Gary Kamiya analyzes the newest Pew poll, and if I were a Republican, I'd be afraid. Or maybe I'd just start another war on false pretenses and drape everything in jingoistic hyper-patriotic language and curtail civil liberties and politicize the Justice Department hoping to extend a hegemony that was founded on divisive rhetoric and a pseudo-fascist State of Perpetual Alarm against an invisible enemy. Maybe.
Just a taste of the changing American political climate:
The most explosive statistic in the survey shows a mass exodus from the GOP -- a defection that can only be blamed on Bush and the Iraq war. In 2002, the number of people who identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning was the same as those who identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning: 43 percent. But today, 50 percent of the public identify as Democrats or leaning that way, while only 35 percent identify as Republicans or Republican-leaning. In other words, in just five years Democrats have gone from being tied with the Republicans to holding a 15 percent lead.
You can (and should) read the whole article here.
|