I was reading this Patricia Kilday Hart column about how nobody outside Texas paid attention to the sonogram bill until the Virginia brouhaha and the Doonesbury series, which is a good albeit frustrating read, when I came across this bit that was frustrating for an entirely different reason:
In the Texas Legislature, votes like Davis’ – outside party lines – are increasingly rare, according to research conducted by Dr. Mark Jones of Rice University’s Baker Institute.
Jones has data to prove what most of us know by gut instinct: The Texas Legislature has become a more polarized institution in recent decades.
In the past, lawmakers of both parties would overlap on the conservative-liberal spectrum. Now, both parties are dominated by their extremist wings. Moderate Republicans oppose ideologically charged issues like the sonogram bill “at their peril,” Jones says.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Please, Professor Jones, tell me who these people are that have radicalized the Democratic Party. I mean, I don’t know who you talk to, but I know an awful lot of folks who will laugh in your face if you suggest the Democratic Party has moved appreciably to the left in recent years. Tell me also what positions the Democratic Party has taken that are noticeably more extreme than they used to be, and what legislation they have been pushing to further those radical ends.
These questions are easy to answer for the Republican Party. For who the radicals are, start with Dan Patrick, Debbie Riddle, Wayne Christian, and most of the people that got elected in the 2010 wave. Oh, and Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, Greg Abbott, and now Susan Combs, too. Just compare the David Dewhurst who is running for US Senate to the one who presided over the Texas Senate in 2003, as a for-instance. The GOP as a whole has gone from a position of generally opposing abortion to a full-fledged attack on birth control and family planning, and from a position of generally supporting lower taxes and fewer regulations to opposing any tax increase on anything for any purpose, pushing huge tax cuts for the wealthy, cutting public education, and seeking to end Medicare. There’s quite a bit of polling data to suggest that they are sprinting towards a cliff by embracing these more radicalized stances, but even Republicans with a mostly moderate history are doing so because it’s what their base is demanding and they fear their primaries more than they fear their Novembers.
My point is there’s just no comparison. The Democratic Party has moved left on some things, most notably marriage equality, but it’s been a gradual shift that’s in line with previously held views on civil rights, and more to the point it’s consistent with national polling. The Republicans have moved way, way more to the right, and it’s happened almost entirely in the last two years, despite a plethora of polling evidence that should warn them against it. The “both sides do it” trope is ludicrous on its face. Why is this so hard to recognize?
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