The World’s on Fire
A candidate set out to build a database to see who was going to vote in his Republican primary – and what he learned surprised him: He found only 10% of the people had voted in the last off-year (2014) Republican primary. In addition, he discovered a second group of people who had occasionally voted in Presidential Primaries – but the first group were the ‘core’ Republican voters, the Republicans who almost always vote.
Out of curiosity he then looked at Democratic primary voters and saw a similar number: 10%.
And those two tribes – the ‘core’ primary voters in each party – share a peculiar characteristic: They’re obsessed with politics. They follow politics the way a hyper-zealous UNC fan follows basketball. They watch Fox News or CNN almost every night. When they open their newspapers in the morning, they read stories about Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi. When they go out to dinner with friends they argue about tariffs and North Korea and tweets.
And, naturally, those two tribes loathe each other – every day we see the war between them play out on Fox News and CNN and in the newspapers and it sounds like the whole world’s on fire – like half of America passionately loves Trump while the other half rabidly hates him.
But, at the end of the day, all we’re watching is a war between two obsessed tribes who make up 20% of the voters. The whole world’s not on fire at all.
The World’s on Fire
A candidate set out to build a database to see who was going to vote in his Republican primary – and what he learned surprised him: He found only 10% of the people had voted in the last off-year (2014) Republican primary. In addition, he discovered a second group of people who had occasionally voted in Presidential Primaries – but the first group were the ‘core’ Republican voters, the Republicans who almost always vote.
Out of curiosity he then looked at Democratic primary voters and saw a similar number: 10%.
And those two tribes – the ‘core’ primary voters in each party – share a peculiar characteristic: They’re obsessed with politics. They follow politics the way a hyper-zealous UNC fan follows basketball. They watch Fox News or CNN almost every night. When they open their newspapers in the morning, they read stories about Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi. When they go out to dinner with friends they argue about tariffs and North Korea and tweets.
And, naturally, those two tribes loathe each other – every day we see the war between them play out on Fox News and CNN and in the newspapers and it sounds like the whole world’s on fire – like half of America passionately loves Trump while the other half rabidly hates him.
But, at the end of the day, all we’re watching is a war between two obsessed tribes who make up 20% of the voters. The whole world’s not on fire at all.