Our Political DNA in 2017 - what drives our political considerations:
Bottom Line: It's no secret that Americans appear as divided as ever. Btw, that's demonstrably not true, lest we forget we actually fought a war against each other, but certainly the extremes seem to be magnified these days. Some of that is probably the advent of so many 24/7 news outlets combined with social media endlessly pumping it in front of you. Some of it is real but as is often the case there's a lot of additional context and texture to the conversation. We're all aware that not all Democrats, Republicans or independents are created equal but we also probably aren't aware of where we stand with one another generally. Pew Research wrapped up a pretty impressive study on the "Typlogy" of the average American.
For high engaged Americans here's what they found...
Democrats and Republicans fell into four categories:
Democrats:
- Solid Liberals: 25%
- Opportunity Democrats: 13%
- Devout: 11%
- Diversity driven: 6%
Republicans:
- Core Conservatives: 20%
- Market Republicans: 10%
- Enterprise based: 9%
- Country First: 6%
The first takeaway is that there are currently about 5% more ID Democrats of some sort compared to Republicans among the most engaged currently. The numbers change as engagement level changes for example 8% of Americans currently say they're on the sidelines politically at the moment. Anyway, what does show up in these numbers is a bit of confirmation regarding extremes but also a better understanding of what's driving most of Americans.
Among all Americans 29% fall into "the extremes". That number jumps to 45% among the most engaged with the extremes on the left being the single biggest driver of politicking right now. That being said you still have nearly as many Democrats who are just lifers and believe the party represents opportunity (and that's why they stay there politically). You also see that the ID politics crowd is actually the smallest on the left at 6%.
Republicans are interesting in a different way. While core conservatives are the largest constituency, there are still just as many business/market oriented folks. We also see those who are Republicans mostly out of a sense of patriotism is the smallest at 6%.
You can draw the conclusions you'd like from here but it tells a much more complex, and complete, story of us.