New Survey Shows Liberals Live in Privileged Bubble, Segregated From Diversity and Opposing Thought
Shane Trejo
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Democrats are trapped in privileged bubbles, miles away from diversity and opposing thought, and that is how they develop their wildly off-base political perspectives, a recent study has shown.
The think-tank More in Common produced the study for its Hidden Tribes of America series by surveying over 2,000 partisan Republicans and Democrats to study their responses about what the other side thinks. This was done to measure the “perception gap” that has grown as politics have radicalized and polarized in recent years.
It found that Democrats, particularly ones who are college educated, are completely detached from Republicans with no understanding of their beliefs. Their complete and utter lack of perspective is what largely drives their leftist pathology, driving them to adopt negative attitudes about the white working class, for example.
“This effect,” the report says, “is so strong that Democrats without a high school diploma are three times more accurate than those with a postgraduate degree.”
The report also shows that educated Democrats who claim that “almost all my friends hold the same political views” are the ones who understand Republican viewpoints the least of all. While Democrats are the most out-of-touch with political reality, the survey also shows that neither side really understands the other.
For example, Democrats estimated that only half of Republicans believe that immigration can strengthen America as long as it is “properly controlled” while nearly 90 percent of Republicans believed that statement to be true in actuality.
Republicans also underestimated the patriotism of the Democrats. The study showed Republicans believe that only half of Democrats are still “proud to be American” while over 80 percent of Democrats responded that they are in fact still proud of their nation.
As polarization increases, the “perception gap” increases alongside of it, but the problem is markedly worse for gilded Democrats. This could have major political consequences, which can be seen as Democratic presidential contenders for 2020 offer extremist policies such as free health care for illegal immigrants to appeal to their out-of-touch base.
Certain Democrats, like those at the LA Progressive blog, are beginning to understand that their party is in peril unless Democrats venture outside of their little ideological bubbles in order to appeal to Americans and speak to them on issues that matter.
“When Martin Luther King marched from Selma to Montgomery, his fellow marchers included a priest, a nun, two rabbis, a Greek Orthodox archbishop and clergy of many Protestant denominations, black and white,” wrote sociology professor Arlie Hochschild, author of The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times.
“In the long run, major political change virtually always requires rising up to cross a bridge – an urgently needed model for the Democratic party itself today,” she added.
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