Stop talking about a revolution. America hasn’t changed in 25 years

fullcomment.nationalpost.com...

But what you probably don’t know is that 418 sitting members of Congress sought their party’s nomination to run in the November election. (In the U.S. system, these primary races are often the toughest fights.) Of those 418 incumbents, a grand total of seven lost. That’s less than 2%.

So almost every incumbent who sought a nomination got it — and even that extraordinary fact doesn’t tell the full story. “If one looks at the seven cases where an incumbent was defeated,” says Michael J. Robinson, a political scientist retired from George Washington University, “it had nothing to do with the Tea Party movement, nothing to do with ideological shifts. It had to do with scandal, or people switching parties in the middle of their term in office.”

These results are almost identical to every other Congressional election. So where is the groundswell of popular anger that has the pundits so excited? Where are the mobs carrying pitchforks? Where is the fury that will throw the bums out and change everything?

In a new report for the Pew Research Center, Robinson surveyed the numbers and came to a conclusion that is simultaneously startling and reassuring. “I’m sure Canadians are now totally convinced that America is going to hell in a handbasket,” Robinson says with a laugh. “But in terms of politics, the centre is holding. There have been no basic changes in American political values, or party identification, or ideology, in the last 25 years.”

Pew Report

Party identification? In 1987, Democrats had a nine-point advantage over Republicans. Today, the Democrats have an eight-point lead.

Party Identification

As for polarization at the extremes, Robinson notes that in 1987 3% of Americans considered themselves extremely liberal and 3% said they were extremely conservative. “So that’s 6% willing to acknowledge they are, to use the term currently used in the United States, ‘wingnuts,’” Robinson chuckles. “What’s the percentage of wingnuts in the United States today? Four percent for extremely conservative, which is an increase of one percentage point. And for liberals, it’s 3%. So we’ve gone from 6% wingnuts to 7% wingnuts in the course of 22 years.”

Ideology
Ideology by state

The big story in the United States isn’t populist anger or the Tea Party, Robinson insists. Unemployment is almost 10%. The economy is sickly. Consumers are underwater. Deficits are mounting. The U.S. is bogged down in seemingly futile wars. But despite all this, Robinson notes, “we have had almost no social disorder in America and we’ve had almost no political violence.” And most Americans seem content to return Congressional incumbents to Washington.

Even the President isn’t doing that badly, given the circumstances. Obama’s approval rating of about 46% is actually equal to, or a little above, the approval ratings of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan at a similar point in their first terms.

As unusual as Robinson’s view may seem, it’s not at all remarkable among his colleagues. For years, political scientists have been insisting that the image of an America divided into two warring tribes is nonsense. It’s the political class — politicians, journalists, activists, and zealots — that has polarized. Not ordinary Americans. The fact that the U.S. could be so stable in such difficult circumstances is a dramatic demonstration of this hugely important fact.

Presidential Job Approval

Okay so of 418 incumbents only 7 lost that's about 1.67% of incumbents lost, that doesn't look like a revolution to me.

40% identify as Conservative, 36% as Moderate and 22% as Liberal. Broken even further down only 9% as Very Conservative and only 6% as very Liberal. The American electorate are not polarized.

26% identify Democrat Party as Very Liberal, 18% identify Republican Party as Very Conservative. That's not very polarized. Then factor in 3% say Democratic Party is Very Conservative and 4% say Republican Party is Very Liberal.

Let's go by every 10 years on that chart of party identification.

..........Democrat - - Republican

1939...41% - - - - - - 35%
1949...45% - - - - - - 32%
1959...46% - - - - - - 29%
1969...41% - - - - - - 27%
1979...44% - - - - - - 21%
1989...34% - - - - - - 32%
1999...34% - - - - - - 27%
2009...35% - - - - - - 23%

Not much of a change really except that now people don't like either party too much.

The Revolution out there? That's just all lies by the MSM, nothing special is going on that never happened before and actually it's not too far out of the ordinary right now in our political environment. So what's the big deal going on? The media combined with a serious recession, people have NOT changed their politics they are just more annoyed and frustrated, nothing revolutionary or even that special.

reply to post by Misoir


you get an a+ for effort man............

but i think this is a wee bit tad premature.........................the proof in the pudding will be this november.....

if all those stastics hold water then it will all have been a "lie"..................

there are alot of americans who have been "awakened" and yes wingnuts of both sides but my opinion its the independents who have the most power thesedays............

they are sick and tired of the status quo and the hardcore ideologs such as myself...........................this nation and this countrys future belongs to them..................

