Polarization quantified.

[RandomGuy]

I was reading a (very) long article, but was struck by the summation of a political analysis by Jacob Hacker.



Obama’s rhetoric about a nation of common purpose and values no longer fits this country: there really is a red America and a blue America.

Polarization also has affected the two parties differently. The Republican Party has drifted much farther to the right than the Democratic Party has drifted to the left. Jacob Hacker, a professor at Yale, whose 2006 book, “Off Center,” documented this trend, told me, citing Poole and Rosenthal’s data on congressional voting records, that, since 1975, “Senate Republicans moved roughly twice as far to the right as Senate Democrats moved to the left” and “House Republicans moved roughly six times as far to the right as House Democrats moved to the left.” In other words, the story of the past few decades is asymmetric polarization.

It is part of an article that is quite worth reading, as it is a very large window on the inner workings of the current administration and it's chief.


The Political Scene
The Obama Memos
The making of a post-post-partisan Presidency.by Ryan Lizza

(not sure which link works, hopefully both do-RG)

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1kJdMy86s

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all

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The article also has as good of an analysis as to why the GOP has essentially shit on the outstretched hand of a guy they could probably work with, if they weren't so committed to winning at all costs.

One has to find it a lot funny and a little sad at how a thorughly centrist president is made out to be a slobbering socialist.

[boutons_deux]

"winning at all costs"

also means they want to eliminate all opposition as illegitimate, as having no right to govern, no matter how the Human-Americans voted, which is how they "justify" blocking EVERYTHING the Dems have proposed (as illegitimate).

this article also is another way of showing the false equivalence of "the Dems are no different from, no worse than the Repugs"

[DarrinS]

Well, you can't argue with science.

[EVAY]

Well, you can't argue with science.

Except for evolution, huh?

[boutons_deux]

If you're a "Christian" and/or a Repug, all you do is ignore science, and create your own "faith/ideology" science.

[RandomGuy]

Well, you can't argue with science.

Most Republicans would disagree with that.

[mercos]

I was reading a (very) long article, but was struck by the summation of a political analysis by Jacob Hacker.




It is part of an article that is quite worth reading, as it is a very large window on the inner workings of the current administration and it's chief.


The Political Scene
The Obama Memos
The making of a post-post-partisan Presidency.by Ryan Lizza

(not sure which link works, hopefully both do-RG)

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1kJdMy86s

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all

-----------------------------------------------------------

The article also has as good of an analysis as to why the GOP has essentially shit on the outstretched hand of a guy they could probably work with, if they weren't so committed to winning at all costs.

One has to find it a lot funny and a little sad at how a thorughly centrist president is made out to be a slobbering socialist.

This last point is what I find most disconcerting. A lot of Obama's policies have been heavily tilted towards the conservative side. The health care law was based on conservative ideas from the 90s and eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts. He has continued many of the foreign policy plans of the Bush administration. He gave out massive tax cuts in the stimulus package and signed an extension of the Bush tax cuts, though he did want to eliminate the tax cuts for the top marginal rate. Obama's major policies have been decidedly more conservative than they have been liberal.

Despite all of this he is more hated by conservatives than any other Democratic president in history. I remember the tea party rising up against government spending just a few short weeks into Obama's term. Where were these people when Bush was running up the deficit? Why were they not howling when Dick Cheney said deficits don't matter? Why did they wait for a Democratic president to decide it was such a big deal? This is why Democrats are so quick to draw the race card, because sometimes it seems like the only logical explanation for the conservative's irrational hatred of Obama.

[EVAY]

I was reading a (very) long article, but was struck by the summation of a political analysis by Jacob Hacker.




It is part of an article that is quite worth reading, as it is a very large window on the inner workings of the current administration and it's chief.


The Political Scene
The Obama Memos
The making of a post-post-partisan Presidency.by Ryan Lizza

(not sure which link works, hopefully both do-RG)

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1kJdMy86s

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all

-----------------------------------------------------------

The article also has as good of an analysis as to why the GOP has essentially shit on the outstretched hand of a guy they could probably work with, if they weren't so committed to winning at all costs.

One has to find it a lot funny and a little sad at how a thorughly centrist president is made out to be a slobbering socialist.

Part of the reason why there has been the change described in the articles (republicans moving so much further right than the dems moved left) is timing. The dems in the early '70s went further left than they traditionally had been (remember that time is right after or during all the civil rights legislation and the anti-war protests), and Nixon took the '70s elections by appealing to the dixiecrats in the south who had always voted Dem (going back to Lincoln).
When the republicans decided to woo the southern voter on the basis of his dislike of civil rights legislation and his dislike of antiwar protesters, they sold their souls to a far right wing social belief system.

