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  • On election night 2016 I had flashbacks to the 2000 election, staying awake late into

  • the evening glued to the television hoping that Florida would come through for, well,

  • in 2000 I was a kid and a total Democrat just like my parents.

  • And I remember how deeply unfair it felt when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the

  • election to George W. Bush.

  • Two things about that election stuck with me, that ended up transforming how I think

  • about politics.

  • The first was how close it was.

  • Even back then I had a good enough intuition for statistics to know that if presidential

  • elections consistently come up so close, within a few percentage points almost every time,

  • that’s not random.

  • The second strange thing was this whole idea of red states, blue states, and swing states.

  • A lot of people focus on the swing states but what I found much more mathematically

  • compelling is that there are red states and blue states.

  • Why are there states that don’t change their mind?

  • The feelings from that election night followed me through the aftermath of 9/11 and the wars

  • I didn’t want and all the way to the polls once I was 18, but in the mean time it was

  • taken as a given in my entire liberal bubble that obviously Bush is stupid and Republicans

  • are stupid and I went along with this way of thinking until those old questions started

  • to dig at me.

  • Why aren’t the Democrats, who are so obviously correct, winning by a huge margin?

  • Why are there Red states at all?

  • The standard answer in my circles seemed to be that, well, if Bush is stupid and Republicans

  • vote for him it’s because theyre stupid, and if Republicans are stupid and half the

  • country is Republican, then it must be that half the country is stupid, look at us the

  • smartest teenagers ever, struggling to make our way through the land of the stupid.

  • The aura of logical language lends the voice of authority but it doesn’t make something

  • true in real life.

  • I learned that red states are red because they have more rural areas, and blue states

  • are blue because they have bigger cities.

  • I learned that whether youre Democrat or Republican can be pretty accurately predicted

  • by where youre born, and no one chooses where to be born.

  • I had to consider that if I were born in a different place with a different family I

  • would be an uncompromising Republican who makes fun of stupid liberals and believes

  • all the anti-liberal stereotypes, and I realized there’s also plenty of awful people who

  • are Democrats just because of their circumstances.

  • I learned why elections are so close, that if one side leads by a lot, they can put fewer

  • resources into campaigning, while the losing party shifts their platform to appeal to more

  • voters, meaning that Democrats and Republicans are not two fundamentally different types

  • of people with fundamentally different ideologies, but moving targets in a self-balancing system.

  • I had to entertain the premise that maybe Republicans and Democrats are equally intelligent

  • people doing the best they can with what they know, and as I got older and my world grew,

  • I’ve met many very smart and wonderful Republicans who have led me to believe that, as usual,

  • my younger self was too quick to judge.

  • That is the divide I want to heal.

  • The divide that made my teenage self mock Republicans for their big gas-guzzling trucks

  • while I enjoyed the invisible urban infrastructure that paved my roads, picked up my garbage,

  • and delivered the gas I used to heat my home through hidden pipes.

  • I want to heal the divide that makes some liberals not just mock but actually fear people

  • who find personal and cultural value in gun ownership, the divide that makes us forget

  • how easy it is to demand we all get rid of something that only other people value.

  • I want to heal the divide that leads many nonreligious city dwellers to fundamentally

  • misunderstand the social infrastructure roles of the church in rural communities, caring

  • for the sick and the poor in places far from the offices of government-funded social programs.

  • The shared infrastructure of cities makes it easier, more efficient, to improve quality

  • of life with less money, to adapt to changes in the world, to recover economically.

  • That’s the usual divide, but with Trump I think there’s a different story, and it’s

  • not one I’ve seen anyone else telling.

  • You see, a lot of people were surprised by Trump’s victory, and this surprise has led

  • to a lot of speculation regarding the polls and where they went wrong.

  • Which they weren’t really that wrong because Hillary won the popular vote by a large margin

  • so it’s not like there’s some mysterious chunk of Trump supporters we didn’t know

  • about, but anyway.

  • The difference between the polls and the outcome led to this obsession with pointing at different

  • bits of the polls to try and explain why Trump won.

  • It’s the standard fallacy of focusing on what’s measurable because that’s what

  • is easy and incontrovertible.

  • It’s evidence, it’s proof, and anyone with basic math skills can compare numbers

  • in the completely logical agreed-upon form, and let’s combine that with my other favorite

  • intellectual mistake: the one where you get what you measure.

  • If you measure race, you get race, if you measure gender and sexuality, you get gender

  • and sexuality.

  • Media has been taken over with arguing about these things because it’s easy to pseudo-rationally

  • argue about what number is bigger than what other number.

