Big time RW rag.

You are remembering correctly. It's right wing. There was a time that would have gotten an immediate hide.

At any rate... I added the New Times links so at least people could see the graphic.

Just stating the facts. It is a rw site, and linking to them would get a hide back in the day. That's all I said.

A coterie of members meeting offsite to plan disruptions here would have been ts'ed
So would admissions of trolling sent via pm
Linking to storefront in order to post antisemitic attacks against a dem candidate would have gotten the same
All OK now
Some animals are more equal than others on du

Genuinely curious.

Not labels, or rather it should be. I know for many here labels seem to matter more.

fracking? For the TPP? Helping students with huge debts? Arctic drilling? The Patriot Act?

Last edited Sun Nov 22, 2015, 11:59 AM - Edit history (1)

which you fled, only to attack me here based on your absurd assumption that all Clinton supporters are identical, that in spite of the fact I have repeatedly discussed many of those issues with you.

Don't even pretend you give a shit about what I think. I have responded to you repeatedly about TPP. You ignore it because you refuse to see me or anyone else who isn't identical to you in every way as human. I also tried to discuss education policy with you. If you bothered to inform yourself even minimally, you would know that Clinton proposes debt free college and tuition free junior college. I've posted links to her policy pages multiple times, yet you refuse to as much as read them, telling me that you really don't care much about policy at all.

If you gave even half a shit about my views on those subjects, you would make an effort to remember what I said about them rather than showing once again your sole concern is on particular members of the political elite. I have the nerve to exercise my own democratic choices rather than voting as you demand. You get one vote, but that isn't enough for you. You have to brow beat and insult anyone who dares to disagree with you. Millions of Americans will do just that, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. We aren't going back to 1950, and most of us don't give a shit about how much the upper-middle class things we owe them.

Fracking is an issue that relates to American jobs and involvement in the Middle East. It's easy to say one opposes fracking. I don't like it at all. Putting the workers in the shale oil industry out of jobs, however, is harder. While you may enjoy seeing them unemployed because they don't meet your standards of acceptable bourgeois thought, anyone who is actually looking to lead the country needs to think about that. They also need to think about what continued dependence on Middle Eastern oil means for our national security and the lives lost abroad through wars. Not that you would connect dots or actually think about energy policy more broadly. If it doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, you can't be bothered. But then you're so much better than those of us who actually think about the implications of policy. And as long as your soy milk lattes and gluten-free muffins, what do you care about the plebes working in North Dakota or Oklahoma. The solution is to transition away from fossil fuels, a policy that Clinton announced that you and others here opposed because it didn't fit on a bumper sticker. Spare me your sanctimony.

Just going by the title, it seems to me they want us to believe the base is less liberal/progressive than it actually is, to discourage us from voting for the anti-establishment candidate. I didn't read the article because I'm sure it would piss me off.

.

I won't.

but far more liberal on economic policies. Income inequality is the main issue this election cycle. That should give Sanders the edge if he can get his message out.

I could be wrong. I tried to find a link to the original Pew research.

but I think we're entering a more populist era, either way this is going to an interesting election.

with stress comes anxiety and fear and that is what conservatism is based on.
Fear of anything new or different.
Limited access to a quality education plays a significant role too.

Exactly what do they need liberalism for? How are they adversely affected by lower taxes and less social programs for the poor?

It's like up is down on the graphic in the OP...

My mind boggles.

The wealthy can travel more and are exposed to different cultures broadening their perspective, which I believe would lead them to be more liberal. I think most people no matter what socioeconomic background they come from are altruistic by nature and want to live in a more civil society.

...where voters are just learning about his policies and his ideas--after listening to the Iowa and National media tell us, since last April, that Hillary is inevitable AGAIN.

Bernie is rising in the states where his campaign is ramping up and people are learning more about him. The more they learn, the higher his polls go.

Bernie is leading in some NH polls.

Our very large liberal base is the reason that Obama won our nomination. Although he has governed as a more centrist president, he was positioned as the candidate to the left of Hillary. And he won.

I am so sick and tired of the mainstream media attacking the left and marginalizing us. Most Democrats, and many Independents (and even some Republicans) agree with the basic agenda that Bernie is putting forth.

