Yuppies Vs. Yuccies

There’s a stark divide among the young urban bourgeoisie

The Free Press claims the Yuppies have gone FULL SOCIALIST.

FP writer River Page argues that the “young professional managerial class” are “the most privileged class of workers ever produced by capitalism, and they want to end it.” The article implies finance bros and McKinsey consultants have abruptly switched from Reaganism to Zohranism in a generation. Status anxiety and economic insecurity made the PMC (professional managerial class) this way, along with a strong commitment to social liberalism. Page is skeptical these yuppies will stick with socialism, but he believes it’s their new ideology for now.

This article grossly misunderstands the PMC and yuppies. Mamdani did not win the wealthiest New Yorkers. The richest 15 percent went overwhelmingly for Andrew Cuomo. The preppy, young urban professionals weren’t the ones campaigning for Zohran either. It was the grungy, young urban creatives. They’re YUCs/Yuccies. The young bourgeoisie of the cities are not a homogenous class with the same interests and attitudes. The Yuppies and Yuccies are divided.

Both Yuppies and Yuccies earned college degrees and live in cities. That’s about all they have in common.

The Yuppies work in the standard middle-class professions–and this was always their ambition. They’re more right-leaning, even if they vote Democrat. They still retain conservative norms and values. They believe in proper dress and hard work, and frown upon tattoos and strange new fashions. They’ve never gotten used to pronouns and DEI makes them uncomfortable. They like America and capitalism. In college, they were in Greek Life. They strive to achieve the American Dream. They’re still basically for Reaganism. Whether they like Trump is a tossup. If they’re a single woman, the answer is no. For a guy, it’s a maybe.

The Yuccies are altogether a different breed. They generally work in lower-paid fields that aren’t as strait-laced as the typical Yuppie jobs. This can range from journalism, the professional arts, marketing, or even some dead-end service job that pays the bill while they hope their music career takes off. Some of them do work in the standard middle-class professions, but this wasn’t their ambition. They’d rather be a novelist, a punk musician, or a college professor than a corporate lawyer. The Yuccies find themselves the beneficiaries of the new DEI jobs and HR work that allows them to impose their values on the Yuppies. The Yuccies aren’t conservative at all. They love dressing like a rebellious teenager in their 30s. They promote visible tattoos, dyed hair, pronouns, and white privilege checking. They don’t really like America or capitalism. They saw Greek Life as the enemy in college. They’ve always liked to be “different.” They don’t want to look like they're striving for the American Dream. They hate Trump and they’re inclined to think the Democrats are too conservative for their taste.

Most importantly, the Yuccies make less money than the Yuppies. Even though the Yuccies live an odd lifestyle, choose less lucrative careers, and work less hard, they expect to have the same economic security as the Yuppies. This shortcoming and the resentment towards their wealthier peers drives them to socialism. They think Zohran Mamdani will make their lives better and bring the hated Yuppies to heel.

The number of Yuccies have increased over the last few years. The explosion in HR and DEI jobs give these types more opportunities to move to the big city and pursue their passions. More college grads forego family formation, allowing Yuccies to live out their lifestyle for much longer than before. There’s also just more college grads bumming around and not reaching the American Dream like their parents. A degree is no longer the ticket to the solid middle class like it once was. Without hope for a stable career, a number of college grads do service jobs while living out teenage rebellion as an adult. Society itself is more accepting of adults not growing up. One will commonly encounter middle-aged guys wearing band shirts and acting like a 17 year old.

It makes for a great right-wing talking point to imagine the PMC are voting for socialism while the multiracial working class is voting for right-wing populism. But this isn’t the exact picture. The real PMC is either voting for establishment Democrats or Republicans. They want stability and order. They like the status quo. They don’t want radical wealth redistribution or government-run grocery stores. They may not like Trumpism, but they certainly don’t want Zohranism. The people voting for Zohran aren’t the people running the stock market and corporations. They’re DEI staffers, graphic designers, underemployed academics, starving artists, and activist lawyers. Most can barely manage rent, much less control the Fortune 500.

Earlier this week, I described the lumpenbourgeoisie as the vanguard of left-wing radicalism. Yuccies would be the tip of the spear. There are other failed elements of the middle-class that wouldn’t count as Yuccies. NEETs living at home and the community college dropouts working at suburban Chipotles wouldn’t be Yuccies. But Yuccies is probably a better term for popular usage. Most Americans can’t pronounce lumpenbourgeoisie. It’s too foreign. The Yuccies are also the most influential element. They’re the ones setting the Left’s message and spreading it throughout the country. The other elements of the lumpenbourgeoisie are simply receiving it.

Anyone who lives in a major city will notice the Yuccies. Fifteen years ago, we would’ve called them hipsters. That term is wildly out of date in the 2020s. Yuccies describes who they are and isn’t stuck in the Obama era.

If right-wingers are going to do class analysis, they need to do it properly. The Yuppies aren’t becoming socialists. It’s the Yuccies turning red.