  • The media is centering the conversation around identity politics because that’s what the

  • data _is_, but it’s not what the data _shows_.

  • Like, Trump didn’t win because of lower black turnout, though voter suppression worked

  • pretty good there.

  • Trump won and also we measured black voter turnout.

  • We measured lots of things.

  • So I took a fresh look at the data.

  • Lots of data, in larger contexts, and weeks later I’ve finally come to a conclusion.

  • I was wrong.

  • It’s not really about liberal vs conservative, city vs country, white vs multicultural, not

  • this time.

  • It’s really about old and young.

  • Not vs, and not necessarily as individuals but also as communities and as a culture,

  • ok here we go:

  • First the shallow data part.

  • Edison Research, which does the US election exit polls, shows that over-45s voted Trump

  • while under-45s voted Hillary, and other polls show other breakdowns, over-50s voting for

  • Trump, the trend of all the polls is that the older you get the more youre a Trump

  • voter, while Hillary was strongly favored among younger voters.

  • 18-29 most strongly, and 30-45 also.

  • And voter turnout in those age groups looks pretty normal, though if younger voters turned

  • out like older voters did Hillary wouldve won in a landslide, meanwhile Baby Boomers

  • are getting older, lifespans increase, and the older you are the more you turn out to

  • vote so this was a good election for appealing to older voters, and older didn’t used to

  • be a Republican thing but Obama’s appeal to young voters set the stage to take the

  • G out of the GOP this year.

  • But it’s not the pure demographics that popped out to me, but the correlations.

  • Correlations likethat many rural areas are increasing in average age as young people

  • seek opportunities in the city and the older population keeps getting older, industry changes,

  • and theyre left without a job theyre trained for, and it’s not like there’s

  • a university in town where they can learn new skills and qualifications.

  • Which means this statistic is related to the economy, though remember people who make less

  • than average voted for Hillary, and how much you make is also correlated with age, so while

  • poor young voters voted for Hillary, Trump’s voters are worrying about retirement and healthcare

  • in a system that is failing them on both counts.

  • Age is correlated with race, and US demographics are getting increasingly diverse which hasn’t

  • really hit the voter pools yet, and also consider religion.

  • I don’t mean diversity of religion, I mean the middle-america sort of religion where

  • the church isn’t just A community but THE community, with a cohesiveness that trickles

  • down from older members.

  • I want to talk about age not because it excuses anything, but because it changes how we should

  • approach this.

  • When people living in different places reject each other’s way of life, that’s something

  • to compromise and come together on.

  • But if it’s really that younger people are looking towards the future while older people

  • want to go back to how things were, that’s a different conversation.

  • Trump didn’t just lose the popular vote, he lost the younger half of America.

  • America has changed.

  • Younger voters are multicultural, we have a diverse range of identity, were adaptable,

  • weve had 4 different jobs in multiple industries, we don’t expect job security or abundant

  • natural resources or to have the world our parents had.

  • We adapt, and we care for each other, not just in the USA but around the world, because

  • we are connected, we are informed, we have the world at our fingertips.

  • We worry about how were going to deal with the environmental issues that have been handed

  • to us, how were going to end the wars that have been handed to us.

  • Everyone wants to leave a better world for their children and it would be natural for

  • older folks to be a little resentful that we find so many flaws with the world theyre

  • handing to us, but this isn’t the story of two Americas, it’s a story of new Americas,

  • about a country that has improved and changed many times over.

  • There’s no sides to fight and win.

  • This is a gap you bridge by being kind to each other, by asking older America not to

  • reject America’s youth and younger America to respect our history and our elders and

  • make sure they are not forgotten in a world of new technology.

  • There’s a difference between the young angry neo-nazi Trump supporters that have been so

  • emboldened by him, so encouraged by his administration, and the voters who are older and disconnected

  • and who I think actually make up his base.

  • Dark forces in the white house would divide us, Steve Bannon is pretending Trump’s win

  • was about a culture war between nationalists and liberals, pc culture and working-class

  • middle America, rather than a generational difference.

  • The same think pieces the media was writing about millennials years ago are now being

  • rewritten as pieces about liberals, but were still the same people and were not going

  • away.

  • Legacy media is obsessed with the idea of identity politics while were already over

  • it, were just trying to understand and respect each other in a changed world.

  • And maybe with all these new changes we did forget to include older people’s struggles.

  • Maybe we fell into the fallacy of valuing the lives of hypothetical future people more

  • than the lives of those already here in our communities.

