Are conservatives more politically active than liberals?

[alp227]

A common opinion is that lack of left wing voter turnout in 2010 contributed to the Tea Party takeover of the House. In fact, John Nichols reported: "In 2010, polls showed that young people were still supportive of Obama and the Democrats. But only 20.9 percent of them bothered to vote." (In contrast to a 51% turnout in 2008.)

Say what you want about people not knowing that Congress has elections too, but consider that while John McCain got 59.95 million votes in 2008, Romney got 60.93 million votes in 2012. Obama got 69.50 million in 2008 but went down to 65.92 million in 2012.

Both Obama and Romney had unhappy voter bases in 2012. From the left, critics say Obama didn't push hard enough on his campaign promises on health care, immigration, etc. Even further left, there were concerns about drone strikes, not prosecuting Bush administration officials for war crimes, or doing too little about the banks that contributed to the 2008 crash. From the right, critics denigrated Romney for not being the Second Coming of Reagan. But Republicans still nominated Romney as their candidate for 2012 and were willing to vote for a RINO in exchange for not having Obama in office.

So there must be several factors explaining why conservatives value their vote - even if a RINO is on the ballot.

Messaging. Right wing media be it Fox News, talk radio, or blogs very effectively scare voters by framing all issues around "freedom" and characterizing Democratic Party policy as being against individual rights and for more government control of people's lives. For instance, to exaggerate, "The Democrat candidate wants to take away your guns/raise your taxes/overregulate and take away jobs!" Or the infamous "bible banned, gay marriage allowed" mailer. Using snarl words like "dependency on government" for ANYTHING that relies on public funds to help people i.e. healthcare, food stamps, even public schools. These are simple, personalized appeals that people easily buy into and repeat whether in personal conversations or publicly on social media.

Dehumanizing the opposition. Think about how right wingers use "the left", "leftist", "liberal", or variants as slurs. Another conservative strategy is to slur those who do not hold opinions that conform to the conservative orthodoxy. For instance, there's this facebook page with about 25k likes, "If our flag offends you, feel free to leave our country," basically created to complain about anyone who DARES say something negative about the American flag (like in the Live Oak HS case, for instance). Also, Bill O'Reilly's use of "baby killers" to describe abortion clinic providers. As well as demonizing those who support equal rights for LGBT's as "anti-family". Anyone who DARES live with public assistance - the working poor, recent immigrants, the unemployed - is a moocher, taker, thief. These terms are loaded enough to the captive audience's mind as to convey a message beyond mere disagreement: there is an evil leftist, anti-family, anti-flag, anti-Traditional America, anti-individual force out there, and you need to rise up against LEFTIST SCUM.

At both DU and Free Republic you'll see plenty of negativity towards the party establishment whether DU towards the Democrats or FR to the Republicans (that's where "GOP-e" comes from - "GOP establishment&quot . Both sides often have posts that assert that Democrats and Republicans are no different from each other. But even if people on all sides of the political spectrum see little difference between the (D) and (R) parties, it seems that those on the right who hold such a POV will still vote while those on the left who agree will simply give up on the system and not vote. Am I wrong?

[Bjorn Against]

1. Republicans go to politically active churches

The churches are where much of the Republican's political power lies, they do not have much in the way of grassroots activists but they make up for it by getting millions of people to go listen to their propaganda every Sunday.

[Tikki]

4. This is the absolute truth and it has been going on for quite a while.

Tikki

[SpartanDem]

10. So do Democrats

and I would argue this especially true for black protestant churches. They can be just as political as their White Evangelical counterparts

[Bjorn Against]

11. Some do, but not in equal numbers

There are far more politically active churches on the right than on the left.

[jeff47]

2. They are where it counts.

Showing up to vote. Every time. ESPECIALLY in the primary, where they get to steer the party.

Pissed off about Obama? Angry that Clinton is currently the likely nominee? The way you fix it is by showing up and voting. Third way came to power because they got more votes in primaries. Because the conservative Democrats showed up.

