We are living today in an environment that is highly polarized and perhaps one of the most politically polarized in modern history. In the US, families gathering together at Thanksgiving and other festive occasions are often cautioned that politics is a divisive and potentially incendiary topic. The tribalism evident in the religious wars in history has morphed in this era as a war between the political Left and the political Right.
Each side demonizes that other as stupid, uneducated or out of touch. Hillary Clinton, former presidential candidate characterized those on the political Right as a “basket of deplorables,” and many of those on the Right charge the Left as advocates of Communism. The vitriol from both sides has been exacerbated by the media who choose their political demographic and feed the people of their chosen tribe with opinions that fit their narrative. Consequently, the members of each tribe are reinforced in their beliefs, wondering how anyone could possibly accept a different view. They often conclude that those outside their tribe must be stupid or evil.
Let’s look at one example of how the media creates perceptions of IQ differences between the Left and Right. In the aftermath of the 2016 election of Donald Trump as President, Fareed Zakaria, hosted a special CNN report titled, Why Trump Won. The report was later presented in a video. At 28:17 in that video, it was asserted, “[A major factor in the Trump victory] was a surge of support in the Midwest from wite voters without a college degree.” At 28:45, it was asserted, “Traditionally, college-educated white people voted Republican and working class white people voted Democrat, but [now] it’s completely flipped. [i.e., now college-educated white people vote Democrat and working class white people vote Republican.]” How accurate were those assertions?
The table below is taken from data provided by the US government files on the election results.
The second row of the table reveals that the whites with no college degree voted overwhelmingly in Trump’s favor (67% vs. 28%) so the assertion at 28:17 in the video is supported by the data. However, the table also reveals that the non-whites with no college degree favored Hillary Clinton by an even greater margin (75% to 20%). Traditionally, non-whites vote Democrat, so as the table suggests (two bottom rows) the level of education of the voter was not a significant factor in the choice between Clinton and Trump
The second row of the table supports the assertion that, for the most part, working class whites voted Republican, but the first row, indicating that the white college graduates voted 49% vs. 45% in favor of Trump contradicts the general assertion that the college-educated whites voted Democrat. The media exploits the fact the most people have neither the time nor the inclination to fact check assertions, and the result is mass indoctrination.
In reality, both tribes contain a membership spanning all levels of IQ. A highly intelligent person might support the views of one ideology on the economy and the views of the other ideology on the criminal justice system. If democracy is to survive, we need to have a nation of independent thinkers who avoid tribalism, sift through the propaganda, fact check and engage in rational discussions with each other about the deep issues that challenge our species. However, in this era of analytics and market-driven media, obtaining accurate information is a significant challenge.
