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Playing with numbers is fun! I'll do it too: Republicans have won 8 out of the past 14 elections, and won the popular vote as well as the electoral college in

Playing with numbers is fun! I'll do it too: Republicans have won 8 out of the past 14 elections, and won the popular vote as well as the electoral college in six out of eight [1]. Or, looking at it another way, of the past 14 elections, republicans won the popular vote by an average of 7.42%, while democrats only won by 5.28%, which if you took that pointless cherry picked data seriously could convince you that on average republican candidates are significantly more popular than democrats. The fact is, this country is split fairly evenly along the nonsensical left/right axis. A more interesting evaluation would be along the authoritarian vs antiauthoritarian axis. I think a much larger percentage of Americans fall along the antiauthoritarian axis, and that the noise in the left/right false dichotomy is a result of that more than anything. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presid...

peteforde 4y ago
This is only true if you evaluate votes by district. Historically, the only thing Republicans love more than picking judges is gerrymandering districts. If they didn't go to absurd lengths to chop up districts and make it harder for poor people to vote, it wouldn't even be a close fight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpamjJtXqFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpamjJtXqFI
jshen 4y ago
“Republicans have won … the popular vote … in six out of eight” Your own link shows that Democrats have won the popular vote 7 out of the last 8.
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
If the question was "Would you support a strong leader who might make some unpopular decisions that would make America great again?", and a lot of people said yes, would call them anti-authoritarians or authoritarians?
- claytongulick 4y ago
  Well, that's a pretty simple question. Here are more complex ones: "[Party A] is actively censoring speech that they don't agree with, calling it misinformation, even though their 'fact checkers' have shown strong political bias. Do you support this?" and "[Party B] wants to restrict your right to your body and self-ownership by limiting access to healthcare like abortion and gender affirming care for adults. Do you support this?" These are the sorts of political "points" that both parties try to score. There are lots more examples. What's the common theme? There's an underlying message of "scary authoritarian government controlling me". I think that most Americans, regardless of political party, have fairly strong antiauthoritarian leanings. I think both political parties attempt to exploit this in political messaging, but neither actually mean it. By definition, a political party seeks power. Of course, no one wants to point out their own power-seeking, so the only option is to point out your opponent's.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    You're attempting to leverage the ambiguity in the word "censorship". Don't want to play. The sort of authoritarian instincts I was thinking of involve things more like: incarceration camps for people with national origins in the wrong place, immigration policies denying entry to people from the wrong place, ignoring Constitutional separation between church & state to allow "just a little" theocratic bleed-through (imagine if the "church" in question was a mosque), using the army for law enforcement, outlawing more strikes by "critical workers", seeking to restrain the behavior of corporate persons (previously established as subject to the first amendment by SCOTUS) ... and we could go on. Basically, "fascism light" - nothing too horrible, just round one of Pastor Niemoller's famous anecdote.

peteforde 4y ago

This is only true if you evaluate votes by district. Historically, the only thing Republicans love more than picking judges is gerrymandering districts. If they didn't go to absurd lengths to chop up districts and make it harder for poor people to vote, it wouldn't even be a close fight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpamjJtXqFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpamjJtXqFI

jshen 4y ago

“Republicans have won … the popular vote … in six out of eight” Your own link shows that Democrats have won the popular vote 7 out of the last 8.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

If the question was "Would you support a strong leader who might make some unpopular decisions that would make America great again?", and a lot of people said yes, would call them anti-authoritarians or authoritarians?

claytongulick 4y ago
Well, that's a pretty simple question. Here are more complex ones: "[Party A] is actively censoring speech that they don't agree with, calling it misinformation, even though their 'fact checkers' have shown strong political bias. Do you support this?" and "[Party B] wants to restrict your right to your body and self-ownership by limiting access to healthcare like abortion and gender affirming care for adults. Do you support this?" These are the sorts of political "points" that both parties try to score. There are lots more examples. What's the common theme? There's an underlying message of "scary authoritarian government controlling me". I think that most Americans, regardless of political party, have fairly strong antiauthoritarian leanings. I think both political parties attempt to exploit this in political messaging, but neither actually mean it. By definition, a political party seeks power. Of course, no one wants to point out their own power-seeking, so the only option is to point out your opponent's.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  You're attempting to leverage the ambiguity in the word "censorship". Don't want to play. The sort of authoritarian instincts I was thinking of involve things more like: incarceration camps for people with national origins in the wrong place, immigration policies denying entry to people from the wrong place, ignoring Constitutional separation between church & state to allow "just a little" theocratic bleed-through (imagine if the "church" in question was a mosque), using the army for law enforcement, outlawing more strikes by "critical workers", seeking to restrain the behavior of corporate persons (previously established as subject to the first amendment by SCOTUS) ... and we could go on. Basically, "fascism light" - nothing too horrible, just round one of Pastor Niemoller's famous anecdote.