6 ms·

Do You Live in a Political Bubble?

18 points by seriousquestion 5y ago

ErikVandeWater 5y ago
Republicans prioritize a "white community"? What an absurdly loaded statement.
- totalZero 5y ago
  Is it? Republicans have been far 'whiter' than Democrats since well before the Trump era. https://news.gallup.com/poll/160373/democrats-racially-diverse-republicans-mostly-white.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/160373/democrats-racially-diver...
  - ErikVandeWater 5y ago
    Loaded != untrue
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - lacker 5y ago
    By the same logic, you could conclude “Democrats prioritize being imprisoned and being poor.” Just because membership in a political group correlates with something, it does not mean that the group “prioritizes” that.
    - totalZero 5y ago
      Try that argument in an alternate universe where 89% of Democrats are imprisoned and impoverished.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  It's the NYT.
drtsrtbsrtb 5y ago
NYTimes reporters and verified twitter users all live in a political bubble.
handmodel 5y ago
In someways it is a bit silly for many to equate where they live to their political bubble. Where I am is 84D and 16R. However, given I am a single remote worker and my friend group is all 35 and under (living in big cities) the tilt of my social interactions is probably closer to 98D 2R
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mikewarot 5y ago
In my world, the Democrat/Republic divide is just a new form of professional wrestling, all for show while our money is taken and we are entertained.
- yummypaint 5y ago
  Then your world is divorced from reality. It was fashionable to say these kinds of performative things 10 years ago, but the false equivalency has since been laid bare. It's very disheartening to keep seeing these vapid assertions after the last 4 years of historic bad faith governance culminating in an attempted coup.
  - goldenchrome 5y ago
    It was an attempted coup, but it clearly wasn’t a real threat to our democratic system. Trump never came close to actually overthrowing the American political system, because America is actually extremely stable. The politicians no longer run our country. Bankers now do the job of organizing and optimizing our nations resources. Politicians are middle managers of America, a face for the citizens to look to for moral support, but not actually in control of the ship. However, most Americans haven’t noticed the shift that’s happened in the last few decades. That’s why it feels like wrestling. It looks real but the consequences aren’t really felt in reality. Has the average American’s life really changed because of Bush, Obama, Trump, or Biden? Regardless of the political figurehead, there has been a consistent trend towards lower wages and rising inequality.
    - lifeformed 5y ago
      > Has the average American’s life really changed because of Bush, Obama, Trump, or Biden? Yes? Lots of life changing events have happened for many average Americans because of those presidents' decisions. Going to war, being able to afford health insurance, losing health insurance, dying of covid, etc.
    - mc32 5y ago
      Larger interests have driven government since at least the 70s into the 80s when corporations became the major source of money for the parties. They want cheap labor, low taxes, pretend regulation (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.) Politicians pretend they listen to the public and they go through motions but rarely deliver what's in the interest of the people who elected them. I doubt today ATT would get broken up.
specialist 5y ago
No. The outrage machine continues to encroach into my life, despite my best efforts.
js2 5y ago
From the article: > Democrats, surveys have shown, are more likely than Republicans to prioritize walkable neighborhoods with good public transit. Republicans, on the other hand, prize neighborhoods with more Christians and larger houses. From the study the article links to just below that paragraph: > We explain a paradox in the literature on partisan polarization and sorting: partisans differ in their stated preferences over the partisanship of communities and numerous correlates of partisanship, but these preferences do not lead to meaningful partisan differences in residential migration. ... Despite the statistically significant influence of community partisan composition on partisans’ community ratings, partisanship’s direct effect on where people live is likely to be weak due to the low priority that Americans assign to the partisanship of their communities and neighbors. ... potential movers with a stated propensity to move to more copartisan neighborhoods are, regardless of their underlying motivations, more likely to have few choices if they select first on affordability and quality. ... those who have the most desire and most latitude to sort by party are not doing so. ... Our study shows, neither partisan affect nor its correlates are sufficient to overcome the substantial material concerns that inform a decision as weighty as residential choice. When it comes to one extremely important household decision, politics remains, in Robert Dahl’s (2005) words, a “sideshow in the great circus of life.” I don't think the study supports the article.
- w0de0 5y ago
  The quote from the paper asserts republicans and democrats self-sort in housing choices by weighting different property features - walkability, yard size - differently. The study extract asserts that people do not use the partisan composition of communities to make housing decisions. This are not exclusive assertions. At first glance they even look complimentary.
  - js2 5y ago
    Here's a link to the paper: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/687569#d5683181e714 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/687569#d5... The article concludes: > By making it easier for Democrats and Republicans to live side by side, President Biden might also restore some of our trust in one another. But the paper already says: > crime, school quality, and commuting time rank much higher on both Democrats’ and Republicans’ “hierarchy of needs” (Maslow 1943) than explicitly political concerns. ... for all their differences in stated preferences, we show that partisans are not, on balance, moving to more compatible communities. While Republicans are moving to more Republican communities, on average, Democrats are as well. An analysis of the moving histories of our survey respondents shows that movers tend to relocate to communities similar to their current residences. Overall partisan residential migration is best described as regression to the mean, with both Democrats and Republicans in extremely copartisan zip codes moving to more moderate neighborhoods, on average. Indeed, we find no evidence that even ideologically consistent partisans (liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans), those who might be most likely to sort because of the strength of their political concerns, are more likely to sort. So I don't think the paper really supports the article.
heartbeats 5y ago
I'm sort of curious how to fix this. I mean, in the abstract, I would really like to meet people who are different from me. But in practice, if I wanted to meet some, I could just hop on Twitter and find partisans of any ideology I could think of in mere seconds. And that's not what I want. In the abstract, I don't want to live in a bubble, but when the alternative to doing that is to leave your bubble, it's a very uncomfortable prospect indeed.

