Science Proves Conservative Superiority Once Again [With Comment By John]

The memes comparing conservative women and liberal women, like this one, have been around for a long time:

women-comps

But now science has weighed in on the question. The Washington Post (!) reports:

Conservatives really are better looking, research says

By Ana Swanson

recently published study in the Journal of Public Economics concludes that the attractiveness of a candidate does correlate with their politics. They find that politicians on the right are more good looking in Europe, the United States and Australia.

And who wants to argue? The science is now settled.

However, it would seem the authors of this study, likely worried about how this heterodox conclusion would be received by the academic community, appear to have worked overtime to mitigate this finding. Just take in key sentence in the middle of the full abstract of the actual journal article:

Since good-looking politicians win more votes, a beauty advantage for politicians on the left or on the right is bound to have political consequences. We show that politicians on the right look more beautiful in Europe, the United States and Australia. Our explanation is that beautiful people earn more, which makes them less inclined to support redistribution. Our model of within-party competition predicts that voters use beauty as a cue for conservatism when they do not know much about candidates and that politicians on the right benefit more from beauty in low-information elections. Evidence from real and experimental elections confirms both predictions.

Once you cut through the dense mathematics of the full article, this “explanation” turns out to be wholly contrived, because of the underlying assumptions it makes about voter knowledge and preferences. But don’t waste your time trudging through this dense article, and trust the older empirical question, “Who you gonna believe: a bunch of math equations or your non-lyin’ eyes?”

JOHN adds: Look, I’m not a social scientist, I’m just a guy. But it is obvious to anyone with normal vision that conservative women are, generally speaking, better looking than liberal women. Sorry, libs: spin it however you want, it’s a fact.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses