Philip Bump - 1h ago The Washington Post
“I want the Republican Party to take back the party,” the California Democrat continued, mentioning that Republicans used to have a broader range of opinions on abortion and the environment. “Hey, here I am, Nancy Pelosi, saying this country needs a strong Republican Party, and we do.”
“Not a cult,” she added, “but a strong Republican Party.”
The comments sparked criticism from Democrats and Republicans. The former saw her comments as mirroring past Democratic insistences that perhaps the Republican Party would, in fact, revert to some more moderate space, insistences that have not borne out. The latter obviously objected to being disparaged as a cult.
By using that word, however offhandedly, Pelosi singled out something we often end up talking around. The Republican Party’s focus on Donald Trump is intense, if occasionally spotty. Taken in concert with the party’s frequent criticisms of democracy, though, that focus on the former president becomes potentially more problematic.
Sign up for How To Read This Chart, a weekly data newsletter from Philip BumpIn 2017, the World Values Survey Association began conducting another wave of international polling, the latest in an endeavor that began in the 1980s. That included surveying a large group of Americans, posing a range of questions about politics and social issues.
Included in those results was a question about governmental leadership. Among other questions, respondents were asked whether they viewed a country having a strong leader who didn’t have to bother with elections or a legislature was a good or bad thing. Most American respondents said that this would be bad, with more than a third saying it would be very bad.
Interestingly, this varied by age. Younger Americans were more likely to say this would be good than were older Americans, though it was still the case that a majority viewed the idea of an anti-democratic autocrat as a negative. The dividing line appeared to be about age 45.
No comments:
Post a Comment