Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I do not think broad datasets can draw an appropriate picture, or even operate as a poor heuristic to generalize about 70 million people.
But since Ty insists, consider this. If the best gauge of racist sentiment on this list is immigration, which is true, it still ranks 14 percent below the economy. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics...2016-election/
Interestingly, if one looks up economic anxiety and Trump voters, the same limited blunt data are cited in almost every article. The pieces, many of which plagiarize from or link each other, are more editorial than objective. The starting line is an almost insistent and scolding, or gleeful, assertion that it was all racism or status concerns. Even though the most generous assessment of the data suggests it’s a mixed bag of many causes, including economic anxiety and racism.
Me thinks “journalism” may be institutionally/intellectually captured by the Chicago School, today known as Neoliberalism. To test this theory, suggest to a Neoliberal that racism is a very real and acute problem, but is also being used to divert attention from economic causes of dysfunction and inequality in society. You’ll get a very defensive response.
Idk why Neoliberals don’t like being called out for what they are - a mix of limousine liberal, libertarian bro, Milton Friedman disciple, and superficial bleeding heart.
All men are hypocrites. Call me a Neoliberal. I’ve been called worse. |
Wow, you don't use stats much, do you? I'm going to ignore all the strange data usage and focus on the substantive issue here.
One of the funny uses of a lot of data on economic anxiety is that people tend to use self-reported "concerns", as in the Pew survey, as a way of conflating worries about inflation and worries about unemployment, treating a bank CEO's worries about worker shortages as equivalent to his employee's concerns about getting laid off. The economy is a huge category that encompasses many often conflicting concerns, and so will always be on and near the top of the list. Immigration is a much narrower policy, and the fact that there is so much concern over a narrow policy set is an indication of a pretty unusual state of affairs.
But that particular survey doesn't hit all sorts of other issues. There is no question designed to ferret out a rise in white supremacy, an increase in anti-semitism, or any of the other concerns that I see motivating a lot of Republicans these days. You need a different data set to look at those issues. Given the ability of a narrow set of the electorate, to control a political party because of the intensity and focus of their concerns, and the general lack of motivation of most of the electorate, the presence of even 10% of the population, concentrating in more conservative states, signing up for white supremacism has a huge impact on the country.
