The Power of Partisanship

Monday, 29th November 2010

From Ross Douthat's latest column:

In 2006, Gallup asked the public whether the government posed an “immediate threat” to Americans. Only 21 percent of Republicans agreed, versus 57 percent of Democrats. In 2010, they asked again. This time, 21 percent of Democrats said yes, compared with 66 percent of Republicans.

In other words, millions of liberals can live with indefinite detention for accused terrorists and intimate body scans for everyone else, so long as a Democrat is overseeing them. And millions of conservatives find wartime security measures vastly more frightening when they’re pushed by Janet “Big Sis” Napolitano (as the Drudge Report calls her) rather than a Republican like Tom Ridge.

I suspect you would find something similar in Britain too, though perhaps the effect, like so much else, would be more modest. As Ross says, however, "Given how much authority is concentrated in Washington, especially in the executive branch, even a hypocritical and inconsistent opposition is better than no opposition at all."

That's also true for life at Westminster though, of course, as tends to be the case "a hypocritical and inconsistent opposition" is also the only type available.

Filed under: Congress (73 more articles) , Democrats (114 more articles) , GOP (332 more articles) , Washington (169 more articles) , Westminster (186 more articles)

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Craig Strachan

November 30th, 2010 3:40am Report this comment

"millions of liberals can live with indefinite detention for accused terrorists and intimate body scans for everyone else, so long as a Democrat is overseeing them. And millions of conservatives find wartime security measures vastly more frightening when they’re pushed by Janet “Big Sis” Napolitano".

Ah yes, but this overlooks all the libertarians who object consistently and on principle and there are thousands of us.
Maybe hundreds. Dozens for sure.

Baron

November 30th, 2010 7:24pm Report this comment

so much so for relying on the unwashed bastards; how could ‘a hypocritical and inconsistent opposition’ be better than none at all? To start with, would not a ‘no opposition set-up’ be cheaper?

Craig Strachan @ 3.40:

you sure there are dozens of you? It doesn’t show it the polls though.

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