Oh come on…you know as well as I do why the big jump: Obama bad, white Republican good, regardless of his manifold and disqualifying foibles.
Missed the edit window. That 78% number is, oddly enough, just about his approval rating with Republicans. Funny how that works out.
Well, the war against ISIS actually seems to have improved. I don’t think Trump has anything to do with that but it would at least make sense for Republicans to feel it’s gotten better. Republicans probably think that Trump’s willingness to say “radical Islamic terrorists” means we’ve gotten serious about the war (which is silly). The drop by Democrats has to be almost solely due to partisanship (although I suppose that more radical liberals were hoping to get out altogether but it’s hard to think that they’d be the full 11%).
There is a lot of complicated stuff to address here. First, many voters, perhaps even most, are more interested in “brand” than specific policies. The Republicans are the party of the wealthy, the white working class, and cultural conservatives. The Democrats are the party of the poor, minorities, and cultural liberals. It would take HUGE policy shifts to get these rather broad groups voting for a different party.
Now as for specific policies, the way to look at that is “compared to what?” The Republican position on taxes is popular, compared to the Democratic position on taxes. The Republican positions on immigration, crime, foreign policy, guns, the role of government, and religious freedom are more popular than the corresponding Democratic positions as well.
I’m not sure why anyone would assume the Democrats are winning on the issues, given that Democrats spend a lot more time than Republicans moderating their public positions to appeal to swing voters. From abortion, to gay rights, to immigration, to guns, to taxes, to foreign policy, to the role of government, to religion, Democrats have been much more likely than Republicans to frame those issues in such a way as to present a moderate face.
Republicans: “Abortion is murder” Democrats: “abortion should be safe, legal, and rare”
Republicans: “Gun ownership is a right” Democrats: “We like guns too. We just want some reasonable regulations”
Republicans: “Government is the problem, not the solution” Democrats: “We don’t like big government either, we just think there are some things government can do that the private sector cannot.”
Republicans: “Taxes should be low” Democrats: “Taxes should be low, but the rich should be “asked” to pay a little more. Middle class taxes should continue to go down.”
Republicans: “Evil should be confronted” Democrats: “We need, smart, tough diplomacy”
Republicans: “We are against illegal immigration” Democrats: “We are against illegal immigration, but…”
So there’s two things going on here. First, Republicans are more willing to just say what they believe. That appeals to voters who agree with them, and motivates voters who agree with them. Democrats waffle, which appeals to people who think that’s smart, rather than just deceptive, and demoralizes voters who would agree with them if they articulated an actual position that wasn’t nuanced into incomprehensibility. Second, Democrats don’t trust the people. They fear if the people heard what they really think, they’d lose. When they do sense that the tide is turning on an issue, such as gay rights, they suddenly take moral stands and abandon their waffling. Republicans take a different approach. They agree with Democrats that voters are stupid, but not so stupid that you can tell them the opposite of what you believe. Instead, Republicans tell voters the truth about what they believe, then spend most of their time in Congress on business that no one elected them to do, like repeal safety regulations and cut food stamps.
Vastly oversimplified.
Abortion is split just about exactly in half.
Pubbies immediately start with their go-to 2nd Amendment argument, the slippery slope. “Any limit on gun rights will allow those evil Dems to take away our guns!1!11!” It’s bullshit, whether they know it or not.
Government is the problem…yet they saddle it with even more debt for a tax bill that overwhelmingly benefits who? Oh, yeah, the wealthy and big business, with a few crumbs to keep the middle class temporarily happy until it’s too monolithic to be repealed (e.g., business ensures that its money talks in DC). Pubbies don’t get to have it both ways, except with their gullible base. Nor was government the problem re: the environment or consumer protection until Trump ‘took care’ of that for us.
Taxes? See above.
When Pubbies confront the evil in the White House, then maybe I might buy their international argument. I’m pretty safe from that, I’m sure. Btw, I find it funny that you advance an internationalist talking point when Trump is so clearly isolationist.
Pubbies are against immigration, full stop. Most Dems that I know still believe in that silly little poem inscribed on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty.
Of course, but in terms of voter perception of how the parties work, accurate enough. Even most Democrats admit that Democratic candidates can’t explain their positions on a bumper sticker. Allies try to spin that as a virtue, but it’s really just political calculation. When the public is on your side, you keep it simple. When the public is not, you have to take at least 10 minutes to explain your “real” position.
Now you’re being simplistic.
