Political Polarization in the American Public (2014)(people-press.org)
people-press.org
Political Polarization in the American Public (2014)
http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/
2 comments
2 party systems have pros and cons, but when centrists voters leave political parties, it exacerbates the problem instead of addressing it. I'd like to think that participating in party politics doesn't necessarily imply agreement with policies and candidates, but rather would allow for these preferences to be accounted for earlier.
The definitions of liberal and conservative do change over time... In the 1920s, I would have been around liberal. Today, I am a strong conservative.
The problem is that these hyper-polarized people often have very non-mainstreem views about a few issues. This causes the mainstream/moderates leave the party because they can't identify and don't want to associate with people they see as crazy or extremist.