This seems to make sense. I assume this is why we see some groups vote against their own self interest, because it's needed to stay in their group. For example, low income evangelicals fighting against the ACA even though they are a primary beneficiary of it.
One of the downsides of democratization is that every election becomes apocalyptic. Each faith tradition responds accordingly to whichever evil they understand is their duty to ward off. This notably was not the attitude of Jesus, who approached government as something like a necessary evil to be endured rather than agent of social transformation or perpetuator of injustice.
I’m struggling to articulate this question, but it’s something like the following: This analysis makes it look like religion is the irreducible factor that drives partisanship. But is it possible to ask why these religious groups line up consistently with one political orientation (mostly conservative). If it’s not income, is it something else about their specific sociological context which explains why they find a conservative or liberal worldview more appealing? Is the explanation for the partisan alignments simply, irreducibly, religious ideology, or does that religious ideology align with some other set of social factors (factors other than income)?
Let me try to develop this thought a little more. The argument in this post seems to reinforce the culture wars thesis from the 1990s. There’s a conflict between a conservative and progressive worldview which is configuring our politics and much of public life. The conservative worldview is at least partly infused with Christian theological elements. But the question is, why are we seeing this particular conservative/progressive configuration? Clearly it has to do with different attitudes towards change. Putting it crudely one might hypothesize that conservatives are people who believe they’re losing out in social changes while progressives are people who believe they’re benefiting from social change. What are the reasons for these perceptions? I can think of a number of candidates. One might simply be secularization. Secularization has made society indifferent to religious commitment. That makes it harder to be a Christian because Christian assumptions are no longer privileged in our society. If social changes make Christians worse off, it’s understandable that they would view change negatively. If our society were becoming more Christian, rather than less so, they’d probably view change positively and have a different politics. Anyway, that’s just one hypothesis.
I believe that every person has one issue that will predict their vote. I have a friend it is LGBTQ. He may be economically conservative but will vote democrat. If you look at religion I think it is abortion number one. If you plot beliefs on abortion vs political party I think it would be a mirror image of religion. However this may be incorrect if conservative Jews are pro life. If that is the case it may only hold true to Christians.
The scatterplot doesn't look random to my eyes. It looks like a V with the point on the right. Republicans are middle income, Democrats are top and bottom income. It's an old pattern.
Re: people with a bachelor’s degree earn substantially more over their lifetimes than those without one.
Since presumably these graphs are across all age groups, the breaking of the link between college and income may not be visible in them yet-- in other words it holds true still in a historical way for most people, but is beginning to fail for young people in the post Pandemic era.
I'm impressed by these results, but I can't easily fit them with the fact that regressions including both education and income show strong effects for both, in opposite directions. That's true not just in the US in places like Australia where religion is a lot less salient, though the correlation is the same
Hey Ryan. A couple of things. The link from political-leaning to religion sure looks strong here but I wonder if the underlying link is actually the ways people receive information. What they hear from the pulpit may well have a strong effect but if they only connect to Fox New / Twiiter (or MSNBC / Bluesky) I wonder if that has a bigger impact.
Also, I was watching this great video from Humanists UK last night (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw3WRGiJ6xQ). Ignore the title, it's misleading. What it does a great job of is discussing, from a psychological point of view, how measuring a feeling of belonging to a group (political, religious, etc) can very significantly impact how people act. You often talk about religious attendance as a proxy for this but I was wondering if any of the data you have access to attempts to measure this directly.
Always interesting to see the data. On the conclusion: “The difference isn’t income.
It’s religion.” Makes sense -- isn't a religious belief a source of motivation?
White Evangelicals believe in the Trinity – The Father (God), the Son (Christ), and the Holy Spirit.
“Adherents of Judaism do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah or a Prophet, nor do they believe he was the Son of God.” Wikipedia
The design of the U.S. Constitution was influenced by Judeo-Christian (Old and New Testament) principles. The design enables “We the People” to work together towards that “more perfect Union.” This requires continuous improvement (a moral imperative). The more needs that are met, the less harm caused by unmet needs; for example, outcomes either improve or worsen.
Good is moral perfection, and Jesus is the standard of perfection. God is love, and love is an action – willing the good of others. Belief in Christ requires following Jesus’s example of taking action for the good of others (love). Belief in the Trinity and action congruent with this belief are in alignment with the Constitution and conservatism.
From a quality management perspective, the actions taken by organizations, institutions, and employees to provide the highest possible quality of products and services reflect meeting God’s expectations. An often overlooked fact is that reducing variation relative to the ideal is the key to continuous improvement.
Unfortunately, many within the religious community view quality management as a “business thing.” And, many of those who work in the area of quality management see no relationship to the divine.
The founders left it up to future generations to develop better methods (secular and non-secular) for continuous improvement. Effective quality management requires an optimum (decentralized) balance of power. Fear of discovering new truths and of losing power is a barrier. Revelations identify the centralization of power as leading to the end and a new beginning.
