News and views

 There has been a lot of speculation about the effect of "new media" on politics, but we don't have much information.  This isn't just because of the difficulty of establishing causation--most surveys don't ask people where they get their news, so we don't even know that much about the association between news source and political views.  A Washington Post/Univ. of Maryland survey from December asked about main sources of news--it gave a list of possibilities and asked people to choose all that applied--and also asked if they thought Trump's election in 2024 was legitimate, if Biden's election in 2020 was legitimate, and if there was "solid evidence that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2024 election."  The voter fraud question is particularly interesting because it doesn't have an obvious connection to partisanship:  Trump talked about the likelihood of fraud before the election but treated the results as accurate after he won, while the Democrats expressed more confidence before but had reason to be unhappy with the results.  

Overall, 79% said Trump's election was legitimate, 63% said Biden's election had been legitimate, and 16% thought that there was solid evidence of fraud in 2024.  I took the percentages who held these views for each news source and constructed two variables--Trump's election was legitimate minus Biden's election was legitimate, and Trump's election was not legitimate plus Biden's election was not plus there was widespread fraud in 2024.*  The first variable can be taken as left/right orientation and the second as cynicism about the political process.  The figure shows the relationship between these two variables:

The blue dots are new media and the red ones are traditional media.**  The audiences of the new media are higher in cynicism, but scattered across the right/left spectrum.  The audiences of the traditional media cover a wide range in both dimensions, but there is a strong pattern--audiences that are farther to the right are also more cynical.  To make it more concrete, among people who said they got news from "The New York Times or another national newspaper" 86% said Trump's victory was legitimate, 90% that Biden's was, and 4% that there was widespread fraud; among those who got news from Fox, 81% said Trump's victory was legitimate, 41% that Biden's was, and 23% that there was widespread fraud.  That is, the Fox audience was more likely to choose the cynical answer on every question, even Trump's victory.  There was no such pattern with the new media.

So this evidence suggests that the main effect of the new media is not to move people to the left or right, but to reduce confidence in the political process.  Of course, some of this is selection, but probably not all of it--people choose sources that are in line with their views, but then those sources reinforce those views.   

 *I standardized the underlying variables first so they would have equal influence.

**Note that I don't say "legacy media."  Use of that term is a pretty reliable sign that someone doesn't know what he/she is talking about.  

Late and unlamented

 There are a number of things I want to write about, but this post involves something I didn't.  In September, I was informed that I was listed as the editor-in-chief of a journal that I had never heard of:  the " EON International Journal of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences."  I sent an e-mail to the journal telling them to remove my name, but got no response, so I sent a letter to the mailing address listed.  That letter was returned marked "Return to sender/Attempted--Not known/Unable to forward."  I couldn't think of anything else to do, and more or less forgot about it until I got an e-mail from someone who had a paper accepted by the journal (the acceptance letter was sent under my name) and was told that it would be published online by November 15, but when she went to see she found their website was no longer operating.  She wrote to the publisher's e-mail and got no response, so she was asking me if I knew what was going on.  

The author sent a copy of the acceptance letter.  It had two reviews, one marked "internal reviewer" and one "external reviewer."  I'm not sure that there actually were any reviewers:  both of the reports were generic and didn't mention anything specific about the content of the paper.  There was also an "editor's scorecard," which had 0-10 ratings on qualities including "use of commas, semicolons."  And then the important thing:  payment instructions.  The fee was $200, payable by credit card or by wiring the money to someone in Bangladesh.  There was also this note "The payment is to be sent to Bangladesh as we are currently working on donation of a project related to an Autism NGO situated in Bangladesh.  The journal is solely published from Editorial office of Wilmington, Delaware, USA."

So it seems that everything about this journal was fake, except that presumably they really did take the authors' money.  Unfortunately, there's nothing to prevent them from starting again under a new name.  

Vibe shift?, part 3

 I've written several times about a question on "How much discrimination do you think there is against blacks/black people/African Americans in our society today--a lot, some, only a little, or none at all?"  There was either no trend or a decline between 2000 and 2014, but then a clear shift towards seeing more discrimination starting in 2015.  The last time I wrote about this question was in 2019, and a survey in March 2019 had found a new high in perceived discrimination.  What has happened since then?

