Each side bars the speaker who offends it

Weighted share who would refuse to let each speaker address their community, by respondent ideology, GSS pooled 2010–2024. Darker = more intolerant. Targets are grouped by the speaker's own politics.

more tolerant more intolerant Cells show % who would refuse the speaker.

Takeaway: conservatives darken on the four left-coded speakers; but on the right-coded racist the darkening flips to the liberal column — the intolerance follows the target down the diagonal, not the respondent across the row.

Cells are the weighted refusal share (100 minus the allow share); per-cell unweighted n ranges from about 2,550 to 4,090. The Muslim-clergyman item enters the GSS only in 2008 and is excluded from the over-time index below. Source: GSS 1976–2024, spk* items, weighted by weight_use.

A modest, shrinking right-skew — not a widening one

Mean intolerance across the five long-running speaker targets (Communist, homosexual, atheist, racist, militarist), by ideology, GSS 1976–2021. Lower is more tolerant.

Liberal Moderate Conservative

Takeaway: all three lines fall as the country grows more tolerant; the conservative line stays above the liberal one, but the gap between them narrows from about nine points in the late 1970s to roughly five today.

Net intolerance = mean refusal share across the five long-running targets. Per-year unweighted n per ideology group ranges from about 219 to 534. The 2021 reading crosses the GSS mixed-mode/web transition and is marked accordingly. Source: GSS, weighted.

Right-coded out-groups, not the controls, carry the skew

Weighted share naming each group as an unwanted neighbour, by self-placed left–right, WVS waves 5–7 (2005–2023), equal-country averages.

Left (1–4) Center (5–6) Right (7–10)

Takeaway: the right names more unwanted neighbours of every kind, but the right-minus-left gap is wider on the four ideological out-groups than on the heavy-drinker and drug-addict controls — the targeted skew, not general intolerance, is the real signal.

Each group's noneigh item is binary (1 = named as unwanted). Countries averaged equally; per-bin country counts range from 87 to 96. “Different religion” has thinner coverage but clears the inclusion thresholds. Source: WVS/EVS pooled, weighted by weight.