At least not so great for us, as a country and a society…
I believe I have mentioned I do a lot of writing on Quora. Sometimes, I feel it is worthwhile sharing with the world at large. From the Question, it is impossible to determine which side of the fence the Questioner is on, but I know my Answer drove the Leftists crazy…
- Why is there such a strong divide between Trump supporters and opposition? I cannot remember this great a divide with former presidents.
There has always been a “divide”, but you are right, in recent memory it has not been as great as it is now. Here are the election maps, by county, for every Presidential election since 1992…
As you can see, in 1992 and 1996, the geographical distribution between parties was much more evenly split, but since the 2000 election, even though voting has been pretty evenly split, the geographical distribution has not. As much as the election is about Democrats and Republicans, it is now urban and rural, too. Instead of just two parties, we now have two cultures clashing, and there is no clear winner. In 2000 and 2004, the Republicans won. in 2008 and 2012, the Democrats won. In 2016, the Republicans won, but in all 5 elections, the geographical distribution was only little changed.
Not only that, there has been a more extreme divergence between the parties. Of course, as the cultures clash, that might be expected, but I want to show you a chart from The Economist [tick marks added for visual reference]…
This chart represents the ideologies of new candidates who won their primaries. Up until about 2010, there was some overlap in the middle, and more often than not, it was more Democrats who shared conservative ideals. Yes, both parties have moved further away from center, and though the Right has moved slightly right, with little fringing, and the base has tightened around around the core, the Left has moved much further to the left, and the base of the Left has coalesced into the farther Left wing of the party.
I scaled this graph, and in 1980, the Right was 8.2 points, right of center, and in 2018, had moved 0.8 points to the Right, now at an even 9. However, in 1980, the Left was only 5.2 points left of center, but by 2018 had moved 6.5 points to the left, now at 11.7. In 1980. the Left was separated from the Right by only 13.4 points. Now, the Left is now further from where it was in 1980, than it was from the center mark in 1980. Notice from the maps, as the Left marches ever leftward, it loses more rural votes.
So, it appears that as much as we have a political war on our hands, we may have much more of a cultural war. It seems to be leaving the Centrist Left, most likely rural Democrats, homeless, while it looks like the Right has circled its wagons in the last 40 years.
Here is some more food for thought. For the purpose of this argument, we can assume a Congressman has a 20 year career, so breaking out the years 2000 -2018 (in 1998 both Left and Right were virtually identical to 2000) from the chart, Congressional majorities look something like this…
The “Left” appears to be closer to center, but covers a much broader range of ideas, some so far apart, even some members of the Democratic Party can’t agree with each other. The “Right” does seem to have moved further to the right, but still holds most of their core beliefs in common.
Now, if you overlay the same shading to a chart showing 1980 to 2000…
Here, you can see that the Right is pretty much where it has always been, but much of the Left isn’t even on the chart from 1980 to 2000. In the Democrat, class of 2018, the majority of the Democratic Party is left of the 1980, far left fringe.
6 replies on “The Not-So-Great Divide”
Going further back in time, one might conclude that the Republicans are yesterday’s Democrats while todays so-called Democrats are simply socialists. Far too many of yesterday’s Democrats don’t even realize that their party has been hi-jacked by the socialist crowd. They don’t know, and they don’t know they don’t know. Perhaps they don’t want to know.
Further, Washington long ago became a criminal enterprise. Things are the way they are because THEY want it this way. Lock and Load.
At least part of the transition of the Democrats sliding ever further left is due to the twin influences of academia and the media. When the inputs people are exposed to so much come from Leftist and Far Left professors, and the media coverage is slanted to amplify “liberal” inputs and minimize “conservative” ones, over time there has to be an effect on much of the population. We are seeing today grade school kids terrified of the world ending in 12 years, brought by their teachers to plead with politicians to “do something”. We are seeing an increasing number of college kids thinking that socialism is the way to fix all our society’s ills, even though the news does cover the travesty of Venezuela. Masculinity is a bad word, gender is just a fluid construct, and there’s more wrong in our history than anything right. Certainly not everyone buys into all this, but the fraction that do keeps growing larger and more passionate. It’s hard to see where all this will go.
Great post! You should include some of the typical reactions from the lefties at Quora (the printable ones).
I think this pinned tweet from an Australian commentator is relevant:
Thanks Brett. Here are excerpts from some of the comments. Even the long winded one is excerpts, and only constitutes about 1/4 of the comment…
Bollocks – Republicans from 40 years ago would fit in the center of the Democratic party – the GOP has moved miles to the right – the Dems have moved a short amount to the RIGHT
Many of the positions currently advocated by Democratic candidates, including a market economy with progressive taxation and viable safety nets, reflect our policies under Dwight D. Eisenhower – a Republican.
Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were vocal advocates of compassionate border policies and traditional democracy, in contrast to current Republican complaints about “mob rule.” I’m not sure that either Reagan or the elder Bush would be taken seriously in today’s GOP.
In the 1970’s, the NRA advocated “common sense gun control” laws very much like the positions taken by Moderate Democrats today.
Total bloody nonsense the Democrats idea of a leftie would be to the RIGHT of JFK and FDR
What that chart shows is that the ideological spectrum within the Democratic party has widened over the years, whereas the Republicans’ has not. However, it doesn’t say that the Democratic party has moved left… What you mean is *your* analysis of the graph says something else. What that chart shows is that the ideological spectrum within the Democratic party has widened over the years, whereas the Republicans’ has not. However, it doesn’t say that the Democratic party has moved left. [My response to this comment was, “I challenge you to have any other credible analyst find a different interpretation.” I did not hear anymore from him after that.]
Besides, the political center is a moving target and it’s silly to pretend that the Republican party has remained consistent throughout the years. [Isn’t this called, “Moving the goalposts?]
[end excerpts]
Clearly, a lot of people have no clue what conservatives stand for, and even more obviously, less of a clue what their own party stands for.
Hmmm, try this:
Blair Cottrell quote
Excellent post, David. Bravo! ‘Course I say that because your charts reflect what I believe to be the case, so I’m guilty of confirmation bias.
“So, it appears that as much as we have a political war on our hands, we may have much more of a cultural war. It seems to be leaving the Centrist Left, most likely rural Democrats, homeless, while it looks like the Right has circled its wagons in the last 40 years.”
This is exactly the case. Andrew Breitbart tried to tell us about it years ago, but few listened.