Pew Research Center: Americans At End of Ideological Spectrum Are The Most Active In National Politics

I spend a large amount of time these days watching, studying and mocking all of these hysterical idiots in the Acela Corridor who are on Twitter. It was “1/6” last Thursday in their bubble and “our democracy” was teetering on the brink of collapse. Civil War 2 was about to break out.

Anyway, we all know that they live in a bubble. It is fun to watch how the memes spread like wildfire through the Twitter bubble like “journalists are accomplices in the murder of democracy” and rejecting “both sides-ism” in favor of a “pro-democracy media.” Pew Research Center has some data on the bubble which illustrates how far removed these prolific tweeters are from real life.

Pew Research Center:

“Several Center analyses have found that a small share of Twitter users produce the majority of content on the site. The Twitter conversation about national politics is also driven by a small number of prolific users, according to a 2019 analysis. Some 55% of highly active political tweeters described themselves as either very liberal or very conservative, based on an 11-point measure of ideology where scores of 0 (most conservative) to 2 were defined as very conservative, and scores of 8-10 were defined as very liberal. Among nonpolitical tweeters, 28% also chose one of these more polarized options.

In addition to being at the ends of the political spectrum, prolific political tweeters were especially likely to report engaging in political activities. In the year prior to the survey (a time period that included the 2018 midterm election), 34% of this group reported attending a political rally or event, while 57% said they contacted an elected official and 38% said they contributed money to a political campaign.”

Progressive activists and establishment liberals on Twitter who are panicking about the imminent death of American democracy are super involved in politics:

They are overwhelmingly more likely to vote, attend rallies, follow the news, contact elected officials, give money to campaigns, demonize the opposition and live in a partisan bubble. They are strongly attached to the Democratic Party. They are satisfied with the direction of the country.

I guess part of the hysteria is attributable to assumption of these people that we are as hyper engaged in politics as they are when that is not the case. Overwhelming cynicism about politics is the norm in our circles. We are overwhelmingly more likely to say that voting doesn’t matter.

“Voter suppression” is something we do to ourselves. I didn’t vote in 2014, 2018 or 2020. I spent years making fun of the Dump presidency. I don’t know of anyone who is engaged in the system enough to consider “voter suppression.” There is so much cynicism and contempt for the system that most people with “anti-democratic attitudes” don’t bother to vote. Politicians are bought and sold and traded like stock anyway. Those who continue to believe in voting tended to be seen as fools.