Are Tea Partiers Really Less Willing to Compromise Than Extreme Lefties?
Mother Jones
Hardcore conservatives agree with liberals on a lot. They just don’t want to compromise.
This is based on the Pew typology survey, which finds that “steadfast conservatives” oppose compromise by a 2:1 margin, while every other group favors compromise by at least a little bit. At the far left end of the spectrum, “solid liberals” favor compromise by 84-11 percent.
This is the same result that we’ve seen in lots of other surveys, and I sure wish someone would dig deeper into this. I can think of several questions:
Are folks on the far left really in favor of compromise? Or by “compromise” do they actually mean “the other side should back down in exchange for a few bones”?
Do extreme conservatives have good reason to be suspicious of compromise? A feeling of being sold out is a common trope on the right, but is it justified?
Are liberals in favor of compromise because they believe—correctly—that change is always incremental, which makes it sensible to accept an increment now in the sound belief that it will encourage a slippery slope toward further increments? (And likewise, are conservatives perfectly rational to oppose compromise for the same reason?)
In practice, when various real-world compromise positions are polled, are extreme liberals truly more willing to accept them than extreme conservatives?
You can probably guess that I’m a little skeptical of the entire notion that liberals are all sweetly willing to compromise. They certainly talk in a more conciliatory manner than tea partiers, and maybe in the end they really are more willing to swallow half a loaf. But I have my doubts. More research, please.
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Are Tea Partiers Really Less Willing to Compromise Than Extreme Lefties?