[Chathamization]

5. True, compare the number of serious insurgent campaigns inside the Republican Party to the number

inside the Democratic Party. Of the major recent ones, I can only think of Republicans.

[alp227]

6. The far right has easily penetrated the Republican Party,

much more than the far left inside the Democratic Party. Look at the 2012 election results.

Candidates running to the right of Romney were Virgil Goode and Tom Hoefling; they got about 160k votes.

To the left of Obama: Jill Stein, Roseanne Barr (seriously, Roseanne ran for president in 2012), and Rocky Anderson for a combined near 600k votes.

And then there was Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson who got about 1.3 million votes in 2012 with positions both left of Obama (on drug policy) and right of Romney (even LOWER taxes/regulations/"government&quot . I can't quite pigeonhole Gary Johnson in the left or right.

That is an example of how disillusioned potential (D) voters were willing to go for alternative progressive parties while Republicans were more united in standing behind Romney even if Romney wasn't a True Conservative(TM).

[jeff47]

19. You don't steer the party with the presidential ballot.

You steer the party with the local primary ballot, and to a lesser extent the House primary ballot.

You have to win those races to have much of a chance for higher office.

Yes, Romney wasn't the ideal Republican for the far right, but they had already shifted the window of "acceptable" before he got the chance to run.

[alp227]

20. OK, I should have come up with better examples.

Like Eric Cantor being successfully primaried out and other veteran Republican senators like Mitch McConnell, Thad Cochran, Lamar Alexander, and John Cornyn surviving serious, viable Tea Party challengers.

[LondonReign2]

12. Simply False

This narrative of blaming liberals voters is bullshit.

Did liberals really stay home and cause the 2010 rout?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/06/1003805/-Did-liberals-really-stay-home-and-cause-the-2010-rout
“So I went back to the exit polls and the picture I see shows nothing like that. If you are a proponent of this claim, I challenge you for empirical proof that some set of activist liberals "took their ball and went home" or whatever metaphor you prefer to make Obama's leftward critics appear childish and immature. Inside, the evidence I found that shows this just ain't so.”

http://blogforarizona.net/do-progressives-even-sit-out-elections-the-numbers-say-no/
“As you can see, Democrats did slightly better with liberals in 2010 than in 2006. Had there really been a collective we’re-sitting-out-the-election-to-spite-Obama pout going on, then there should have been a sharp drop in the liberal participation percentage. Yet notice the 9% in moderate voter participation and the concomitant 10% increase in conservative turnout. Republicans were pumped for that election but their turnout tends to be higher in midterms anyway. Millions of moderate voters either flipped to conservative or stayed home in 2010.”

“As you can see, all the Democratic groups dropped, but the liberal Democrats dropped least of all”

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/progressive-movement/news/2012/11/08/44348/the-return-of-the-obama-coalition/
Ideology. Liberals were 25 percent of voters in 2012, up from 22 percent in 2008. Since 1992 the percent of liberals among presidential voters has varied in a narrow band between 20 percent and 22 percent, so the figure for this year is quite unusual. Conservatives, at 35 percent, were up one point from the 2008 level, but down a massive 7 points since 2010.
Ideology. Obama received less support in 2012 from all ideology groups, though the drop-offs were not particularly sharp in any group. He received 86 percent support from liberals (89 percent in 2008), 56 percent from moderates (60 percent in 2008), and 17 percent from conservatives (20 percent in 2008).

[jeff47]

18. False is your reading of what I said.

I said conservative Democrats always vote.

You took that to mean liberal activists don't. Not what I said.

You also decided to prove your point with data from the 2010 election, when we're talking about something that's been going on since at least the 1980s.

You also decided to prove your point with data about a general election, when I was talking about primary elections.

Other than that, your argument is 100% relevant.

[LondonReign2]

21. Data is from 2006-2012

And yes, your implication was quite clearly a pat on the back for "conservative democrats" (not borne out by the data) while implying liberals somehow don't vote (proven false by the data presented.

When presented with this actual data that inconveniently disproves your slam on liberals, the "conservative Democrats" (I believe those used to be called Republicans) always back peddle and claim this is a trend since the 1980's -- without a shred of evidence of course.

