Speaker 1: Welcome back to a Numbers game with Ryan Grodowski. I'm
Speaker 1: your host and very happy to be here. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed my conversation with Alex Thompson on his book
Speaker 1: Original Sin that came out on Monday. I was excited
Speaker 1: because I was one of only two conservatives to get
Speaker 1: an interview about the book the first week it came out,
Speaker 1: so that was that was great. If you didn't catch
Speaker 1: the episode, it came out Memorial Day, so you can
Speaker 1: listen on whatever streaming platform you're on. I took part
Speaker 1: in a debate on Tuesday for the group Young Voices.
Speaker 1: I debated Michael Tracy on the Trump administration's first four
Speaker 1: months and if the America First Agenda was a net
Speaker 1: positive for Americans economic prosperity, security, and civil liberties. Was
Speaker 1: an Oxford style debate, so I couldn't like tell jokes
Speaker 1: in a little bit. It's very serious. But the audience
Speaker 1: voted before and after whose minds had changed most people
Speaker 1: and I won, which was exciting because the room was
Speaker 1: like mostly libertarians and liberals, so arguing in favor of
Speaker 1: tariffs and mass deportation not the easiest thing to do,
Speaker 1: but I won, so I was excited, And if you
Speaker 1: want to watch debate, it's somewhere onlines on social media somewhere.
Speaker 1: I think it's on x and you can go to
Speaker 1: Young Voices or my Twitter account and you can watch
Speaker 1: the full debate. It's a little boring. Michael Tracy talked
Speaker 1: about Israel, but you know whatever, I kept it. It
Speaker 1: kept it to the numbers because that's what I'm interested in.
Speaker 1: So there are two big number data things that were
Speaker 1: out this week that I want to talk to listeners about.
Speaker 1: It's a solo episode, but I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of data heavy stuff that really it would be hard
Speaker 1: to find a guest who was as interested in as
Speaker 1: I was. So the first is this map that came
Speaker 1: out from the New York Times over the week, The
Speaker 1: New York Times tracked every county in the country and
Speaker 1: how it moved towards Republicans while Trump was the nominee
Speaker 1: in the last three elections compared to twenty twelve, and
Speaker 1: how counties moved in the last three elections towards Democrats since
Speaker 1: Trump became the nominee. So their triple red or triple
Speaker 1: blue counties, That's how I'm describing them, right Triple Red
Speaker 1: being they moved towards Trump more and every single election.
Speaker 1: Triple Blue is obviously moved away from Trump and towards
Speaker 1: Democrats and every election. Okay, all told, there were one thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty three counties that moved to the
Speaker 1: right in every one of the last three elections. Now,
Speaker 1: remember there are only three thousand, one hundred and forty
Speaker 1: three counties total in the country. So Trump increased his
Speaker 1: support in every election in forty five percent of all
Speaker 1: the counties in the country. Democrats, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: only had a continual gain in fifty seven counties. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously we know that all counties aren't made equal rights.
Speaker 1: Some are more populated, some are wealthier, whiter, blacker, more Hispanic,
Speaker 1: more working class, whatever. But that is wild. That is
Speaker 1: a huge, huge difference in general trajection from one party
Speaker 1: the other. Average Triple blue county, right, the average county
Speaker 1: that moved away from Trump and last three elections, the
Speaker 1: average blue county had an average population of one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty two thousand people. The average Triple red county
Speaker 1: was just shy of thirty thousand. So Trump gained much
Speaker 1: more in rural and exurban Americans parts of America, while
Speaker 1: Democrats gained primarily in suburbs, not cities. Suburbs. It's very
Speaker 1: important difference. What is interesting about the triple red counties
Speaker 1: are where they exist in urban areas. They're all triple red.
Speaker 1: They're all triple they all went towards Trump three consecutive elections.
Speaker 1: No major urban areas went more blue since twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: not one. That's a very big thing because in some
Speaker 1: of the most some of the largest areas of this country,
Speaker 1: the counties that have the largest cities. Shit, Okay, what's
Speaker 1: interesting is that these triple red counties where gained in
Speaker 1: these urban areas. They have some of our biggest cities.
Speaker 1: So Miami Dade County, home of obviously Miami, Bark County, Nevada,
Speaker 1: the home of Las Vegas, Honolulu County obviously the home
Speaker 1: of Honolulu, Cuyahoga County, the home of Cleveland. Philadelphia County,
Speaker 1: which is the home of obviously Philadelphia, and several of
Speaker 1: the boroughs of New York City, including my own Queens Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: and the Bronx all were triple read. They'd all moved
Speaker 1: more Republican election over election. So what does this tell
Speaker 1: US the rural and exurban counties that moved consecutively. That is,
Speaker 1: the white working class getting closer and closer towards Saddam
Speaker 1: Hussein level of support for Donald Trump. Right we're approaching
Speaker 1: the seventy eighty in some parts of West Texas, for example,
Speaker 1: ninety percent support for Donald Trump among white working class voters.
