Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Chait Does Details

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/04/negative-partisanship-has-transformed-politics.html

This is a nice breakdown of the hyper-partisan nature of politics today.  And this is why Chait (and I) think Hillary is a clear favorite, whereas historical models call this race a toss-up.

What was interesting is the idea of "negative partisanship" whereby professed "independents" are in fact highly partisan because of their antipathy towards the other party.  Fox News claims a lot of "independent" viewers, but those are just people who hate Democrats but don't identify as Republicans.

The result in fact is less "partisan" and more "ideological" and tribal, as more and more the parties separate ideologically.

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