Posted on 10/26/2018 5:33:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
Do they live in two different worlds? White college graduate women favor Democrats over Republicans in House elections by a 62 to 35 percent margin. White non-college-graduate men favor Republicans over Democrats in House elections by a 58 to 38 percent margin.
Those results are from a Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted in 69 seriously contested congressional districts, 63 of them currently held by Republicans. The numbers in other polls are only slightly different for these two groups.
They all tell the same story. These Americans live in the same relatively small slices of America (average population about 750,000), not many miles away from one another if they're in major metropolitan areas or in similar communities in rural districts. But they take very different -- often angrily different -- views on where the nation is headed and on sensitive issues.
Most, though, take a similar view of what has long been considered a decisive issue: the economy. Fully 77 percent in the survey rate the economy positively, a huge contrast with just about every survey taken between 2000 and 2016. Several months of 4 percent growth, considered impossible by some economists, has apparently been impossible to ignore.
But when asked their view of the direction of the nation "apart from the economy," the respondents revert to partisan type. White college women are especially negative, and white non-college men are solidly positive. Anyone whose personal acquaintance ranges across these groups can appreciate why one finds President Donald Trump repellent and the other congenial.
But there's a policy component, too. It's not that white college women are diehard Keynesians and white non-college men supply-siders. People tend to tailor their economic theories to partisan preference, not vice versa. But the economic policies of the last two administrations and concurrent trends have had -- and were intended to have -- very different effects on white college women and white non-college men.
Then-President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus package was heavily tilted toward college women. As my American Enterprise Institute colleague Christina Hoff Sommers wrote in The Weekly Standard in June 2009, the Obama economic team's original idea was to finance infrastructure, construction and manufacturing, sectors that lost 3 million jobs from 2007-09.
But feminist groups objected. Obama economist Christina Romer, Sommers wrote, recalled that her first email "was from a women's group saying 'We don't want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.'" So Obama ditched his "macho" stimulus plan for one stimulating creation of jobs in government, and especially in education and health care, which had gained 588,000 jobs during the 2007-09 recession. Forget the bridge building and electric grid modernization; let's subsidize more administrators, facilitators and liaisons.
The results were disappointing. Sputtering growth nudged up toward 3 percent and down toward zero, as it was during the last quarter of the Obama administration. Administrators outnumbered teachers in higher education but added little value. Government payrolls were temporarily sheltered from cuts. There was little recovery in blue-collar jobs, reduced life expectancy among downscale groups, opioid dependency and deaths. There were millions of men lingering on the disability rolls.
The trajectory of the economy -- and the beneficiaries -- seems different in the Trump presidency so far. Growth is more robust, obviously, though some economists thought this was impossible. And the biggest gains are, in contrast with the last 30 years, in blue-collar jobs and downscale earnings.
It's not clear there's a connection between these trends and Trump's policies and promises to make blue-collar America prosperous again. White House economic adviser Lawrence Kudlow argues that tax reform -- especially corporate tax cuts and 100 percent depreciation -- has stimulated capital spending on manufacturing and jobs for burly men. That's certainly plausible, though it's probably wise to wait and see whether the trend continues.
It's also possible that economic gains or losses have been less important than increases in people's feelings when they are earning respect. And their angry feelings when they feel they're not.
How does this affect next month's election? White college women's anger has given Democrats an edge in enthusiasm and money most of this cycle. White non-college men's apparently rising anger over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination and pride in Trump's economy have apparently given Republicans a late boost.
How much? White college turnout is overstated in polls, says The New York Times' Nate Cohn, and overanticipated by a white college-dominated media. The Republican boost's size -- and perhaps its existence -- is unclear. The Post poll puts Democrats up 4 percent in its 69 districts; the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll has the parties even in the most competitive races. What looked like a Whole Foods blue wave for Democrats looks more like a narrow Democratic -- or maybe Republican -- House majority.
