The Pew Research Center has an interesting question for you: Are you becoming less popular? Are your friends dropping you? Maybe you've Facebooked one too many videos of your three-legged cat meowing "I love you" in Siamese. Maybe the cost of Christmas cards went up, and your friends are eager to trim their lists. Or maybe... it's because you're too conservative!
A Pew Center's stunning new report reveals that liberals are more prone to dropping friends who spout conservative dogma than the other way around. "Consistent liberals are more likely to stop talking to someone because of politics," the report reveals. "Roughly a quarter (24 percent) have done so, compared with 16 percent of consistent conservatives and around 10 percent of those with more mixed political views."
Wow. This is shocking. What does this mean? Is it really easier to get a liberal stirred up than a conservative? Is this proof, as some have suggested, that "liberals are jerks"?
We always thought liberals were more likely to be "live and let live" types -- you know, the ones defending free speech and promoting tolerance. Did the new Pew report just destroy that idea?
What's not clear is whether the report considered the possibility that it's not really a case of liberals being intolerant as much as it is conservatives being intolerable. We admit to having blocked people on Facebook for posting rants about that godless Kenyan squatting in the White House, or insisting that Jesus didn't want poor people to get healthcare. Could this all simply be proof that "consistent conservatives" are more likely to flame online in a way that pisses people off?
Regardless, the numbers don't lie. If your liberal friends are dumping you, it could be because you're a closet conservative -- and you don't even know it!
But an answer is only a few clicks away! Take the following personality quiz and find out: Is the reason you're so unpopular because you're too conservative?