Two-thirds of Americans think that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the country
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/04/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-that-the-democratic-party-is-out-of-touch-with-the-country/?utm_term=.dc0d1db65142By Philip Bump April 23 at 12:41 PM
"You might not be surprised if I were to tell you that a majority of Americans think that President Trump is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today. Sure, he won the election, but a plurality of voters opposed him, and a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that he hasn’t expanded his base of support significantly since then. You certainly wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there’s a broad partisan split on the question, as there is on nearly everything in politics these days.
Only 1 in 10 of those who voted for Trump in November think he’s out of touch — but 90 percent of Hillary Clinton voters do. Partisan views are slightly more moderate, with 20 percent of Republicans and 87 percent of Democrats holding that position.
When it comes to the Republican Party, the numbers are a bit worse. Sixty-two percent of Americans, and 30 percent of Republicans themselves, think that the GOP is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States.
But none of this means that Democrats are seen as echoing the concerns of the common man. In fact, the Democratic Party is viewed as more out of touch than either Trump or the party’s political opponents. Two-thirds of Americans think the Democrats are out of touch — including nearly half of Democrats themselves."
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I was surprised to see this. That the GOP (62%) and Democratic parties (67%) are both viewed as out of touch by ~2/3 of voters. For the Democrats 44% of Democrats say the party is out of touch.
The question is out of touch in exactly which ways?
Hope to find a followup to this.
= new reply since forum marked as read
that means anything other than lying about what they're up to. (?) But I sure do hope you're right and that that really does not cut it any more for a smallish but critical percentage.
So many times I thought conservative voters would have to just say no, and it hasn't happened. After electing Rump, I no longer believe, as I did for 40 years, that there would be a bottom for them to recognize and say that "no" to. They believe that bottom is on the other side of the left from them and that as long as they oppose us they are on the side of good.
Social scientists note that hard-right conservatives (same for those on the far left) lack insight into themselves. All they see are what they always believe are severe faults in those "others" who don't agree with them.
Yurbud, but I've certainly seen it in too many. We have a lot of fundamentalist congregations here in rural Georgia.
It takes a special sort to think react that way, though, and the critical percentage of more moderate conservatives that democracy must have to function are still there. But they're shockingly unreachable. Even the specter of "the rough beast" come to violate all they once professed to believe didn't finally cause them to break ranks with the maximal zealots.
Been taking some time out from all this. The marches this weekend were happy news, though. Only wish health issues had let me participate. Those people were feeling good about what they were doing.
if you think it was manufactured by the pollster. Fake news and all that....
But the poll is worrisome if true and there is other evidence that trend in the favorability of the Democratic party in aggregate polling has been moving in the wrong direction recently in spite of an VERY unpopular President. Right now the average is 49.8% Unfavorable, 39.0% Favorable, and 11.9% undecided. Not as bad as the out of touch number reported above, but certainly not good. Knowing the root cause would be good-- people just sick of politics, or something more specific...
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/democratic-party-favorable-rating
Democrats (see the Koch brothers and their brethren). If you look at the graph in my last post, you will see that the Democratic Party favorability began to go south around October 1, 2016. This date suggests the effects are from things like the Russians and the coordinated paid right-wing slander campaigns that were launched around then. If you look at the polls for the Senate races in swing states, you will see that candidates like Feingold in Wisconsin and McGinty in Pennsylvania began to lose steam around then as well. Comey was the final straw that reinforced the slander and depressed Democratic turnout starting about 10 days before the election.
It appears to me that the effects of the attacks have not been neutralized which is why the Democratic Party is polling unfavorably and why Hillary Clinton has not regained favorability in the polls after being completely exonerated by Comey (although I doubt that she would really lose again if the election was held again right now, but the polls that say so are "concerning"
. The effects of the mudslinging NEED to be neutralized and fast by some positive, hopeful press about Democrats. In other words we need "Optimism."