“The women are basically ignorant”
I’d say women are more interested in personal things while men are more interested in how things work (machines, companies, governments, ...) and how to make them work better.
Its not that women are gullible, just they (and this is a generalization, so please ladies save the attacks calling me sexist) view and process the world differently.
While I have found women are very good at seeing intersections and interconnections of events in the worlds around the, on average far better then men are. Their prioritization of the importance of those intersections and interconnections are far different.
Safety and security, nesting, etc are very very important... So, when you present a general idea to them, they will prioritize the connections they perceive interconnect with it to those junctions... And prioritize those connections, over connections that they perceive to be less important or impacted by that concept.
So, if you say, free meals for kids in schools... Womens priorities of those connections are generally nurturing, safety, protection, particularly of the young... so, making sure kids get a healthy meal, is important.... So those connections get priority, so the question of what is the cost, is it needed, why are these kids not being fed at home... etc... don’t supersede, or equate to the same level as the rating of making sure kids are fed.
Its a prioritizational bias, not so much a gullibility.
One of my first jobs out of college, was to work on software that utilized the AHP (Analyitcal Hierarchy Process) which was utilized to capture and rank priorities in decision making... at the time the software was largely used by things like government when planning large expensive projects. Basically you enter all the criteria that matter, and then rank each of them relative to every other one of them. Then once you have all the criteria and their relationships weighted against one another, you can then feed the raw data into the system and use the process to determine and justifiy the decision that eventually are made for the project.
Changing the weights between criteria could and did create very very different outcomes, from the same data inputs. It is very interesting to see how the relationship weight of the relationship between just a few nodes can vastly change the output from the same input set.
The issue is that, classical educational systems, particularly in the liberal arts, until very recently have been largely centered around helping men recognize their innate biases and making the more aware of them and to expand their thinking. However, these same biases that men tend to have, and need to work against, to be a more rounded thinker and person, are the exact biases that women tend to have innately... so educational systems that are meant to make you recognize your biases and teach you to work through them, actually REINFORCE innate female biases...
So, where a largely analytical and linearly thinking man, is taught to see more of the picture... an less linearly thinking and less analytical female mind (and by analytical I mean critical linear thinking, not that women do not analyze or think) has its existing biases reinforced instead of being trained to break through those biases and learn to think more linearly.
Anyway, let the flaming begin, but that’s what I see...
Articulatting a rationale for your own mind-reading projected flavor of bigotry is in no way superior to the bigotry you profess to perceive.
YOU are a poster child for why a men’s rights movement is gaining traction.
Not recently. College freshmen are about 63% female. Of course, not all freshmen make it to graduation.
“More cognizant?” Don’t you think the value of that cognizance should be qualified before counting it in the “win column?” Indeed, one criticism of women by men is concern for that which is ultimately ephemeral (cf. price of clothing).
Absolutely
“Women don’t “see more” they feel more. Women vote, far too often, on their feelings. Rationality does not enter into it.”
Agreed!
OTOH, when it comes to getting laid, women are usually the rational creatures and men are the illogical sex. We just want it no matter what because our brains have turned to oatmeal during that arousal time. They can be rational and point out that we just got it (maybe even a week or more ago), we need to shower first, they have a headache and on and on . . .
That was the reason for the Amendment to give them the vote:
They are the largest voting bloc, that votes on feeling, and votes left of men. Their rights did not matter to the communists (progressives), their votes did.
“I would say women have their eyes open a lot more than guys do.”
Interesting idea, assuming that you are right how do you explain that women are so much more likely to vote Democrat?
Let’s not forget Trump got 53% of the married female vote. The solution is simple: We are going to have to marry these women and work on them. Let me be the last.
“We are going to have to marry these women and work on them. Let me be the last.”
You can be first and last, I’m already married and I don’t like work.
But why would even their hearts incline them to vote Democrat? Shoot, my hemorrhoids are too smart to vote commie.
I’ve been married 31 years. Do not ask me to explain why women think the way they do.
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