According to a new Washington Post poll, the majority of Trump supporters don’t know anyone who supports Hillary. Among Hillary’s supporters, even more don’t know anyone who supports Trump. (Reminds me of the famous movie critic Pauline Kael, would said, “How could Nixon have won, I don’t know anyone who voted for him”).
It seems more and more people are practicing “sorting” living in neighborhoods where people think as they do. This sorting includes churches, schools, and clubs. From the Washington Post,
“You used to not be able to talk about politics at a polite dinner party because you would probably have a fight,” said Lilliana Mason, an assistant professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland whose research focuses on the polarizing effect of partisan sorting. “Increasingly, you can talk about politics at a dinner party because most of the people at the dinner party probably agree with you.”
And I thought it was only folks like me who are involved in politics and therefore surrounded by like minded people. Even my neighborhood is 100% Republican, and very strong Republicans. Apparently I am not alone and such neighborhoods are common across the commonwealth.
This year many voters on both sides don’t want to admit who they are supporting for President. Both candidates are strongly disliked by a large segment of the population,
“Most people think that one of them is the devil and the other one is just slightly more acceptable than the devil,” said Quentin Kidd, a Christopher Newport University political scientist and director of CNU’s Wason Center for Public Policy.
“If you think Hillary Clinton should be in jail, how positively are you going to respond to somebody who says, ‘I love Hillary Clinton’?” Kidd said. “If you think Donald Trump is a complete idiot, how positively are you going to respond to somebody who says, ‘I love Donald Trump’? And because the answer is ‘not very’ in either situation, the less likely it is that you’re going to want to talk about it with someone you don’t want to have an argument with.”
Things that separate the two political parties:
Read more about what divides us along political lines here.