"Your best fit is… Opportunity Democrats
along with 12% of the public.
Democratic-leaning and financially comfortable, Opportunity Democrats have liberal attitudes on most issues including the environment, immigration and homosexuality. They stand out from other Democratic groups in their strong belief that hard work is enough for most people to get ahead and for being somewhat less likely to see structural barriers facing blacks and women. They are supportive of U.S. engagement abroad and involvement in global markets."
Sounds about right for me.
The questions that led to the underlined phrases above are the only ones I really struggled with and would have liked more nuanced options. I do think there are structural barriers for blacks and women. They can be overcome, but not by everybody. FWIW, I try to do my part from the “privileged side” to reduce those barriers. It’s a long-term fight, but every little bit helps.
I got Opportunity Democrat. I’ll accept that, but count me among those who have an issue with the binary choices. A good example is around whether we should go into debt for the safety net. I said yes, but my option was only “no.” In fact, I don’t think we should go into debt for the safety net, but should reprioritize spending and/or taxation to pay for it.
I happen to believe that we’ve shown over many decades what our spending minimums and priorities are, and given the we are among the lowest taxed advanced economies on the planet, we should suck it up and pay more. And I think the more should fall mostly on the upper middle class and above.
Given that my (well, our) AGI has us at the top end of the 28% bracket, I feel it’s a reasonable stance.
I’m sorry that I forgot to apologize. Can I buy back your forgiveness with Timmie’s and maple syrup? Or perhaps some genuine Saskatchewan seal skin boots?
I think there are some Dopers that could crank out the graphic interface in minutes, some Dopers who could do the statistics work on an elaborate dataset, and some that could do both. Pew Research may also have competent statisticians.
No, I’m afraid Pew’s test design may just confirm what I’ve suspected — that the American public is now so polarized and insensate that crude kindergarten-level binary questions are simplest and best to classify the current crops of American voter.
As was covered in some other thread about Moore, he lost because of a confluence of attributes. Moore’s racism and anti-constitutional and pro-christian attitudes were winners for much of the AL electorate. The pedophile stuff was just barely enough to activate the counter-base and de-activate his base.
A clone of Moore who had no fresh sex crime revelations would have won handily and would be seen as having vindicated Bannon’s vision for the future of at least the stupidest most backwards parts of America. Which, measured by land area might be 70% of it.
If I had to hazard a guess which of the following factors is/are deep-seated and long-lived in American politics and which is/are a shallow fad/flash in the pan, it’d be no contest. Take your pick: racism, populist anti-establishmentism, christian fundamentalism, outrage over male sexual misconduct.
Bannon may or may not succeed. But anyone claiming Moore’s defeat is some watershed or turning point is waaay over-reading their tea leaves.
IMO, the significant thing about Bannon’s involvement is that this race showed that his vetting process is nonexistent and his personal judgement is seriously flawed. It gives credence to opponent’s arguments about that and about his ability to draw resources to a close race to clinch it.
Thinking this is a setback for Bannon because it involved “male sexual misconduct” is misunderstanding the factors at play and the observations and arguments being made, IMO.
I would note, too, that this is not “some other thread about Moore”; this thread is about Steve Bannon and his War for the GOP. The fact that Moore has been mentioned doesn’t alter that focus.
But he seems also to have tapped the zeitgeist for a bunch of the public. Which means, IMO he is a standard bearer. He may be an accident-prone one, but there *is *a large parade that he’s jumping in front of so he can be anointed as its leader.
He doesn’t have to be the ideal parade leader; he just has to be good enough to not get knocked off the lead float. Or to not fall off in a stupor. Right now there’s still a lot of milling around and confusion about how real the parade is and how many directions it’s marching at once. Paradoxically, as soon as it begins marching more coherently somebody else more skilled will see the opportunity to displace Bannon. To the degree instead the crowd mill in circles making loud noises mostly signifying little more than anger, the more skilled ruthless players can afford to watch and bide their time.
In general a difference between leftists and rightists is that rightists place more value on the abstract idea of loyalty. See The Righteous Mind - Wikipedia
Which means IMO, that leftist movements can more easily go through leadership replacement cycles as long as the ideology doesn’t shift much when the leaders change. But rightist movements are more personally loyal and a change in leadership usually triggers a deep schism even if the new leader’s pushing almost the same line the old leader was.
Can Bannonism survive a putsch (or self-implosion) at the top? That IMO is the $64M question.
Mr. Bannon’s wretched state of health is not necessarily due to alcohol addiction and/or abuse. Such a condition can result from possession by an evil spirit. In this case, his own.