The Democratic party wasn't moving any further left...they were where they wanted to be. The Republican Party kept moving further and further right to appease their new-found base constituents.

The result of the above is that by the time Clinton came around, he could move to the center and pick up lots of independents. The Republicans, meanwhile, kept getting pulled further and further right in the 'culture wars', and have, as a result, moved much further than their 'establishment' (the old guard if you will) is comfortable with.

GW Bush's presidency followed an evenly split electorate and ended up being a Supreme Court decision. Then after 9/11, the entire country wanted to unite behind a war leader, and he got reelected on the basis of pandering to fear.

The Republican Party is not the same party that it was before Nixon and Reagan because they have moved so far to the right on social issues including, now, a strong populist movement that is anti-intellectual and almost blue-collar.

The Democrats have lost their socially conservative base in the southern states and some of the blue collar workers to the Republican's 'values' agenda.

So the upshot is that Republicans have moved more than the Democrats.

[EVAY]

This last point is what I find most disconcerting. A lot of Obama's policies have been heavily tilted towards the conservative side. The health care law was based on conservative ideas from the 90s and eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts. He has continued many of the foreign policy plans of the Bush administration. He gave out massive tax cuts in the stimulus package and signed an extension of the Bush tax cuts, though he did want to eliminate the tax cuts for the top marginal rate. Obama's major policies have been decidedly more conservative than they have been liberal.

Despite all of this he is more hated by conservatives than any other Democratic president in history. I remember the tea party rising up against government spending just a few short weeks into Obama's term. Where were these people when Bush was running up the deficit? Why were they not howling when Dick Cheney said deficits don't matter? Why did they wait for a Democratic president to decide it was such a big deal? This is why Democrats are so quick to draw the race card, because sometimes it seems like the only logical explanation for the conservative's irrational hatred of Obama.

Two things: The Norquist Pledge (Norquist reminds me most of all of the guy in California thirty years ago who led the Proposition X drive to make sure that any tax hike required a super majority of the voters to approve, while the spending initiatives were left at a simple majority - result - bankruptcy).

Second thing: The Republican establishment loves the Norquist rule but the base is comprised of all of the former dixiecrats and religious right who figure that any time anyone disagrees with them it is a sign of the Apocalypse, and that any democratic president is the Anti-Christ.

[DarrinS]

For the record, I moved exactly 2.375x to the right.

[mercos]

I live in a very conservative state, and I remember hearing several people seriously wonder if Obama was the anti-christ. People actually debated it. It is sad what this country and turned into.

[FromWayDowntown]

I live in a very conservative state, and I remember hearing several people seriously wonder if Obama was the anti-christ. People actually debated it. It is sad what this country and turned into.

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107553

Around post #11, that thread gave SpursTalk some broader publicity:

http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/10/a-sports-fans-take/209859/

[DarrinS]

I live in a very conservative state, and I remember hearing several people seriously wonder if Obama was the anti-christ. People actually debated it. It is sad what this country and turned into.

I know what you mean. The loyal opposition was so civil during the Bush years.

[Winehole23]

the Clinton years weren't exactly a high mark of civility. nor were the GHW Bush years, etc....

[mercos]

I know what you mean. The loyal opposition was so civil during the Bush years.


It was certainly not civil, but I don't remember people seriously considering him to be the anti-christ.

[boutons_deux]

Noot as speaker really amped up the shit-throwing and polarization, including shutting down govt. He moved the goalposts for "we can do this shit" extremely to the right.

There's no equivalent on the center or with the Dems for the extreme, demonizing, delegitimizing strategy of the Repugs.

[Winehole23]

Quantifying political polarization is bullshit in any case: attitudes extend in quality, not quantity.

Purporting to characterize the "extent" or "intensity" of subjective attitudes is the most essential bullshit, as it relies primarily on the veracity of self-reporting.

[DarrinS]

It was certainly not civil, but I don't remember people seriously considering him to be the anti-christ.

Just evil enough to plan and carry out a terrorist attack against his own people.

[Winehole23]

as shaped by artful questioning, of course

[Winehole23]

under the onus of the socially conventional (and more or less reflexive by now) veneration of science

[Winehole23]

quantifying political attitudes seems at first blush not only plausible, but plausibly authoritative

[Winehole23]

but is complete and utter bs, in fact