Speaker 1: But in the cities primarily now there's some rural areas
Speaker 1: that are already around the Mississippi Delta and the Texas
Speaker 1: border with Mexico. The majority Hispanic or majority Black book
Speaker 1: for the most part, where the growth came from from
Speaker 1: minorities was in these city centers, these urban areas, these
Speaker 1: big urban areas and like New York City that are
Speaker 1: growing leaps and bounds towards Republicans. The New York Times
Speaker 1: put this data out, and I think listeners should hear
Speaker 1: this part. All told, one hundred and thirty five counties
Speaker 1: voted more Democrat in twenty twenty four than they did
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve by an average of eight point eight percent.
Speaker 1: Two thousand, six hundred and seventy eight counties became more
Speaker 1: Republican by an average of thirteen point three percent. That's
Speaker 1: six times as many counties that moved towards the GOP
Speaker 1: that moved towards the Democratic Party, and by a substantially
Speaker 1: wider margin. The erosion of the working class support among black, white,
Speaker 1: and Latino voters alike has unnerved every ideological wing of
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. This is why if you listen to
Speaker 1: a lot of lefty podcasts, I know most of my
Speaker 1: audients probably doesn't I do. I have a sick obsession
Speaker 1: to hear what liberals are talking about. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of conversation outside, like out besides the bulwark, which is
Speaker 1: just constantly like Trump has owned this week, but the
Speaker 1: rest of the conversation around smart liberals is where are
Speaker 1: we going as a party? What are we doing? This
Speaker 1: frantic search for an identity and a leader is because
Speaker 1: these numbers are I think that when now that the
Speaker 1: election is far out and people can do solid data
Speaker 1: reporting based upon the voter file, it's far worse than
Speaker 1: people even imagined. Because it's a trend. It's not a
Speaker 1: one off. It's not like, oh, twenty twenty four happened,
Speaker 1: but twenty twenty and twenty sixteen didn't know. These things
Speaker 1: are continuing, They're moving in this direction, and yes, Trump
Speaker 1: will be on the ticket in twenty twenty eight, but
Speaker 1: it's a sign of where we are going. Trump not
Speaker 1: only one major gains in Hispanic areas, as everyone knows,
Speaker 1: and Decision Desk, this website, Decision Desk, they put out
Speaker 1: a report that actually Trump won a majority of Hispanics
Speaker 1: in sixteen states, but more counties with a black voter
Speaker 1: majority shifted towards Republicans in each of the last fifty
Speaker 1: three sorry, in each of the last three elections than
Speaker 1: the total number of counties nationwide that trended towards Democrats.
Speaker 1: Fifty eight counties that are black majority trended towards Republicans,
Speaker 1: fifty seven counties that are black majority trended towards Democrats.
Speaker 1: That is a number that is somebody who's been filling
Speaker 1: politics in two thousand and eight. I probably never would
Speaker 1: have believed that was a substantial thing that was going on.
Speaker 1: But it's happening a lot in rural black counties in
Speaker 1: this country. And I will tell you guys a story.
Speaker 1: It seems kind of like doesn't make any sense, but
Speaker 1: it does. During Stacy Abrams' first run for governor in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, I was like, my first time really in
Speaker 1: Georgia for any long period of time, and I passed
Speaker 1: somebody who a rural, you know, Georgian. It was not
Speaker 1: a big area. I was in South Georgia and he
Speaker 1: had a Brian Kemp sign and I said to him,
Speaker 1: why are you voting for Brian Kemp? And he said, no,
Speaker 1: fat lesbian from Atlanta is going to take away my gun.
Speaker 1: I know, obviously that's really funny and shocking, but I
Speaker 1: could not believe his identification as a voter, which for
Speaker 1: so often for black voters in the country, was based
Speaker 1: on race, for him, in this very brief conversation I had,
Speaker 1: was based on ideology and specifically gun rights. A lot
Speaker 1: of rural blacks in this country are gun owners, and
Speaker 1: they are culturally much more like a Republican than they
Speaker 1: are like a Democrat, even though a majority still votes
Speaker 1: for the Democratic Party. But it's clearly breaking. This is
Speaker 1: in the last election, Republicans gained ground in one hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety three of the country's two hundred most predominantly
Speaker 1: black counties. Think about that, ninety three of the two
Speaker 1: hundred most predominantly black counties. This is the base. This
Speaker 1: is the heartbeat of the Democratic Party. They are not
Speaker 1: a party without majority black support, and not even majority.
Speaker 1: They are not at party a functioning party without eighty
Speaker 1: five to ninety percent majority Black support. If that ever
Speaker 1: slips to seventy percent, call it a night they cannot win.
Speaker 1: Or if blacks just don't turn out like they didn't
Speaker 1: in the last election because they're not energized by a candidate,
Speaker 1: because they don't perceive them as being authentic for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: Of the sixty seven counties in America with a majority
Speaker 1: Hispanic population, guess how many voted more Republican in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four than twenty twelve. Sixty six sixty six of
Speaker 1: sixty seven counties. Even more, according to nd Times, even
Speaker 1: more arresting is the average swing towards a GOP in
Speaker 1: those sixty six Hispanic majority counties was twenty three percentage points,
Speaker 1: a political earthquake with which both parties are still coming
Speaker 1: to terms d three points. With black with black majority counties,
Speaker 1: it was two three. Listen, we'll take it whatever. Three.
