For years it has seemed that nearly every contentious issue in U.S. politics polls at 50/50. I wondered whether that meant parties were deliberately skating close to the edge, or even whether voters and poll respondents were responding entirely at random, a coin-toss. How could a country stay divided on a knife edge on so many controversies for so many years?
I still don't have any idea, but lately there appears to have been a preference cascade. The talk of 80/20 issues may have been exaggerated, but suddenly a GOP that seemed unable to break though on any issue is garnering poll responses in the 60- and 70-percent range. Even last night's quasi-SOTU speech had an astounding impact. CBS, of all outlets, reports that with an audience composed of about half Republicans and half a mix of Democrats and Independents, President Trump won over 3/4 of his viewers. Results were similarly impressive on a range of hot-button issues from immigation to government waste to tariffs to the expulsion of Rep. Green from the chamber.
9 comments:
Our democracy seems to be losing to democracy.
However, polling has also been carefully constructed for a long time to create political effects. They might be so shocked from last year's loss that they're really trying to find out what people think for a change.
The left is backed so far into a corner they are forced to define their brand by overt weirdness. It's not about the union working guy anymore- they are now the enemy of the left, even if some don't realize it yet. When bug-nutz crazy is the stock in trade, finding buyers among the sane is tough. Opaque dealings with the grift-o-matic machine running full speed has managed to give them some breathing room, but that thing is out of oil.
All they have left is to throw the crockery out the windows.
I don't fear their strength, it's their stupidity that is bothersome.
I think the grift-o-matic machine may be how they got into this position. While they could just give their NGOs dollars and not have to earn contributions, they were free to ignore what people really wanted in favor of what ideology suggested. That went on for years, more and more strongly through the Obama administration, without interruption in the first Trump administration, and reinforced further in the Biden years. It's been decades since they had to actually appeal to the populace at large.
That's how you end up on the wrong side of so many public positions: 60/40 at least, sometimes 75/25 on issue after issue. It didn't matter when the money was flowing through USAID and NEF and other places to their NGOs and newspapers. It especially didn't matter when they were in a position to use that money and influence to 'fortify' elections. So they hardened their positions further and further, well away from where the ordinary people thought was reasonable.
Out where I am, the Democrat party is badly fractured. There are at least three clear factions that can’t even be at the same watch party together. One is “old school” trades-union Democrat, one is the “Way off the Deep End” Democrat (assertively pro Trans, pro unlimited abortion, Greener than the local Green Party members), and one drifts between the two depending on the topic of discussion. If they can’t agree on anything other than “We’re not (R),” I fear the party won’t last through another decade .
LittleRed1
Statewise, I am starting to think the OTDE (thanks, LittleRed1) faction is using crazy legislation not to achieve the stated goal, but as a Curley Effect measure to drive the opposition away.
Sure seems to be working here in Washington State.
Every time I think of it it makes me mad- this place used to be a really delightful place to live- libertarian in the best sense of the word.
"...using crazy legislation not to achieve the stated goal, but as a Curley Effect measure to drive the opposition away."
Colorado seems to be doing that. They banned all semiautomatic weapons, in more or less not only direct but perfect defiance of Heller. They have to know it won't stand up. But it might keep people from moving there who value gun rights.
There has indeed been some degree of a preference cascade in favor of Trump/Republicans, and the general atmosphere in the country is definitely more optimistic than it was a few years ago....but in the last couple of weeks, I see a lot of good people...some of them long-term and strong Trump supporters and some of them who were not but were moving in that direction...who have been appalled by Trump's Ukraine actions. It's not that they favor perpetual war, but there's a feeling that Trump has behaved in a dishonorable manner toward what was at least a defacto ally...the withdrawal of the satellite intelligence feed drove a particularly negative reaction. And too many of Trump's comments have come across as 'we and Putin are the rational players who need to figure out how to deal with those irrational Ukranians'.
Anonymous was me, David Foster...new Mac, haven't set up my identity here yet. I wrote last year about the very low level of debate about the Ukraine issue, on both sides:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/70648.html
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