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A Party Captured by Its Extreme Wing
Nate Silver writes the best quantitative analysis of politics of anyone, and his Five Thirty Eight blog in the New York Times should be required reading for anyone forming an opinion on elections.
Mr. Silver’s current writing is an examination of the philosophical make up of the Republicans and Democrats, and here is graph showing the philosophical composition of those voting Republican for House seats over the recent past.
The chart clearly shows the capture of the party by a rigid ideological group, and as Mr. Silver explains this is a major factor why the Republican party cannot compromise on things like tax increases. This right wing, now in electoral control of the party would simply punish any office holder who strayed, regardless of the consequences to the nation. (The Democrats show a similar but less pronounced trend with liberals, but the Democrats are much more tolerant of dissenting views. Thus Sen. Harry Reid can be the majority leader in the U. S. Senate as an anti-abortion Democrat).
Rigid ideology is a good thing in a parliamentary system. In that system the party in control of the legislature takes control of the executive branch. Voters know that when they vote for their local legislator, they are voting to install the ideology of the party of that legislator into government.
In the U. S. this is not necessarily the case, and so the state of Minnesota suffers a shutdown of state government because the Republican party cannot compromise on taxes even as the Democrats compromise on spending, and the United States
Divided government can be beneficial if it moves both sides to compromise in the middle. It can be disastrous if it prevents effective government. That path to disaster is the current path theU. S.
Hey people, get off the path!
Divided government can be beneficial if it moves both sides to compromise in the middle. It can be disastrous if it prevents effective government. That path to disaster is the current path the
Hey people, get off the path!
The state has grown MASSIVELY over the last 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 years.
ReplyDeleteIf being for it getting smaller, at all smaller is "extreme", then extreme is what we need.
The left is trying to sell the word "extremist" now as meaning "insisting government shrink from its bloated repressive size" in any way. Any failure to "compromise" is of course, "extreme", and probably damn racist according to them. To "compromise" would mean the state would grow, just perhaps slower. That isn't good enough and some of the Republicans are courageous and smart enough to know it.
Extreme in the offense against statism is a virtue not a vice, and the left's attempt to create a new soundbite offensive (as this is what they're good at) is just pathetic.
You fail.