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How do you square that with the rise of the Tea Party and the Alt-Right? It seems like they've found that they can motivate people to vote by moving _further_ f

by aftbit 6y ago

How do you square that with the rise of the Tea Party and the Alt-Right? It seems like they've found that they can motivate people to vote by moving _further_ from the center, and the moderates continue to vote the party line of whichever party they prefer.

Someone 6y ago
Alt-right or the tea party would lose an election against a center-line party, big time. Motivating people with ‘extreme’ opinions from one side of the spectrum to vote moves the center, so it can make both parties move in that direction. Let’s (in a very simplistic model) say we have 100 voters on a 1 to 100 scale, so centered around 50.5. If, normally, the extremes of 1 to 10 and 91 to 100 don’t vote, the center stays at 50.5. Convince the 1 to 10 people to vote, and the center moves to 45.5, so the two major parties move in that direction, too. There’s an assumption here that most politicians are willing to, somewhat, go against their beliefs in order to get elected. I think that’s true, and unavoidable in a two-party system (which, in turn, is hard to avoid in a system with “winner takes all” elections), but if it weren’t, parties can easily replace candidates that object to a course change with others that either have different ideals or are willing to sacrifice some of that a bit in exchange for their career.
- NotSammyHagar 6y ago
  The opposite of your view is what is happening for both parties. It's laughable to look at Republicans and think they are moving to the middle. The democrats have partly moved to the middle (Biden being a great example). But in primaries, which have the most energized voters on both parties tend to get less people in the middle. In practice, in reality, it doesn't work that way. Also gerrymandering tends to make districts even more polarized.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  > so it can make both parties move in that direction. This is the opposite of what we’re seeing on the right. Centrist republicans have been pushed out of the party for not being conservative enough over the last 4 years, and primary candidates go out of their way to outdo each other in terms of conservative positioning. Nobody seriously running on the right is trying to be a moderate Republican on the federal level because being a “RINO” is political suicide.
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  I am afraid your argument is not supported by the facts in all cases. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/11/marjorie-taylor-greene-georgia-qanon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/11/marjorie-...

by aftbit 6y ago

Someone 6y ago

Alt-right or the tea party would lose an election against a center-line party, big time. Motivating people with ‘extreme’ opinions from one side of the spectrum to vote moves the center, so it can make both parties move in that direction. Let’s (in a very simplistic model) say we have 100 voters on a 1 to 100 scale, so centered around 50.5. If, normally, the extremes of 1 to 10 and 91 to 100 don’t vote, the center stays at 50.5. Convince the 1 to 10 people to vote, and the center moves to 45.5, so the two major parties move in that direction, too. There’s an assumption here that most politicians are willing to, somewhat, go against their beliefs in order to get elected. I think that’s true, and unavoidable in a two-party system (which, in turn, is hard to avoid in a system with “winner takes all” elections), but if it weren’t, parties can easily replace candidates that object to a course change with others that either have different ideals or are willing to sacrifice some of that a bit in exchange for their career.

NotSammyHagar 6y ago
The opposite of your view is what is happening for both parties. It's laughable to look at Republicans and think they are moving to the middle. The democrats have partly moved to the middle (Biden being a great example). But in primaries, which have the most energized voters on both parties tend to get less people in the middle. In practice, in reality, it doesn't work that way. Also gerrymandering tends to make districts even more polarized.
save_ferris 6y ago
> so it can make both parties move in that direction. This is the opposite of what we’re seeing on the right. Centrist republicans have been pushed out of the party for not being conservative enough over the last 4 years, and primary candidates go out of their way to outdo each other in terms of conservative positioning. Nobody seriously running on the right is trying to be a moderate Republican on the federal level because being a “RINO” is political suicide.
Hnrobert42 6y ago
I am afraid your argument is not supported by the facts in all cases. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/11/marjorie-taylor-greene-georgia-qanon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/11/marjorie-...