In Texas, loathing effete liberals is very much part of the intense white rural thing.

I think they try something like this in Pennsylvania, but it's harder to pull off when the cities are known for steel and throwing batteries at Santa Claus.

In Texas cities, local liberals probably go into the art museums to look at the art instead of just running up the stairs and raising their arms.

The numbers in this map change drastically, moving across state lines despite similar counties on both sides of the line. That looks fishy.

Still an interesting topic to think about. The "low-intolerance areas" seem to be areas where conservatives are not very religious.

In general, the most politically intolerant Americans, according to the analysis, tend to be whiter, more highly educated, older, more urban, and more partisan themselves.

Well, yes. "Low-information voter" is the preferred term.

Compare this.

The "low-intolerance areas" seem to be areas where conservatives are not very religious.

This is consistent with what I was trying to get at in #3.

Or this. The same but clearer.

4: Texas has a very low voter turn out. Voter turn out map. South Carolina doesn't have particularly high turnout, either.

9 would be relevant if the data under discussion had been aggregated at the state level.

If only someone would link a map showing Texas voter turnout at the county level, instead.

11: Found one.

But even at the more granular level, voter turnout does not appear to be a particularly good proxy for partisanship.

I can't remember where I saw the critique, but the methodology of the study is kind of weird. That is, if I understand it correctly, they didn't ask about levels of political intolerance in any location -- they did a nationwide survey of, inter alia, political intolerance, and then weighted their results demographically to match the demographics of each county. So if there's a difference between how, e.g., well-educated middle-income people behave in Boston versus Phoenix, that's going to distort the results.

Both places are full of assholes, but very different kinds of assholes.

Wait, so this is just a fancy way of charting demographics of who is "whiter, more highly educated, older, more urban, and more partisan themselves"? That seems super dumb.

So, the data is pretty damn worthless, in other words.

I admit that I'm remembering a critique I read -- the linked methodology page went over my head enough that I'm not sure I'm right of my own knowledge.

But if you look at the map, there's got to be something wrong with the methodology -- look at NYS. Western NYS is the same place as Central PA, but they look radically different. Eastern NYS (once you're well north of the city) is the same place as CT/VT, and same. The state lines shouldn't show up nearly as starkly as they do.

Which you mention in the post, of course.

The linked methodology sounds consistent with your critique.

First, PredictWise collected 2,000 survey responses across the country, using a sampling technique called Random Device Engagement (RDE). For more background, read here, but the gist of it is that we use advertising networks on mobile devices to engage random people where they are to answer our surveys. ...PredictWise routinely relies on highly evolved variants of Mr.P. (or, spelled out: multi-level regression and post-stratification). The method allows us to take relatively low-N-survey data and derive small-area estimates. In fact, we have driven the methodological debate related to Mr.P. for years, and published extensively on it (here, here, here). In short, we model the outcome of interest (here: political tolerance) based on: urbanicity based on home address, age, gender, education, household composition, race, party affiliation, and two variables we use to describe the neighborhood: age variation and variation in partisan identification at the census block where the individual resides.

Oh, I bet I understand NYS. This is a guess, I don't know the numbers, but NYS fusion voting, where our rules make third parties much more important (and that rat bastard Cuomo is trying to kill it because the Working Families Party successfully gets Democrats elected who aren't under his thumb). I'll bet that we've got significantly lower percentages of voters registered as Democrats or Republicans, because the Conservative Party or the Working Families Party peels off a small but substantial chunk of voters, and that screws up the methodology.

The excerpt in 20 suggests that this is just an advertising vehicle for their ad/marketing business.

Nate Silver on twitter

Ugh, this is a bad use of MRP. (This tweet will have a very narrow audience.) The article makes it seem like the authors discovered *geographic* variation in this variable called political tolerance. But they don't do that *at all*. They found *demographic* variation instead.

...

A lot of quants who don't know any better think that with MRP, you can spin straw into gold. Instead, it's like spinning straw into... a straw basket. Which is actually sort of useful? But it's still straw. You haven't created any information, just reformulated it.

