Tag: conservatives

In America, Conservaives Outnumber Liberals by a Narrowing Margin

Buck Banks

11 points

Gallup: “Many more Americans have considered themselves politically conservative than liberal since the early 1990s. That remained the case in 2016, when an average of 36% of U.S. adults throughout the year identified themselves as conservative and 25% as liberal. Yet that 11-percentage-point margin is half of what it was at its peak in 1996 and is down from 14 points only two years ago.”

Cook Looks at a Post-Trump Election

Buck Banks

It’s still a great question how this Republican nomination race will sort out once this Trump nonsense ends. The GOP splits roughly 60-40 these days: 60 percent of its voters are pretty conventional, mainstream Republicans, while the other 40 percent are of a somewhat more exotic variety, up from just a third a decade ago. This latter group is made up of three subgroups: secular, anti-establishment, tea-party adherents; evangelical conservatives driven chiefly by cultural issues; and those who are just really conservative and more ideologically driven than your normal garden-variety Republicans. … Historically, this collection of less-conventional Republicans has loomed large in Iowa, then gradually given way to more-mainstream GOP voters in the final stretch, but the harder-edged Republicans have been on the ascendency and may play an even greater role in choosing the nominee this time around than in the past.

— Charlie Cook

GOP Conservative Base Is Shrinking

Buck Banks

42%

The percentage of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who describe themselves as both social and economic conservatives, the lowest level Gallup has measured since 2005. The second-largest group of Republicans (24%) see themselves as moderate or liberal on both social and economic issues, while 20% of all Republicans are moderate or liberal on social issues but conservative on economic ones.

Liberals Now Equal Conservatives

Buck Banks

31%

For the first time since Gallup began tracking it in 1999, there are now as many Americans who describe their views on social issues as “liberal” as there are who describe them as “conservative,” the Washington Post reports. “It’s been a long and slow crawl, but Americans have steadily become more liberal on social issues without much interruption — except for a brief dip when President Obama first took office in 2009. Today, it’s tied at 31 percent. Back in 1999, it was about two-to-one conservative over liberal.”

Kudzu Kills: New Research Shows That the Vine That Won’t Die Also Releases Harmful Ozone Gas – But Is It a Scourge from God?

Jon Ponder

Left: kudzu up close; kudzu devouring a utility pole; kudzu in Raleigh takes shape Christ statue in Rio de Janero (inset); and kudzu eats a truck
Left: kudzu up close; kudzu devouring a utility pole; kudzu in Raleigh takes shape Christ statue in Rio de Janero (inset); and kudzu eats a truck
Kudzu is the vine that ate the South — or rather is eating the South, at the rate of 125,000 acres of fields, suburban backyards and city alleys per year. It is also one of the very few things Southerners of all stripes can agree on. Whether smart or slow, liberal or conservative; black, white or other; rich or poor; young or old; 15 generations in or new Yankee transplant — everyone agrees that kudzu is a scourge.

And while research shows that the nearly impossible to kill vine has medicinal properties — it is being tested for efficacy in treating migraine headaches, vertigo, cancer prevention, various allergies, gastrointestinal upsets and even potentially helping alcohol abuse — a new report suggests that kudzu emits a toxic gas:

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