Ouch. It isn't surprising that we side with our tribe, but it is still shocking that party identifications have become so much stronger than ideological ones.
On the flip side, this experiment suggests that ideological polarization may not be as strong as political polarization, which offers hope for compromise. Though conversely, identification with subgroups such as the Tea Party would mitigate that effect. http://www.civilpolitics.org/content/political-partisanship-mirrors-public "Political Partisanship Mirrors Public" We have seen the enemy and it is us: This USA Today/Bipartisan Policy Center article reminds us why polarization is so intractable: "Consider this test: The survey asked 1,000 Americans to assess two education policies. The first plan was to reduce class sizes and make sure schools teach the basics. The second was to increase teacher pay while making it easier to fire bad teachers. For half the sample, the first plan was labeled a Democratic plan and the second a Republican plan. Then the labels were switched for the other half. The "Democratic" plan became the "Republican" plan, and vice versa. In both cases, about three-fourths of Democrats and Republicans lined up behind the plan they had been told belonged to their party. In fact, both sides were inclined to describe their support as intense, to say they "strongly" favored it — regardless of which policy it happened to be." -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
