Most people think that the Republican Party is divided and the Democratic Party are walking in step with each other. But the truth of the matter is that more than a third of Democrats, 37%, call themselves moderate politically. And get this…12% of the Democratic Party see themselves as conservative!
That means approximately 50% of the Democratic Party are not progressives or socialists, they don’t even consider themselves liberal. These statistics come from a Gallup poll that reveals a deep-seated struggle within the Democratic Party.
The televised hearings happening this week from the House Select Committee’s investigation of the January 6 attack on the Capitol could clarify the confusion on both sides of the Party.
Juan Williams wrote this week for The Hill and said that the hearings could define Democrats as the guardians of 250 years of constitutional order.
“They would stand in stark contrast to the insurrectionists who violently attacked Congress to keep a cult leader and autocrat in the White House,” Williams wrote.
Williams challenged the Democratic to confront this moment in history. He wants it to be known that it’s the Democrats in 2022 who are seriously debating gun control and immigration. He says that it’s the GOP who is silencing their moderate voices.
But how does that coincide with what Gallup just reported? There is half of the Democratic Party that must be keeping silent during these debates on gun control and immigration.
The progressives in the Party have gotten the spotlight in recent years, and they have certainly increased their numbers on that side of the aisle.
In 2000, there were about 30% of the Party would have been called progressives, according to Gallup. The number of liberals in the Party only got to 50% when Donald Trump was elected as president.
Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. They are the dominant party in the country’s biggest cities. And the senators on the Democratic side of the aisle represent millions more people than their GOP counterparts.
The polarization in both Parties has created a great influence on swing voters, those who say that vote independently of both Parties. This now accounts for 42% of American voters. They have more people than those who tell Gallup they are Democrats (28%) or Republicans (28%).
Liberal Democrats are getting the spotlight, but it was the moderate voters that enabled Joe Biden to win the 2020 election.
The approval rating for the president indicates that the Party is grossly split. Some want him to take a stronger stand against those heavy on the right who are still talking about a stolen election and excited about the prospect of ending abortion.
But Biden’s numbers are this low because of the great divide among Democrats. The president just doesn’t seem to have the power to define his own Party the way that Trump was able to define the GOP.
Trump is the clear favorite among the GOP voting constituency. He is by far the favorite to win the 2024 presidential nomination if he chooses to run.
The last nail in the coffin for Republicans who oppose Trump will come if Rep. Liz Cheney from Wyoming is defeated in the August Primary. She is the vice-chair of the January 6 committee.
The Republican Party doesn’t have anything like the ideological split that is in the Democratic Party. You can see the lines shifting in the way Democrats are voting in this year’s primaries.
Liberal Democrats have won some key primaries, but moderate Democrats have also won key races in Ohio and North Carolina.
Juan Williams said, “It is ironic that the Democratic Party’s commitment to solving problems by openly debating policy may fuel internal divisions that doom them to defeat in November.”
