Pew recently released a survey that showed Americans to be (holy shit!) polarized on a variety of issues. Predictably, this has set off a flurry of pearl clutching and smelling salt huffing in Upper Elitist Punditopia about the nettlesome yokels. Here’s the Washington Post fretting over it.
There was a time in the not too distant past when conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans made up significant parts of their respective coalitions. Northeastern Republicans moderated the GOP, while Southern Democrats pulled their party to the right.
Those days are over. A new mega-survey conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that the percentage of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades. At the same time, the ideological overlap between the parties has shrunk to historic lows: Now, 92 percent of Republicans are to the right of the average Democrat, while 94 percent of Democrats are to the left of the average Republican.
Both Sides™!!