Arkady
President
On another thread we were talking about falling IQs, late in life, and how it coincides with a decline into political conservatism as people age. That got me thinking about the question of whether brain damage and conservatism might be tied when it comes to artificial damage as well as natural decline.
First, recall the recent research showing a correlation between lead exposure and violent crime. Basically, the theory is that high lead exposure, from lead in paint and leaded gasoline being burned, damaged people's brains in ways that made them more violent, resulting in a long increase of violent crime. Environmentalists pushed through regulations to reduce lead contamination and exposure started dropping in the mid-1970s. When that generation hit its peak crime years, in the mid 90s, there was a resulting drop in violent crime. As a greater and greater share of the crime-aged population was made up of people raised without violence-triggering lead damage in their brains, the violent crime rate kept dropping, and has now reached half its previous level. Research is continuing on this issue, but there's at least preliminary data supporting this theory not just in this recent crime spike and fall in the US, but in earlier crime waves, and in parallel trends in other countries, around their introduction and phase-out of leaded gas.
So, if early lead exposure can have such a profound impact on the brain as to make people twice as likely to commit rapes and murders when they grow up, isn't it reasonable to think it could be having an impact on subtler things like political leanings? Is it possible that brain damage caused by lead is responsible for political conservatism in some people?
If this were true, what we'd expect to see is a growing conservatism in political voting patterns roughly mirroring the rise in violent tendencies. This appears to be the case: for a quarter century, as violent crime rates were rising to an all-time peak in the early 1990s, the Republicans held the White House for all but four years (and even those four years were led by a fundamentalist Southern Baptist military vet and farmer from rural Georgia -- exactly the kind of token Democrat we'd expect to have a fighting chance during a conservative-dominated era.)
Then, starting around the time when less lead-addled brains were first reaching their voting years, things began to change, politically. Bill Clinton took the White House, swept in on the strength of particularly strong support by younger voters, even as older people continued to favor Republicans. The Democrats won the presidency again in 1996 and 2000 (though Bush was appointed president, contrary to the will of the People, by a few elderly Supreme Court conservatives that year). In 2004, the Republicans won the White House, but that was despite Kerry winning a clear majority among those least likely to have brain damage from lead poisoning. Kerry had a nine-point win among those born from the mid-1970s onward. And, of course, Obama won two convincing victories, with particular strength among the post-lead-poisoning generations.
Because voting doesn't have the same "prime age" bump as violent crime tendencies do (people are actually more likely to vote in their 60s than in their 20s), we'd expect the impact of a theoretical lead-induced conservatism to be more muted than the impact of lead-induced violence. Those whose brains were damaged by excess lead exposure will still be around and voting in large numbers for decades to come, and so if their brain damage is part of what's driving their conservatism, it's going to keep having an impact on elections well into the future -- worsened by the natural brain atrophy of the aging process. But, if the theory is right, then the larger the portion of the electorate gets that didn't have their brains corrupted by lead, the more conservatism will fade.
I'm not sure I'm convinced by this theory even with regard to violent crime rates, much less political leanings. But it sure is intriguing. It would be great if a little environmental regulation were all that was needed to make people less likely to do evil things like committing murder or voting Republican.
First, recall the recent research showing a correlation between lead exposure and violent crime. Basically, the theory is that high lead exposure, from lead in paint and leaded gasoline being burned, damaged people's brains in ways that made them more violent, resulting in a long increase of violent crime. Environmentalists pushed through regulations to reduce lead contamination and exposure started dropping in the mid-1970s. When that generation hit its peak crime years, in the mid 90s, there was a resulting drop in violent crime. As a greater and greater share of the crime-aged population was made up of people raised without violence-triggering lead damage in their brains, the violent crime rate kept dropping, and has now reached half its previous level. Research is continuing on this issue, but there's at least preliminary data supporting this theory not just in this recent crime spike and fall in the US, but in earlier crime waves, and in parallel trends in other countries, around their introduction and phase-out of leaded gas.
So, if early lead exposure can have such a profound impact on the brain as to make people twice as likely to commit rapes and murders when they grow up, isn't it reasonable to think it could be having an impact on subtler things like political leanings? Is it possible that brain damage caused by lead is responsible for political conservatism in some people?
If this were true, what we'd expect to see is a growing conservatism in political voting patterns roughly mirroring the rise in violent tendencies. This appears to be the case: for a quarter century, as violent crime rates were rising to an all-time peak in the early 1990s, the Republicans held the White House for all but four years (and even those four years were led by a fundamentalist Southern Baptist military vet and farmer from rural Georgia -- exactly the kind of token Democrat we'd expect to have a fighting chance during a conservative-dominated era.)
Then, starting around the time when less lead-addled brains were first reaching their voting years, things began to change, politically. Bill Clinton took the White House, swept in on the strength of particularly strong support by younger voters, even as older people continued to favor Republicans. The Democrats won the presidency again in 1996 and 2000 (though Bush was appointed president, contrary to the will of the People, by a few elderly Supreme Court conservatives that year). In 2004, the Republicans won the White House, but that was despite Kerry winning a clear majority among those least likely to have brain damage from lead poisoning. Kerry had a nine-point win among those born from the mid-1970s onward. And, of course, Obama won two convincing victories, with particular strength among the post-lead-poisoning generations.
Because voting doesn't have the same "prime age" bump as violent crime tendencies do (people are actually more likely to vote in their 60s than in their 20s), we'd expect the impact of a theoretical lead-induced conservatism to be more muted than the impact of lead-induced violence. Those whose brains were damaged by excess lead exposure will still be around and voting in large numbers for decades to come, and so if their brain damage is part of what's driving their conservatism, it's going to keep having an impact on elections well into the future -- worsened by the natural brain atrophy of the aging process. But, if the theory is right, then the larger the portion of the electorate gets that didn't have their brains corrupted by lead, the more conservatism will fade.
I'm not sure I'm convinced by this theory even with regard to violent crime rates, much less political leanings. But it sure is intriguing. It would be great if a little environmental regulation were all that was needed to make people less likely to do evil things like committing murder or voting Republican.