They replied

This thread is completely wrong: we modeled off of a survey interacted with voter file data of actual block-level composition. It is not just projecting onto demographics, but utilizing actual neighborhood partisanship as well. You should read the methods . . .

I read that tweet last week and, without looking at the methods (until know) I assumed that reply meant that the process they were using wasn't MRP. Obviously that impression was wrong (as a cursory look at the methods would make clear) their objection was just that they used neighborhood information as well as demographic characteristics. Not knowing enough about the stats methods in question to directly assess it, I'd say that Nate Silver seems more credible in that exchange. I have a strong sense that (a) their data in interesting and (b) they're really overselling it.

I think they should call it "Mr. Pee."

I also think about this recent post from Kevin Drum.

This is a great example of how fragile polling can be. We obsess over things like the margin of error, which might be responsible for a point or two of error, when there are other things that can introduce errors of a dozen points or more. Of course, it's not really correct to talk about "errors" here since we don't know what the true value is or whether there even is one. What a study like this shows is probably that (a) lots of people are kind of fuzzy about where they stand, and (b) lots of people aren't very good at math.

What they are describing as "political tolerance" is this:

... two outcomes - whether you are OK with your offspring marrying an out party spouse, and how selfish you think members of the out party are

Those questions are clearly _related_ to political tolerance, but I would think that, even if their regression was perfect, that's not going to be a perfect measure of political tolerance.

In Montana, intolerant seems to be largely a measure of Democratic. Without taking into account Natives.

Doesn't LB's description of the anomalous NY results confirm that there is some underlying non-trivial geographic info? Not to say that's good data, mind you.

There's non-trivial geographic info like party registration data, or incomes or education levels. But no way to differentiate people geographically if they're matched demographically.

I agree that the starkness of the state boundaries makes the rest of this entirely fishy. VA/NC/SC also stands out as being ridiculous.

27 et al: In the methodology they give an overly defensive acknowledgement of the state problem:

Yes, we do suspect some of the sharp state differences can be artifacts of how party data is collected at the state level. Counter argument? We only run into these differences in 3 out of 50 states, and the most blatant examples, South Carolina and Florida, are states in which we find partisans to be very insulated in their neighborhoods by age and partisan affiliation. So, we decided to let the data speak for itself, instead of smoothing (read: fudging) our results ex post to avoid controversy.

There are so many things wrong with how this was described and displayed. Including of course it's implicit "bothsidesism*." In fact if I understand the methodology it would basically smear out any actual meaningful regional/state geographic variation by implicitly associating them with non-regional demographic attributes nationwide.

*"Survey Find Brits More Intolerant of Nazis than the Reverse!" - 1940 headline

Leaving aside the geographic weirdness, I find the urban living as a predictor of political intolerance really surprising. Both because of urban density -- even if cities were as homogeneously liberal as rural areas are conservative (and they probably are), you just interact with a lot more unfamiliar people in a city, and so you're likelier to deal with uncommon types of people. (Even in NYC, I spent a couple of years working in a mostly very right-wing firm.) And also because I would expect liberals, even if possibly not objectively more tolerant, to be more committed to paying lip service to tolerance.

I wonder if there's an explanation for that.

If you count wanting to exclude open racism from politics as politically intolerant, I think you get that.

Well, right. But that's the sort of thing that makes me interested in exactly what they asked.

I haven't read any of the links.

They list the questions at the link on methodology:

How would you react if a member of your immediate family married a Democrat? How would you react if a member of your immediate family married a Republican? How well does the term 'Patriotic' describe Democrats? How well does the term 'Selfish' describe Democrats? How well does the term 'Willing to compromise' describe Democrats? How well does the term 'Compassionate' describe Democrats? How well does the term 'Patriotic' describe Republicans? How well does the term 'Selfish' describe Republicans? How well does the term 'Willing to compromise' describe Republicans? How well does the term 'Compassionate' describe Republicans? How do you feel about the Republican Party today? How do you feel about the Democratic Party today? How do you feel about Democratic voters today? How do you feel about Republican voters today?

