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2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Has the seed been planted for a new political Party in this country? [View all]muriel_volestrangler
(101,312 posts)46. But objective measurement shows Congress is now more polarized than any post-WW2 time
Political polarization is on the rise, and with it come lots of clever new ways to visualize that polarization. I've even taken a crack at it myself. A group of researchers recently gave it another go in a paper published in PLOS One, and while it doesn't tell us anything we don't already know, it's nonetheless one of the more effective visualizations of rising partisanship that I've seen. Take a gander.
You'll see that they've created network diagrams for each House of Representatives from 1949 to 2011. They've drawn dots for each representative, and lines connecting pairs of representatives who vote together a given number of times. Finally, the dots for each representative are placed according to how frequently the Representatives vote together overall.
What we're left with is a picture of political mitosis. Similar voting between Democrats and Republicans was fairly common up through the 1980s. But starting in the 1990s the parties began pulling apart from each other, like a single cell dividing into two.
Not only that, but within parties Representatives are voting more similarly too -- that's illustrated with the dots in each party's cluster becoming more tightly packed together over time. Starting in the 2000s, there are hardly any links between the parties at all.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stunning-visualization-of-our-divided-congress/
You'll see that they've created network diagrams for each House of Representatives from 1949 to 2011. They've drawn dots for each representative, and lines connecting pairs of representatives who vote together a given number of times. Finally, the dots for each representative are placed according to how frequently the Representatives vote together overall.
What we're left with is a picture of political mitosis. Similar voting between Democrats and Republicans was fairly common up through the 1980s. But starting in the 1990s the parties began pulling apart from each other, like a single cell dividing into two.
Not only that, but within parties Representatives are voting more similarly too -- that's illustrated with the dots in each party's cluster becoming more tightly packed together over time. Starting in the 2000s, there are hardly any links between the parties at all.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stunning-visualization-of-our-divided-congress/
So 1824, when there was only one significant party, is extremely unlike the present situation.
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The seed for the re-alignment of the Democratic party has been- back to being
silvershadow
May 2016
#5
Nope. People want to bitch. They don't want to do the work it would take.
redstateblues
May 2016
#11
So far it has been a lot of talk. Why hasn't the Purity Party been able to
redstateblues
May 2016
#29
What IS the definition of is? And if it's in CAPS does it carry more weight? Hey... ALERTER...
cherokeeprogressive
May 2016
#38
A new party would be a good way to fatally split the existing Democratic vote
muriel_volestrangler
May 2016
#23
The 'coalition in tatters' is favourite to win the presidency and the senate this year
muriel_volestrangler
May 2016
#37
But objective measurement shows Congress is now more polarized than any post-WW2 time
muriel_volestrangler
May 2016
#46
Yes, and some of it has to do with sites like this one and Free Republic
nadinbrzezinski
May 2016
#50
I predicted inevitability of Republican liberalism in response to another thread today.
ieoeja
May 2016
#64
If the new party had enough adherents to win a general election, they could just win the Dem primary
Jim Lane
May 2016
#43
Nah, such a thing will put white, middle class needs at the front and
Jackie Wilson Said
May 2016
#52
My takeaway is that Jill Stein or whoever is running the Greens isn't doing his/her job.
Algernon Moncrieff
May 2016
#61