Critically, the cause of the gap depicted here is 100% shifts in *women.* Men 18-29 are no more rightwing than any other cohort of men. For men, it's basically a straight line going all the way down the generational ladder (with the exception of 45-64 year olds).

All the action is with *women.* But this is, unfortunately, unlikely to be how the trend is analyzed. We'll likely hear a lot about "right wing young men" after the election, even though they're no more conservative than any other dudes (and are markedly less conservative than 45-64 year olds).

Another example of ironically ignoring female agency in ostensibly "feminist" work. In truth, if we want to understand growing gender polarization in politics, all the "action" is on the female side of the equation.

But because polarization is widely perceived as "bad" and women are "good" scholars tend to ignore the female line, and try to explain "bad" things in terms of men, even if their own data clearly suggest that women are driving the trends. We see the same type of tendency in analyzing "red" and "blue" lines of political trends, as I detail here:

Anything that is "bad" (e.g. polarization around science, identity, etc.) is explained in terms of the red line, even in cases where all of the "action" is clearly on the blue line.

Back in @GuardianUS for a piece looking at the racial dynamics of #Election2024.

tldr: polls show Trump poised to take home roughly 20 percent of the black vote. That probably won't happen.

But @TheDemocrats *will* likely see continued losses with black voters. Which may be offset with gains among whites. 🧵 Let's start by disabusing readers of one storyline about why the @GOP is unlikely to receive the black vote share that current polling suggests: Kamala's race.

In truth, black voters have been really tepid on Harris. This was clear in the 2020 primaries, in the 2020 general election, and in contemporary polling. Black voters have not shifted towards Democrats any more than any other block has since Biden dropped out. They might've shifted a bit *less.*

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

In recent years, I've dedicated a lot of effort to chronicling and analyzing the rapid shifts among knowledge economy professionals that seems to have kicked off after 2011.

Alongside colleagues like @DavidRozado, @epkaufm and @ZachG932, research has documented major shifts in journalistic outputs, books, academic articles, political attitudes and behaviors and more.

In my forthcoming book, I expand this work to document shifts in television, movies, music and other entertainment industries.

But to my knowledge, no one has done #videogames yet. I don't even do it in my book! To rectify this oversight, my latest for Symbolic Capital(ism) tries to map out whether the shifts observed in other cultural spheres extend into the gaming world.

Boy, do they ever. 🧵 Let's start with #gender: Prior to the Great Awokening, only about 4 percent of title had exclusively female characters. By 2015, that number had doubled. By 2020, *that* number had doubled:

Today, a plurality of games include protagonists of both sexes (and a growing number include non-binary options too). And for titles that include protagonists of only one gender, nearly half now feature exclusively women.

Female characters have also become far less sexualized, and have much more agency, with marked shifts occurring after 2012.musaalgharbi.substack.com/p/video-games-…

Why are there so few conservative or religious scholars in academia? Two popular theories:

1. They face discrimination on the job market, and a hostile work climate if they are employed
2. They would rather do other things with their lives.

There is some evidence in both directions, but also deep problems with both of these narratives as sufficient explanations.

A new piece in @NationalAffairs provides a more unified and compelling account of what's going on here, and possible responses. Some baseline facts: as my own work for @HdxAcademy shows, the professoriate is highly unrepresentative of U.S. society overall along many dimensions, including and especially along ideological lines:

This is a problem for knowledge production (as I illustrate here: )

It is also a problem for public trust in our institutions, undermines the impact of our work, and threatens the long-term independence and financial viability of our work.

When people feel like they don't have a voice or a stake in institutions, and especially when they view them as hostile to folks like themselves, their natural and rational response is to delegitimize, marginalize, defund or dismantle those institutions (and it works the other way too, when people do feel like their will and interests are represented, as detailed here: ).musaalgharbi.substack.com/p/professors-a…

foreignaffairs.com/articles/world…

Lots of places talk about viewpoint diversity, but @compactmag_ walks the walk.

Earlier today, they published an article by Alan Dershowitz arguing that Israel has committed no war crimes. My own article, just published, is a direct refutation of that position. IDF representatives have repeatedly boasted about Israel's precise targeting capabilities. This raises troubling questions about the extraordinary level of killing of people who should be protected under international law: compactmag.com/article/israel…

My latest explores the information warfare underway with respect to war crimes committed by #Hamas and #Israel, the failure of journalists to exercise due diligence before amplifying many of these claims, and the importance of acknowledging inconvenient facts. @thenation In the immediate aftermath of the #HamasMassacre, many circulated false, unsubstantiated or misleading claims w/ a clear intent of driving support for rapid and aggressive violence against #Gaza, #Iran, #Hezbollah + others: thenation.com/article/world/…

My first essay for @CNN explores tensions within the GOP over "populism."
…

@Mike_Pence described populism as a "road to ruin" for the @GOP, joining a chorus of establishment figures in both parties across time. Yet economic populism is quite... popular! cnn.com/2023/09/26/opi…
As @leedrutman illustrated, we can divide the American electorate into four quadrants based on their cultural and economic leanings. The quadrant he labels as "populist" (economically left, culturally right) is not well represented by either party: cnn.com/2023/09/26/opi…

A string of great articles came out recently by @mattyglesias, @JonHaidt & @Noahpinion, exploring how liberal teens tend to be much more depressed than conservative peers. For @AmericanAffrs, I do a deep dive into the literature on well-being and ideology: americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/03/how-to… Some findings: the well-being gap is not unique to teens. Across age groups and gender lines, conservatives tend to report significantly higher levels of happiness and fulfillment while liberals are far more likely to report mental illness and disorders: americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/03/how-to…

Great essay by @Edsall @nytimes on some of the tensions around contemporary higher ed. A few quotes from myself made it into the column: nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opi… There is a robust and ever-growing pool of evidence showing that many of the DEI initiatives being defunded by DeSantis et al. are not just ineffective relative to their stated goals, they're actively pernicious: musaalgharbi.com/2020/09/16/div…

HOWEVER, and this is critical...