US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8929

On October 05 2017 23:12 LegalLord wrote:

We're too far gone for that. These days if Trump so much as sneezes there will be outrage and 20 irate news articles and hundreds of tweets about it. Complaining about genuinely dangerous stuff is no longer viable because it's just part of the noise.

On October 05 2017 23:09 Liquid`Jinro wrote:

This seems impossible to read as anything except a joke.

More annoyed at her post than him doing something slightly humorous... maybe we could save the outrage for when he does something actually despicable (should only take like 5 minutes or so).

Of course if he actually needed to be told not to throw cans at people then I take everything back, but it doesn't sound like that was the case.

Republicans And Democrats Don't Agree, Don't Like Each Other And It's Worse Than Ever

The partisan split in America is the highest it's been in two decades, with Republicans and Democrats holding vastly disparate views on race, immigration and the role of government, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.

Pew has been measuring attitudes on policy issues and political values dating back to 1994, and its latest check-in finds — perhaps unsurprisingly — that Americans are more divided than ever.

"The fact that Republicans and Democrats differ on these fundamental issues is probably not a surprise, but the magnitude of the difference is striking, and particularly how the differences have grown in recent years and where they've grown," Carroll Doherty, Pew's director of political research and one of the authors of the study, told NPR.

Pew asked more than 5,000 respondents this summer about 10 specific political issues — ranging from government regulation and aid, same-sex marriage and environmental regulations — and found that, on average, there was a 36-point gap between Republicans and Democrats. That's a whopping 21-point increase since it began tracking those questions 23 years ago.

Partisanship has risen markedly since 2004, the year President Bush was re-elected, and has hit a new high.

Two decades before, there was about a 15-point gap between Republicans and Democrats on these issues, but it wasn't that much more pronounced than differences in race or religion.

Now, how you identify politically is — by far — the starkest divider of how Americans see certain issues.

The widest two gaps were on views about race and government aid to the poor. Overall, 41 percent of Americans said that racial discrimination is the reason black people struggle to get ahead, which is the highest mark in the survey's history; 49 percent, however, still said that African-Americans who couldn't advance were responsible for their own situation.

But broken down along party lines, there's a huge 50-point gap between how Republicans and Democrats see the issue — almost two-thirds (64 percent) of Democrats think some African Americans struggle to get ahead because of discrimination, while just 14 percent of Republicans think so.

Back in 1994, 39 percent of Democrats thought the same thing — a 25-point uptick — while just a quarter (24 percent) of Republicans thought so, a 12-point drop in the two decades since.

There's also a 47-point gap between Democrats who believe that government should do more to help the needy (71 percent) and Republicans, who agree with that statement (just 24 percent.) Democrats' belief that the government needs to do more to help is from 58 percent in 1994.

A minority of Republicans have held that belief, and even fewer do today than a decade ago. The percentage saying so has fallen 21 points since 2007.

On immigration, there's also a wide chasm between the parties — 84 percent of Democrats say immigrants have strengthened the country with their "hard work and talents."

That's a 52-point increase since 1994.

But the percentage of Republicans saying immigrants help the country is half that (42 percent). A plurality of Republicans (44 percent) believes immigrants are a burden, but that 42 percent is actually higher than in 1994 for Republicans.

There is evidence of a generational shift among Republicans on social issues. On issues like immigration and support for same-sex marriage, for example, there was more support among younger Republicans.

On immigration, for example, 62 percent of Republicans under 30 said immigrants strengthen the country (20 points higher than the GOP overall). Just 31 percent of Republicans 65 and older believed the same thing.

Majorities in both parties also now said that being gay should be accepted by society. But the margin is far wider among Democrats than Republicans — More than 4-in-5 (83 percent) Democrats said so, while just more than half (54 percent) of Republicans agreed. Because Democratic support has exploded, the gap between the two parties has actually gotten wider despite broader acceptance by people in both parties.

On other issues, like environmental regulations (and whether they have hurt the economy) and use of the military versus non-interventionism, the parties have also moved in very different directions over the past two decades.

Like on all the issues Pew tested, Doherty explained that with each party being pulled further into their corners, it's been harder for legislators in Washington to reach any type of middle-ground consensus.

On October 06 2017 01:04 Plansix wrote:


Source

The divide grows and will likely get far worse in the next decade.

On October 06 2017 01:24 Plansix wrote:
The problem is cyclical, but the odds are stacked against voters making good decisions in the modern media landscape. We do not run elections in a way that promotes thoughtful discussions and decision making. It is more of an endurance match between the voter's will to be informed and the fire hose of information and mis-information thrown in their direction.