The Trump Presidency

http://www.investors.com/politics/e...t-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/

It's Official: Democrats Are The Extremists Today
Partisanship: Everyone knows that the country is more politically polarized than ever, but most don't know why. Data from the highly respected Pew Research Center provides a definitive answer. It's because Democrats have moved sharply to the extreme left.

The Pew report — titled "The Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider" — is the latest in a decades-long series of surveys it has conducted to gauge people's views on various key issues, including the size of government, immigration, corporate profits, race relations. The authors of the report note the "divisions between Republicans and Democrats on fundamental political values ... reached record levels during Barack Obama's presidency. In Donald Trump's first year as president, these gaps have grown even larger."

Given the way politics gets reported these days, it's easy to conclude that the widening gap is the result of Republicans become more extreme in their views. That is, after all, a mantra among Democrats and the press. The GOP is the party of racist, sexist, xenophobic, right-wing extremists, we hear over and over again, while Democrats are but humble centrists.

The Pew data, however, make it clear that the shift toward the extreme has happened among Democrats, not Republicans.
 
http://www.investors.com/politics/e...t-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/

It's Official: Democrats Are The Extremists Today

Partisanship: Everyone knows that the country is more politically polarized than ever, but most don't know why. Data from the highly respected Pew Research Center provides a definitive answer. It's because Democrats have moved sharply to the extreme left.

The Pew report — titled "The Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider" — is the latest in a decades-long series of surveys it has conducted to gauge people's views on various key issues, including the size of government, immigration, corporate profits, race relations. The authors of the report note the "divisions between Republicans and Democrats on fundamental political values ... reached record levels during Barack Obama's presidency. In Donald Trump's first year as president, these gaps have grown even larger."

Given the way politics gets reported these days, it's easy to conclude that the widening gap is the result of Republicans become more extreme in their views. That is, after all, a mantra among Democrats and the press. The GOP is the party of racist, sexist, xenophobic, right-wing extremists, we hear over and over again, while Democrats are but humble centrists.

The Pew data, however, make it clear that the shift toward the extreme has happened among Democrats, not Republicans.

This was clear to anyone who is honest.
 
http://www.investors.com/politics/e...t-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/

It's Official: Democrats Are The Extremists Today
Partisanship: Everyone knows that the country is more politically polarized than ever, but most don't know why. Data from the highly respected Pew Research Center provides a definitive answer. It's because Democrats have moved sharply to the extreme left.

The Pew report — titled "The Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider" — is the latest in a decades-long series of surveys it has conducted to gauge people's views on various key issues, including the size of government, immigration, corporate profits, race relations. The authors of the report note the "divisions between Republicans and Democrats on fundamental political values ... reached record levels during Barack Obama's presidency. In Donald Trump's first year as president, these gaps have grown even larger."

Given the way politics gets reported these days, it's easy to conclude that the widening gap is the result of Republicans become more extreme in their views. That is, after all, a mantra among Democrats and the press. The GOP is the party of racist, sexist, xenophobic, right-wing extremists, we hear over and over again, while Democrats are but humble centrists.

The Pew data, however, make it clear that the shift toward the extreme has happened among Democrats, not Republicans.

There's a shock
 
There's a shock

Pew asks, for example, whether poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return. In 1994, 63% of Republicans agreed with this sentiment, as did 44% of Democrats.

This year, 65% of Republicans agreed — a 2-point increase — while just 18% of Democrats did — a 26-point drop.


Haha, yeah, THAT'S an extremist sentiment.
 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/scalias-all-the-way-down-1507847435

Ask most Republicans to identify Donald Trump’s biggest triumph to date, and the answer comes quick: Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. That’s the cramped view.

The media remains so caught up with the president’s tweets that it has missed Mr. Trump’s project to transform the rest of the federal judiciary. The president is stocking the courts with a class of brilliant young textualists bearing little relation to even their Reagan or Bush predecessors. Mr. Trump’s nastygrams to Bob Corker will be a distant memory next week. Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett’s influence on the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could still be going strong 40 years from now.

Mr. Trump has now nominated nearly 60 judges, filling more vacancies than Barack Obama did in his entire first year. There are another 160 court openings, allowing Mr. Trump to flip or further consolidate conservative majorities on the circuit courts that have the final say on 99% of federal legal disputes.
 
http://www.investors.com/politics/e...t-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/

It's Official: Democrats Are The Extremists Today

Partisanship: Everyone knows that the country is more politically polarized than ever, but most don't know why. Data from the highly respected Pew Research Center provides a definitive answer. It's because Democrats have moved sharply to the extreme left.