Speaker 1: If that happened, If that kind of switch happened for
Speaker 1: working class white voters towards the Democratic parties at the
Speaker 1: Republican Party, it would be a nineteen sixty four style
Speaker 1: landslide election for the Democrats. Of the triple Red counties,
Speaker 1: ninety five percent had immediate income below thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: They were earning less than eighty thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 1: which is the immediate income for the whole country. Seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of the triple blue counties head to meet
Speaker 1: income higher than an African national average. Haitian and wealth
Speaker 1: are the political dividers of the future. It is not
Speaker 1: so much race, which it has been in our country
Speaker 1: since I don't know in in ten, nineteen, twelve hundred years,
Speaker 1: one hundred years of race being the deciding factor in
Speaker 1: how you support somebody will now be replaced by education
Speaker 1: and income, and it means a world of difference in
Speaker 1: the country. You'll start seeing places like Kansas and Nebraska
Speaker 1: get bluer and bluer and bluer, and you will start
Speaker 1: seeing places like California and New York and New Jersey
Speaker 1: get redder and redder. And I don't think people are
Speaker 1: understand that that movement is happening. Education is increasingly becoming
Speaker 1: a more likely predictor of voting habits than race, about
Speaker 1: a college degree, more than your skin tone and your
Speaker 1: skin color. So the big question I want to present
Speaker 1: to my audience is this, what can this continue, especially
Speaker 1: in a Trump free in a post Trump world, the
Speaker 1: Trump free Republican Party. I mean, obviously they'll all like him,
Speaker 1: but he won't be on the ticket. That's the big question.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, it can, but it's not definite, not
Speaker 1: in the way the Republican Party is made up in
Speaker 1: DC right now. I spend a lot of time in
Speaker 1: the Capitol. I spend a lot of time members of Congress.
Speaker 1: I've been there for more years than I care to remember.
Speaker 1: And for the most part, they're still naked ideologues. They're
Speaker 1: holding onto a Republican Party in many senses that they
Speaker 1: grew up with from decades past. They are not living
Speaker 1: in today's world. You know, Yes, they support President Trump,
Speaker 1: they like a lot of agenda. They own a MAGA hat.
Speaker 1: They put their make America Great bumper sticker over there,
Speaker 1: George Bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain bumber sticker. But if
Speaker 1: you were to wake them up at three o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning and water bore them until they announce what
Speaker 1: they actually believed in. It will look a lot more
Speaker 1: like Mitt Romney than Donald Trump. And maybe they've gotten
Speaker 1: more aggressive on issues like illegal immigration, But on trade,
Speaker 1: do you think any of them support tariffs? Really? What
Speaker 1: about a millionaire's tax like President Trump suggested but didn't get,
Speaker 1: or earn closing of the earn interest loophole which he
Speaker 1: didn't get. How about paid maternity leave, which he's talked
Speaker 1: about for five years, has never got it, never gotten
Speaker 1: close to it. What about cutting some spending to the Pentagon,
Speaker 1: which is refusing to meet an audit and is rippled
Speaker 1: with misappropriated funds. How about cutting any money to them
Speaker 1: or holding them accountable? Probably not? What about the Raise Act,
Speaker 1: which would have reduced legal immigration by fifty percent? What
Speaker 1: about any reduction to legal immigration which a majority of
Speaker 1: Republican voters want. Maybe you'd get two dozen of the
Speaker 1: two hundred plus members. Maybe two dozen if you're like,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one story. I was in and off
Speaker 1: the record congressional event. This is in twenty twenty on
Speaker 1: and Biden's in the White House. Maybe it was in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. The Ukraine War had just started, Zelensky
Speaker 1: had just come to Congress to go and speak to,
Speaker 1: you know, the Congress basically asking for endless support for
Speaker 1: the war in Ukraine. And I, you know, I understand
Speaker 1: the feeling that you should be on the side of
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian people, especially in this time, and you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to help out a country that was being invaded.
Speaker 1: Totally understand that. I totally get that the level at
Speaker 1: which these congressmen were hungry to support a war was
Speaker 1: strange to me. They had no idea at which the
Speaker 1: place Americans were and how war we were, where we were,
Speaker 1: how much Americans, especially when whole Republican voters were tired
Speaker 1: of being the world's policemen, tired of being the world's
Speaker 1: piggy bank, felt that we were being taken advantage of.
