Politics is usually the main item of the news, and whenever Donald Trump is in the picture the volume of political news seems to skyrocket.
Trump has his diehard fans and equally passionate enemies, but how can an outsider decide whether he was a good or bad choice as a president?
Some years ago, I came up with an idea I call The Smart Vote. It is built upon the finding that the average of a large collection of independent opinions is remarkably accurate − the Wisdom of Crowds notion.
Then I wondered if a difference in the wisdom of intelligent and unintelligent crowds would be even more accurate. It turns out it is – at least for facts, maths problems and science knowledge. The following is an attempt to apply it to the controversial question of political choices.
The General Social Survey of the USA contains a short IQ test, so I use it as my main source to compare the opinions of smart and not so smart crowds. I could also check if factors like social class and education explained any connection.
I then looked at what The Smart Vote said about trends in political preferences and choices between presidential candidates in the US from 1976 to 2020. I only looked at the white opinion because the numbers for other groups were too small to allow accurate conclusions.
Let’s have a look at the findings.
There was no significant relationship between intelligence and political views i.e., liberal versus conservative, in the late 70s and early 80s. Ever since then however smarter Americans have tended to favour liberal views over conservative views. This is in line with research throughout the Anglosphere, and in Europe, showing that more intelligent people strongly favour more liberal social views and slightly favour more free market economic views.
Liberal social views are things like anti-racism, openness to sexuality and sex outside of marriage, non-traditional sex roles, legalisation of porn and marijuana, acceptance of abortion, opposition to capital punishment, free speech absolutism and a distancing from religion.
Smarter voters preferred …
Smarter voters preferred the following presidential candidates:
1976 Gerald Ford (Republican) over Jimmy Carter (Democrat).
1980 Anderson (Independent but normally Republican) over both Reagan and Carter. Intelligence had no effect on preferences for the latter two.
1984 Walter Mondale (Democrat) over Ronald Reagan (Republican).
1988 No difference between Michael Dukakis (Democrat) and George HW Bush (Republican).
1992 No difference between Bill Clinton (Democrat), George HW Bush (Republican) and Ross Perot (Independent).
1996 No difference between Bob Dole (Republican) and Bill Clinton (Democrat).
2000 Both Al Gore (Democrat) and Ralph Nader (Independent) over George W Bush (Republican). No difference between Gore and Nader.
2004 Both John Kerry (Democrat) and Ralph Nader (Independent) over George W Bush (Republican). No difference between Kerry and Nader.
2008 Barack Obama (Democrat) over John McCain (Republican).
2012 No difference between Barack Obama (Democrat) and Mitt Romney (Republican).
2016 Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
2020 Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Apparently, Trump is not the smart choice, but a realistic 3rd choice may have shown that neither were Clinton or Biden.
Note that the ‘smart choice’ is not usually the candidate who wins the election, or even the most intelligent candidate. The big question is whether that is a bad thing?
Usually favour independents
The more intelligent usually favour Independents over mainstream party candidates when one is available.
Higher intelligence has not favoured the Republican candidate over the Democrat candidate since 1976, and in 6 out of 11 elections has favoured the Democrat candidate. This is after taking account of political preferences and amount of education.
Although it seems the intelligent political choice in the American context is decidedly liberal or Democrat over conservative or Republican, this is not necessarily the case.
I tried to account for influences that could confuse how we see this but there is always the chance I missed something. Perhaps intelligent people are thinking about what is best for people like themselves rather than for everyone. For example, more intelligent people are more likely to be able to handle sex outside of marriage without it leading to an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. They also seem better able to recover from addictions.
The intelligent can avoid the risks of a more liberal lifestyle, whereas the not so intelligent are often less adept at this and end up with big problems.
There are a few other features of American politics over the years that are also interesting. In the 90s, and again since about 2006, the amount of formal education was associated with more liberal preferences. This is likely a propaganda effect because it is what we would see if everyone had the same IQ but different amounts of education. Liberals have taken over the administration of education in the US and their preferences are leaving a mark on their students.
The upper and middle classes have always favoured conservative over liberal views relative to the working and lower classes, particularly when one isolates the income side of class from intelligence or education. Being a high earner goes with preferring conservatism and Republican candidates. Sometimes the relationship is not so strong. For a brief period in the mid-80s the relationship was not statistically reliable.
Turned neutral
Until about 1990 there was no relationship between gender and political preferences, but since then females have favoured the liberal and males the conservative side relatively more. This peaked in the late aughts and in the last survey has again turned neutral. Actual voting trends however suggest that the gender divide is still with us.
There is a consistent age divide. Older people lean conservative and the young liberal. To some extent this is because people become more conservative as they age or marry.
All of the above is interesting but does not offer any way to take advantage of this information. Still, one wonders what would have happened to America if the smart choice had always won and 3rd choices were always available?
[Image: Pete Linforth from Pixabay]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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