November 16, 2020 - 3:44pm
Whatever the disappointments of the US election, there is reason to be optimistic for the future — if you’re a Democrat, that is. For conservatives, it’s unending despair.
This was one conclusion from David Shor’s interview with New York Magazine, on why demographic trends favour the Left.
The data scientist, a rare example of someone who has done well from cancellation, observed that:
He continues:
Among all the US election voting data, which political nerds across the world drool over every four years, perhaps the most curious fact is the enormous voting gap between married and unmarried white women. Despite being as large as 20 points in some elections, it is also one of the least analysed, certainly compared to the much smaller gender gap (although the latter is growing, for related reasons).
Simply put, the more people in any society who are married with children, the more conservative that society will be.
Liberalism is about the freedom of the individual, while western conservatism is about maximising the success of the nuclear family. That is why western conservatism is fundamentally different from the “family values” of non-western traditions, which are about maximising the success of the extended family.
Both western conservatism and liberalism stem from the same WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic) cultural origins, but one has taken the idea of individualism further.
The marriage gap has been well-known for well over a decade but, as testimony to how ideas carry status and stigma, it is barely commented upon because of who first noticed it: controversial Californian blogger Steve Sailer.
The marriage gap also leads to the “dirt gap” — the more expensive the house prices, the more people vote for Left-of-centre parties, because housing costs suppress family-formation.
This is why runaway housing costs are an existential crisis for our own Conservative Party, building a bonfire under their future election prospects as the younger generation move Left. (It is also the subject of my book, the paperback of which will be out in January.)
Lucky, then, that the only person in Number 10 who appreciated the enormity of the housing crisis problem hasn’t just resigned.
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