Speaker 1: Didn't understand it at all whatsoever. One congressman, I will
Speaker 1: never forget this, stood up in front of the entire
Speaker 1: group of other congressmen and said that he wanted to
Speaker 1: put a bust of Zelenski in the capitol of Rotunda,
Speaker 1: our capital which has nothing to do with Ukraine, next
Speaker 1: to a statue of Winston Churchill, who was our ally
Speaker 1: to defeat the Nazis, because he said he's the most
Speaker 1: Churchillian figure in the world right now, completely and utterly
Speaker 1: out of touch. There aren't enough people in DC that
Speaker 1: reflect the voters. And I'm not talking about like someone's
Speaker 1: race and how they look, or gender or religion or whatnot.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about life experience too. Many of these people
Speaker 1: come from money, have never spent a true day as
Speaker 1: an adult as a member of the working class. They
Speaker 1: don't have staff who have there. Try to get a
Speaker 1: staffing job without a college degree. I mean I've met
Speaker 1: maybe four people ever was a staff or without without
Speaker 1: a college degree. They live in places that are walled
Speaker 1: off from the working class experience, and the consulting class
Speaker 1: who advises them nine times out of ten has distain
Speaker 1: for the voter. They've total disdain for the Republican voter.
Speaker 1: They don't understand their feelings on issues at all. And
Speaker 1: don't even get me sorry them about the lobbyists and
Speaker 1: about you know, the Chamber of Commerce and these other
Speaker 1: organizations in DC who pedal endless immigration and promoting war
Speaker 1: and NonStop tax cuts and just things that can be
Speaker 1: good at times, but it is their only ideology, is
Speaker 1: their only worldview. They are only pushing towards one thing. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we have a long way to go as a party,
Speaker 1: I think, to reflect what the voters want, which means
Speaker 1: until we do them, voters will become more extreme in
Speaker 1: their demands because they feel like they're not being met.
Speaker 1: That's my opinion on that. But the data is very
Speaker 1: interesting and very very important. There's one other data story
Speaker 1: that came out this week, very important most people in
Speaker 1: the media. Actually, I haven't seen anyone in the media
Speaker 1: acknowledge it yet, but it's about who we are as
Speaker 1: a country, what we believe, and I'm going to cover
Speaker 1: it so that way you could hear about it first.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned right for these messages. The General Social Survey,
Speaker 1: which has been around since nineteen seventy two, was created
Speaker 1: by the University of Chicago and the National Opinion Research Center.
Speaker 1: The GSS is a big amount of data that comes
Speaker 1: out every other year, so it comes out twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, twenty twenty four. The twenty twenty four data
Speaker 1: just came out, and it really looks into who we
Speaker 1: are as Americans and what we value, what we believe
Speaker 1: in on a number of things, like I mean, they
Speaker 1: ask hundreds and hundreds of questions spend over a year
Speaker 1: analyzing and pouring over the data. And you have heard
Speaker 1: about the GSS because when another news story breaks out,
Speaker 1: they reference it. So when there's the racial reckoning, they'll
Speaker 1: be like, this is how Americans feel about race relations
Speaker 1: over time, and they'll use GSS data. But when it
Speaker 1: comes out, you know, when it comes out. Matter of fact,
Speaker 1: when it comes out like the day Cup, no one
Speaker 1: reports it. They only report it to tie into other narratives.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about some of things. Because
Speaker 1: it's hundreds of pages long. I can't possibly go through
Speaker 1: all of it. You probably wouldn't be interested in all
Speaker 1: of it, but I think that there's a number of
Speaker 1: things that are vital in it. So let's talk first
Speaker 1: about social trust. We as a nation used to be
Speaker 1: a very high trusting country, and there are other high
Speaker 1: trust in countries. Japan is a high trust society. Scandinavia
Speaker 1: is a high trust society the Scandinavian countries. When you
Speaker 1: have a high level of social trust, you're not only
Speaker 1: likely to believe people who are different than you who
Speaker 1: look different than you more, you're likely to believe people
Speaker 1: who look the same as you more. You're more likely
Speaker 1: to want to volunteer of your own free will and
Speaker 1: volunteer civically. In World War II, for example, we were
Speaker 1: a very high trust society. People were okay with giving
Speaker 1: up things for the better mean of winning the war
Speaker 1: and being part of a movement. That's what happens in
Speaker 1: a hydra society. We have definitely obviously, I mean, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be shocked. We've lost our steps. They asked which
Speaker 1: institutions Americans had great confidence in. I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: data right now. The only institutions where Americans have are
Speaker 1: more likely to say they have a high level of
Speaker 1: confidence than a low level of confidence. There's only three.
Speaker 1: Medicine twenty six percent, so they have a high level
Speaker 1: of confidence, twenty percent so they have a low level
Speaker 1: of confidence. The scientific community, which they've been to hit,
Speaker 1: they've been hit a lot post COVID, but thirty six
Speaker 1: percent so they have a high level of social trust,
Speaker 1: thirteen percent that they have a low level. And the
Speaker 1: military forty two percent, so they have a high level
Speaker 1: of social trust. Thirteen percent that they have a low
Speaker 1: level social trust. That's it, just three. These are the
Speaker 1: institutions that are greatly underwater. Banking mat your companies organize religion, education.
