What are you talking about?

Everyone hates each other almost 24-7. Don't you read youtube comments?

We agree on our problems. We don't agree on the solutions.

Party Boy: Most of us agree on all kinds of shiat, politically.

Eh, kinda.

The reason we don't seem like we agree, is that we're so close on things that small differences seem like impassable chasms.

Honestly, if we had fewer fundies, the 2 major parties would essentially be the same.

beta_plus: We agree on our problems. We don't agree on the solutions.

This! The country is being overrun by illegal aliens who want to get gay married and then have abortions in a socialist FEMA camp. Dumbocraps don't want to stop it. Real Americans do.

Sleeping Monkey: So why do people still vote republican?

Simple: the Republicans are very good at exploiting wedge issues to get votes.

Sleeping Monkey: So why do people still vote republican?

Because both sides are bad. And we can't have that black man in the Oval Office any longer.

amidoinitright?

Sleeping Monkey: So why do people still vote republican?

Because the Republicans are rich people who can convince poor people that "Republicans are just like you."

Democrats more often use the line of "I want to help you."

The Republicans go "They want to take the money from the rich and give it to the poor. Will you like that when someday *you* are rich?" (leaving out that those folks will never be rich)

Democrats go "Nuh uh!"

Republicans go "Yeah huh!"

And then some stupid hillbilly kills a cat.

Well, duh. Most of the things Obama has championed were once championed by the GOP. The only difference is that they weren't black when they did it.

So yeah. We aren't very far apart really. But the thing that separates is that some of us are racist morons.

beta_plus: We agree on our problems. We don't agree on the labels we put on the solutions.

/my $.02

Tell that to my parents. Politics and religion have divided us so deeply that civility is the exception and not the rule.

Thing is, I'm not the one bringing it up. We can't visit a post office without one of them equating the long line with Obamacare.

This has always been the case; the divide just seems more now because of the increased isolation of the rural areas. Huge swaths of the country have been entirely left behind, and their anger is a natural result of a certain bitterness that comes from seeing their way of life marginalized. One might even say that they cling to religion, guns, or anti-immigrant sentiment as a means to self-identify in this frightening new reality.

Rapmaster2000: beta_plus: We agree on our problems. We don't agree on the solutions.

This! The country is being overrun by illegal aliens who want to get gay married and then have abortions in a socialist FEMA camp. Dumbocraps don't want to stop it. Real Americans do.

Hehe! I was trying to come up with a snarky way of saying how trite that fasle equivalence talking point is but I don't think I could have come up with anything better than that.

Actually by international standards the American political spectrum are extremely narrow. Democrats and Republicans have more in common than the left and right wings of many other large parties. They might disagree very loudly on a few hot button issues but a large majority of issues a simply silently agreed on by both parties and their voters.

Compared to Europe there is very little diversity and most of American politics is located in some rightish corner of the greater spectrum. Against the background of the many political movements and parties in the rest of the world Democrats and Republicans are so close as to be almost indistinguishable.

The answer seems to be that they project their own strong, emotional thought processes onto others, Van Boven and his colleagues concluded.

I didn't project a three-cornered hat and a shiatty sign onto some guy during the health care hoopla, Van Boven. Don't tell me I'm not miles away from those nutters.

beta_plus: We agree on our problems. We don't agree on the solutions.

Which issues are these that we agree on?

qorkfiend: beta_plus: We agree on our problems. We don't agree on the solutions.

Which issues are these that we agree on?

We all agree that gay homos shouldn't get married and that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. If you disagree, you're a traitor.

Check out the documentary "Power of Nightmares" for why people still vote Republican.

Hey guys, Ron Paul is a racist!

FTFA: "The respondents indicated their political beliefs by answering questions on their opinions on a wild variety of issues..."

lacrossestar83: Hey guys, Ron Paul is a racist!

That's Dr. Ron Paul to you, asshole. He didn't go to four years of crazy medical school to be called Mr. RON PAUL!

Difficulty: the "new" study-
"looked at nationally representative data stretching from 1970 to 2004"
- so it still leaves open the question of additional effects from events since then. Like the state of the economy, everything in Bush the Younger's second term, Obama's entire presidency, the Tea Party... Hell, the Iraq war had only been going on for a year or so when the data trail ends.