[treestar]

3. Yes. They have fanatical energy.

They never stay home or become apathetic or take things for granted. This is why they get so much of what they want. I have heard them complain about how Mittens was too "liberal" believe it or not. But they would never not vote. I actually heard some complain about Bush being liberal. But they never ever said they were disappointed or failed to inform the rest of us we should support the POTUS and respect the office.

This is why they think they have jobs and liberals don't - they are more aggressive and hard working and fanatical. They will get out there and vote at the very least. Then help suppress D votes if they can and use the fact the M$M carries water for them to their advantage.

[Jamaal510]

7. +1

[Jamaal510]

8. Our side

simply has too many people who expect things to happen overnight and without much effort involved. A president is not the same as a monarch, which means it's not enough to just control the White House. Contrary to popular belief, U.S. presidents don't have control over every single thing that goes on in the country. The few duties of a president include signing/vetoing bills, appointing justices, and acting as commander-in-chief. Congress and state-level politics are where most of the action takes place. Past presidents such as FDR were lucky enough to have a friendly Congress in order to get their agendas across, but that hasn't so much been the case with this current presidency. And even during the short period where Democrats did kind of "control" the House when Obama was first elected, there were still blue dogs and of course Joe Lieberman making things difficult.

[leftstreet]

9. People either vote for change, or to fight change

same as its always been

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. There's a difference between their political action and ours.

Theirs is tangible and focused. Get people to vote for Republicans. Everything else is tactics.

Ours is different. Voting for Democrats is a tactic in a larger, more nuanced context. Vote for Democrats who understand global warming! Vote for Democrats who support choice! Vote for Democrats who support gun control!

In the latter world view, there's no reason to prefer a democrat who doesn't support gun control over a republican.

In my view, it is important to me that the Democratic party embodies my values. I try to do this (365*2-1) days a year. On election day, I pull the lever for the D, just like a good obedient soldier.

[BlindTiresias]

14. Right wingers

Have representatives that actually do represent them across the spectrum, even extremist ones. There is no equivalent in the left.

Let's put that into context. You can be a violent eliminationist, borderline genocidist, believe in unrestrained free markets and advocate for the dismantling of the federal government, and you will still be represented.

In the Democratic party if you believe in anything more leftist than -maybe- FDR you are labeled an extremist, communist, or a pony wanter.

Quite the difference.

[bklyncowgirl]

15. It is much easier to galvanize opposition than support--especially if you're a liberal.

Most of us here despised George W. Bush. We may have not been united as to what we wanted but we sure as hell did not want him. It makes it easier.

When your guy is in power you are less certain and this makes it more difficult. You hate the compromises he or she makes, wince when he or she screws up. Liberals are probably more prone to self-doubt than conservatives--when trouble hits they circle the wagons--we form a circular firing squad.

[H2O Man]

16. They tend to be

better organized in terms of getting out the vote.

[maxrandb]

17. God, I hope not

but you can't argue that their catterwalling has not been effective.

Let's not forget that they have an entire network built and financed to amplify their idiocy, and fucking hate radio.

Driving is so boring sometimes, and sitting in traffic, I can imagine all the folks with talk radio on, not because they might believe that claptrap, but because they are lonely, bored with the conversations in their heads, or would rather listen to talk than the same CD they've heard a million times. After a while, it has to start eating into their thoughts, because there is absolutely no balance to what they hear.

Hell, I have two brother's who were in sales, and spent a great deal of time in their cars. We came from a strong Liberal to left-leaning family, with a grandfather who helped organize coal minors in Corning, OH way back in the day, but...after repeated exposure to 24/7 Wingnuttery, they started talking like fucking Rush or Hannity!

It took a couple of lay-offs, the great recession, and Kasich's shenanigans in Ohio before they finally saw the light.

Are the "wingers" more political active? I don't know...TALK TO ME AFTER THIS MID-TERM and I'll let you know, because if ever there was a damn good reason for liberals to get out to the polls, this is it.

If the prospect of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel and Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham doesn't wake people the fuck up...nothing will!