Perceptions of discrimination against black people have stayed high.  The two highest values were in May/June 2020, just after the killing of George Floyd.  There were three surveys during the Biden administration--the one in February 2022 found a lower value, but even that was above those found in 2009-14, and the value in February 2024 was back at 2019 levels.*

Combining the evidence from the last three posts, views of Trump are more favorable than they were in the 2016 campaign, but that's not because public opinion has become more conservative.  Of course, I've just looked at two aspects of opinion, but they are important ones, and ones that many observers have claimed were keys to Trump's victory.  I think the change in views of Trump has two major sources:  one is the experience of his first term, when there were no economic or foreign policy disasters, and the other is that Republican elected officials stuck with him, despite some wavering after 1/6/21.  Although he had serious opponents for the nomination,  Trump soon established a big lead in endorsements from  Republican elected officials.  So for the average voter, he's increasingly become a normal representative of the Republican party.   His gains over 2020 were not because voters became more conservative, but because of "retrospective voting"--things weren't going well under the Democrats, so why not give the Republicans a chance?   

*Since I collected the data, I also show perceived discrimination against whites, which has stayed about the same except for a drop in May/June 2020.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

Vibe shift?, part 2

 My last post looked at opinions on how Donald Trump was likely to do (or had done) as president.  This one is about general ideological inclinations, as measured by answers to "some people think the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Others think that government should do more to solve our country’s problems. Which comes closer to your view?"  This question has been asked by a number of survey organizations:  in 1974 and 1975, and pretty frequently starting in 1983.  I show the logarithm of the odds ratio of "do more to solve" versus "too many things":  that is, higher values represent more liberal views.  

There is a lot of variation between surveys taken at approximately the same time, which I think is because answers are influenced by context.  People like some things that government does and dislike others, so if the question follows questions about health or education, it's likely to get more "do more" responses than if it follows questions about taxes or whether the government wastes a lot of money.  However, there is clearly some longer term variation, so I also show a smoothed estimate. 

The last two times the question was asked were April and September 2024.  In April, opinions were quite liberal--16th highest out of 164 observations.  In September, they were more conservative--95th highest, and the most conservative since 2014.  So you could argue that there really was a vibe shift in 2024.  Given sampling error and unexplained short-term variation, I wouldn't put much confidence in that, but it is consistent with the data.  

Taking a somewhat longer view, here are the means by Presidential administration*:

There is a "thermostatic" pattern in which opinions are more liberal during Republican administrations.  That suggests that the vibes may shift again soon, especially if Trump continues to give Elon Musk free rein.**

*"Nixon" includes one from the Nixon and one from the Ford administrations.  The others have between nine and 48 observations.  

**Although I predict that within six months Trump will fire Musk, invent a dumb nickname for him, and take some sort of punitive action against his businesses.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

Vibe shift?

Many people have talked about a difference in reactions to Trump's first and second terms:  Ezra Klein writes  "in 2016, Trump felt like an emissary of the past; in 2025, he’s being greeted as a harbinger of the future."  In some ways, talk of a "vibe shift" is automatically true:  if influential people talk and act as if something has changed, then something has changed.  But there's a question of whether that shift reflects a change in the general public.  In November, I wrote about a question about what kind of president Trump would be (or had been):  great, good, average, poor, or terrible.  The question has been asked again since then, in a survey taken January 9-13, 2025.  The balance of opinion, counting great as +2, good as +1, average as 0, poor as -1, and terrible as -2:

There is one large outlier:  a survey taken 11/30/16-12/05/16 got unusually positive responses, far higher than a survey taken in October (-13 vs. -64).    There was no such change after the 2024 election:  the balance in January 2025 was the same as it had been in October 2024 (-23) and about the same as it was in April 2024 (-21).  
    If you look at the percent rating Trump as a great president (or potential president), it's a pretty steady upward movement.  

"Terrible" ratings were unusually low in December 2016, and in a survey from April 2011, when there was some talk about him running for president.  If you set those aside, there is a definite downward trend.  

There's not much match between the "vibes" and public opinion.   Although Trump's first election inspired protests and talk of resistance, the public at large was willing to give him a chance; although some business leaders and journalists warmed to Trump after his second election, the public hardly changed.  Over the whole period, assessments of Trump have been becoming more evenly divided, although they are still predominantly negative.   