So people tend to over-report differences? Well, yeah, that's true in plenty of fields aside from politics. But the study simply doesn't directly consider much of the time-frame most people are referring to when speaking of current political divides.

Sleeping Monkey: So why do people still vote republican?

Being upper middle class neither team is looking out for my interests and with the repubs at least there is a chance I am going to get a tax cut.

Wasteland: Difficulty: the "new" study-
"looked at nationally representative data stretching from 1970 to 2004"
- so it still leaves open the question of additional effects from events since then. Like the state of the economy, everything in Bush the Younger's second term, Obama's entire presidency, the Tea Party... Hell, the Iraq war had only been going on for a year or so when the data trail ends.

So people tend to over-report differences? Well, yeah, that's true in plenty of fields aside from politics. But the study simply doesn't directly consider much of the time-frame most people are referring to when speaking of current political divides.

That's pretty much irrelevant since I think the article mentions that the proportions of diagreement on issues has remained stable over the 35 year period that is measured, while the reported perception that disagreement is growing has also remained stable throughout the longitudinal survey's results.

Saiga410: Being upper middle class neither team is looking out for my interests....


Shall I play a song of your people and your plight?

There's actually quite a wide spectrum of American political views. It's just that the acceptable ones are clustered in the upper right-hand corner of Party Boy's graph and if you profess, or, perish farking forbid, actually work toward anything different you get called names and told to get with the program.

Saiga410: Sleeping Monkey: So why do people still vote republican?

Being upper middle class neither team is looking out for my interests and with the repubs at least there is a chance I am going to get a tax cut I already get a sweet farking deal but it's not enough for me.

people will kill each other over the smallest differences.

/especially genetically...

Of course not.

The USA has a right wing party and a center-right party.

The absence of any major left-wing or socialist party in the United States means that the vast majority of the US falls into a pretty narrow political range.

Most people I know who vote Republican do so because they believe things that are simply not true. They believe Obama is an avowed Marxist who has raised taxes and implemented a government takeover of the health care system and is planning to install Sharia Law and outlaw fishing for no reason.

Problem is, they've been convinced not to listen to scientists, college professors, economists, and any news that isn't deliberately slanted to the right. Telling them that Obama is actually not trying to remove capitalism is akin to telling them that their god isn't real. They believe what they believe and nothing will convince them otherwise.

I know very few Republicans who actually expose themselves to information outside of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. I wish they would. Then they might discover the people with whom they disagree don't actually spend every waking hour plotting to destroy them personally.

Saiga410: Sleeping Monkey: So why do people still vote republican?

Being upper middle class neither team is looking out for my interests and with the repubs at least there is a chance I am going to get a tax cut.

Let me guess: you're also extremely concerned about the budget deficit.

qorkfiend: Saiga410: Sleeping Monkey: So why do people still vote republican?

Being upper middle class neither team is looking out for my interests and with the repubs at least there is a chance I am going to get a tax cut.

Let me guess: you're also extremely concerned about the budget deficit.

Sure aren't we all. Tax cut for the upper 60-80% and tax increases on everyone else, while cutting deductions and services to the two bracketing income groups.

Saiga410: Sure aren't we all. Tax cut for the upper 60-80% and tax increases on everyone else, while cutting deductions and services to the two bracketing income groups.

potato/10

Thorndyke Barnhard: Rapmaster2000: beta_plus: We agree on our problems. We don't agree on the solutions.

This! The country is being overrun by illegal aliens who want to get gay married and then have abortions in a socialist FEMA camp. Dumbocraps don't want to stop it. Real Americans do.

Hehe! I was trying to come up with a snarky way of saying how trite that fasle equivalence talking point is but I don't think I could have come up with anything better than that.

The party of tolerance and compromise strikes again!

A Dark Evil Omen: potato/10

That would be potat. See an early trick I learned growing up is that when you devide by 10 you shift over the numerators decimal point. In this case with an o we just truncate it off.

Saiga410: Being upper middle class neither team is looking out for my interests and with the repubs at least there is a chance I am going to get a tax cut.

I would also be considered such but the money that tips me into that category comes from middle class people with discretionary income. So I am on the other side hoping that the GOP's war on the middle class ends in defeat.

beta_plus: The party of tolerance and compromise strikes again!

You mad?

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them - Karl Popper