Speaker 1: I think this is the first time ever education has
Speaker 1: been underwater. The executive branch organized labor, Congress, television. So
Speaker 1: I think that means including the media, the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and the Supreme Court hit forty percent, primarily because it
Speaker 1: has to be Democrats. There's no other way. Democrats must
Speaker 1: have absolutely fled for the hills after the abortion decision.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm going to equate that with this more.
Speaker 1: But those, all those institutions are very much underwater, where
Speaker 1: people have no trust for them, then a lot of trust.
Speaker 1: When asked do you think people are genuinely helpful or
Speaker 1: are mostly looking out for themselves, forty seven percent of
Speaker 1: Americans said people are mostly looking out for themselves. Thirty
Speaker 1: nine percent said that people are genuinely helpful. Forty six
Speaker 1: percent said most believe that most people will take advantage
Speaker 1: of you. Forty two percent believe people are trying to
Speaker 1: be fair. What does that mean on a country level?
Speaker 1: What does it mean as a country that almost a
Speaker 1: majority do not have faith and trust in their fellow citizen,
Speaker 1: in their neighbor. What are they likely to do? What
Speaker 1: are they not likely to do? I'll give you an
Speaker 1: example when Japan, this is a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: Japan was hit with some kind of natural disaster. They
Speaker 1: needed everyone in the country to turn out their lights.
Speaker 1: I think you have like six o'clock to conserve energy,
Speaker 1: and like ninety four percent of people complied, ninety five
Speaker 1: it was well over ninety percent people And there were
Speaker 1: no law. No one in the military was like walking
Speaker 1: around with a gun saying shut off your lights. They
Speaker 1: did this voluntarily because they were a high trust society.
Speaker 1: Almost half of Americans don't think think that their neighbor
Speaker 1: or their fellow American would take advantage of them, and
Speaker 1: that they're only looking out for themselves. Would they be
Speaker 1: willing to sacrifice when the country needs them, like on
Speaker 1: their own, not because you know there's not because there's
Speaker 1: someone walking around like was the COVID and that you
Speaker 1: had to you know, right where you've been, what you're
Speaker 1: doing at the airport, but on their own. And most
Speaker 1: people sit there and say, no, why is that. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a number of reasons. Obviously, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of scandals over the last several decades over why you
Speaker 1: can't trust any institutions, why people are flawed, politicians who've
Speaker 1: taken advantage bankers and wealthy people, and businessmen who frauded investors.
Speaker 1: All of that's true, but there's also another reason, which
Speaker 1: is immigration. There's been many, many social science studies on this.
Speaker 1: There's a book called Bowling Alone by Robert Puttnam. It's
Speaker 1: dated now, it's from the I think two thousand, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. But they asked the question of what
Speaker 1: happens when you have mass immigration inflicted in a society,
Speaker 1: social trust declines. It's one of the fastest ways to
Speaker 1: have declining social trust. And I don't think that it
Speaker 1: should go without saying that that is what we have
Speaker 1: seen in this country over the last two decades, primarily
Speaker 1: when you feel alienated from your fellow American, from your neighbor,
Speaker 1: you are alienated from the idea of giving towards that
Speaker 1: person of your own volition. Other interesting things from the
Speaker 1: gs AS survey. I'm going to run down some bullet
Speaker 1: points almost I think they're fascinating. Thing you should I
Speaker 1: think it could be worth hearing it. Forty one percent
Speaker 1: of Americans are currently married, twenty six percent are a
Speaker 1: widowed or divorce thirty two percent have never been married.
Speaker 1: That thirty two percent number is I think the highest
Speaker 1: that has ever been reported. It will likely go high, which,
Speaker 1: as from a political standpoint, not wonderful when the base
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party are unmarried women who've never been married.
Speaker 1: And also there's a happiness thing. Married people tend to
Speaker 1: be happier than not married people. It is the opposite
Speaker 1: of what you hear from every sitcom of the husband
Speaker 1: who rolls to the al bundi who rolls his eyes
Speaker 1: married with children in the show I grew up watching
Speaker 1: my Grandfather, which was much of the chagrin of my mother.
Speaker 1: But that thing is actually not the true. Most people
Speaker 1: who are married tend to be happier than people who
Speaker 1: are not married, especially as they get into their fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties. Ten percent of Americans are homemakers, which I
Speaker 1: found shocking because it is you never hear really about
Speaker 1: people being homemakers before, but one intent are homemakers. And
Speaker 1: also one in ten people work more than sixty hours
Speaker 1: a week. And really a political take with that, I
Speaker 1: found that very very interesting. Americans are as likely to
Speaker 1: have three children or more as they are likely to
Speaker 1: have one. The outgrowth of childlessness, which I have to
Speaker 1: touch on for a second, because again, to argue with
Speaker 1: my friend and culture all the time, she doesn't think
Speaker 1: it's a big deal, but it is. It is a
Speaker 1: big deal. One in five conservatives have no kids. Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: that's about the same as nineteen eighty four. The number
Speaker 1: of conservative leaning people who don't have kids has been
Speaker 1: flat for about forty years. The number of moderates who
Speaker 1: don't have children went from thirteen percent to twenty two percent.
