Last week, UBS released a survey of 1,200 of its American clients and their attitudes towards the US election. It revealed some striking insights — after the election, for example, the proportion of investors who were bullish about US stocks jumped from 25 per cent to 53 per cent, while those who were bullish about growth rose from 39 per cent to 48 per cent. There was, however, an even more important detail: 36 per cent of respondents said that they did not tell their friends and family who they voted for, because they wanted to “fend off arguments or avoid judgment”.
Yes, you read that right. Among these wealthy and (presumably) educated UBS clients, more than one-third were apparently too nervous or embarrassed to reveal their election choice. Call it, if you like, a plague of squeamish silence.
Sadly, UBS does not have any long-term data with which to compare this result (I checked), and since the sample is tiny, it may be very biased. But I suspect the result points to a bigger pattern — and one that may help explain why Trump won, in stark contrast to the pollsters’ predictions.