Who are they talking about?

 A recent survey by RMG Research which is billed as "a first-of-its-kind look at the views of the American Elite" defines "elites" as people who have graduate degrees, annual incomes of more than $150,000, and live in places with more than 10,000 people per square mile.  Education and income are reasonable criteria for defining elite status, although you could argue about where to draw the lines, but population density?  I guess you could argue that being in a large metropolitan area means that you're closer to top decision makers in a social as well as a physical sense.  But the definition uses population density by zip code, and in the contemporary United States, there's a strong association between neighborhood preference and political views:  people who prefer to live in dense areas tend to be more liberal.  Moreover, in much of the country, even downtown urban areas don't reach 10,000 per square mile.  There are 580 zip codes that meet the standard, and 496 of them are in just six states:  New York, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts (data can be found here).  Only 5% (28) are in states won by Donald Trump in 2020.  So rather than a sample of the "American Elite," it would be more accurate to call it a sample of upper-middle class urbanites in blue states.    But that's still an important group, so maybe we can still learn something from the survey?

The RMG survey reports that 67% of "elites" had a favorable opinion of members of Congress, compared to only 28% of the general public.  The 2021 and 2022 General Social Surveys have a question on confidence in Congress:  6% say they have "a great deal," 41% "only some," and 52% "hardly any."  Although it's not possible to reproduce the RMG "elite" exactly with the GSS data, it is possible to come close:  among people with graduate degrees, it's 5%, 48%, and 48%; among people with incomes of more than about 150,000 it's 3%, 43%, and 54%, and among people living in the central cities of the twelve largest metropolitan areas, it's 11%, 43%, and 46%.  So people with more education and income do not have more confidence in Congress; people living in big cities have a bit more, but that's because they are more likely to be non-white--among whites living in the central cities of the twelve largest metro areas, 7% have a great deal of confidence, 41% only some, and 52% hardly any.   There are only 39 people in the GSS who meet all three criteria, but 60% of those have only some confidence and 40% hardly any:  in other words, the opinions of "elites" are about the same as those of the general public.  The questions aren't exactly the same, but the patterns are so different that it's safe to say that there's a conflict between the surveys.  Which one should we believe?  The GSS is transparent about its sampling methods; the RMG survey is not--it doesn't say anything.  I don't know whether the problem is an unrepresentative sample or a mistake in reporting the results, but the RMG survey can't be taken seriously as a measure of any group's opinion.