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Monday, June 24, 2019

Are liberals more intolerant than conservatives?

The Economist has a briefing which describes how Brexit preferences has replaced class to emerge as the new ideological cleavage in British society and politics.

The article raises several interesting points. One snippet conveys a higher level of openness among conservatives/Leavers,
Surprisingly, it is the side that talks most about “openness” that is least open to mixing with the other lot. A YouGov/Times poll in January found that whereas only 9% of Leavers would mind if a close relative married a strong Remainer, 37% of Remainers would be bothered if their nearest and dearest hooked up with a Brexiteer. Remainers were also more likely to live in a bubble. Some 62% said all or most of their friends voted the same way, whereas only 51% of Leavers did.
And driving it may be a self-reinforcing loop,
The Remain vote in England was concentrated in cities, where it piled up huge majorities. The Leave vote was more evenly spread. Sixteen parliamentary constituencies voted by over 75% for Remain. Only one (Boston and Skegness) voted that strongly for Leave. James Kanagasooriam, a former Tory strategist, estimates that 500,000 people live in postcodes where more than 90% plumped for Remain, whereas only 57,000 live in ones which voted that strongly for Leave. Remainers are thus more likely than Leavers to live in real-world echo-chambers. The uneven distribution of the vote also means that, whereas the overall result was 52:48, the median postcode backed Leave by about 59:41, according to Mr Kanagasooriam. Middle England is substantially more Brexity than Remainers may realise.
All this squares up well with widely documented trends of liberal bias across US universities and how self-reinforcing loops are exacerbating pre-existing biases.

Is it time to ask whether liberals are more intolerant than conservatives?

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