The Pew report — titled "The Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider" — is the latest in a decades-long series of surveys it has conducted to gauge people's views on various key issues, including the size of government, immigration, corporate profits, race relations. The authors of the report note the "divisions between Republicans and Democrats on fundamental political values ... reached record levels during Barack Obama's presidency. In Donald Trump's first year as president, these gaps have grown even larger."

Given the way politics gets reported these days, it's easy to conclude that the widening gap is the result of Republicans become more extreme in their views. That is, after all, a mantra among Democrats and the press. The GOP is the party of racist, sexist, xenophobic, right-wing extremists, we hear over and over again, while Democrats are but humble centrists.

The Pew data, however, make it clear that the shift toward the extreme has happened among Democrats, not Republicans.

I'm sure the source material is interesting in its own right, but the IBD (heh) take on it is . . . lacking.
 
Pew asks, for example, whether poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return. In 1994, 63% of Republicans agreed with this sentiment, as did 44% of Democrats.

This year, 65% of Republicans agreed — a 2-point increase — while just 18% of Democrats did — a 26-point drop.


Haha, yeah, THAT'S an extremist sentiment.

Yeah, that was a weak point considering the Clinton/Gingrich welfare reform. But better points are made farther down:

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Democrats used to believe that most people who want to get ahead can do so if they work hard. Today, just 45% of Democrats believe this. Among Republicans, the change was negligible — it went from 73% in 1994 to 77% today.

How about the question of whether racial discrimination is the "main reason many black people can't get ahead these days"?

In 1994, just 39% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans felt this way. That was 14 years before the U.S. elected a black president.

Now, after eight years of Obama in the White House, 64% of Democrats say racism is the main reason blacks can't get ahead, while 14% of Republicans do.

National defense?

Back in 1994, 44% of Republicans said the best way to secure peace was through military strength. Today, that figure is 53% — an increase of 9 points.

But on the Democratic side, the share who agreed with "peace through strength" dropped from 28% to 13% — a 15-point drop.
 
Yeah, that was a weak point considering the Clinton/Gingrich welfare reform. But better points are made farther down:

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Democrats used to believe that most people who want to get ahead can do so if they work hard. Today, just 45% of Democrats believe this. Among Republicans, the change was negligible — it went from 73% in 1994 to 77% today.

How about the question of whether racial discrimination is the "main reason many black people can't get ahead these days"?

In 1994, just 39% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans felt this way. That was 14 years before the U.S. elected a black president.

Now, after eight years of Obama in the White House, 64% of Democrats say racism is the main reason blacks can't get ahead, while 14% of Republicans do.

National defense?

Back in 1994, 44% of Republicans said the best way to secure peace was through military strength. Today, that figure is 53% — an increase of 9 points.

But on the Democratic side, the share who agreed with "peace through strength" dropped from 28% to 13% — a 15-point drop.

Um, ok.

That's three questions. I'm not surprised at the partisan gap on any of them, and I'm also not really sure how those correlate to partisanship.

The first one is almost comical, the second grossly oversimplified, and the last one seems like it is less an ideological litmus test than a logical proposition.

IF the best way to secure peace is through military strength, AND the United States has amassed military strength that is proportionately unprecedented in the modern world, THEN we should be at peace.

For sturg: before you "amen" the conclusion of the article, maybe you should consider how you'd answer that last question and ask yourself if that means that you're a lefty.
 
Um, ok.

That's three questions. I'm not surprised at the partisan gap on any of them, and I'm also not really sure how those correlate to partisanship.

The first one is almost comical, the second grossly oversimplified, and the last one seems like it is less an ideological litmus test than a logical proposition.

IF the best way to secure peace is through military strength, AND the United States has amassed military strength that is proportionately unprecedented in the modern world, THEN we should be at peace.

For sturg: before you "amen" the conclusion of the article, maybe you should consider how you'd answer that last question and ask yourself if that means that you're a lefty.

I have many views that folks on the left would agree with
 
You aren't going to get people to read a doctoral thesis and then explain their opinion of it. Of course the questions are overly simplistic. The point being made is that when the same questions were asked, there was a dramatic shift in how they were answered. The link to the underlying data is in the linked article if you want to see more of the questions.
 
In good news

The orange one said he met with the president of the U.S. Virgin Islands

Which he didn't know is himself
 
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