If you've ever listened to Fox News, Conservative pundits, or just our own Partisan Lines resident Right-Wing extremists, you've heard them describe Obama and pretty much anyone on the Left as extremist Lefties or something along those lines. I have always maintained that everyone would look extremist Left-wing from the far, far Right where they have taken up permanent residence. Apparently somebody actually studies the political positions of the two political parties and he has concluded that while the Left has remain mostly unchanged and even somewhat more to the political center, the Right has consistently moved further and further to the extreme Right-Wing. Now this is nothing that we are unaware of but if you do listen to any of the Right-Wing mouth pieces, they will tell you that it is Obama and the Democrats that have moved and they have stayed the same. They couldn't be more wrong either by looking at current policies or by looking at the data below. So when they tell you how radical Obama is, keep this graph in mind. They are headed for the fringes at a breakneck pace and only looking back to lie about the Left. An Update on Political Polarization (through 2011) – Part III: The Presidential Square Wave February 3, 2012 Below we plot the estimated positions of presidents between 1945 and 2011 along the liberal-conservative scale, which produces a pattern we call the “presidential square wave”. Because we use first dimension (ideological) Common Space DW-NOMINATE scores, presidential locations are directly comparable across time. However, because presidential estimates are based on a limited number of “presidential support” votes– roll calls on which the president clearly indicates his support or opposition to a particular (often contentious) measure, presidential ideal points are somewhat biased towards the ideological extremes (however, this effect is roughly constant for all presidents, so it is unlikely than any particular estimate would be affected more than others). Our findings here echo those discussed in a prior post that Republicans have moved further to the right than Democrats to the left in the contemporary period. Indeed, as seen below, President Obama is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II, while President George W. Bush was the most conservative president in the post-war era. View attachment 388
There are right-wing extremists here?!! The only ideas the right-wing media have of debate is to make false accusations and innuendos and outright lies then turn tail and run while holding their hands over their ears and screaming bloody murder. The theory is, if you repeat the lie loud enough and often enough the more gullible people in their base, and independants, will believe them... and it works all too well. The good news is that through media such as this site, on social networks that span the World, people finally have a chance to view the arguments in a new light, where counterarguments are made, and they can educate themselves to a level where they have a much better understanding of an issue... and can avoid being fooled into believing something that is untrue.
I just love unsupported undocumented posts by the radical left wingers. I really learn a lot from them.
Thank you for posting that graph and associated article, Moen1305. For any who care to examine it and the previous pieces on political polarization: An Update on Political Polarization (through 2011) An Update on Political Polarization (through 2011) – Part II An Update on Political Polarization (through 2011) – Part III: The Presidential Square Wave Some of the points made in this series reminded me of a piece written by Mike Lofgren, who recently retired from his career as a Capitol Hill Republican staff member, titled "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult". I did a quick search of this site, and didn't see mention of the article, which surprised me a little, but then again, maybe it was discussed and my search-fu wasn't up to snuff. I have watched the Republican party become more conservative over the past few decades, and what Lofgren says supports this view. What is interesting to me about the first two parts of the "Polarization" series is its description of a trend to the left on the part of the Democratic members of Congress which, while not quite as marked as the opposite trend on the Republican side, is still significant. The analysis of presidential political positions in the third part is worthwhile, but I think that trends in the legislative branch may be more significant.
Why are we supposed to believe anything you post, Moen? How do we know you're not misrepresenting the truth yet again? Do you know the story of the boy who cried "wolf"?
You're welcome Recusant. Thank you for your additions. If you have listened to the Frank Luntz inspired language over the last three years, the Right uses manipulative descriptions such as radical, extremist, Muslim, and so on to describe the Obama Administration which is basically more centrist than previous Democratic Administrations. Although you can't point to any pattern of radical policies but ALL policies are described as radical just the same. I have to wonder if the Right thinks that they are actually so mainstream America, why do they even need to manipulate words? If what they are saying is actually factually substantive, why the need for alternate terminology? And how do so many fall for the overt manipulation?
