You People Are Deeply Weird
Exclusive YouGov/Stanford Newsletter Poll Reveals Americans Prefer TV Debates
Enjoy this early holiday weekend edition. Enjoy your Independence Day, and talk at you next week.
A good trial lawyer never asks a question in court without already knowing the answer, and when I got YouGov to include this question on its nationwide poll I thought for sure I knew what the answer would be:
“I would rather watch presidential candidates compete in reality TV-style competitions (e.g., The Amazing Race, Survivor) than watch them in a televised debate.”
I mean, of course you would want to see the candidates solve challenges together, right? Maybe we could separate them into study groups so we could watch Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg do all the work while Beto and Biden think their glib charm can carry the day. Maybe they could be given a few ingredients — ginger, pork, and rosemary — and have to come up with a viable healthcare plan. I mean, instead of watching them talk over each other, wouldn’t you rather them remodel a house? C’mon, who doesn’t want to see the Democratic candidates go Queer Eye on white, working-class voters in the Rust Belt?
You, that’s who, or at least most of you. YouGov asked the question, and you answered, and the results are floating right there in the punch bowl, mocking my inclination toward mirth:
More than half of Americans would rather watch televised debates, including 44 percent who feel quite strongly about this. The only subgroups in the poll who would rather see presidential candidates compete in reality TV-style challenges are those under 18 and those who still use MySpace, which I promise you are two demographics that do not overlap. The rest of you? You’d rather watch them try to get a word in edgewise while moderators ask them to solve society’s most intractable problems with a show of hands. You people are deeply weird.
As it turns out, Americans are deeply invested in the Democratic primary. According to the latest CNN/SSRS poll, 42 percent of Democrats watched most of at least one debate, and another 36 percent didn’t but consumed a lot of news coverage about them. Even more fascinating, equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans watched the debates on the TV. The interest across the political spectrum is probably why the first night did as well as the Hillary-Bernie debates and the second night set a ratings record for Democrats.
Meanwhile, enthusiasm for voting in 2020 is about 20 percent higher than at this time in 2015, dissatisfaction among Democrats with the primary field is down 50 percent from four years ago, and by a 2-to-1 margin they prefer that “the Democratic Party nominate a presidential candidate with a strong chance of beating Donald Trump” over “a presidential candidate who shares your positions on major issues.”
Apparently you’re taking this election seriously. Democrats aren’t playing around. Weirdos.
We get letters
Got a lot of response about Sunday’s newsletter, FAQs for Straight Pride Parade.
From C.C., whose taste is exceeded only by her beauty.
I literally L’edOL to this. And by literally, I mean literally, not figuratively. Enough that the husband asked me what I was reading. And then revealed that he was better than me - having already read it this morning and responded to the poll! Which btw, my answer is ‘strongly disagree.’ Although I might derive a certain amount of pleasure from an “Undercover Boss” style of show where candidates are forced to deal with the ramifications of a policy or law that they championed... if you can make that happen, I’ll change my answer. :)
From the aforementioned husband, D.C., a good man:
Another fine example of your sparkling personality this week. Love the straight pride faq. I’m already wearing my khakis and Brady jersey just need to buy the shoes. Also I think they need to ask a mayo company for a sponsorship.
Can’t wait to hear the results of the poll. I would vote strongly disagree although there is zero chance I’m not watching any of the reality shows. So I guess it would be a lie. It is really about not wanting the reality show to occur. But if it did occur I would be much more inclined to watch than the debates.
Touching story about your son. Being present for your kids is the best present.
And finally, R.G., who is having a moment despite his misshapen feet:
What do you have against New Balance shoes? For those of us with the length to width ratio of hobbit feet, New Balance are godsends. Geez.
What I’m reading
Let’s get the good news out of the way first: The pollster who predicted in July 2018 that Democrats would pick up 42 seats now says negative partisanship will define the 2020 race — and offers an assured prediction about the outcome. I got $10 that says you don’t want to click on it because you might be disappointed one way or the other. It’s just information. You don’t have to feel anyway about it.
Pride in America is at its lowest point since they started asking the question in 2001. Happy Independence Day! Meanwhile, the Pentagon says Russia is beating the U.S. in global influence, and Betsy Ross didn’t really sew the first American flag. America!
This is a spectacular analysis of how the “Aloha spirit” could teach us to move past racism.
They’re curing HIV in mice now. Next step — primates.
Raising the minimum wage and the earned-income tax credit by 10 percent each could prevent about 1,230 suicides annually, says the National Bureau of Economic Research.
My friend R.G. tells the story about how the renewable energy industry was born in a burned-out tenement in New York City. Seriously, buy his book.
This is absolutely the coolest new thing I’ve seen in corporate research in a long, long time.
Gen Z is more likely than other generations to view themselves in terms of what they do rather than who they are.