But with added line breaks!

Apparently I'm intolerant. Shit.

33: The survey questions are in the method post. They measure partisan polarization rather than intolerance in the normal sense of the word. Under that definition the result is unsurprising. The Atlantic piece is also as mentioned totally both-sidesist. A bunch of studies show partisan hostility is asymmetrical.

Come to think, specifically right now, I can see getting the results they got. That is, in the literal Trump era, I can see Democrats being readier than Republicans to say that the other party as an organization is an insane dumpster fire.

Right, I mean, obviously republicans aren't willing to compromise. Anyone who says they are isn't tolerant, they're delusional.

What I think they're trying to get at is, "Do you think Bob down in marketing able to function on a committee with you, even though he votes like a bad guy?"

Every person has a small-scale personality for the people they know locally, and a large-scale personality, for their opinions about public policy and their opinions of various large groups of people.

This study was trying to determine, "Are you so blinded by your large-scale opinions that you can't operate freely with people on the small-scale level?" However, they never did anything close to ascertaining this.

Right, the questions about the Republican/Democratic Party and voters is going to get to opinions about how bad is current large scale political activity (which is particularly batshit right now) rather than about how you feel about getting along with people at the office potluck.

Unless your bring your kids to the office potluck to find a spouse.

Which is probably suboptimal for a variety of reasons.

Office potlucks are the worst.

Because of the Republicans?

We just go to restaurants.

Just in general. Luckily my supervisor hates them too so I'm under zero pressure to attend these days.

Can't you just sign up to bring ice and cups?

Sure, but then there's still the social interaction aspect.

Also the way they seem to work here generally is that each section is assigned a category to bring.

Alaskans have an entire category for ice.

51: each section is assigned a category to bring.

And teo's section always seemed to get Those that have just broken the flower vase.

You can't market your political forecasting startup to candidates of all political parties if you don't make sure your studies use both-sides methodologies.

53: Heh.

If we have Israeli lurkers, could you do your best to make sure Labor wins. I just promised not to boycott Israel until 2020.

It goes hand in hand with faux-rustic intentionally-distressed furniture and aggressively petulant feelings of persecution.

This is great; and it makes me think of that faux down-home, though actually quite upscale, fixer-upper couple Chip and Joanna Gaines.

Actually, I have no idea what their politics might be. On the one hand, they have a (no doubt lucrative) line of products at Target, which is sort of liberal-leaning, I guess, when compared to, say, Walmart? But on the other hand, the aspirations, and the overall aesthetic, on which they trade do very much trend toward the recovery of a lost and innocent rural America...

They worship at an anti-gay church whose pastor believes in conversion therapy.

Wasn't "Chip Gaines" what Garth Brooks called himself when he decided, somehow, that a forty-year-old playing Emo was less stupid than a forty-year-old playing cowboy?

That was "Chris Gaines." I don't know why I can't kill the brain cells that remember that fact. I've clearly injured them at bit.

58: So that's significantly crazier, and much more malevolent, than anything I had expected.

I keep expecting the Americans to be "the good guys." Too many WWII movies, I suppose. Lately, I am only disappointed in my expectations.

that a forty-year-old playing Emo was less stupid than a forty-year-old playing cowboy

Did Emo and Utah Phillips every tour together?

"ever"

A much more fun map is this Upshot on relative likelihood of Facebook connections by county.

Also fun. Name the celebrity based on their Wikipedia table of contents* (Maybe even FPP-worthy. I'm sure some of you will be very good at it; I'm so-so.)

*Partial.

That was just too long.

Claps for 62

I'm not willing to re-read the article, but I think they said that here in lovely MA (well, to be fair: Suffolk, Middlesex, and Norfolk counties) the Democrats (90% of the survey) hate Republicans and the Republicans (10%) hate Democrats. The hate goes both ways! This pretty much reinforces my priors, although it's pretty hard to find Republicans to confirm.

