The core problem here, as I think you suggest, is the rhetoric of "the people" vs. "the elites", where Cass is either being dishonest or a little dumb in his formulation. It's proper to talk about "elite v. the people" if we're talking about something like Sunstein talking about "nudging" because that's baked into the concept that Sunstein is putting out--that there is knowledge that resides with a very small group of people as a function of their specific credentialization and training and this knowledge gives them insight into what most people ought to do that they do not do AND gives them insight into how to gently manipulate people into doing that something without them knowing that this is happening.
With Oren Cass, what he really means is "about 35% of the population has one set of political, social and cultural preferences" and "another 35% has a different set of preferences". Possibly the remainder has a third set of preferences, or is situated between the two other groups or is just completely heterodox and not really a group at all. Cass and people like him are trying to confer legitimacy on their preferred third by calling them "the people" and to delegitimate the opposing third by calling them "the elites". In socioeconomic terms, that absolutely doesn't fly--Trump's voters include wealthy small business owners, middle-class retirees receiving pensions from public sector work, billionaires, socially conservative Latinos, etc.; the opposing group includes college graduates barely ekeing out survival pay in the gig economy, older suburbanites, lower-income urban Black voters, union members in manufacturing industries, lower middle-class K-12 teachers in rural and peri-urban districts, etc. These are complicated bundles of sentiment and affiliation and neither is "the people".
Now if Cass wanted to ask if there's something valid about wanting to protect a particular place from change, or wanting to be rooted in some 'traditional' sense of identity and community, or other formulations connected to ethnonationalism, he'd have a point that deserves to be grappled with. But that's not what he's on about.
The core problem here, as I think you suggest, is the rhetoric of "the people" vs. "the elites", where Cass is either being dishonest or a little dumb in his formulation. It's proper to talk about "elite v. the people" if we're talking about something like Sunstein talking about "nudging" because that's baked into the concept that Sunstein is putting out--that there is knowledge that resides with a very small group of people as a function of their specific credentialization and training and this knowledge gives them insight into what most people ought to do that they do not do AND gives them insight into how to gently manipulate people into doing that something without them knowing that this is happening.
With Oren Cass, what he really means is "about 35% of the population has one set of political, social and cultural preferences" and "another 35% has a different set of preferences". Possibly the remainder has a third set of preferences, or is situated between the two other groups or is just completely heterodox and not really a group at all. Cass and people like him are trying to confer legitimacy on their preferred third by calling them "the people" and to delegitimate the opposing third by calling them "the elites". In socioeconomic terms, that absolutely doesn't fly--Trump's voters include wealthy small business owners, middle-class retirees receiving pensions from public sector work, billionaires, socially conservative Latinos, etc.; the opposing group includes college graduates barely ekeing out survival pay in the gig economy, older suburbanites, lower-income urban Black voters, union members in manufacturing industries, lower middle-class K-12 teachers in rural and peri-urban districts, etc. These are complicated bundles of sentiment and affiliation and neither is "the people".
Now if Cass wanted to ask if there's something valid about wanting to protect a particular place from change, or wanting to be rooted in some 'traditional' sense of identity and community, or other formulations connected to ethnonationalism, he'd have a point that deserves to be grappled with. But that's not what he's on about.
Glad you included the footnote about polling data. Is twisting facts for your own purpose a tactic of the “man of the people?”