--$15 minimum wage
--Remove the corporate money from our political system and campaigns.
--Single-payer healthcare
--Billionaires, millionaires and corporations should start paying their fair share of taxes.
--A strong, more efficient military and an end to endless war in the Middle East.
--Free college
--Break up the behemoth banks that have too much power.

The only people who don't like these ideas are the elites in power (in politics and in the corporate world), who have been partying with lampshades on their heads for the past two decades--while "We The People" slide downhill at warp speed.

If the people get a chance to hear his message and can be convinced he is not pushing 'pie in the sky' policies, I think he will be unbeatable in the general election. The corporate media is our biggest enemy, but I think they are underestimating the hostility of the working class.

(This is all by self-identification.)

But the parties' breakdowns are informative:

Democrats self-identify as
45% liberal
35% moderate
20% conservative

While Republicans self-identify as
70% conservative
25% moderate
5% liberal

Party identification is roughly
30% Democratic
25% Republican
45% unaffiliated/independent

As a coalition, our party simply isn't as liberal as the GOP is conservative.

The GOP has radicalized its base over the last 30 years.

of being genocidal. 30 years ago the Republican Party was silent for 7 years at over 30,000 Americans died. Well, silent on that matter but they had plenty to say about Welfare Queens in Chicago, wars on drugs and how God hates a woman's right to reproductive choice. How was that moderate or more balanced?

When I said "30 years ago" I was referring to the Reagan administration. I blame him and his administration and the changes ushered in by it to conservative media for the beginning of the radicalization of the GOP base.

I'm not sure anybody does, that I've seen.

I dont think there is anything wrong with the Townhall link here since it is supported by the NYTimes links, but just to prevent folks heads from exploding you should probably delete the Townhall link.

Some of this makes sense. For instance, I think most of us have known that there is an ideological difference in general between Democrats in the North & West vs those in the South.

Large numbers of Democrats in the panhandle of Florida, for instance, have tended to vote for the Republican nominee for President in more than one recent election. Many of them voted for George W. Bush in both of his elections.

But we have to be careful about this data. The stat for Blacks, for instance, belies the point that African Americans vote Democratic by a margin of over 90% most of the time. You wouldn't think that by how this graphic has represented them.

And this author is wrong in one important point, in fact Hillary leads Sanders among self described Liberals in the party.

But in terms of the rest, he's got some good points in the article, but a lot of them are from his citations from other places.

I get the sense this article is part of the whole "America is actually more Conservative" meme that Conservative media is always trying to sell.

In the interest of fairness and full disclosure, the Townhall folks and I are not exactly friends:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/greghengler/2009/04/14/these_tax_day_tea_parties_are_a_sham_and_a_fraud!

been an argument for Clinton's candidacy?

1. Is the country as Conservative as folks like Townhall, Rush Limbaugh and the like would like us to believe it is?
No.

2. Is the country way too Conservative for Bernie Sanders?
Yes.

And if the graphic is correct, which it seems to be given what we know of Clinton's and Sanders' coalitions, Clinton owns a large part of the downscale base.

That's why I think Clinton is almost sure to win the nomination.

It is interesting to me that downscale voters tend to be more conservative both in the Democratic and Republican parties.

I think it has to do with Religion probably more than anything else.

Yet what Clinton's brand of Democratic Party is more of a socially liberal economic conservatism which seems like the opposite of what her base would seem to want.

Bottom line, the major parties are no longer representative of the people. They have been bought by Corporations and that is who they represent.

The largest voting bloc in the country right now for the first time is Registered Independents at approx 42% of registered voters.

THAT is who will decide this election.

and Sanders has way more crossover appeal, living in a red state I've seen it first hand.

non-voters now energized again to participate in the system, Independents, Dems from which he has taken at least one third of the vote.

Hillary has the now only part of the Dem base and you can't win anything even with ALL of your own base when the political landscape has changed to the point it has over the past number of years.

As for Hillary, all republicans hate her and half of the democratic base says they will have to hold their nose to vote for her. I can't see the youth being as motivated to vote if Hillary gets the nomination. Many might stay home out of resentment.

It doesn't make sense as liberalism works to help the poor much more so than conservatism.