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

Education, partisanship, and the world

As I've mentioned before, one of the major components of Donald Trump's world-view is that other nations are gaining at our expense:  "beating" us on trade, taking aid from us and not giving anything in return.  This general view is also shared by much of the public.  Here are the results from a survey question asking whether "other countries generally treat the United States about as fairly as we treat them" or "other countries often take unfair advantage of the United States." 

              As fairly            Take advantage

1994        19%                 78%
1999        24%                 70%
2018        42%                 51%
2021        46%                 52%

Between 1999 and 2018, partisan divisions became larger, as Democrats moved towards the "treat fairly" position.  Presumably, this was a reaction against Donald Trump:  when the "take unfair advantage" position became more strongly associated with the Republican party, Democrats turned against it.  However, it's not entirely a matter of partisanship:  even after controlling for party, more educated people are more likely to say that other countries treat us fairly.  The percentages choosing "treat us fairly":*

                                          Dem-1999        Dem-2021            Rep-1999        Rep-2021                

No college                           19%                 52%                        18%              19%               
Some college                       30%                  64%                       21%              18%               
College graduate                  48%                 77%                        32%               25%               

In 1999, there was no difference between Democrats and Republicans among less educated people.  Between 1999 and 2021, Democrats moved strongly towards the "treat fairly" position;  Republicans stayed about the same, and Republican college graduates even had a small shift towards "take unfair advantage."  As a result, Democrats are more divided by education than Republicans are.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

A hypothesis about conspiracy theories

 I'm interested in the relationship between political views and belief in conspiracy theories, and have had several posts on the issue.  In the cases I've looked at, there wasn't much connection, but Matthew Yglesias suggests one is emerging:  "Democrats are much more buttoned-up, and the GOP is much more accepting of cranks and know-nothings." (I was reminded by Andrew Gelman's post).  It turns out that there is some relevant data:  there have been a number of questions about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, first in 1966 and most recently in 2023.  The basic form is "do you think that one man was responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy, or do you think that others were involved?"  (Some added "in a conspiracy," but that didn't make any clear difference).   I'm not saying that believing that others were involved is a "crank" view--I would answer "don't know" to the question about whether more than one person was involved--but the inclination to think that things were or were not the result of a conspiracy is important.

The figure shows the balance of opinion for Democrats and Republicans (I'll get to independents later)--percent choosing "one man" minus percent choosing "others were involved."  From 1966 through 2013, Democrats were a little more likely to think that others were involved, but in 2023 they were substantially less likely.  Another way to look at it is that between 2013 and 2023, Democrats moved towards thinking that only one person was involved, while Republicans moved towards thinking that more than one was involved.  Until then, Democratic and Republican opinions had generally moved in the same direction.

Did partisanship affect the recent change in Democratic opinions, Republican opinions, or both?  With things like economic conditions or crime, there are objective measures that you can use as a benchmark.  That isn't the case here--the truth is whatever it's been all along--and as far as I know no major new evidence emerged between 2013 and 2023.  Between 2003 and 2013, both Democrats and Republicans moved towards thinking that one person was responsible, which may be because as time passes fewer people feel strongly enough to reject the official account.  That would suggest that the trend would continue, which it did for Democrats, so that Republicans were the ones affected by partisanship.  Another approach would be to take the change among independents as the standard.  It's shown here:

Like Republicans, they moved back in the direction of "others involved."  That suggests that Democrats were more affected by partisanship.  So you could argue it either way.  

I think that the changes were mostly a matter of people following their party, rather than people shifting between parties because of their general feelings about conspiracy theories.  Even though the JFK assassination was not a partisan issue, as Republicans said that the authorities were hiding the truth about the 2020 election and Covid vaccines, Republicans would be more likely to think that they were hiding the truth about other things; on the other side, Democrats would be more likely to think that that challenges to the official account were attacks on expertise.  But regardless of whether the shifts were between parties or between parties, a partisan gap has emerged.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

The winters of our discontent

 Back in 2011, I wrote about a question first asked by Gallup in 1952:  "As you look to the future, do you think life for people generally will get better, or will it get worse?"  I've also  had several posts on a question first asked in 1983:  "In America, each generation has tried to have a better life than their parents, with a better living standard, better homes, a better education, etc. How likely do you think it is that today's youth will have a better life than their parents--very likely, somewhat likely, somewhat unlikely, or very unlikely?"  Then I recently ran across two questions on how much confidence you have in the future of the United States:  one gives a choice of quite a lot, some, very little, or none; the other gives a great deal, quite a lot, some, or very little.  The figure gives the results, summarized as positive minus negative answers, for all four questions:*  

  I fit a model in which answers are a combination of question plus year effects: the next figure shows the year effects, which can be regarded as representing the general view of the future in that year.  The zero point on the y scale is arbitrary, but the ups and downs are meaningful.

