December 26, 2014

Chart of the Day: War on Christmas Continues to Take a Drubbing

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With the Christmas season now officially closed, I figured everyone would appreciate a final update on how our troops performed this year in the War on Christmas™. And since my Wikipedia entry insists that this blog is known for “original statistical and graphical analysis,” that’s what you’re going to get.

So then: the chart below is a Google Ngram showing the popularity of Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays. I’m sorry to report that contrary to suggestions from certain quarters, Happy Holidays has been taking a terrific and sustained beating ever since the mid-70s. I took the liberty of extending the trendline based on an extensive personal sampling of popular music and TV shows, and I’m afraid the results were devastating: 2014 was yet another year of Happy Holidays getting its ass kicked. In 1975 we were behind by 2 x 10-5 percentage points. Today we’re behind by 5 x 10-5 percentage points, and falling farther behind every year.

I know this might be discouraging news to some of you, but buck up, urban liberals! Happy Holidays is still doing better than the Lakers, the Bears, and the Knicks. Just wait ’til next year.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MOTHER JONES' FINANCES

We need to start being more upfront about how hard it is keeping a newsroom like Mother Jones afloat these days.

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