EJ Dionne: solution to polarization is defeat of Republicans

[MBS]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-centrist-heavenly-chorus-is-way-off-key/2018/07/04/a656f13a-7ed7-11e8-b660-4d0f9f0351f1_story.html?utm_term=.a32563f60b69

We human beings cling to dogmas long after they’re disproved. We tend to believe things that make us feel better or remind of us of a past that we miss. This is certainly true of our assumptions about electoral politics.
Among the myths that can steer us off course in the Trump era, three are particularly popular.
First, that political polarization is primarily a product of how elites behave and not the result of real divisions in our country.
Second, that a vast group of party-loathing independents can be mobilized by anti-partisan messages.
Third, that Republicans and Democrats are becoming increasingly and equally extreme, so they should be scolded equally.
All these pious wishes are false, as Alan I. Abramowitz’s latest book, The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump, makes clear. He provides a wealth of data in a compact package.
. . Democrats draw “their strongest support from the groups with the most positive views of recent social and cultural changes.” Conversely, the GOP is strongest with groups having “the most negative views” of those changes.
. . .
Ah, but because increasing numbers of Americans identify as independents, isn’t there an eager nonpartisan middle waiting to rescue us from all this? Sorry, but no. As Abramowitz shows, most people who identify as independents lean toward one party or the other. When it comes to casting ballots, “leaning independents as well as strong and weak party identifiers are voting more along party lines than at any time in the past half century.” Factoring out independents who tilt toward a party, “only about 12 percent of Americans have fallen into the ‘pure independent’ category, and these people are much less interested in politics and much less likely to vote than independent leaners.” Independents are plainly not some magical force that will call into being that centrist third party that looms so large in the imaginations of many pundits and fundraisers.
. . .
While it sings mournful songs about the major parties becoming “extreme,” Abramowitz’s data make clear that the two sides are not equivalent. Republicans have moved significantly further to the right than Democrats have moved to the left.. . . Abramowitz doesn’t polemicize; he simply lays out the facts. But the story he tells suggests that the essential first step to getting past extremism and polarization is the defeat of today’s intemperate brand of Republicanism, embodied by the most intemperate president in our history.

Those who long for moderate and harmonious politics find it both comforting and convenient to cling to myths that allow them to keep their distance from charges of grubby “partisanship.” They’re likelier to get what they want by accepting the unpleasant but also undeniable realities of our moment.

[EndGOPPropaganda]

1. Correct

Let’s just say it. Republicans are the problem.

[CentralMass]

2. Yes.

[lagomorph777]

3. They moved to the evil, as we moved

out of the way. Enough politeness; we need to play this game as if our lives depend on it. Because they do.

[MBS]

4. yes, agreed. n/t