There’s been a good deal of discussion lately about the gender gap in polls on Harris vs. Trump, with particular note of Trump’s popularity with young men, even young men of color. I use this brief post to resurrect a graph I had constructed but buried in the footnotes of my 2022 post on “The ..read more

Since 2010, this blog has described growing political polarization in the United States. Polarization has been less a matter of Americans becoming extremists—most remain centrists or oblivious to politics—but more that politically engaged Americans have increasingly aligned their views, values, and even their practices, from where they live to what they drive to where they pray, with their politics. DALL-E Accordingly, public as well as scholarly interest in the topic has soared in just the last dozen or so years.[1] And so acute has polarization become that it increasingly undermines effort ..read more

WILLIE MAYS, 1931-2024 ..read more

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691028989/inequality-by-design Video- and podcaster, blogger and renaissance man Chuong Nguyen noted that this year is the 30th anniversary of the publication and heavily-promoted unveiling of Herrnstein and Murray’s, The Bell Curve. I sent Chuong a copy of Fischer et al, Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth (1996) and he invited me back on his videocast to discuss. Here is the video link; and here is just the audio ..read more

Everywhere, it seems, we are urged to “address the root causes” of our problems. The phrase “root causes” is novel; until the 1970s, writers of American books, newspapers, and academic journals almost never mentioned “root causes.” And then they did–at an accelerating pace, right up to the present.[1] https://openart.ai/community/fIvPDgfI1Ocq6UL0y2Xm So we now read that we need “community programs to address the root causes of violence [in New York City subways]”; that a progressive district attorney should not be blamed for a jump in crime, because “to prevent crime you have to address the ..read more

This post is just a brief reminder of what American “exceptionalism” has come to: The U.S. is exceptional in short lives. This graph[1] shows the historical trajectory in expected lifespans for the U.S. and several large, affluent, western, democratic, “peer” countries. (You can choose other peer countries from Our World in Data; it won’t change the story.) Generally, lifespans have been growing. However: In the 1970s American lifespans were lengthening roughly in pace with those of peer countries. Then in the 1980s the U.S. and Denmark started falling behind. From 2000 on, Denmark rejoined th ..read more

A video podcast interview conducted by student Juan Alonso Martinez on his Youtube channel, “Atlas.” https://youtu.be/BxNOZSM81hQ?si=P9ygOcbZeZOp8OPx ..read more

In a recent and updated post, I reviewed the evidence clearly showing that there was and is not a so-called “loneliness epidemic.” (Surprise! Despite my post, the epidemic of epidemic alarms continues.) Many media stories about loneliness (e.g., here, here,  here) also assert that American adults have fewer friends or weaker friendships than they did some time before. While similar to the panic about loneliness, this claim is about relationships, not about emotions. So, what is happening to friendship? In Still Connected (2011), I assessed the data from 1970 to 2010 and concluded that not ..read more

The multiple dimensions of political polarization have become familiar to most informed Americans. One dimension that has become increasingly evident is geography. More Americans are living in communities where the great majority of residents share their politics. People are not staying in or moving to places according to local party registration rates so much as they are staying or moving based on cultural and lifestyle preferences, those preferences having become more strongly associated with political party. So, if you are into church, hunting, and tackle football, you’re disproportionately ..read more

Daniel Cox, Director and Founder of the Survey Center on American Life, interviewed me about the status of religion in the U.S. (though he is probably more expert than I!) for his excellent substack series, American Storylines, here. Dan gave me a chance to reflect on religious trends, how we study those trends, and how we might broaden our perspectives ..read more