Cowen built a lot on the median income in The Great Stagnation; reading it, there was not a whisper about demographics, though Cowen is a pretty honest author usually (and in fact was the one who publicized this one!).

You don't have to try very hard to put a positive spin on the fact that everyone is making more money, women are becoming more equal with men, and previously poor non-whites are now finding more jobs. What's not to like?

Speaking as a leftist who disapproves of "honesty" and "fairness" to still-living opponents in a culture war... haha, no way! Why the flying fuck would we want a "positive spin" on a competing project, especially the fact that it seems to move towards our own declared preferences? We want people to get unhappy, restless and desperate; that's the only opportunity to really engage their implicit assumptions! Our folks have even been kind of up-front about that, really:

"I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" - Matt. 10:34
"...the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it." - Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
"The first step in community organization is community disorganization." - Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

Of course, it's not very certain how much actual influence hardcore and committed leftists really have over American upper-brow media. Nonetheless, it's fun to pretend that someone like Dumbledore on crack might be behind our ever-present intellectual confusion.

(I'm just making random Aqua vs. Turquoise noises again.)

P.S. I'm so adopting "Dumbledore on crack" as a brief summary of the Frankfurt School to recommend it to HPMOR fans.