# To what extent can a group member's character be inferred from others'?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-can-a-group-members-character-be-inferred-from-others/680677
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 6, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-can-a-group-members-character-be-inferred-from-others/680677 "2014-02-06T18:08:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 4

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-can-a-group-members-character-be-inferred-from-others/680677/4 "2014-02-06T18:45:35Z")

</div>

> [@lance\_strongarm](#):
>
> It’s far worse than that - the Democratic party (of which I am a proud member) was once half composed of racists who upheld a racist system in the South for 100 years!
> 
> As I asked in my JFK example, did that mean JFK or those who supported him responsible for racism?

Not really an applicable analogy; the Democrat Party at the time was fiercely internally divided on the issue. The only comparable division in today’s GOP is between the crazy and the not-crazy. WRT racism, nobody in today’s GOP is against it in the “We’ve got to do something about this!” sense, that’s a Democratic monopoly now.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-can-a-group-members-character-be-inferred-from-others/680677)._