Background information at the following: W. Edwards Deming: Continuous Improvement and Learning
I believe it’s beliefs that predict voting more than religion.
Truth -> religion -> culture -> politics
Most people believe in untruths
I. The Noble Savage: Eden Reconsidered
II. The Blank Slate and the Erasure of Human Nature
III. The Myth of Moral Progress
IV. Power, Virtue, and the Romance of the Powerless IV. Power, Virtue, and the Romance of the Powerless
V. Intentions Over Outcomes
VI. Equality as Sameness
VII. The Neutrality of Technology
VIII. The Myth of Human Rationality
IX. Violence as Abnormality
X. Money as Mere Fiction
XI. Systems Without Virtue
XII. Freedom as the Absence of Constraint
XIII. There is no God
Conclusion: The Tragic Wisdom We Resist
Behind all these lies sits a single meta-fantasy: that humanity has outgrown tragedy—that human nature has changed, that scarcity no longer binds us, and that history’s lessons are obsolete. They are not.
Re: Power, Virtue, and the Romance of the Powerless
Power, and especially the desire for power, does create dangerous temptations. Morever power attracts corrupt or corruptible people.
Re: Violence as Abnormality
At the scale of individual lives violence is abnormal. How many people reading this have been touched by or witnessed violence recently (TV and stuff on the Internet do not count)?
Re: Money as Mere Fiction
Money is a fiction, but a useful one. Nothing descemnds to us from Heaven stamped with God's deal of value. That something we make up, again for useful reasons, as we go about our business.
Did not see XIII in your post. For those who do not believe in God, variation is an inherent part of creation. How should it be managed? What is the guiding philosophy?
From a secular perspective, the Taguchi Loss Function reinforces that the closer a product or service gets to the ideal or target by reducing variation, the higher the quality and the lower the cost to the individual and society. Is that a good thing?
"XIII - There is no God." In your opinion, the evidence is overwhelming. Variation is an undisputed fact. What is your opinion as to how variation should be managed?
“ Variation is an undisputed fact. What is your opinion as to how variation should be managed?”
I haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Variation in what?
The evidence for a creator is overwhelming for why anything exists. Given that there is a creator then implies that whatever exists is optimal. Some will be uniform, some will vary. It’s part of the plan.
This seems to make sense. I assume this is why we see some groups vote against their own self interest, because it's needed to stay in their group. For example, low income evangelicals fighting against the ACA even though they are a primary beneficiary of it.
One of the downsides of democratization is that every election becomes apocalyptic. Each faith tradition responds accordingly to whichever evil they understand is their duty to ward off. This notably was not the attitude of Jesus, who approached government as something like a necessary evil to be endured rather than agent of social transformation or perpetuator of injustice.
I’m struggling to articulate this question, but it’s something like the following: This analysis makes it look like religion is the irreducible factor that drives partisanship. But is it possible to ask why these religious groups line up consistently with one political orientation (mostly conservative). If it’s not income, is it something else about their specific sociological context which explains why they find a conservative or liberal worldview more appealing? Is the explanation for the partisan alignments simply, irreducibly, religious ideology, or does that religious ideology align with some other set of social factors (factors other than income)?
Let me try to develop this thought a little more. The argument in this post seems to reinforce the culture wars thesis from the 1990s. There’s a conflict between a conservative and progressive worldview which is configuring our politics and much of public life. The conservative worldview is at least partly infused with Christian theological elements. But the question is, why are we seeing this particular conservative/progressive configuration? Clearly it has to do with different attitudes towards change. Putting it crudely one might hypothesize that conservatives are people who believe they’re losing out in social changes while progressives are people who believe they’re benefiting from social change. What are the reasons for these perceptions? I can think of a number of candidates. One might simply be secularization. Secularization has made society indifferent to religious commitment. That makes it harder to be a Christian because Christian assumptions are no longer privileged in our society. If social changes make Christians worse off, it’s understandable that they would view change negatively. If our society were becoming more Christian, rather than less so, they’d probably view change positively and have a different politics. Anyway, that’s just one hypothesis.
I believe that every person has one issue that will predict their vote. I have a friend it is LGBTQ. He may be economically conservative but will vote democrat. If you look at religion I think it is abortion number one. If you plot beliefs on abortion vs political party I think it would be a mirror image of religion. However this may be incorrect if conservative Jews are pro life. If that is the case it may only hold true to Christians.
The scatterplot doesn't look random to my eyes. It looks like a V with the point on the right. Republicans are middle income, Democrats are top and bottom income. It's an old pattern.
Re: people with a bachelor’s degree earn substantially more over their lifetimes than those without one.
Since presumably these graphs are across all age groups, the breaking of the link between college and income may not be visible in them yet-- in other words it holds true still in a historical way for most people, but is beginning to fail for young people in the post Pandemic era.
That will be interesting data to look at in the future. The ROI of a bachelor’s degree may be more related to what the degree is in.