I actually got made a thread about this about a month ago, with the same information .

Although it wasn't presented like this one, I like this one better

And you are right, there is no " Anti-Incumbent" fever hitting the country, there never has been. It's just a ruse used by the MSM to make people believe there is "change" in the works.

Kind of sad.

~Keeper

NOTHING will ever change.

People believe that change can be brought about through the vote. The vote is the matrix.

The vote is the illusion of freedom provided by the exercise of meaningless choices; the provision of options with controlled outcomes.

All the options available are agreeable to the real power holders (your owners).

So keep waving your flags and printing those leaflets.

Lets all remember to come back after the elections and see if this holds true. I will make a gentlemens wager that it will not. In fact I am willing to bet that it will be definitely in the double digit percentile of seats lost. These studies are nothing to go by. We have been told that time and time again. November here we come!

Originally posted by SpaDe_
Lets all remember to come back after the elections and see if this holds true. I will make a gentlemens wager that it will not. In fact I am willing to bet that it will be definitely in the double digit percentile of seats lost. These studies are nothing to go by. We have been told that time and time again. November here we come!

It does not matter if all of them get voted out and new faces are voted in.

The options provided are vetted, bought, paid for and owned. Real change will come when people take control of their own power and do not look for someone to solve all their problems for them. Someone who will lie to their face and tell them that everything will be ok. People must take responsibility for their own local areas.

reply to post by SpaDe_


Who ever said Republicans wouldn't reclaim the House or even the Senate? I never said they wouldn't. What this person was saying was that the Tea Party is not like some new revolutionary feeling and America has been drastically changed in any real way. Doesn't mean they won't swing right.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I remember reading that post, it made alot of sense too.

reply to post by Misoir


This inaction on change in representitives is not the result the establishment maintaining power, this never was the case. Anybody who complains that 'the elite is keeping a hold' is just making a lazy excuse to cover up for their fellow voters decisions. There is nothing stopping americans from rallying third party and independent candidates and voting them in, infact as you stated the media is far more desperate for some real news other than that of established Republicans and Democrats. The reality of this is in the fact that many voters refuse to change in their voting habits, they are fixed in this one way view of voting, of support, and they in turn keep the established candidates in. You gotta ask yourself what happened to the tea parties and their insistence on voting out established candidates? Our of conservative voters I'd bet atleast 70% can account for themselves as tea party members, so why is it that we continue to see little change the amount of independent and third party candidates? Most people here are arguing that we should 'wait till November' and sure we can all do that, but signs are pointing to no progress in changing DC.

I supported the Democrats in 2008 to come in and have the change to bring about true reform in healthcare, that is the public option, to remove the patriot act, and since then , since they held a filibuster proof postion for a year, there are many things they failed to take a stand on. We made small progress towards holding insurance companies accountable through barring them from refusing pre-existing conditions for children and so forth, but the bill itself along with the progress made by Democrats have done little different as opposed to the Republicans. We can blame the recession but then again the Democrats had the chance to atleast make a stand. This is why I will not be supporting neither party regardless of whether they have 'new' candidates coming in. Iv had my fair share of 'new' and 'washington outsider' candidates over the years for the Democrats and it has not changed a damn thing, the same could be said for Republicans. Yet for other voters they either don't get it or don't really want to make real change in DC, instead they want to pay attention to anti-Democrat and anti-Republican ads and pick two sides.

There are no excuses, the voters are doing this to themselves.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


I agree, we need to stop making ecuses for those who vote for the two parties and complain about how bad things are.

reply to post by Misoir


It makes me chuckle in sad defeat every time I see anything about a "revolution" at the polls this year. It is all a joke and the media is taking advantage of it like they always do. In the few discreet cases where the incumbents have been removed, or have a chance of being replaced by anyone worthwhile, the outlook is completely dismal. People talk about all this change, all this revolutionary thinking - but I don't see it. People are as asleep as they ever were.

Which leads me back to my original points all the way back a year and plus ago. The voting system is a scam and as many have already said, only allows people to continue being stuck in the Matrix of it all. There will never, and this is as true now as it was when I said it a year ago, when I said it a decade ago - there will NEVER BE CHANGE VIA VOTING IN THIS COUNTRY. EVER.

