(Warning: the resolution of the graph for finer details will strain your vision)
The chart looks like something Edward Tuft would create. A gigantic dissected aorta/vena cava hybrid with the branching arteries and veins sloppily snipped off.
The graphic is peppered with XKCD’s little comments. One little “Where’s Waldo?” tidbit involve a closing argument used in court about a dog.
Some things are immediately obvious. If Obama wins, more gridlock. If Romney wins, less gridlock. But there will still be gridlock. The ideological swing to the right of the Republicans in the House is breathtaking. Whatever your feelings you have about their politics, you got to give them credit for for being systematic and incremental in moving the GOP to the right.
Are there any other things that you see that leap out at you?
I like the idea, but like many of the more iconoclastic XKCDs, there’s just TOO MUCH INFORMATION! And I don’t mean in the “Dude…I didn’t need to know that!” way. I start out interested because there’s a LOT of information there, and all the hidden side jokes and such. Then along about 1/8 of the way through it my eyes start to glaze and my brain shuts down because I’m like a coffee cup trying to cap an oil gusher…there’s just too much.
I don’t like it. Other XKCD graphs have been done in a way to make the information clearer in some way. This one just seems messy and hard to read for no good reason.
I’ve seen other graphs that have tracked Congressional political ideology over-time in ways that were a lot easier to read.
The chart displays the ideological makeup of each party in each of the legislative chambers. The darker the color, the more ideological it becomes (and hence, less willing to compromise). If you note the current distribution of the colors as compared to 20 years ago, you’ll understand why the Congress is so polarized–more importantly, the “gridlock” in Washington, DC will not go away with the results of today’s election.
Expect more of the same in varying degrees for the next eight to twelve years unless something dramatic happens.
(If you place your cursor on the graphic, and click it, the image should enlarge.)
Severed veins/arteries are people exiting the House or Senate, or people entering them if they are severed at the bottom. Think of them as pipelines of thought…
This thing is visually too messy for me visually to find useful at all. Instead of the veins and arteries going in and out, it would be more useful to me if each election year simply had a plain rectangular bar for each faction.
I find the graph part quite easy to read. The text is not as legible, sometimes, but the massive red-blue flows with their shifts and entries and exits are quite intelligible.