In terms of what people feel abortion policy should be, it’s more like thirds: people who oppose abortion in most or all circumstances, people who favor it in most or all circumstances, and people who are pro-choice but are fine with limitations on the practice. The two thirds who are fine with some limitations or who just want it outlawed tend to see abortion as a very bad thing. So Democrats had to position themselves as being against abortion but for womens’ rights. They’ve been moving away from that towards a more moralistic position in recent years due to base pressure. Which is fine, because I’m pretty certain that Democrats have been as radically pro-choice as Republicans are pro-life for decades. Truth is better than deception in politics.
It is, partly. But it’s also true that Democrats would like to limit gun ownership a LOT more than they let on in public. We know this because that’s what they used to do, and because they are proposing low hanging fruit ideas that won’t actually do any good, trying to win incremental victories since they can’t get what they want all at once. But let’s be honest: most Democrats would strictly limit gun ownership if they could.
The GOP has been terrible on the issue of government in practice, but their rhetoric resonates and Democrats have for a long time had to concede the general sentiment. As for environmental and consumer protection, the GOP has been able to capitalize on how those regulations have hit the little guy directly. Government bureaucrats who enforce the law don’t distinguish between Exxon and Susie Landowner. They aren’t supposed to. But when Susie Landowner is told she can’t do something with her land, that’s an issue to seize on and it works for us.
Nevertheless, the extent of the GOP’s victory on the tax issue can’t be understated. During the period of Democratic dominance from the New Deal to 1980, taxes marched inexorably up, not just on the wealthy, but reaching all the way down to the lower middle class. Since the Reagan Revolution, raising taxes on the middle class has been a third rail, and taxes have marched consistently downward on middle class workers since 1980. And the middle class is now basically defined as anyone making under $400K per year. When Democrats thought about repealing the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250K, they had to compromise at $400K because the Democratic base now consists of a lot of really well off urban professionals. The Democrats’ options for raising revenue are now extremely limited, which is the closest thing to a total political victory you’ll ever see in politics next to the New Deal itself. Even if Republicans lose every election due to demographic change and their own awfulness, that third rail will still be there, ready to restore the Republicans to power as soon as the Democrats touch it.
I’m a neocon, what can I say? But Democrats’ “smart, tough diplomacy” has never been either smart, or tough, and they’ve never been able to establish a positive brand identity there. They had an opportunity after the disaster of the Bush years, but Obama handed the foreign policy advantage right back to the GOP.
Republicans are divided between the corporate wing and the nativist wing, but fair enough for the nativist faction. As for the Democrats, they don’t actually have a position right now on immigration other than what policies they are against. They haven’t actually articulated what they want our immigration policy to look like. You simply can’t have a policy of “we only deport troublemakers”. That’s just not tenable as an actual policy. It’s fine for activism, but if Democrats actually had to write down an immigration bill, it would not include such a provision. We’d get a billion people here in 20 years.
I think that’s largely accurate, but, even that being the case, they do not view themselves as racists, xenophobic, and all the other phobics and ists. Because those things are viewed as “facts.” And “facts” can’t be racist, xenophobic, etc. They just are.
Feel free to label them anything you want. At the end of the day that means jack and squat in a voting booth. I 100% believe that is why the polls were so off and Trump’s win was so unexpected.
P.S. “Facts” is deliberately quoted to denote that they may not reflect actual reality.
But that’s why open debate is important. If you declare certain subjects off limits despite at least some facts backing one side up, then that just drives opinion underground, and with conspiracy mongering to make it even more toxic. And then these people vote anonymously.
Agreed. Let us pass legislation outlawing bullshit.
You and your party would be in favor, right?
You mean: Military spending on big Hardware contracts that benefit a few big companies (which give payback to the politicans) and where the politician can brag in his home state about bringing home the Bacon?
Because when it Comes to Support for the families of soldiers, medical care of returning soldiers, etc., the past decades have been cut, cut, cut, so that injured vets or suffering from PTSD don’t get help, but months of red tape, and many end up homeless.
I don’t think military spending is popular because of jobs, I think it’s popular because Americans want to have the strongest military to confront evil in the world. Of course it’s more complicated than that, Americans don’t like getting into wars, we still have a lot of isolationist instincts. But confronting evil doesn’t mean going to war. More often it just means, pulling out our large metaphoric penis and saying, “Don’t screw with us.”
Everything is more complicated. It’s just that conservatives seem to take the position of a singleminded simplton. I just pretend “what position would I take if I was the stupidest ignorant asshole on the planet?”
