Anonymous wrote:This is really interesting. I'd wager to say that the positioning of the Democratic Party as closer to European Labour and Social Democratic parties is the making of AOC's Democrats versus Clinton's. And this is a good thing, this is where we should be.
The far right Republicans on the other hand...

Why should we be? I'm very anti-Trump and the R party right now, though I used to be a R. I agree that Rs have gone too far right, but why should we be like European socialists? Some of their ideology is good, but that doesn't mean we have to be like them in every way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no sensible comments from Republicans as to why the GOP has moved so far from center-right Reaganism to ultra-nationalist fringe right wing.

Make Republicans Normal Again.

There have already been posts noting that the GOP appears to liberals to have moved further right only because liberals are now ultra, ultra left. By comparison, of course moderate Americans will look like they've moved right. They haven't. Bill Clinton would be considered a moderate Republican these days.

Make Liberals Sane Again.

Except you made that up out of thin air. As your high school geometry told you many times: “Show your work.”

Did you read the NYTs article and the research? GOP has gone off the right wing deep end. Democrats are more conservative than pretty much any center left party in the world.

Why have the Republicans gone off the ideological rails?

As a former R, I agree that Rs have moved more right, but Dems have also moved more left. My spouse is a Dem, and spouse sees it, too.

HOWEVER, it is also true that the Dems here are no where near as far left as some of the European countries. My spouse is also from a European country and says that the Dems here are a bit more like conservatives in the country my spouse is from, but the Dems here are certainly moving more left.

Spouse and I are feeling lost in the political arena. No home for us anymore.

Why is it moving more right? IMO, I feel like it's the same reason why some people voted for Trump.. they see themselves as being left behind, losing their piece of their pie to immigrants, who for the most part, are not white. Outsourcing manufacturing actually started under Reagan, but it ramped up under Clinton, so of course, people blame Clinton more than Reagan. People also have short term memories. They forget that both Bush and Reagan provided amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, but they remember Obama's years and the influx of unaccompanied minors and DACA.

Trump better start putting people behind bars. That's all I am saying.

This is really interesting. I'd wager to say that the positioning of the Democratic Party as closer to European Labour and Social Democratic parties is the making of AOC's Democrats versus Clinton's. And this is a good thing, this is where we should be.
The far right Republicans on the other hand...

Republicans believe in whatever the current strong man tells them to believe.

PP here... it's the NY Times, not NT Times.

I'm not sure why no one has challenged the veracity of the claim in the NYT story.

First, it's the NT Times...

Second, it's an opinion column.

Third, the data doesn't show what people think it shows, and anyone with a basic understanding of statistics can see how the graph can be misinterpreted and used to back an erroneous claim such as the one in the NYT article. Nation states have inherent cultures and identities, anyone who travels between Germany and France can tell you this with absolute certainty. Trying to treat the differing cultures and politics of different cultures as one homogenous entity is why the EU is in trouble. Fact is, EU countries have always been more liberal in their political leaning than the US - the US takes pride on the fact that it was founded on the conservative principles of classical liberalism, and it's this rational grounding that has held the US to a *FAR MORE* productive balance in terms of productivity, social welfare, and personal freedom. So I simply do not accept the proposition that there is some "Median Party" as drawn on the graph - it's a neat mental exercise but completely irrelevant to the domestic political situations of any one country. To insist that all the countries of the world be measured on the same political left/right scale is to deny that they have different cultures, which is just something that a leftist would do.

Fourth, if we look at the third graph in the article, where the data deals only with political parties in the US, we see that it isn't that the Republican party has had an ideological shift as claimed by the OP, but rather it's the Democratic party that has had an ideological shift. The NYT story makes no claims about the shifts of ideology within the GOP, and instead makes the observation that it's the Democratic party that has changed. I'll just note that the shift happened under Obama's presidency - he in fact was a divisive president and caused the Democratic party to move drastically away from what was the political center of the United States.

Fifth and final point, this opinion writer attempts to criticize Republicans through the proxy of other right-leaning parties around the world. This is dishonest and misleading behavior, especially since the author admits that the Republican party policies themselves don't actually contain any bigoted policies.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most Democrats are complaining that they don’t recognize their Party. Why?

That’s just your feverish imagination. The Democrats have been winning the popular votes 7/8 elections and the GOP has won the popular vote just once in over 30 years. This shows the dems are more attuned to where Americans stand than the fraud party of trickle down economics and tax cuts for the welathy.

Can't really give tax cuts to people who don't pay taxes.

But the GOP actually takes away their benefits by cutting education, healthcare and social benefits. You think this con can be continued indefinitely and no one will notice ?

So long as the GOP is worse to brown people, I don’t think they care.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most Democrats are complaining that they don’t recognize their Party. Why?

That’s just your feverish imagination. The Democrats have been winning the popular votes 7/8 elections and the GOP has won the popular vote just once in over 30 years. This shows the dems are more attuned to where Americans stand than the fraud party of trickle down economics and tax cuts for the welathy.

Can't really give tax cuts to people who don't pay taxes.

But the GOP actually takes away their benefits by cutting education, healthcare and social benefits. You think this con can be continued indefinitely and no one will notice ?