Speaker 1: So that's a big uptick in moderates, right who. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they can't afford it or what the
Speaker 1: case is, but they or they just choose not to
Speaker 1: have kids. But that's a nine percent of tick. The
Speaker 1: number of liberals who don't have children went from twenty
Speaker 1: two percent in nineteen eighty four to forty percent. Almost
Speaker 1: half the population of self proclaimed liberals do not have kids.
Speaker 1: Part can. I talked to Tim Poole about this. He's like, great,
Speaker 1: Nober means you know, no liberal kids means no liberal future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it means a lot of people who don't have
Speaker 1: a clear investment in the future as far as they
Speaker 1: see themselves, they see their future in the next generation.
Speaker 1: It means something. It just does your life does change
Speaker 1: when you have a kid. It does mean that a
Speaker 1: lot of people experience loneliness. Not everyone who does have
Speaker 1: a kid is lonely, but there are is a connection
Speaker 1: between loneliness and no family, no children. It also means
Speaker 1: a lot of baby boomers today, who you know, they
Speaker 1: worked hard and they expected this future where they would
Speaker 1: be grandparents, are experiencing loneliness now because they don't their
Speaker 1: liberal children. And they're liberal for who knows what reason,
Speaker 1: never had never had children. It's an end of that
Speaker 1: entire bloodline, uh, that entire family. And it means and
Speaker 1: I've ends like this, who are you know there? I
Speaker 1: would say they're middle world. They're not even liberal, they're
Speaker 1: kind of left leaning. But they're all in their mid
Speaker 1: and till eight thirties. They don't have children, and they
Speaker 1: have smaller families than on my own. And I say
Speaker 1: to them, they live so heavily in the moment, I
Speaker 1: have this conversational concert. They live completely in the moment,
Speaker 1: And I say to them, you're not looking twenty years
Speaker 1: down the line when your parents aren't here anymore, or
Speaker 1: twenty five years, not going to as long as humanly possible,
Speaker 1: when you don't when a holiday is literally being alone,
Speaker 1: Like that's a very hard thing for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And we see depression and we see suicides, and we
Speaker 1: see addiction spike during those time periods that loneliness is
Speaker 1: getting higher, and it's specifically among a lot of college
Speaker 1: educated women who are being pressured to one think that
Speaker 1: they have to work to show that they are worthy,
Speaker 1: that their work is what they kind to find themselves in.
Speaker 1: And also because they're in school until their mid thirties
Speaker 1: and by the time that the opportunity to have children
Speaker 1: comes up, time has kind of passed them by and
Speaker 1: no one warned them. There's also a connection between mental
Speaker 1: health problems in this study and political stuff. Voters under
Speaker 1: thirty people who are extremely liberal, fifty six percent said
Speaker 1: that they were diagnosed with a mental health problem. Think
Speaker 1: about that, people who are very liberal under the age
Speaker 1: of thirty a majority, So they were diagnosed with a
Speaker 1: mental health problem. According to the GSS study. If is
Speaker 1: that there's two questions. Is it that liberalism attracts mentally
Speaker 1: ill people, which there are times that I could get
Speaker 1: on board with that message, or is it that very
Speaker 1: liberal people are trying to diagnose themselves with problems. They're
Speaker 1: over trying to find a reason that their life isn't well,
Speaker 1: or that they're not perfect, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but there is a sliding scale. Fifty
Speaker 1: six percent of extreme liberals under THEASA thirty have a
Speaker 1: mental health problem. Thirty seven percent of people who are
Speaker 1: just regularly liberal have a mental health problem. Thirty percent
Speaker 1: of moderates have say they have a diagnosed mental health problem,
Speaker 1: only fifteen percent of conservatives and only ten percent of
Speaker 1: very conservative people. And this, by the way, this sliding
Speaker 1: scale people under thirty is not true. People over thirty,
Speaker 1: over thirty, extreme conservatives, conservatives, moderates all have the same
Speaker 1: amount sixteen to seventeen percent, liberals twenty four, extreme liberals
Speaker 1: twenty eight. Okay, slide uptick with extreme liberals and liberals,
Speaker 1: but not significance. You know, ten points at the most,
Speaker 1: but it's usually like six, not a lot. Not a
Speaker 1: big growth among young people, and I would guess specifically
Speaker 1: young women who are liberal. It is a social contagion.
Speaker 1: It's wild, in my opinion, and it's not good. It's
Speaker 1: not a healthy place to be and it will probably
Speaker 1: mean of a democratic party in the future. That reflects
Speaker 1: those kinds of voters where you're like, wow, everyone seems
Speaker 1: like they're diagnosed with the mental health issue. Anyway, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to go to two more things and then
Speaker 1: we'll get to the Q and A. Because the study
Speaker 1: is really long, I could go through everything. Other interesting
Speaker 1: thing that I found on other tidbit was this when
Speaker 1: it comes to idea of free speech. Now, this is
Speaker 1: something that we as Americans hold is the greatest ideal.
Speaker 1: It's something we can generally get a board, get on
Speaker 1: board despite our politics, right the belief of free speech.
