Asymmetrical punditry
by digby
I made Ron Fournier mad today:
The latest Pew Poll deep dive into American political attitudes inspired a very bored Ron Fournier to sigh deeply, dust off his lace cuffs and blithely wave off all concerns about “asymmetrical polarization,” the notion that the conservatives are moving farther and faster to the right than the left is moving left. “This is my fundamental disagreement with partisan journalists and political scientists who dedicate their careers to measuring increments of fault—the GOP’s share of blame is 20 percent or 60 percent or 80 percent,” Fournier gripes. “Who cares? Not the average voter who merely wants her leaders to work together and get results.”
Yes, if there’s one person qualified to speak for the average voter it’s Ron Fournier. Perhaps Pew should simplify its model and just interview him in the future. Who better to speak for the people than a well-connected Washington, D.C., insider?
The larger point of the piece is that asymmetrical polarization does in fact exist and if Democrats are finally moving further left it’s in reaction to that — and what they’ve seen their elected officials do in response to it.
I also point out some of the Democrats’ tactics to keep the left in line and how that’s likely to keep the asymmetry alive at least in Washington for the near term. I also predict that the liberals will probably discover that there is power in showing the Party that they can play the Tea Party game too — and that means going after fellow liberals in safe blue districts. I don’t know if that will happen, but you don’t have to be an oracle to see that unless the Party figures out a way to stop the rightward tilt in DC, there is inevitably going to be a reaction from their own voters who are starting to identify as more left than center in fairly large numbers.
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