Many of the few existing Republicans are Trumpist enough that they hate Charley Baker (the inoffensive, powerless Republican governor) as well. They hate almost everybody! On the other hand, polls show Baker highly popular with the electorate as a whole, which presumably includes some of those Democrats who are counted as hating all Republicans. It's almost like the questions you ask make a difference!

56: Bad news, Moby. Polls show Labor will only get 8-10 seats in the next Knesset. Netanyahu's serious competition is the new Blue & White party -- generally described as a centrist party -- my mom describes it as a bunch of big egos without a platform.

I'm behind the times. Like when I do a bunch of work and then learn that I can't boycott Israel if I want paid for what I did.

|| They allege that Huffman and her husband "made a purported charitable contribution of $15,000...to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter. Huffman later made arrangements to pursue the scheme a second time, for her younger daughter, before deciding not to do so."

Felicity Huffman's husband is William H. Macy. Am I missing something? Did he pay somebody else to have his name left out of the story?

https://abc11.com/actresses-ceos-charged-in-alleged-college-admissions-scam/5186103/

Being an uninvolved father really saves trouble.

71 As Yggles points out on twitter, don't they know there is a legal way to do this?

Also, Lori Loughlin, the most famous person to graduate from my high school is one of the culprits.

"My wife does the cooking and the cleaning and the crimes. I mow the lawn or at least pay the neighbor's kid to do it."

The real crime is Fuller House.

How come Loughlin paid $250,000 per kid and Huffman only $15,000? Were her kids $235,000 worse?

the Democrats (90% of the survey) hate Republicans and the Republicans (10%) hate Democrats.
It's the old-established rule!
But during
National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
Donald Trump and AOC are dancing cheek to cheek

76: The sports scam requires bribing the college sports coach, which is expensive. Bribing someone to raise SAT scores is much cheaper.

(this is rank speculation)

77: And everybody panders to the Jews

Let's all list our SAT scores if our parents were willing to pay $15,000 to have them increased.

77. I would pay money to see that. I'd also give odds on which knifes the other first.

They photoshopped the kids' heads onto pictures of real athletes.

Just like the holiday photos.

I just saw a story that contained the line, "Macy was not charged; authorities did not say why.". So I figure he was wearing a wire.

I mean, there's absolutely no reason to think that. But it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

as someone whose kid is in the midst of this process, the differences among the three streams i've seen from this vantage point are:

- the UCs seem to only look at transcripts and standardized test scores, outside of the nausea-inducing realm of sports (are there other exceptions? i'm not aware of any but there could be), but that pretty much means you'd have to rig your kid's grades and test scores, which is do-able because that is all based on general knowledge. i'm absolutely certain there is an active market for AP results as well. plus, i'm convinced the rate of just-sufficient learning disability diagnosis among the children of big firm law partners, finance types, etc., is wildly disproportionate compared to the rest of the population. nothing too bad, you know, just enough to get extra time on the tests. it is interesting that my big firm colleague regard UC schools as dangerous wild cards.

- oxbridge is i am certain grossly rigged on a class-money basis, but the kid's experience of the subject-specific application process made it less rig-able. he was interviewed by linguistics faculty and they gave him a written test on the subject at the cambridge publishing offices in NY. acceptance under those circs seems to feel, justifiably, meaningful to him.

- the US private college-university systems offers corrupt opportunities at every price point, go USA! starting from the bottom: rigging grades and test scores (see UCs), resume stuffing via "public service" junket trips to, e.g., remote peruvian villages to build schoolhouses (one hopes the peruvians are at least profiting from this revolting industry, and i would be shocked if in the off-season they don't disassemble the school house to clear the way for the next lot), more expensive resume stuffing for the malleable kids via a decade-plus of acquiring sport/art skills, even more expensive resume stuffing via faked sport skills, next tier up is 5-6 figure "donations," and then above that 7 figure "donations."

