrats. The enormity of Reagan’s landslide was
scarring for the party, convincing a younger generation of leaders in particular
that the party’s profile — as the home of working people, labor unions and trade
protectionism — was no longer a recipe for electoral success. If they wanted to
thrive, they argued, they needed to go harder in the direction that Gary Hart —
and yuppies — had pointed them.
In 1992, that faction of the party got its wish with the nomination and election
of Bill Clinton, not only a centrist but a Yale- and Oxford-educated baby boomer
— the first yuppie president. In office, Clinton pursued an agenda that largely
put the desires of college-educated professionals above those of the blue-collar
working class. He signed welfare reform and announced the era of big government
was over. He championed NAFTA, which made it easier to ship manufacturing jobs
to Mexico. He deregulated the financial industry, boosting the power and profits
of Wall Street.
In 1992, that faction of the party got its wish with the nomination and election
of Bill Clinton, not only a centrist but a Yale- and Oxford-educated baby boomer
— the first yuppie president. | Jon Levy/AFP via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Democrats increasingly became the party of college graduates. In the
late 1990s, fewer than 25 percent of Democrats held a college degree, compared
with 30 percent of Republicans. But by 2010 the share of college-educated
Democrats had risen to nearly 35 percent, and by 2020 it was nearly 50 percent.
In contrast, the share of college graduates in the GOP barely budged, and today
still hovers around 30 percent.
Though they were a minority in the country, the well-educated baby boomers who
had come to the fore in the first half of the ’80s effectively became America’s
ruling class. Their basic political philosophy — liberal on social issues,
conservative on economic ones — dominated for decades, with support for gay
marriage and abortion rights growing at the same time that taxes continued to be
cut and globalization increased. More and more this well‐off professional class
lived among themselves. In 2012, a researcher identified several hundred “super
zip codes,” some within cities, most just outside of them, that attracted an
extraordinary number of well‐educated, affluent families.
As for the rest of America? Their eyerolling over yuppies in the mid-’80s
hardened into a deeper resentment of what became known as “the elites,” and in
many respects it was understandable. By 2016, families at the top of the
economic pyramid controlled 79 percent of all wealth in America, up from 60
percent in the 1980s. The percentage of wealth owned by the middle class dropped
from 32 percent to 17 percent.
Ironically, it was Donald Trump — if not a yuppie himself, then at least a
walking symbol of 1980s glitz and excess — who spotted the political
opportunity, persuading many working‐class Americans that he was on their side.
In office, Trump’s only significant legislative accomplishment was a massive tax
cut for wealthy Americans, though he also imposed significant trade tariffs on
China — a curious mix of Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. Despite the events of
January 6, 2021, Trump still maintained the support of many people in the
working class. A good number of them believed he spoke for them, saying they
appreciated his apparent loyalty — something they hadn’t felt from the yuppified
Democratic Party in decades.
Mondale attacked Hart for lacking substance, using a line from a famous Wendy's
ad — "Where's the beef?" — but Hart adopted it as something of a slogan. | John
Duricka/AP
Democrats have tried to win back the working class in recent years — this past
September, President Joe Biden made history as the first sitting commander in
chief to join a picket line when he expressed solidarity with United Auto
Workers on strike in Detroit — but they continue to struggle with
college-educated liberals’ takeover of the party. It’s a hard road after so many
years of neglect. As for Gary Hart? His strong performance in 1984 made him the
clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 1988 — until he brazenly
invited the press to follow him around and see if he was having an extramarital
affair. They did. He was.
Four years earlier, Walter Mondale’s team had dubbed Hart the yuppie candidate,
but in trying to fend Hart off, Mondale did something else, too: He questioned
whether there was any real substance behind Hart’s new ideas and proposed
policies. “Where’s the beef?” Mondale asked, parroting the popular Wendy’s
commercial of the time. But it turned out Gary Hart had plenty of beef —
shifting the direction of his party, and the country, for decades to come.
* Filed under:
* Campaigns,
* Democrats,
* Elections,
* Donald Trump,
* Donald Trump 2024,
* Politics,
* History Dept.,
* 2024 Elections,
* Donald Trump presidential election 2024
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