I'm impressed by these results, but I can't easily fit them with the fact that regressions including both education and income show strong effects for both, in opposite directions. That's true not just in the US in places like Australia where religion is a lot less salient, though the correlation is the same
Hey Ryan. A couple of things. The link from political-leaning to religion sure looks strong here but I wonder if the underlying link is actually the ways people receive information. What they hear from the pulpit may well have a strong effect but if they only connect to Fox New / Twiiter (or MSNBC / Bluesky) I wonder if that has a bigger impact.
Also, I was watching this great video from Humanists UK last night (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw3WRGiJ6xQ). Ignore the title, it's misleading. What it does a great job of is discussing, from a psychological point of view, how measuring a feeling of belonging to a group (political, religious, etc) can very significantly impact how people act. You often talk about religious attendance as a proxy for this but I was wondering if any of the data you have access to attempts to measure this directly.
Always interesting to see the data. On the conclusion: “The difference isn’t income.
It’s religion.” Makes sense -- isn't a religious belief a source of motivation?
White Evangelicals believe in the Trinity – The Father (God), the Son (Christ), and the Holy Spirit.
“Adherents of Judaism do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah or a Prophet, nor do they believe he was the Son of God.” Wikipedia
The design of the U.S. Constitution was influenced by Judeo-Christian (Old and New Testament) principles. The design enables “We the People” to work together towards that “more perfect Union.” This requires continuous improvement (a moral imperative). The more needs that are met, the less harm caused by unmet needs; for example, outcomes either improve or worsen.
Good is moral perfection, and Jesus is the standard of perfection. God is love, and love is an action – willing the good of others. Belief in Christ requires following Jesus’s example of taking action for the good of others (love). Belief in the Trinity and action congruent with this belief are in alignment with the Constitution and conservatism.
From a quality management perspective, the actions taken by organizations, institutions, and employees to provide the highest possible quality of products and services reflect meeting God’s expectations. An often overlooked fact is that reducing variation relative to the ideal is the key to continuous improvement.
Unfortunately, many within the religious community view quality management as a “business thing.” And, many of those who work in the area of quality management see no relationship to the divine.
The founders left it up to future generations to develop better methods (secular and non-secular) for continuous improvement. Effective quality management requires an optimum (decentralized) balance of power. Fear of discovering new truths and of losing power is a barrier. Revelations identify the centralization of power as leading to the end and a new beginning.
Background information at the following: W. Edwards Deming: Continuous Improvement and Learning
https://timjclark.substack.com/p/w-edwards-deming-a-quality-paradox
I believe it’s beliefs that predict voting more than religion.
Truth -> religion -> culture -> politics
Most people believe in untruths
I. The Noble Savage: Eden Reconsidered
II. The Blank Slate and the Erasure of Human Nature
III. The Myth of Moral Progress
IV. Power, Virtue, and the Romance of the Powerless IV. Power, Virtue, and the Romance of the Powerless
V. Intentions Over Outcomes
VI. Equality as Sameness
VII. The Neutrality of Technology
VIII. The Myth of Human Rationality
IX. Violence as Abnormality
X. Money as Mere Fiction
XI. Systems Without Virtue
XII. Freedom as the Absence of Constraint
XIII. There is no God
Conclusion: The Tragic Wisdom We Resist
Behind all these lies sits a single meta-fantasy: that humanity has outgrown tragedy—that human nature has changed, that scarcity no longer binds us, and that history’s lessons are obsolete. They are not.
https://justinmichaelptak.substack.com/p/the-great-untruths-that-govern-civilization
Re: Power, Virtue, and the Romance of the Powerless
Power, and especially the desire for power, does create dangerous temptations. Morever power attracts corrupt or corruptible people.
Re: Violence as Abnormality
At the scale of individual lives violence is abnormal. How many people reading this have been touched by or witnessed violence recently (TV and stuff on the Internet do not count)?
Re: Money as Mere Fiction
Money is a fiction, but a useful one. Nothing descemnds to us from Heaven stamped with God's deal of value. That something we make up, again for useful reasons, as we go about our business.
Did not see XIII in your post. For those who do not believe in God, variation is an inherent part of creation. How should it be managed? What is the guiding philosophy?
From a secular perspective, the Taguchi Loss Function reinforces that the closer a product or service gets to the ideal or target by reducing variation, the higher the quality and the lower the cost to the individual and society. Is that a good thing?
I added XIII on purpose because it underlines the other 12. The evidence for XIII is overwhelming and essentially is the reason for the others.
"XIII - There is no God." In your opinion, the evidence is overwhelming. Variation is an undisputed fact. What is your opinion as to how variation should be managed?
“ Variation is an undisputed fact. What is your opinion as to how variation should be managed?”
I haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Variation in what?
The evidence for a creator is overwhelming for why anything exists. Given that there is a creator then implies that whatever exists is optimal. Some will be uniform, some will vary. It’s part of the plan.