{"id":656,"date":"2006-02-26T20:33:25","date_gmt":"2006-02-27T00:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blogtest\/2006\/02\/26\/republicans-are-happier-than-democr"},"modified":"2006-02-26T20:33:25","modified_gmt":"2006-02-27T00:33:25","slug":"republicans-are-happier-than-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/26\/republicans-are-happier-than-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans are Happier than Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a12934'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><P>Harvested the February 27, 2006 issue of TIME magazine at the MIT gym (as nice as you&#8217;d expect given that it cost more than $50 million, but with surprising shortcomings such as the lack of soap in the showers).&nbsp; TIME does a good job covering the happiness news.&nbsp; Some statistics:<\/P><br \/>\n<UL><br \/>\n<LI>34 percent of Americans report being &#8220;very happy&#8221;<br \/>\n<LI>45 percent of Republican Americans report being &#8220;very happy&#8221;<br \/>\n<LI>only 30 percent of Democrats report being &#8220;very happy&#8221;<\/LI><\/UL><br \/>\n<P>This could be explained by the fact that our current rulers are Republican.&nbsp; People have been told that we have a democracy and expect to have some input, but in a country of 300 million people none of us is likely to be consulted or to have any way to influence the federal government.&nbsp; When Clinton was in power, Republicans were bitter and angry.&nbsp; Maybe it is W&#8217;s existence that rains on Democrats&#8217; parade?<\/P><br \/>\n<P>An alternative theory is income-based.&nbsp; People become happier as you stuff their pockets with money, though supposedly the effect becomes quite small once people have enough for a basic lifestyle (far below the current American median income).&nbsp; Typing &#8220;median income Republicans versus Democrats&#8221; into Google doesn&#8217;t yield any conclusive answer.<\/P><br \/>\n<P>A theory that gets better support in the psychology literature is faith-based.&nbsp; People who believe in God are happier.&nbsp; People who believe in God supposedly tend to vote Republican.<\/P><br \/>\n<P>Finally there is the &#8220;fat, dumb, and happy&#8221; theory.&nbsp; Republicans don&#8217;t notice all the problems that beset us.&nbsp; They fight global warming by turning up the A\/C in their monster SUVs.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Harvested the February 27, 2006 issue of TIME magazine at the MIT gym (as nice as you&#8217;d expect given that it cost more than $50 million, but with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fromtheoldserver"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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