.@BenSasse & others have argued that a decline in religiosity in America has left ppl vulnerable to the false spiritual satisfaction of conspiracy theories & sectarianism, eg in QAnon.
And it’s not just QAnon; Our Economist/YouGov data show white evangelical Christians are also disproportion likely to believe other conspiracies — eg about the 2020 election, but also about vaccines and the moon landing. True even after controlling for demographics and politics.
Finally, the relationship between church attendance & conspiratorial thinking is positive even if you omit evangelical Christians, though less so. They are driving the trend—but the most religious Americans regardless are more likely to adopt phony theories than the least devout.
This reminds me of the time I was coding in a Starbucks & an 80yr old man, unsolicited & bc I “looked good with computers,” whipped out a chunky 2005-looking Dell laptop & instructed me to remove a “real nasty” webpage his “twin brother” bookmarked. It was hardcore incest porn.
He offered me $50 for my help (and silence, presumably). You know, a single bill pulled out of one of those old man rubber-banded balls of cash. I refused. Then he pushed his walker outside and left with his wife.
Idk, it seems almost impossible to attribute causality of the current covid wave to CDC masking policies vs Delta variant. Our YouGov/Economist survey data suggest the CDC announcement didn’t really even change trends in masking rates for vaccinated or unvaccinated Americans.
People should focus on opinion leaders rather than gov advice — we know support for Trump and news source drives way more masking/vaccination behavior more than attention to news or trust in scientists + institutions. Blame the source of anti-vax opinion before gov guidelines.
A rough point projection is that the Democrats will win 47% of the two-party vote, depending on how you average current polls, in next year's House midterms. That would be a bloodbath—and they'd probably lose the Senate too. (Again all conditional on a R+6 national environment.)
The "conditional" part here is key, since the uncertainty on a point prediction a yr & a half away is like 10 points on vote share. I would note, however, that people objected based on this fallacy in both 2018 and 2020 when fundamentals nailed natl shares
Another point is that once election subversion became a partisan issue, whatever punishment Republicans would have faced for it shrunk dramatically. You can see this in the current polling for the generic House ballot, presidential approval, and partisan fav ratings
Just shy of a majority of Republicans believe states should override the results of the popular vote of their citizens, and a supermajority believes Trump is the rightful president economist.com/united-states/…
Some ppl are asking me to clarify that these numbers are from Nov 2020, which is right and I should have put that in the OG tweet (even though it's on the graph already).
But note that updated numbers are similar! 74% of Rs in YouGov/Econ polls say Biden is illegitimate pres.
Going offline for a few weeks to finish my book manuscript and finally get married (after nearly a year delay from covid). See y’all ✌️
by the way (and nobody is paying me to say this) i have found @ScrivenerApp to be an invaluable tool for composing long works of writing. my two tips for writing have long been (a) to go out for aimless walks regularly, like the greeks did, and (b) to learn how to use scrivener
(there is a long and fascinating history of philosophy and walking that is much richer than the story of thales falling down a well (which is potentially fallacious) or than the stuff you hear from the bandwagon Lindy adoptees today. if you’re interested: amazon.com/Philosophy-Wal…)
Rs are also 10 points likelier than Ds to say they have heard "a lot" about critical race theory, and among that group, Rs are 15 points likelier to say they have a firm understanding of it. Talk about partisan cues!
Sorry, to clarify, the population for the first question is people who (a) have heard "a lot" or "a little" about CRT AND (b) who say they know what it is