There is clearly a downward trend, but also a lot of year-to-year variation.  It dropped substantially in 2017, then bounced back in 2018 and 2019, before dropping to new lows after 2021.  

However, although all of the questions involve the future, the first two are about individual standards of living, while the last two are about the "United States."  Asking about the United States may make people think about institutions, particularly governmental institutions, so the trends might be different than for the questions about conditions of life.  Unfortunately, because of gaps in when the questions were asked, it's hard to be sure. But looking over the period since the 1970s, the downward trend seems to be stronger for the future of the United States than for the future of standards of living.  In 2016, net opinion on the "today's youth" question was +10, about the same as it was in 1995-96.  That is, views about the future of the economy were similar in  the year when incumbent Bill Clinton won easily and the year when Hillary Clinton was upset by Donald Trump.  I've said before that discontent with politics and political institutions is not primarily a symptom of discontent with the economy or everyday life, and I think that this is further evidence for that position.  

*For the questions with four options, I count the first two as positive and the last two as negative.  As a result, "some" is counted as positive for the first future of the US question but negative for the second.  An alternative approach would be to count a great deal and quite a lot as positive--ie, one out of four for the first question and two out of four for the second.  I chose to do it the way I did because people don't seem to pay much attention to the exact wording of the answers for questions of this type.

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

Whisky, you're the devil?

 In 2001, Gallup asked "Do you personally, think drinking in moderation--that is, one or two drinks a day--is good for your health, makes no difference, or is bad for your health?"  22% said good, 46% no difference, and 27% bad.  They have asked the question a number of times since then, most recently in 2024.  The figure shows the balance of opinion (percent good minus percent bad) over time:

It's a clear downward trend--that is, a shift towards seeing moderate drinking as bad for health.  More exactly, it seems like a small downward trend until 2018, followed by a larger downward trend.  Since the number of observations is small, it's not possible to be sure about the exact timing, but it is clear that there's been a stronger downward trend in "recent" years.  

A lot of people say that we no longer have a shared social reality, that people no longer trust authorities but instead just believe what they want to believe.  This is an issue on which the desire to come to particular conclusions is strong:  people who enjoy the gift of Bacchus will want to believe that moderate drinking is good for you, or at least harmless, while people who have religious objections to drinking will want to believe that it is harmful as well as sinful.  Yet there's been a large shift in opinion in a fairly short period of time.  There hasn't been a definitive study that's settled the issue, but my impression is that the tone of media coverage has changed:  there have been a lot of articles like this one that appeared in the New York Times yesterday, which has the online headline "Evidence Against Drinking has Grown."  

Demographic breakdowns aren't available for most of the surveys, but I have them for 2011 and 2024.

                         2011         2024           change

White                +4              -27           -31
NonWhite          -8              -53           -45

No Coll            -13               -41           -28
Some Coll         -9               -38            -29
Coll grad           +9              -32            -41

Men                   +8               -27            -35
Women              -13              -44            -31

Dem                    -2                -46            -44
Rep                     -6                -29            -23
Ind                        0               -36            -36

There has been substantial move in all groups towards saying that moderate drinking is bad for health.   The shift is smaller among Republicans than among Democrats:  the party difference in 2024 is statistically significant, although not overwhelmingly so (t of about 3).  This might reflect lower Republican trust in the media or scientific authorities.  But the basic picture is that all kinds of people become more likely to say that moderate drinking is bad for health.    Of course, people have more respect for medicine than for other institutions, but with rare exceptions, they only learn about the views of medical experts through the media.   That is, even though many people say that they don't trust the media (especially the "corporate media" or "legacy media"), they still generally follow it on issues that aren't the subject of political contestation.

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]