So as far as the revolution. Still coming. Slow as it ever was but it is there, ready and awaiting orders. I still have 2 more years left on my time table but I have no doubt that I won't be proven wrong. Viva la REAL revolution.

no WAY, man,

the Tea PArty are a true alternative to the two party system!

/smirk/

Originally posted by justadood
no WAY, man,

the Tea PArty are a true alternative to the two party system!

/smirk/

And your a great example of the empty thoughts that grew the supporting base of the corrupt politicians which are all about to get owned, thrown out on their azz hats. Enjoy it while it lasts...just a dude.

reply to post by Misoir

there is a flaw in your math
you quote 400+ incumbents
but only 119 of those faced
primary challengers. You automatically
get ur parties nomination if you run unopposed.
In the general election you will have a challenger
whether it be opposing party or the Tea Party
candidate. Grassroots Tea Party candidates
were not allowed to participate in primaries.
Neither were Libertarians or Independents.
Only Republican Tea-Party switchers were allowed
in primaries.

Now on top of that let's also state that
of those 119 incumbents, the people who
voted only had the choice of voting for
a party candidate and wasn't allowed
to swing vote.

Now on top of that let's add in that write-ins
for primaries were not allowed.

Once you add in all those variables
then the MSM is actually hiding the
real stats that the anti-incumbent
votes were actually a lot higher.

I expect 15-20% of incumbents to
be replaced in general election.

That is around 1/5 of Congress.

wait til Nov. and you will see

There is a 'revolution' of sorts. I don't know who has attributed it to an "anti-incumbency" movement. This is the most active the political climate has been in my lifetime. Sure - every administration is surrounded with complaints, criticisms, etc. But the atmosphere is different. Conservatives are considerably more vocal.

I don't know who keeps making the claim that there is an anti-incumbency movement. I've not heard it preached. I'm also not sure where people get this idea of a third-party revolution. Sure - the "Tea party" is a sort of third-party development - I even consider it a third party. But it's not really a contending party in the elections (and won't be for a while).

There is, however, a growing number of people who are beginning to hold their government accountable. The problem is that there's no real clear idea on how to do this. There is no option to, instead, vote against a person. You can only vote for one person - and voting for the incumbent simply to recycle the present seat is risky.

How do you go about making your politicians responsible for their decisions when they control their pay rates, their party controls nominations, and there's no real strong third party or independent options?

My instinct is to grab a 4x4 rail, some tar, and feathers and rally the mob - but there's always the chance a sizable population would disagree with the motion to run the ineffective representative out on a rail and attempt to stop it. This would be most agreeable to me as it would give me an excuse to release my long-held distaste for society in general and being tormented as a kid for being smart.

But slaughtering a whole group of people you don't agree with is not socially acceptable, unless you win. Which is why I don't intend on losing if it comes to such extremes. Screw political boring political revolutions - have at you, liberal blasphemers! Let us enjoy ourselves and bathe in the mutually spilled blood!

I love writing goofy stuff like the last paragraph, there.

reply to post by boondock-saint


Only 119 faced a primary challenger, whether that is correct or not that still means that over 400 had a primary whether they ran opposed or not. You can't simply manipulate the numbers to your liking.

So where is a link to provide evidence for your claims?

And wait until November for what? So all you Republicans and Republican sympathizers can scream about a dictatorship when the Democrats keep both chambers? Yeah, that week I plan on laughing until I fall over. FOX will be my favorite network as they scream about how they lost!

reply to post by Misoir


Maddow has that rare combination of delusional but like the confident smirky kind of delusional. i hope if i lose my mind someday i can hold it together as well as she does.

reply to post by snusfanatic


Yeah, I agree.

I just hope if I lose my mind it doesn't turn out like Ed Schultz or Glenn Beck.

With the hypothetical talk of a revolution in America, where will the revolution come from? and who would be leading any type of revolution? America seems a pretty divided nation and you need people to work together if you are to have any success.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


If you read the whole OP you would see that America is not divided, that is a myth perpetrated by the MSM. The only ones who want a revolution are the very small minority of Hard-Line Conservatives. If they tried to start anything all it would be is militias and the Tea Party trying to start some crap while at the same time making everyone else unite against them. About 91% would unite against the radical 9% causing chaos.