[81alum]

[quote author=81alum link=topic=14611.msg156536#msg156536 date=1455518917]
Many ideology surveys show only minimal change among Americans over the last 50 years on political ideology. 

Hm, I'm not sure this is accurate. People have become much more stratified in their ideology and much more likely to vote straight down the ballot.
[/quote]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mon...polarized/

While this is a Post article, it summarized a fairly sophisticated study published in the Journal of Politics, one of a number of fairly well respected Political Science journals--now published by the University of Chicago Press.  I think the argument made by the two assistant professors is spot-on.  We mistake party-sorting for polarization.  The main difference in the American public is that conservative Democrats have become Republicans, and liberal Republicans have become Democrats.  But they are still conservatives or liberals, respectively, and have not drifted to the right or the left of their previous ideologies.

It is in this way that one can say you are correct that there are many more people who 'vote straight down the ballot" but that I am also correct in that the overall ideological balance of the nation has not changed. 

The two political parties have become more "pure" in their respective ideologies, then, but there are no more liberals or conservatives than there ever have been.  The phenomenon we are seeing is therefore institutional and not cultural--it is the particular way our political system sorts out the ideological differences of Americans that has changed--not the ideologies of Americans.

[81alum]

[quote author=81alum link=topic=14611.msg156536#msg156536 date=1455518917]
Many ideology surveys show only minimal change among Americans over the last 50 years on political ideology. 

Hm, I'm not sure this is accurate. People have become much more stratified in their ideology and much more likely to vote straight down the ballot.
[/quote]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mon...polarized/

While this is a Post article, it summarized a fairly sophisticated study published in the Journal of Politics, one of a number of fairly well respected Political Science journals--now published by the University of Chicago Press.  I think the argument made by the two assistant professors is spot-on.  We mistake party-sorting for polarization.  The main difference in the American public is that conservative Democrats have become Republicans, and liberal Republicans have become Democrats.  But they are still conservatives or liberals, respectively, and have not drifted to the right or the left of their previous ideologies.

It is in this way that one can say you are correct that there are many more people who 'vote straight down the ballot" but that I am also correct in that the overall ideological balance of the nation has not changed. 

The two political parties have become more "pure" in their respective ideologies, then, but there are no more liberals or conservatives than there ever have been.  The phenomenon we are seeing is therefore institutional and not cultural--it is the particular way our political system sorts out the ideological differences of Americans that has changed--not the ideologies of Americans.