Democrats: “abortion should be safe, legal, and rare”
Republicans: “If you don’t have the good sense to abstain from sex until marriage, then you deserve to raise a kid.”
Democrats: “We like guns too. We just want some reasonable regulations” Republicans: “Fuck you for trying to take my gun from my cold dead hand!”
Democrats: “We don’t like big government either, we just think there are some things government can do that the private sector cannot.”
Republicans: “Government is for fighting wars and kicking imigrants out. Otherwise who the fuck are you to make me pay for roads, schools, hospitals and other services!”
Democrats: “Taxes should be low, but the rich should be “asked” to pay a little more. Middle class taxes should continue to go down.”
Republicans: “We should have low taxes because I don’t want to pay for people too stupid become rich bankers!”
Democrats: “We need, smart, tough diplomacy”
Republicans: “Shithole countries need to straighen up and get in line or feel the might of American awesomeness!”
Democrats: “We are against illegal immigration, but…”
Republicans: “America first! Make America great again! Build a big wall to keep them from stealing our jobs!”
Or alternatively, Democrats actually believe nuanced, moderate positions, as compared to the Republicans which believe in simplistic unworkable black and white ideological purity. It’s true that the Democrats aren’t controlled by an insane far left radical base just this side of Pol Pot, but that’s a good thing.
The problem that Democrats have is that certain items on the Republican menu are easy to read and at least look appetizing. Tax cuts, bombing broken countries, and removing complicated regulations are all things that people can kinda, sorta like even if they don’t understand all of the consequences.
Do Democrats believe in painting with extra-wide brushes too?
His point could be phrased more elegantly, but his fundamental point rings true. A significant portion of the Republican Party has been in “burn it all down” mode for a decade. Republican Speakers have had to count on Dem votes to get things done during Obama’s term, which is shocking, because of the majoritarian rules of the House.
Somewhere around 40% of the House Republican caucus are basically bomb throwers, as compared to maybe 15% at most of the Democratic House caucus. One great reason for the discrepancy is that looney-toons liberals are overwhelmingly Jill Stein-like non Democrats. Looney-tunes Republicans get to run the House Intelligence Committee.
It’s not like he was responding to someone calling Democrats lying, deceptive, partisan hypocrites or anything…
Say what, now?
“Steal the oil of weaker nations,” sure. But merely bombing them, without any profit in it? Only a small proportion of right-wingers are that fond of destruction for destruction’s sake.
I dunno, some on that list are bit hyperbolic, but still are on the correct side of the political spectrum, if extreme, and most of the others are pretty dead on.
I would assume that :
Is more or less a given, that’s the direct expression that I’ve heard from conservatives.
The value judgement of “bad” is something that you can quibble, but it is a conservative talking point that immigrants take jobs.
One again, value judgement of “bad”, which I’m not going to address again, but it is defiantly a conservative talking point that blacks commit more crimes than whites.
This goes to things like food stamps, welfare, CHIP, and the ACA, all things that conservatives tend to be against.
Anything that muslims do is heightened in right wing media. White terrorists get much less coverage.
I don’t know that this is a conservative position, and it probably shouldn’t be here, but evangelicals tend to be conservative, and they do hold a view very close to this.
Actually, in a reversal, it’s the value judgement here that is more apt to be a conservative position. “Drugs are bad.” The reasons don’t matter.
Getting away from value judgements, conservatives do say that they think that SSM will destroy the sanctity of marriage. The rape part is an unfair accusation. Only a small minority of conservatives are concerned with homosexual predators.
The conservatives that are in the Anti-SJW circles, certainly. Most conservatives have probably not heard of SJW’s though.
This is pretty on the nose as well.
So, a bit of hyperbole, some unfair assigning of value judgments, and a few that apply to many, but not all and not even necessarily most conservatives. Not a perfect list by any means, but it seems a much more fair summary of conservative positions that what I see conservatives think of liberals.
What profit do we get from our involvement in the middle east?
Isn’t that Trump’s position? ‘Why aren’t we taking their oil?’ etc.
Anyway, we do still get a lot of our petroleum from Saudi Arabia (about 11%, per*) and from other Middle Eastern nations. (“18%” from Persian Gulf countries, says the same source.) And we have military bases there. So, ‘security interests’ more than pure profit, maybe.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6
(It’s a Trump Admin site now, of course, so the stats may or may not be reliable.)