Americans are deeply divided along political lines. Everyone knows this, but I recently learned how intrinsic this division is.
At a recent lecture sponsored by the Fort Wayne-Allen County Historical Society, Michael Wolf from the political science department at the university formerly known as IPFW cited an eye-opening statistic: Democrats give their children names with more vowels than Republicans do.
I trust Dr. Wolf implicitly, having known him for several decades, but this statement required further research, from the Internet of course. Turns out, he’s right.
Is this a case of the Democrats attempting to corner the market on vowels? Or is it a nefarious plot on the part of Republicans to monopolize consonants?
My wife and I have two children, both named with only a single vowel per syllable. Does that require us to vote Republican to keep the cosmos in balance?
There has to be more to this and since I am not gainfully employed, I have scads of free time to do the necessary research. What I found is that the Republican/Democrat split goes much deeper than simple name choices.
The New York Times reported the party difference includes television choices, according to research done by TIVO. Republicans prefer to watch golf while Democrats prefer cartoons. I don’t watch much television but my wife is addicted to the golf channel, so she should vote Republican while I remain undecided and should just stay away from the polls.
It gets worse. A list of the top-20 television shows watched by Republicans and the top 20 watched by Democrats have no overlaps. Not a single shared television interest. No wonder our nation is in such trouble.
These divisive television habits affect sports as well. Democrats watch the NBA while Republicans prefer college basketball. Again, I don’t watch basketball so I must be in the undecided camp while my wife is a Big Ten basketball fan. This additional evidence shows her to be a bedrock Republican.
What about the vehicles we drive? Fox News informs us Republicans put pickup trucks at the top of their purchase preferences while Democrats like economy and compact cars. There is hope for our democracy, however, in that voters from both parties put SUVs second on their lists. Perhaps a political discussion in a parking lot full of SUVs would prove civil and cathartic, although they probably wouldn’t allow me and my Ford F150 onto the premises.
I tend to lean toward moderate determinism in my philosophical and theological thought so this all is quite upsetting to me. What if I turn on the television and watch the wrong show? The next time I need to purchase a vehicle, do I even care what Consumer Reports says about the reliability and affordability of the various models since my choice has been preordained?
Rather than surrender to total despondency, I turned to the consumer product most dear to my German heritage: beer. Surely I would discover hope here. And I did … sort of.
It is with beer preferences that Democrats and Republicans find solid common ground. Heineken and Corona are the top two choices for partisans on both sides. In fact seven of the top 10 are shared between parties according to a survey conducted by Bottle Raiders.
The differences may or may not be instructive. Democrats like Bud Light, Budweiser and Stella Artois while Republicans round out their top 10 with Coors Light, Yuengling and Michelob ULTRA. I really like Yuengling and to a lesser extent Stella Artois. I guess this puts me in the Leaning Republican category, to borrow the RealClearPolitics website taxonomy. My wife doesn’t like beer so she must be keeping her vote preference secret.
The beer data may be confounded by a statistic called BAR, Beer Above Replacement. This is unabashed plagiarism of the baseball sabermetric WAR, Wins Above Replacement, that has become the sine qua non for baseball nerds. There is some snobbery in this as BAR is a formula combining several other rating systems that favor unusual and specialized tastes.
In the BAR world Democrats favor beers in the upper right of the scale while Republicans those in the lower left, a distinct difference of taste preferences. The highest rated beer is Zombie Dust, a beer that I dislike so I am inclined to dismiss the BAR system with extreme prejudice.
So where does all this leave us? Since I started this column citing a university professor, I will end by quoting another. Michael Goldsby from Washington State University thinks people should communicate over a beer rather than over social media.
“I believe that sitting next to somebody and sharing a beverage promotes greater understanding, if for no other reason than you’re much more likely to get punched if you’re mean.”
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. Send comments to [email protected].
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. Send comments to [email protected].