ErikVandeWater 5y ago

Republicans prioritize a "white community"? What an absurdly loaded statement.

totalZero 5y ago
Is it? Republicans have been far 'whiter' than Democrats since well before the Trump era. https://news.gallup.com/poll/160373/democrats-racially-diverse-republicans-mostly-white.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/160373/democrats-racially-diver...
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  Loaded != untrue
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- lacker 5y ago
  By the same logic, you could conclude “Democrats prioritize being imprisoned and being poor.” Just because membership in a political group correlates with something, it does not mean that the group “prioritizes” that.
  - totalZero 5y ago
    Try that argument in an alternate universe where 89% of Democrats are imprisoned and impoverished.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fighterpilot 5y ago
It's the NYT.

drtsrtbsrtb 5y ago

NYTimes reporters and verified twitter users all live in a political bubble.

handmodel 5y ago

In someways it is a bit silly for many to equate where they live to their political bubble. Where I am is 84D and 16R. However, given I am a single remote worker and my friend group is all 35 and under (living in big cities) the tilt of my social interactions is probably closer to 98D 2R

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mikewarot 5y ago

In my world, the Democrat/Republic divide is just a new form of professional wrestling, all for show while our money is taken and we are entertained.

yummypaint 5y ago
Then your world is divorced from reality. It was fashionable to say these kinds of performative things 10 years ago, but the false equivalency has since been laid bare. It's very disheartening to keep seeing these vapid assertions after the last 4 years of historic bad faith governance culminating in an attempted coup.
- goldenchrome 5y ago
  It was an attempted coup, but it clearly wasn’t a real threat to our democratic system. Trump never came close to actually overthrowing the American political system, because America is actually extremely stable. The politicians no longer run our country. Bankers now do the job of organizing and optimizing our nations resources. Politicians are middle managers of America, a face for the citizens to look to for moral support, but not actually in control of the ship. However, most Americans haven’t noticed the shift that’s happened in the last few decades. That’s why it feels like wrestling. It looks real but the consequences aren’t really felt in reality. Has the average American’s life really changed because of Bush, Obama, Trump, or Biden? Regardless of the political figurehead, there has been a consistent trend towards lower wages and rising inequality.
  - lifeformed 5y ago
    > Has the average American’s life really changed because of Bush, Obama, Trump, or Biden? Yes? Lots of life changing events have happened for many average Americans because of those presidents' decisions. Going to war, being able to afford health insurance, losing health insurance, dying of covid, etc.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Larger interests have driven government since at least the 70s into the 80s when corporations became the major source of money for the parties. They want cheap labor, low taxes, pretend regulation (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.) Politicians pretend they listen to the public and they go through motions but rarely deliver what's in the interest of the people who elected them. I doubt today ATT would get broken up.

specialist 5y ago

No. The outrage machine continues to encroach into my life, despite my best efforts.

js2 5y ago

From the article: > Democrats, surveys have shown, are more likely than Republicans to prioritize walkable neighborhoods with good public transit. Republicans, on the other hand, prize neighborhoods with more Christians and larger houses. From the study the article links to just below that paragraph: > We explain a paradox in the literature on partisan polarization and sorting: partisans differ in their stated preferences over the partisanship of communities and numerous correlates of partisanship, but these preferences do not lead to meaningful partisan differences in residential migration. ... Despite the statistically significant influence of community partisan composition on partisans’ community ratings, partisanship’s direct effect on where people live is likely to be weak due to the low priority that Americans assign to the partisanship of their communities and neighbors. ... potential movers with a stated propensity to move to more copartisan neighborhoods are, regardless of their underlying motivations, more likely to have few choices if they select first on affordability and quality. ... those who have the most desire and most latitude to sort by party are not doing so. ... Our study shows, neither partisan affect nor its correlates are sufficient to overcome the substantial material concerns that inform a decision as weighty as residential choice. When it comes to one extremely important household decision, politics remains, in Robert Dahl’s (2005) words, a “sideshow in the great circus of life.” I don't think the study supports the article.

w0de0 5y ago
The quote from the paper asserts republicans and democrats self-sort in housing choices by weighting different property features - walkability, yard size - differently. The study extract asserts that people do not use the partisan composition of communities to make housing decisions. This are not exclusive assertions. At first glance they even look complimentary.
- js2 5y ago
  Here's a link to the paper: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/687569#d5683181e714 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/687569#d5... The article concludes: > By making it easier for Democrats and Republicans to live side by side, President Biden might also restore some of our trust in one another. But the paper already says: > crime, school quality, and commuting time rank much higher on both Democrats’ and Republicans’ “hierarchy of needs” (Maslow 1943) than explicitly political concerns. ... for all their differences in stated preferences, we show that partisans are not, on balance, moving to more compatible communities. While Republicans are moving to more Republican communities, on average, Democrats are as well. An analysis of the moving histories of our survey respondents shows that movers tend to relocate to communities similar to their current residences. Overall partisan residential migration is best described as regression to the mean, with both Democrats and Republicans in extremely copartisan zip codes moving to more moderate neighborhoods, on average. Indeed, we find no evidence that even ideologically consistent partisans (liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans), those who might be most likely to sort because of the strength of their political concerns, are more likely to sort. So I don't think the paper really supports the article.

heartbeats 5y ago

I'm sort of curious how to fix this. I mean, in the abstract, I would really like to meet people who are different from me. But in practice, if I wanted to meet some, I could just hop on Twitter and find partisans of any ideology I could think of in mere seconds. And that's not what I want. In the abstract, I don't want to live in a bubble, but when the alternative to doing that is to leave your bubble, it's a very uncomfortable prospect indeed.