  • Older voters didn’t grow up with the idea of climate change, it's not about liberals

  • being smart and Republicans being science deniers, the numbers tell me it’s about

  • age.

  • Statistics tell us Trump voters are uneducated but remember education levels have increased

  • with time and that’s a good thing, and also maybe we have some work to do in bringing

  • education innovation to people who aren’t in school, and don’t come into contact much

  • with more recently educated people.

  • Older voters didn’t grow up with the internet.

  • The numbers show that older you get the more time you spend watching television, that’s

  • where information comes from for a lot of people, and legacy media, in their efforts

  • to be fair to the other side and get ratings from their audience are completely missing

  • how pro-Trump they sound to younger demographics, whether theyor Trumpthink theyre

  • being pro-Trump or not.

  • Maybe when young people rejected old media and went to the internet, we didn’t think

  • through all the side-effects.

  • Maybe we can spend some time teaching older folks about climate change and how to sort

  • out hoaxes on the internet, and they can spend some time teaching younger folks about the

  • importance of turning out to vote and how to use telephones to call representatives.

  • Trump played to people's fear, not just to general economic anxiety but about retirement

  • and their legacy and their own mortality.

  • Fear of the existential threat posed by imaginary invasions.

  • He knows how to speak to people his age, to white people who grew up during the cold war,

  • and in places where support will trickle down because of community structure.

  • There’s an important difference between those who fear the unknown and those who hate

  • the known, between those who avoid someone because they don’t want to be hurt and those

  • who engage with someone because they want to see them suffer.

  • The former behavior might not be acceptable, but it’s approachable.

  • You can talk about it.

  • I don’t make excuses for bigotry but maybe we can change how we approach it for the large

  • share of Trump’s voter base who might be active in opposing it if we give them space

  • to.

  • There’s plenty of older folks who are excited to be challenged and engaged by the young

  • American culture, who are willing to admit theyre wrong when theyre wrong, even

  • if it challenges their authority.

  • But from what I’ve seen of Trump and Bannon, they enjoy seeing the suffering of those who

  • disagree with them, they seek to punish those who oppose them, and you can’t have a successful

  • dialogue with someone who would like to see you hurt.

  • Democrats won’t work with Trump, but Republicans can’t work with Trump.

  • They could obey him, but they can’t work with him.

  • Whether the white house reflects it or not, there is no future in Trump.

  • The world already changed.

  • Some of Trump’s voters just want to burn it all down but most of them have shown that

  • they care about the future of our country, they are engaged, they want to work hard,

  • and maybe we can find a direction for that energy that we can agree on, rather than leaving

  • older generations behind.

  • Because were going to have this same problem when were old and future generations are

  • fluent in technology we can’t imagine, that connects them to information and understanding

  • that we can’t access effectively.

  • Let us learn now how we bridge the gap of age in a world of increasing information technology.

  • Can we call our older friends and family and tell them our concerns, tell them about the

  • world we see?

  • Can we listen to their stories?

  • Can we remember that our representatives and senators are also mostly older and didn’t

  • grow up with the internet and aren’t reading our twitter feed and give them a call to share

  • our concerns?

  • Can we reach out personally to those who get their information that way?

  • Can we find a way to disagree in our opinions but agree on the facts?

  • Can we ask those who grew up in a different time to support us?

  • Can we ask those who grew up in a different time how we can support them?

  • I feel mostly hopeful but there’s a certain bittersweetness to it and I can’t help think

  • of my grandma.

  • I lived with my her when my mathematical work started becoming popular, I respected her

  • dictatorial authority in her home and I forgave her the occasional comments that one would

  • callold fashionedwhen said by your own grandma.

  • But I often think about the fact that when she was ill, she made a conscious decision

  • to die rather than leave home.

  • It’s not an uncommon choice.

  • We are defined by the things we value more than ourselves.

  • My grandmother made a home; and as frustrated as I was with her unwillingness to use the

  • internet or accept a broader range of identity, she made me welcome in the home that was worth

  • more to her than her own life.

  • And so, to the future generations who value the lives of all of us equally, I entreat

  • you to remember that life is to be honored universally but spent individually.

  • Be kind to those who truly define themselves as Americans first, those who would whole-heartedly

  • welcome you into the country they would give their life for.

  • That is a kind of nationalism to be respected, and I think we can find a way to come together

  • in support of America’s new culture while still honoring those who got us here.

On election night 2016 I had flashbacks to the 2000 election, staying awake late into

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数学者の視点から見たディバイド (A Mathematician's Perspective on the Divide)

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    g2 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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