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This political perspective is completely incoherent. Democrats have shifted rightward since WWII, along with every other political group in the country. Former

This political perspective is completely incoherent. Democrats have shifted rightward since WWII, along with every other political group in the country. Former Democrats who become Republicans because they feel the party has shifted out from under them are creating excuses to mask their own changing opinions.

war1025 7y ago
> Former Democrats who become Republicans because they feel the party has shifted out from under them are creating excuses to mask their own changing opinions. To me, this is the incoherent view. Of course the voter base has changing opinions. It's completely to be expected that over the course of decades political alliances will shift. The entire point of what I said is that the political opinions of the Democratic party moved in a direction that did not match that of my general demographic. Now that opinions have shifted, we find that our interests are better served by Republican talking points than by Democratic ones. So we vote red. People like to bemoan the fact that America has a two party system, while many other places have a parliamentary system with many parties. The fact is America just handles its coalition building at an earlier step. There is no single "prototypical" Republican or Democrat. There are many factions throughout the country that weigh the political winds and throw their weight behind the group they see as most likely to benefit their own particular concerns. None of this should be nearly so divisive a topic as it clearly is. The post I replied to noted that there were a bunch of "Rockefeller Republicans" who shifted and become Democrats. I replied that a similar thing had happened around me, only in the opposite direction. Blue collar Democrats from the 70s-00s, found that after the financial crisis, the political winds pointed them to the Republican party.
- sagichmal 7y ago
  > The entire point of what I said is that the political opinions of the Democratic party moved in a direction that did not match that of my general demographic. Now that opinions have shifted, we find that our interests are better served by Republican talking points than by Democratic ones. I agree that the Democratic platform has moved, but it moved rightwards. The Republican platform has also moved (considerably more) rightwards. If your political positions were once aligned with the Democrats but are now better aligned with Republicans, your personal opinions have necessarily moved dramatically rightwards, and your new alignment has nothing to do with the shift of the parties.
  - war1025 7y ago
    Political opinions aren't a straight line, as much as we like to pretend it is.
    - sagichmal 7y ago
      Obviously not, but it is possible to make accurate macro-scale generalizations.

war1025 7y ago

> Former Democrats who become Republicans because they feel the party has shifted out from under them are creating excuses to mask their own changing opinions. To me, this is the incoherent view. Of course the voter base has changing opinions. It's completely to be expected that over the course of decades political alliances will shift. The entire point of what I said is that the political opinions of the Democratic party moved in a direction that did not match that of my general demographic. Now that opinions have shifted, we find that our interests are better served by Republican talking points than by Democratic ones. So we vote red. People like to bemoan the fact that America has a two party system, while many other places have a parliamentary system with many parties. The fact is America just handles its coalition building at an earlier step. There is no single "prototypical" Republican or Democrat. There are many factions throughout the country that weigh the political winds and throw their weight behind the group they see as most likely to benefit their own particular concerns. None of this should be nearly so divisive a topic as it clearly is. The post I replied to noted that there were a bunch of "Rockefeller Republicans" who shifted and become Democrats. I replied that a similar thing had happened around me, only in the opposite direction. Blue collar Democrats from the 70s-00s, found that after the financial crisis, the political winds pointed them to the Republican party.

sagichmal 7y ago
> The entire point of what I said is that the political opinions of the Democratic party moved in a direction that did not match that of my general demographic. Now that opinions have shifted, we find that our interests are better served by Republican talking points than by Democratic ones. I agree that the Democratic platform has moved, but it moved rightwards. The Republican platform has also moved (considerably more) rightwards. If your political positions were once aligned with the Democrats but are now better aligned with Republicans, your personal opinions have necessarily moved dramatically rightwards, and your new alignment has nothing to do with the shift of the parties.
- war1025 7y ago
  Political opinions aren't a straight line, as much as we like to pretend it is.
  - sagichmal 7y ago
    Obviously not, but it is possible to make accurate macro-scale generalizations.