David Brooks can go to hell

The contrasting crowd reactions here and here starkly illustrate what motivates people on the right and what doesn't. It's terrible news for the Cathedral. The dissident right is unquestionably on the ascent.

Speaking of the Cathedral, is this a Trumpian dog whistle to those dissident rightists?

Maybe not, as explicitness is Trump's style. "[You Jews are] not going to support me because I don't want your money" (source).

Our self-esteemed guest

In a recent podcast, Tom Woods interviewed Michael Edelstein on the negative consequences resulting from an ongoing societal effort to ubiquitously foster high levels of self-esteem in everyone. Woods asked when it all began. Edelstein guessed the sixties, but expressed uncertainty in his answer.

If it's a question of when some trend indicative of the rot Western civilization is experiencing began, the sixties is as good an initial working assumption as there is. The percentage of books published in the US containing the phrase "self-esteem" over time:

Usage has more than quadrupled since 1960.

Among whites, conservative-liberal fertility difference twice as large as Democrat-Republican difference

Responding to Hail's comment at Steve's, I wrote the following:

Worth reading all of the posts Jayman links to. He has written on this extensively.

It is also worth considering how much the political orientation gap among white Republicans and white Democrats has widened over time. In the mid-seventies, white Republicans were only slightly more likely to self-identify as politically conservative than white Democrats were. That difference has trebled in the last four decades to the point that white Republicans are now far more likely to identify as conservative than white Democrats are.

Political orientation is probably more heritable than partisan affiliation. I'd guess the gap will appear wider on the liberal-moderate-conservative spectrum than on the Democrat-independent-Republican one.

Two variables that are stronger predictors of fertility than political orientation or party affiliation are educational attainment (inversely correlated, especially for women) and religiosity (positively correlated--to the extent that high IQ people who attend religious services regularly outbreed the irreligious at every level of intelligence, social class, race/ethnicity, etc.

Parenthetically, educational attainment looks to be the driving force, not intelligence. Fertility by wordsum score varies little once educational attainment is controlled for, but educational attainment is a strong predictor even after wordsum score is controlled for--put more clearly, educational attainment is 5x as strong a predictor of fertility as IQ is.

The strong inverse relationship between education and fertility shows up strongly on the international level as well.

Instead of guessing, I should do the requisite data delving to evaluate that assertion about political orientation being a stronger predictor of fertility than partisan affiliation for whites. The results, using parameters similar to Hail's*, are as follows (with % of white female population in parentheses):

Extremely liberal (2.5%) -- 1.61
Liberal (12.7%) -- 1.72
Slightly liberal (11.3%) -- 1.58
Moderate (39.9%) -- 2.14
Slightly conservative (15.6%) -- 2.03
Conservative (14.3%) -- 2.34
Extremely conservative (3.7%) -- 2.62

Indeed, the fertility gap appears wider on the liberal-conservative spectrum than it does on the Democrat-Republican one. Hail's results show a white Republican:white Democrat total fertility rate ratio of 2.07:1.76. The white conservative:white liberal total fertility rate ratio is twice as large, at 2.23:1.65.

GSS variables used: POLVIEWS(1-3)(4)(5-7), RACECEN1(1), SEX(2), COHORT(1944-1974), CHILDS, AGE(40-50)

* I used the COHORT variable to pull data from those born between 1944-1974 while being able to exclude survey results from 1994, 1996, and 1998 since in those years "white" includes Hispanic. From 2000 onward, non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics are separated into distinct categories. Consequently, his numbers include some Hispanics, while mine are only comprised of non-Hispanic whites. Also, what Hail terms "political orientation" I regularly describe as "partisan affiliation". I use the phrase "political orientation" to refer to the liberal-moderate-conservative spectrum rather than the Democrat-independent-Republican one.

It's still the immigration, stupid

From the latest CNN phone-based poll (the type of survey Trump tends to fare relatively poorly in compared to the internet-based variety) that has Trump in first at 36% and Cruz trailing at a distant second with 16%:

There's a sharp divide among Republican voters on these questions about deportation between those who back Trump and those who do not. Among Trump supporters, 67% say the government should attempt to deport all people living in the country illegally, while just 39% of Republican voters backing other candidates agree.

Trump's campaign is a dual referendum on an Israeli-style border wall and on an Operation Wetback-style deportation effort.

To every poll spin, spin, spin, no matter what it's a Trump win, win, win

The summary of what follows is the major media continue to present Trump's chances in the least favorable light possible, far past the point where any plausible deniability that an attempt is being made to present news on the Republican presidential nomination in an objective fashion can be seriously offered. So if the specifics are of little interest, don't waste your time. I get that to point out the mendacity of a media structure whose relevance is in a state of perpetual decline is to point out the obvious, but it is still worth doing from time to time if for no other reason than to remind those who don't follow the major media closely that things haven't changed much.

Headline: Trump falls 12 points in a week!

It comes from Reuters' daily tracking, which had Trump as high as 42.9% at one point during November, distantly trailed by a #2 at 13.6%. If you're following the Real Clear Politics average that has been used to determine the debate lineups that have occurred thus far, you'll immediately recognize how out-of-line the Reuters numbers are with the other polls that make up the RCP average. Even after appearing to fall over a cherry-picked five-day period to 31%, Reuters had Trump up on second place by over 15 points, a margin wider than any of those included in the RCP average. Parenthetically, over the subsequent five days, Trump has climbed back to 36% in the Reuters poll, more than 20 points ahead of #2.

From RCP's average, the astute observer will also notice a seemingly inexplicable two week period in the first half of November when no new data were incorporated into the rolling average:

Curiously, that two week period began immediately after a couple of recent polls had shown Carson neck-and-neck with Trump. The red dash on the left shows when the fortnight of silence began and the oval on the right shows the polls that were used to show the current RCP average during that two-week period. Polls since then have shown Trump leading significantly.

So we have a media complex that was mum on Reuters polling (which is internet-based) throughout the first several months of the campaign when it found Trump's lead to be even wider than the phone-based polls that RCP uses were showing. Then when Trump takes an apparent dive in that ongoing tracking poll that had until then remained hidden in plain sight, the headlines converge on the magnitude of the apparent drop.

Parenthetically, I don't use "apparent" flippantly here. The range of error on these tracking polls is around 5-7 points. For example, when Reuters had Trump at 31% a week ago, it also noted that this suggested his true support was somewhere in the 27%-37% range! To report putative climbs or drops from a single poll that are within the margin of error of what other recent polls have shown is irresponsible and also suggests innumeracy.

And we also have a media complex that sits on polling data when what has already been revealed makes it look like someone is closing the gap on Trump, the hope being that by artificially keeping the Trump-losing-ground narrative around for awhile, Trump's actual support will fade. As Trump's lead in the phone-based polling amalgamation is now, at 10 points, consistently larger than it has been at any point since September, that media tactic had to be shelved for the time being.

If you need a reminder of why Trump must be the candidate of the dissident right, here he is trashing two of the most prominent members of the neocon old guard from the Bush years. First, Bill Kristol:

And then, channeling Steve Sailer, he tears into Karl Rove.