New Yorker’s Maria Konnikova investigates the anti-Republican bias in social psychology. Where it comes from, how it occurs, and what can be done about it. A first-hand account from Jose Duarte.
In some parts of the country, it is apparently “hard to get by” on $300,000 per year.
Is Louisiana boot-shaped anymore?
Portland (OR) is nearing approval for tiny houses for homeless people.
A reunited Germany, 25 years after The Wall fell. Interestingly, the former East Germany has the highest rates of unemployment and vaccinations. They also lack for young people.
Here’s the account of the border guard that helped make the fall of the Berlin Wall happen and of the victims who tried to escape before it happened.
I sometimes have the suspicion that people who want greater density have in mind walking across their lawn, across other peoples’ apartments, to the store. This doesn’t really contradict that suspicion.
If chiropractors really want to be considered medical practitioners, they’d do better not inviting Andrew Wakefield to speak at their conference.
Lanhee Chen looks at what appears to be strong progress between the GOP and Asian-Americans.
Like yours truly, Sonny Bunch was disenfranchised by the system and it’s requirement that you “register” to “vote.”
Inland California used to be red. No more!
Allegedly, as election day approached, both sides saw the GOP wave coming when they saw a persistent passion disparity and late-breakers breaking towards the GOP.
ESPN has a neat feature on college football walk-ons.
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That article about Louisiana was a perfect example of TL:DR.
Maybe you have to be from the region to find it worth the read.
Senate candidate Ed Gillespie and House candidate Barbara Comstock led events in the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian and Filipino communities.
What is an “event”? What is meant by “community”? (Asians don’t live in ghettos to the extent that blacks and Hispanics do.)
Republicans have been doing minority “outreach” for as long as their Asian vote-share has been declining over the last 20 years. That isn’t what changed in this election.
What changed is that the Democrat Party watched a video of 292-lb Michael Brown beating up a 140-lb Indian shopkeeper, and then came down four-square on the side of Michael Brown. And Asians noticed.
I’d assume that “events” meant “campaign events.”
From what I read, the Asian-American efforts in 2012 were pretty minimal, except in Nevada (of all places), where the GOP actually did well. I’m not sure how much credit I will assign to the efforts (especially given that Virginia is apparently one of the places that the GOP did badly with the AA vote), but I’m not sure Ferguson gets all that much credit.
Some have argued that Asian turnout was wonky this year given that the states with large Asian populations didn’t have “big” races. Their lean toward the DNC could increase in a presidential election, as there’s more turn out. OTOH, some have argued that with social issues off the table, Asians can lean toward somewhat moderate Republicans that focus on economic issues.
I suspect that is true. I definitely think it’s true of young whites.
Differential rates of turnout among different demographics explains, or has been given to explain, why Republicans won the last two midterms, e.g., “the electorate was older and whiter,” etc. But where has it been given to explain an apparent swing within a demographic? As counter examples, Republicans got the same 10% of the black vote and 35% of the Hispanic vote that they always do.
Here is a brief history of exit poll data from the NYT. Yes, in recent years, Asians vote more Republican in midterms than they do in presidential elections. But Republicans haven’t actually won the Asian vote since ’96.
@Trumwill: your Virginia-specific data tends to undercut the argument in the article that the Asian swing was in response to Gillespie’s “outreach”.
@David: This argument needs more specificity. It may be that the overall turnout was higher in states with closely-fought races, and that the Asian vote in those states just happened to be more Republican than in states where turnout was lower, and that this skewed the poll results. But . . . what states were those? And do you have historical data to demonstrate it?
I am certainly persuadable on this, but in the meantime, I’m inclined to think that something specific alienated a lot of Asians from the Democrat party this year.
In some parts of the country, it is apparently “hard to get by” on $300,000 per year.
FWIW, one has to remember that the article is written about Westchester County which can skew very upper class. Her income is high, but the her choice in living expenses is what continues to swallow up her income. Yes, she could downsize, but at the time the article was written (2009), she would have taken a bath with depressed real estate prices, and emotionally, it’s hard to give up a home and uproot children after a divorce. I don’t blame her for wanting to stay. Admittedly, I would like to know how she’s doing now, and if she made the choice to downsize to a smaller property.
I actually hadn’t noticed that it was from 2009. I wonder why it’s been making the rounds now.
Right, which is why I put it before the comma. It adds uncertainty to the argument. I can’t find the Nevada ’12 data that I had run across.
I do think distribution-within-demographics is another significant variable.
While you are correct that the GOP hasn’t won the AA vote since 1996, but the bottom didn’t fall out until 2008. It’s an open question of what the distribution is going to look like with Obama out of the picture.
But I don’t consider it out-of-play the same way I consider many other demographics to be out of play. Outreach efforts alone can’t bridge the gap, but they do actually matter when you have an overlap of views and interests. The GOP may not win the Asian-American vote again any time soon, but there are definitely losses to be cut over time.
It depends on which direction the GOP goes from here, where they go to get back up to 50%.