Speaker 1: That's what we're told. There is a big difference between
Speaker 1: free speech depending on what you are criticizing. So they
Speaker 1: ask people, if someone spoke out against all religion, should
Speaker 1: they be allowed to speak? Seventy nine percent said yes,
Speaker 1: twenty one percent said no. If someone was in an
Speaker 1: admitnute and a vowed communist, should they be allowed to speak?
Speaker 1: Sixty six percent said yes, thirty four percent said no.
Speaker 1: If someone said that they believe one race was inferior
Speaker 1: to another, should they be about to speak? Forty nine
Speaker 1: percent said yes, fifty one percent said no. That is dramatic.
Speaker 1: Now I do not believe any race is specifically inferior
Speaker 1: than another race, and I wouldn't get on board with
Speaker 1: that message, but I do believe that that person has
Speaker 1: the right to speak, and sometimes it's good that they
Speaker 1: speak so that way everything is aired out, you can
Speaker 1: tell who the real racist is, Like I think a
Speaker 1: communist should be allowed to speak. That is jarring though
Speaker 1: that we have. This is something that Chrystal Colwell wrote
Speaker 1: about in his brilliant book, that we had a second
Speaker 1: Constitution during the Civil rights era, that there is a
Speaker 1: belief that conversations and discussions over race really triumph over all,
Speaker 1: and that is something that's very I mean, thank god
Speaker 1: we have a Supreme Court that's always usually my think,
Speaker 1: almost always held up the right to speak. But that's
Speaker 1: nerve racking that the public does feel like some conversations
Speaker 1: deserve you to take your rights away. That would support
Speaker 1: things like hate speech laws, which is against our First Amendment.
Speaker 1: They also asked if somebody had an opinion that if
Speaker 1: someone was spoken against all religions, should they be allow
Speaker 1: to teach. Sixty three percent said yes for teaching, but
Speaker 1: if they have the same opinion over race, only forty
Speaker 1: nine percent, so that they should be allowed to hold
Speaker 1: a teaching job. Once again. You shouldn't be allowed to speak,
Speaker 1: shouldn't be allowed to work if you hold unpolite positions.
Speaker 1: Now it's fifty to fifty. I'm sure it's actually better.
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find the data from twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: I don't know they asked this question. I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: better than knowing the racial reckoning. But it says a
Speaker 1: lot that our rights are conditional to what we say
Speaker 1: to a lot of people. Okay, last few things that
Speaker 1: I think are super fascinating. One in four people living
Speaker 1: in the country have at least one immigrant parent, and
Speaker 1: only sixty four percent have all four grandparents born in
Speaker 1: the US. I'm one of the sixty four percent. I
Speaker 1: thought it'd be higher, honestly, but I guess mass immigration
Speaker 1: will do that to you. Thirty six percent of people
Speaker 1: who did not vote in the twenty six sixteen election
Speaker 1: because they were either too young or they didn't vote,
Speaker 1: thirty six percent of those people would voted for Trump,
Speaker 1: twenty nine percent for Clinton. That shows you the projection
Speaker 1: of where new voters are are still leaning to the right.
Speaker 1: That's good. The next question and I'll go over Thirty
Speaker 1: five percent of people say that they attend church once
Speaker 1: a month or more, thirty three percent attends a few
Speaker 1: times a year, thirty one percent never attend church. Eighty
Speaker 1: three percent of Americans believe in life after death, seventeen
Speaker 1: percent do not. I'm in the eighty three percent camp.
Speaker 1: Sixty eight percent prey at least once a week, twenty
Speaker 1: percent never do. Fifty four percent of Americans support prayer
Speaker 1: in school, despite what the media will tell you, majority
Speaker 1: of Americans support prayer in school, Forty six percent do not.
Speaker 1: Twenty percent of Americans believe you should have the right
Speaker 1: to discriminate when selling a home. You should be able
Speaker 1: to sell your home to whoever you want to depending
Speaker 1: on your own biases. Majority of Americans obviously do not.
Speaker 1: About a quarter of Americans support affirmative action when it
Speaker 1: comes to hiring minorities seventy three percent a pose which
Speaker 1: also not a thing that the media would ever sit
Speaker 1: there in track. I'm sure if I sit on seen
Speaker 1: it and I'd be banned all over again, and then
Speaker 1: I'll go over the last thing. Thirty six percent of
Speaker 1: Americans own a firearm, be one percent believe it is
Speaker 1: better for a man to be the breadwinner and household
Speaker 1: and the woman to be a homemaker. Interesting stuff, interesting data.
Speaker 1: I thought you guys would like it. I enjoy that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Once again. It's one hundreds of pages long.
Speaker 1: You could download it for free the General Social Survey.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend. It's just fascinating. Let's get to let's
Speaker 1: land this plane. Let's get to the question answer. If
Speaker 1: you have a question for me, you can email me
Speaker 1: Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot com. Ryan at Plural
Speaker 1: Numbers Game podcast dot com. You're listening to It's a
Speaker 1: Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowski. We'll be right back after
Speaker 1: this message. This email comes from Russell Klugg. Russell says, Hello, Ryan,
Speaker 1: burn through all your episodes on a recent new show. Congrats.
