American voters who have remained in the two-party system are more partisan than ever before and they're saying so in public opinion polls every year:
"Surveys over time have used a 100-point thermometer scale to rate how voters feel toward each other, from cold to warm. Democrats and Republicans have been giving lower and lower scores — more cold shoulder — to the opposite party. By 2008, the average rating for members of the other party was barely above 30. That’s significantly worse than how Democrats rated even 'big business' and how Republicans rated 'people on welfare.'
By 2016, that average dropped by about five more percentage points, dragged down in part by a new phenomenon: For the first time, the most common answer given was zero, the worst possible option. In other words, voters on the left and right now feel downright frigid toward each other."
Well it's showing up in other headlines, too, not just public opinion surveys. As more moderate voters who are more interested in calm, thoughtful dialogue about public policy leave the two parties to become unaffiliated, independent voters, the ones who remain are more zealously committed to the partisan turf war over America's governments.
It's a turf war that in all too many cases seems to put knee-jerk loyalty to the party on any issue over good policy, or even consistency, or even the truth or right and wrong.
Here are some of the most partisan stories from 2017:
1. "Donald Trump's Unprecedented, Divisive Speech" - TIME Magazine
TIME, we knew you had already made up your mind not to like the speech beforehand. Come on. Give me a break.
2. CNN Hypes WikiLeaks / Trump "Smoking Gun" - CNN
Based on a glaring, easily noticeable error, in what became one of the U.S. media's most humiliating debacles in ages and now refuses all transparency over what happened.
3. Virginia Shooter Asked: “Are They Republicans or Democrats?” - IVN
This isn't an example of a partisan take on a story, but a non-partisan report on one of the most surreal and evil manifestations of partisanship we saw all year.
4. "Dickerson: Why does Rand Paul mow his own lawn?" - Detroit Free Press
Amazing how callous partisan politics can make a person toward a violent assault that cracked six of someone's ribs if that person is a Democrat and the assault victim is a Republican.
5. "Donald Trump Defends People Who Attended White Supremacist Rally In Charlottesville (Plus A Whole Lot More)" - The Huffington Post
Many partisan media outlets excoriated Donald Trump for even acknowledging that there was violence on both sides of the Charlottesville protests.
6. "Has Anyone Noticed That Trump's Economy Keeps Beating Expectations?" - Investor's Business Daily
These kind of headlines are always partisan in nature. Oh yeah, it's Trump's economy? I'm sure when an economy is strong under a Democrat the kind of people who like this article are going to point out the POTUS can't claim responsibility for an economy's success– that it's the result of hard working businesses and individuals.
7. "The story of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and an indicted IT staffer that’s lighting up the right, explained" - The Washington Post
The Washington Post painted this incredible story of malfeasance in Congress as a partisan attack on congressional Democrats instead of taking it seriously as an incredible story of malfeasance in Congress– precisely because it involves congressional Democrats.
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