politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Almost half the country is right wing and the electoral college gives their votes much more weight. That's just a fact. That means you can't win a national election without tacking toward their views in some areas, mainly the areas of concern to those in the swing states that will decide the election. You can't win by pleasing only your own base. Until we either abolish the electoral college and move to popular vote, or liberals/left wing/whatever you want to call it, reach a majority of the population substantial enough to overcome the electoral college.
Neither of those things looks likely to happen anytime soon, so the only option is to deal with our current reality and develop a strategy to win under these circumstances, but at the same time we should also be working to create a movement to amend the constitution to decide national elections by popular vote.
edit to change "half" to "almost half"--gotta recognize there are some more in the middle.
Where are you getting that stat?
Of voters, almost half are registered or leaning Republicans.
In 2020, only 22% of the country voted for trump, the most right wing 2 party candidate in the modern era.
When you ask about specific policies that are seen as left or right wing, left wing policies poll much higher than dem votes at elections.
The reason Democrat leadership keeps tacking right has less to do with Americans and more to do with money and support from key centers of power. Dems stay right because US aristocrats and large interests skew righter than Americans. The money would dry up if their policies matched what Americans want.
per 538, the last two polls of "adults" (not likely voters or registered voters) showed trump support around 40%. And Harris' lead in those polls is basically the same as with likely voters and registered voters, around +3-4.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/?ex_cid=abcpromo
edit:
Also this gallup poll says 30% of people identify as Republican, and 40% as independent, with 46% of independents leaning Republican. So "almost half" as the top comment said.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.aspx
edit 2: for whoever downvoted, I would love to hear why. the person above asked for a source that says "Almost half the country is right wing", and I provided multiple. if you have better evidence to the contrary let's see it.
This feels to me like the best metric to judge 'right wing' by.
Voting for right wingers or being a Republican is not quite the same as being right wing - many people register and vote strategically. My grandparents in Alaska were left wingers who knew Democrats didn't stand a chance. I'm sure there are plenty of right wingers registered as Dems here in the PNW. Voting can also be about identity more than ideals - I've known Republicans who have mostly leftish ideals as long as you don't call them that.
But saying you personally support trump feels more unambiguously right wing to me. I've heard plenty of polls over the years putting trump's support at around 30-40%, so 40% right wing sounds believable to me.
Also, I acknowledge this is speculation, but I would guess that a significant portion of the undecided people in those polls are conservatives who can't stomach Trump and will never vote democrat. So it's almost certainly more than 40% imo.
Your data does not logically lead to your conclusion, because the polls cited naturally bifurcated the responses into two (or three) camps.
It's like if I did a poll asking: "what is your favorite color, purple or yellow?" and then said this proves that 50% of respondents' favorite color is purple. We are discounting the opinions of orange and green lovers.
are you denying that trump supporters would identify as “ conservative“? Also "undecided" is certainly a catch-all option for people who don't want to vote for Trump or Harris.
sorry but that's an awful analogy, color preference does not follow a rough spectrum as political ideology does. And again, in your analogy, the orange and green lovers could have chosen undecided.
If you have better data, by all means show it. The polls I linked are certainly more accurate than the person above citing the 2020 election and that only 22% of the US voted for Trump. That is a wildly misleading representation of US demographics.
Probably because you told/showed them what they don't want to hear.
Half the country is not conservative or right wing, the highest percentage of red votes are in low population density areas, so thats maybe like 35-37%, and that’s why the electoral college is important for republican wins
It is almost half. There's a spectrum on the right (as there is on the left of course). The hardcore maga cultists are a little over a third -- like you say, 35-37%. But then there are the conservatives who aren't extremists like them but are still very conservative, so yes, it's almost half the population. Trump has 42-45% who are definitely going to vote for him no matter what--the rest beyond the maga contingent are the conservatives such as the one-issue anti-abortion segment and the rich who want his tax and deregulation policies; they don't care about his character flaws or even preserving democracy for that matter.
There are also some conservatives, not many, who previously voted for him and would again, but have come to recognize that trump is so extreme and dangerous that they either won't vote for him or will hold their nose and vote for a Dem this time, hopefully enough to tip the election in her favor.
Those conservatives are ”moderates” and also vote democrat
https://news.gallup.com/poll/328367/americans-political-ideology-held-steady-2020.aspx
1/3 is almost half in the same sense that it is also almost nothing.
Hate to break it to you but from anyone else Looking in all your politics and politicians are right-wing.
we know this, thanks.
WE is doing a lot of heavy lifting here ;).
Right? I call the Democrats a "right of center" party. I stopped calling myself a Democrat almost a decade ago. There is no party for me in the US.
FWIW, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is doing better and better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
Yeah but a majority of voters want to fix climate change. The GOP platform is "let the planet burn so we can make our quarterly target" but if you take politics out of it a lot of gop voters are on the same page with Democrats.
Both of them couldn't give a single shit about liberals though.