We are all the secular Right now, but what does that mean?
This blog began in the fall of 2008 somewhat on a lark. This was during a period when the American Right was beholden in many ways to the Religious Right. By “many ways,” I mean more in symbolics and rhetoric than reality. The reality is that conservatism in the 2000s was a “three legged stool” […]
Leftist blasphemies
Oberlin has had to walk back its policies about “trigger warnings.” An op-ed defending the old policy highlights what’s really going on here: Trigger warnings exist in order to warn readers about sensitive subjects, like sexual violence or war, that could be traumatic to individuals who have had past experiences related to such topics, not […]
The end of liberal universalism
Ross Douthat nails it in his most recent column, Diversity and Dishonesty: It would be a far, far better thing if Harvard and Brandeis and Mozilla would simply say, explicitly, that they are as ideologically progressive as Notre Dame is Catholic or B. Y.U. is Mormon or Chick-fil-A is evangelical, and that they intend to […]
Conservative atheists not rare in South Korea?
In a few days South Korea will have a new president, and this is very important because of how large North Korea looms in geopolitics. An interesting aspect of this race for Americans is that the candidate of the conservative party, Park Geun-Hye, may be an atheist, running against a Roman Catholic liberal. I say […]
The G.O.P. as the white Christian party
A few weeks ago I reiterated that the most parsimonious explanation for why Asian Americans have been shifting to the Democratic party over the past generation (George H. W. Bush won Asian Americans according to the 1992 exit polls) is a matter of identity politics (reiterated, because I noticed this years ago in the survey […]
Are you “Driftless”?
GeoCurrents on the political anomaly of the “Driftless” zone of the upper Mississippi (via GLPiggy). The anomaly has to do with the fact that this area is very white, very rural, and not in the orbit of a larger cosmopolitan urban area (e.g., “Greater Boston,” which extends into New Hampshire). The post goes into much […]
Going short and going long in terms of blog traffic
Arnold Kling took a break from blogging, but is coming back. But under an explicit set of personal guidelines. About This Blog: I decided to go with my own blog, rather than return to EconLog, because I want to have total control over the blog content. I want to model a very particular style of […]
Prop 37 vs. Obama (by county)
Following up my request a reader crunched the numbers (here is his data table) to show the association between supporting supporting Proposition 37 and voting for Barack Obama by county in California: From what I know this issue really polarized people in highly educated liberal enclaves in the state of California. Many of my Left […]
Prop 37 vs. Obama (by county)
Following up my request a reader crunched the numbers (here is his data table) to show the association between supporting supporting Proposition 37 and voting for Barack Obama by county in California:
From what I know this issue really polarized peopl…
San Francisco supported Proposition 37!
A few weeks ago I alluded to the controversy around proposition 37. This was the GMO labeling law proposal. Many life scientists in California opposed this law. One aspect of this issue is that it is an area where the Left may be stated to be “anti-science.” This is why this was highlighted in Science […]
Nate Silver will tax your crap!
I am currently reading Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise. The review will go live concurrently with Jim Manzi’s Uncontrolled, which I finished weeks ago. The two works are qualitatively different, but fundamentally they’re both c…
The unpredictability of cultural norms
I do pay for The New York Times, but as you may know I get frustrated with the lack of context for international stories. Most Americans are not particularly informed about world affairs, so fact without frame can confuse. For example today a story cam…
Who would vote for an atheist: Dems vs. Republicans
In response to a comment below, I thought this chart from Gallup is particularly informative:
Skewing my winnings
Last spring I made a bet with a friend that Mitt Romney would win. He gave me 5:1 odds, and I assumed a 40% chance that Romney would win. So I expected to lose, but if I won I’d win big. At this point I assume I’m out that money, because I&…
Which states vote Democratic?
In the comments below there was a question as to political party consistency over the decades in terms of voting by state. A quick correct impression is that the Democratic South shifted toward Republican, while New England went the opposite direction….
Quantifying the great flip
The two maps above show the Democratic and Republican counties in blue and red respectively. Carter in the 1976 presidential election, and Obama in 2008. A few days ago it was brought to my attention that Matt Yglesias was curious about how Maine beco…
Minding the trend: Bain Capital
Long time readers know that I like to use analytics like Google Trends to put up short posts. Why? I was prompted by the fact that the mainstream often likes to write meandering “trend” pieces which are basically spiffed-up versions of the …
Are Hispanics that socially conservative?
I often hear in the media that Hispanics are “socially conservative.” For that sort of thing you do need “quick & dirty” rules-of-thumb, and the assertion seems broadly plausible. On the other hand, the Hispanic attitude tow…
How income, class, religion, etc. relate to political party
Update: There was a major coding error. I’ve rerun the analysis. No qualitative change.
As is often the case a 10 minute post using the General Social Survey is getting a lot of attention. Apparently circa 1997 web interfaces are so intimidating…