Speaker 1: Interest in your work sparked from an older conversation you
Speaker 1: had with Emily Jazinski last year on Breaking Points. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know I was on that show. I haven't had
Speaker 1: me on a long time now, where you responded humorously
Speaker 1: that to a Karen led online Democratic fundraiser for Harris
Speaker 1: or something, wanting someone to say, ma'am, this is a
Speaker 1: Wendy's to the lead. Karen, Oh, yeah, that was true.
Speaker 1: This is when they were like, it's a bunch of
Speaker 1: like white women for Harris, and they were like giving
Speaker 1: context of what you should say and when and not
Speaker 1: to hurt anyone's feelings. And oh my god, how exhausting.
Speaker 1: Two questions. And if you had numbers on them. Do
Speaker 1: Democrats have a smug elitist problem? Are they perceived by
Speaker 1: the average person or majority of the population is arrogant
Speaker 1: or out of touch? If so, does this perception change
Speaker 1: based on respondence being in out group Democrat Republicans? Do
Speaker 1: Republicans and independence know how democrats think see the world
Speaker 1: versus Democrats cannot understand how Republicans and independency the world. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let me answer the second question. First, there is
Speaker 1: a general misperception on many things when it comes to
Speaker 1: both the opposite party, when it comes to what people
Speaker 1: think Republicans versus what people think Democrats believe. Right, there
Speaker 1: is a general belief also that the country as a
Speaker 1: whole is different than what it is. Right, This is
Speaker 1: not just this is just based on your personal bias.
Speaker 1: So there was there was this one study and I
Speaker 1: can't remember everybody do with the data. So we asked
Speaker 1: Americans how many people do you think in this country
Speaker 1: are live in New York City? Thirty percent said? They
Speaker 1: said thirty percent that they lived in New York City.
Speaker 1: It's three percent. They asked, how many people you think
Speaker 1: are transgender? They said twenty one percent, it was one percent.
Speaker 1: How many people have a household income of over a million?
Speaker 1: They thought it was twenty percent. It's less than one percent.
Speaker 1: They asked, how people do you think are gay? They
Speaker 1: said thirty percent. It's like three percent or openly gay.
Speaker 1: There's another six percent or bisexual whatever. The numbers were
Speaker 1: wildly off, and that is as true for Republicans as
Speaker 1: it is for Democrats. There's been a number of studies
Speaker 1: and about how misperception within the parties exists. But it's
Speaker 1: not just within the parties. It's within the greater context
Speaker 1: of the of the of the country. Like they the
Speaker 1: average person is not always finally in tune with the
Speaker 1: actual percentages of the country and how and what they
Speaker 1: actually believe. Do they have a smug or elitist problem?
Speaker 1: It depends who right, It depends who in the party.
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders does not have a smug or elitist problem.
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders can go on a comedy podcast and talk
Speaker 1: about the history of the Dodgers and have a normal conversation.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris had a smug or elitist problem, I would
Speaker 1: say AOC could have a No, I don't think it's this.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's a smug Reliaus. She has a
Speaker 1: different problem, but it's not a smug or elatest problem.
Speaker 1: She definitely comes off more regular. Pete Footage just does
Speaker 1: not have a smug or elitist problem. He's a different
Speaker 1: problem when it comes to winning a national election in
Speaker 1: the sense that black voters in the Democratic Party, I
Speaker 1: don't believe we're gonna lect a gay guy. Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: has a smug an elitist problem. So I don't think
Speaker 1: as a party as a whole, they can answer that
Speaker 1: question when it comes to certain cannons. Yes, but it's
Speaker 1: not every candidate in the Democratic Party. And you could
Speaker 1: see the ones who don't have it, the ones who
Speaker 1: come off more you know, regular, regular Joe. They they
Speaker 1: are the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination. I think
Speaker 1: when you come, I think I think the better question
Speaker 1: is not really the elected officials as much as it
Speaker 1: is representatives of the Democratic Party, George Clooney obviously a
Speaker 1: leadiest problem, Steven Spielberg, obviously a tailor swift, Oprah Winfrey.
Speaker 1: These are all celebrities or they're left wing influencers who
Speaker 1: either look like they are they have a missing chromozoon
Speaker 1: or an extra one. There's something like wrong with these people.
Speaker 1: They are very, very very far to the left. So
Speaker 1: I think that when you look at the representation of
Speaker 1: who who is out there talking with the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: so often, yes, the act elected officials who have to
Speaker 1: get votes, it's a mixed back anyway. I hope that
Speaker 1: answers your question. If I find any more information on this,
Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna bring us up next week on the
Speaker 1: podcast to talk about this. I think it's an interesting subject.
Speaker 1: But I will look for that for on Monday. So
Speaker 1: tune in, please like in, subscribe to this podcast on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I will see you on Monday with a special guest.
Speaker 1: Talk to you then,