"oxbridge is i am certain grossly rigged on a class-money basis"

It is and it isn't. I mean, private school kids have a much better chance and it's not just because they get better grades - it's attitude and so on as well. But there's no way to bribe your way in. There's no preference for the children of big donors.
But one big bias is that state school kids just don't apply. Their chances of getting in if they apply are similar to private school kids - higher in some years, lower in others.

How come Loughlin paid $250,000 per kid and Huffman only $15,000? Were her kids $235,000 worse?

Her kid is a full-time Instagram influencer who has announced plans to not do anything at college except use it as a new setting for social media posts, so I guess they crunched the numbers and it was worth $250,000 to have her at USC instead of one of the hundreds of colleges that anyone who can pay full tuition can get into.

- the UCs seem to only look at transcripts and standardized test scores, outside of the nausea-inducing realm of sports (are there other exceptions? i'm not aware of any but there could be)

instruments for the marching band, probably

88 is unfair - she is not just partying, she will also be synergizing with brands.

I said something super ignorant and stupid, basically. And it totally came across that I'm ungrateful for college -- I'm going to a really nice school. And it just kind of made it seem like I don't care, I just want to brush it off. I'm just gonna be successful at YouTube and not have to worry about school. I'm really disappointed in myself.

Speaking of rich people and crimes, I wonder if the actual most important news of the day isn't that the New York AG is subpoenaing Deutsche Bank about it's loans to Trump? Maybe that's just optimism.

Also, I have no idea how to spell subpoenaing. I just kept typing stuff until the squiggly line disappeared, so maybe it's the wrong word.

|P
We Need a US college admissions discussion before too long.
||

it is interesting that my big firm colleague regard UC schools as dangerous wild cards.

Isn't this what you'd expect from snobs?

It's snobbishness, I'm sure, but not just snobbishness. Everybody in my family had gone to Stanford since there was a Stanford until my dad, who went to Cal. This was taken as evidence of communism. If you go to one of those schools either a) you're not the right sort or b) you might be on the other side.

What happens to the kids who were admitted under fraudulent pretenses?

They have to go work as roustabouts for Venezuela.

BREAKING: Brexit update: new UK exit agreement revealed, constructed from gaffer tape, oven cleaner, a nylon stocking, a fluorescent light bulb and a bottle of liquid soap by the EU's lead negotiator, MacGuyverhofstadt.

(this is a lie used to justify a pun)

Obviously a lie, clearly Brexit supporters would only use incandescents.

How would you react if a member of your immediate family married a Republican?

I would absolutely 100% work overtime to discourage my kids from dating a Republican waaaaay before it got to any talk of marriage. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be any sort of issue for Keegan.

Your kid seems smart!

He can try using the power of love to convert Republican women. Like those cults that used "flirty fishing" to recruit.

Like Captain Kirk, if the kids still know who that is.

103: He does enjoy tweaking Republicans.

95, 96: No - they'd all LOVE it if their kids could get in to Cal, it's considered a dangerous wild card bc their kids *can't*. I've had multiple partners tell me about their children who really wanted to go to Cal but didn't get in while being admitted to Stanford, Princeton, Yale, etc. Seems resume stuffing doesn't work for the UCs.

102, 106: Your kid sounds terrific.

What really struck me after reading the details of the scandal: why are the coaches the ones taking bribes? They're usually some of the highest paid people at a university.

107: One possible factor with the UCs is the extreme reluctance of many people to leave California, even temporarily. At my UMC public high school in California, people in my class with offers from Harvard, Princeton & etc. preferred Berkley because who in their right mind wants to live anywhere except California?

Then why does Washington state make jokes about needing Oregon to block all but the most determined Californians heading north?

109.1: Are even the sailing coaches paid a lot? I don't think we are talking about football or basketball coaches.

110: Maybe they only start to find their fellow Californians insufferable once they enter the work force after college.

who in their right mind wants to live anywhere except California?

California's great, except for the endemic trolls.

Seattle had a troll under a bridge. My cousin showed me.