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I think you make an interesting claim in your comment - that right wing voters are more likely than left wing voters to vote against (ie, punish) someone. I ag
by SteveLAnderson 11y ago
I think you make an interesting claim in your comment - that right wing voters are more likely than left wing voters to vote against (ie, punish) someone. I agree with you, since in my experience right wingers are more reactionary than left wingers, but I wonder if there's any data on that.
- eli_gottlieb 11y agoIt's not that right-wingers are innately more reactive than left-wing voters. It's that left-wing voters are only now getting genuinely angry about being told, for the past four decades, to just shut up and take whatever the Establishment gives us. Consider the current two Presidential primaries. Among the Republican Party, there's a contest to see who's the most conservative, and candidates are competing to come up with a platform that appeals to the party base. Among the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton is presumed to be the obvious, inevitable, entitled winner, and so there's a deliberate attempt to suppress actual competition for the nomination, most especially competition from the insurgent left-populist Bernie Sanders.
- SteveLAnderson 11y agoI do think that right wing voters are more reactive. They tend to see/hear something, and that something becomes the most important thing. That's why Rep. McCarthy's statement on the Benghazi hearing resulted in him losing his opportunity to become speaker. If that had happened 6 months ago, it wouldn't have been a problem because the right wingers would have moved on to something else. Left wing voters more often are in it for the long haul. They cringe when someone says something stupid, but they don't react with pitchforks and torches. That's why there's never been a left wing Rush. It just doesn't work.