A lot of people I know have been posting this piece: Getting older can be tough on high achievers, but there are smart ways to adjust and grow as we enter the last parts of our careers. BUT THAT MIGHT BE ONLY HALF THE STORY. As careful readers of this newsletter will note, there are two peaks of creativity in a person’s life. The first one is envisioned in that article. The second is not, and it comes later in life after you’ve learned a thing or two and can put the pieces together in a new way.
Speaking of getting older, the cost of unpaid family caregiving is expected to reach $147 billion by 2050, which made me worry until I realized that by then I would probably be on the receiving end of that particular gravy train.
There is this study that says if you can do 40 pushups in a row that you have a lower risk of heart disease. But do the pushups actually make your heart healthier, or is the ability to do them just a result of a stronger heart?
Here’s a thing about a lady doing a newsletter much bigger and better than this one.
Offering fewer choices is a big reason this warehouse chain is selling more clothes than Old Navy and Neiman’s.
Your coworkers are twice as good at evaluating your personality traits as you are.
Mosquitos really do like some people more than others.
Music festivals get more bang for the buck than regular concerts.
Most teachers really don’t have summer jobs. I’ll be damned.
Most people who live in democratic countries are dissatisfied with democracy. I’ll be damned, but in a different sense.
I ghostwrite some at work, and I particularly enjoy ghosting for my friend P.Z., who sees the pennies drop unlike anyone else I know. Here are his thoughts on how humans trust algorithms. tl/dr: People want to be augmented, not replaced. The funny thing about this is that when he proposed the topic, I asked him if he could think of another example where humans ceded decision making to an outside power, and he responded, “God.”
Northwestern University studied digital subscriber churn and found this: “News organizations must get their readers into a regular habit to keep them as digital subscribers. The study showed that frequency of consuming local news is the single biggest predictor of retaining subscribers—more than the number of stories read or the time spent reading them.” They also found that people who skim every day are more likely to keep subscribing than those who spend a lot of time on articles every day, which, hell.
Youngstown, Ohio is now the first U.S. city without a daily newspaper.
Almost a third of people worldwide actively avoid the news because, well...
Not sure about this marketing stunt for a Danish grocery chain — the world’s smallest restaurant.
The PR agency representing the Vienna tourism bureau deserves all the awards. This is hilarious.
Purpose-driven marketing is all the rage, but filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón has some good advice on doing this right. In sum: “It’s not that you insert social action into your strategy. Social action is the strategy. And that’s a big difference.”
Normally the hunters from Kivalina in Northwest Alaska know where to go to find the ice where the sea mammals hang out. This year is not normal, and they ran out of gas looking for ice. Meanwhile, what Americans believe about climate change depends upon how the question is asked.
A decline in manufacturing orders puts the U.S. economic on the border between expansion and contraction, “a gauge of U.S. service industries dropped more than forecast in June to the weakest in almost two years,” and jobs numbers came in light again. Meanwhile, global consumer confidence is at an all-time high and the stock market set an all-time record before the holiday break.
More home runs were hit in July in the major leagues than in any other month in history, which is neither a harbinger of climate change or recession, but here we are.
The Pentagon can identify your heartbeat with a laser from 200 meters away even through your clothes, which is good, because if they want to assassinate me I’d rather not have to disrobe first.
And as far as political spin, it doesn’t get much better than the defense of Congressman Duncan Hunter, who has apparently financed his many extramarital affairs with campaign contributions: He was “mixing business with pleasure.” Related: Laughter has physiological benefits, which is why you should read Sue Bird’s column about “the President of the United States going on a hate-filled Twitter spree trolling my girlfriend.”
Thanks to my friend R.R. for daylighting this bit of hell on earth: What did the Italian Interior Minister say when his country arrested a ship captain who rescued 40 migrants at sea and docked in Italy? “Now you know how things work. Finally, there is a government that ensures that its borders are respected.”
What I’m listening to
Two things I didn’t expect to respond to so much: Russell Brand on You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes and Stephen Dorff on WTF with Marc Maron. One of them was intellectually electric and the other was emotionally present. I’ll let you sort which was which.
On Monday, when we found out that a guard laughingly told an incarcerated asylum seeker to drink out of a toilet, I asked my friend M.B., who leads a group called Human Rights First, whether what we are doing to these people violates the Geneva Convention. Turns out we’re violating not just international law but our own, he told me. When he served overseas he would not have been allowed to treat captured al Qaeda fighters like we’re treating asylum seekers.
And then he told me the most horrifying thing I may have ever learned about this:
“We’re applying lessons learned investigating war crimes in Bosnia to this situation.”
We’re the war criminals now. Some of us are working full-time to stop it. Not me, mind you. All I’m doing is trying to wrap my head around where we are now and how quickly we got here. Today I am dedicating the song to M.B. and to everyone else who is trying to fix this, and if you want to do some good please support Human Rights First by clicking here.
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