The following article by Jason Jordan was posted on the Washington Post website February 7, 2018:
American politics may be more polarized today than at any time in the postwar period. While this fact is commonly lamented, it has had one arguably beneficial side effect: Americans have become better at identifying where the presidential candidates stand relative to each other — a task that has long challenged voters.
For years, the long-standing survey conducted by American National Election Studies has asked respondents to place the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on scales measuring their views on different issues, ranging from a more liberal to a more conservative option. The graph below examines three issues: how much the government should spend overall, its responsibility for guaranteeing that every person has a job and how much assistance it should provide to African Americans. The graph shows the percentage of Americans who placed the Democrat to the left of the Republican in each presidential election dating to 1996. Continue reading “Americans are getting smarter about politics in at least one important way”