Last time I went to a Waffle House.....was with YGIFS (RIP). We'd meet up periodically for a semi-ironic "Waffle House summit." But truth be told, we also both liked the coffee and breakfast.
Apropos of the survey subject matter, we both came from relatively humble backgrounds (working class for the most part) to achieve real professional success and eventually be members of the top whatever percent. That's a real American demographic, but its numbers are going down, and that's a big problem on two fronts. (1) It's a problem because you lose cross-cultural/economic perspective among the relatively upper classes. We spend a lot of time in rooms with "the elite." And when they didn't have perspective or understand what's up with the working class etc., it's helpful for "one of them" to be able to speak up with an "actually, here's how that looks. And I'm here to tell you, government cheese makes FANTASTIC grilled cheese sandwiches." But it's also a problem because (2) it's a sign of mobility. My mother literally survived because of government assistance. My father lucked into going to college- a state university, with absurdly cheap tuition, after growing up poor in a border town. And I have "made it." My children have grown up secure, with the world opened up for them. That's the American Dream, it's the path that many followed just a couple of generations ago. That path is not as open today. That sucks.
We have lost mutual perspective because we've lost mobility, and make no mistake, most of that mobility was UPWARD, not downward. It's much harder today to jump up a class. It was never EASY, but it was much more doable. That's bad for America. All of America. Some of us see that, and actually give a shit about our fellow American, even though it benefits us not in the slightest (my success will not change if Darryl from Bumfuck gets a degree and a decent job in Ft. Worth....yet I still very, very much want to see that happen for Darryl). Others -- and they are now the dominant strain of American politics and society -- think that anything that might help Darryl in the slightest is SOCIALISM, and actually see Darryl's failure as a sign that the system they want is working. God it's fucked up.