Heck, it’ll even thrive.

The Democrat Party, not so much.

For the last several years there has been an incessant drumbeat of polarization. Turn on any outlet, major, minor or just some guy on YouTube and all you will hear is how polarized the US has become. The events of the last three weeks seem to seal the deal for many people.

But it’s still not true. America remains as insanely centrist as she’s always been. Seriously, America’s centrism is just plain old weird. We have weak parties (yes, really) and a normally raucous electorate, the last two decades notwithstanding, and yet, there’s not a lot of difference between the major parties.

Don’t start hollering at your computer. It’s not like I can hear you and people will think you’re weird. Better? Good. Look, only a handful of issues are really opposite sides for the respective parties. Abortion and gun control are the biggest ones. Immigration, not so much. There, the bases differ much more strongly than the rest of the parties. Rather than truly opposite viewpoints, the disagreements tend instead to be a matter of degree.

At present, immigration is becoming far more divisive within the Democrat Party than it is for America as a whole.

Most issues are varied by degree, not polarity, between the parties. This remains true even now that we are supposedly so divided. America’s political bell curve is still one gigantic hump. The whole may shift from side to side occasionally, but despite what you keep hearing, that big ol’ lump stays pretty well together.

Weighted micropolls and social media metrics do not disprove this. Micropolls are flat out invalid on a volatile electorate and they are gauged by the presidential race, making them worse than useless. Even if they weren’t infinitesimal weighted samples, they aren’t asking the right questions. Social media metrics are even worse. They are representative only of the accounts on the given platform. Bots, automated or human, rarely even have the ability to vote. Representing a computer program that is trying to scam people doesn’t tell us a whole lot about real people. Even if that weren’t a problem, and it very much is, the real people on the platform only represent people on the platform, not the whole American population.

Yes, I know. The pretty numbers have to mean something. Unfortunately, they mostly mean we do a crappy job of teaching kids how to understand polls and statistics. We really have got to do something about our education system soon.

Statistics – numbers – only matter if they are collected and calculated correctly. All that long winded explanation of mine amounts to is this: the numbers used to prove that the US is polarized are so badly tabulated that they are meaningless.

But even a broken clock can be right twice a day. Bad methodology can yield correct results. Trouble is, you have no way of knowing if the results are correct because of the bad methodology. Still. why am I so sure the US isn’t polarized when everyone else thinks we are?

The numbers are just abstractions about groups of people. We have other tools in the tool chest to figure out what people are thinking. The big one is behavior. Groups, like individuals, tend to act in accordance with their beliefs. They also tend to act when agitated. High levels of polarization should show in behavior.

So, where are the bar fights? Altercations at sporting events? Counter protests leading to clashes with other protestors? Where in the real world do we see this polarization manifest into behavior?

Well, it doesn’t really. We’re not seeing the elevated levels of confrontation between individuals and groups that we should expect if real live people were as polarized as we’re told.

No, social media doesn’t explain the absence. If anything, social media should heighten the likelihood of real life altercations rather than minimizing them by providing an outlet for frustration. We haven’t seen this minimization at all. Most of the political violence has been from the Left despite the fact that the Left has not been the target of censorship the way the Right has. Plenty of people on the Right have been incensed by the unfair treatment so we should expect to see more violence coming from them.

But we see the exact opposite. Clearly, social media has little incitement effect with those not already predisposed to being incited to external acts and no minimizing effect at all.

So, again, where are the bar fights?

The absence of significant levels of confrontational behavior points to American polity not being particularly polarized. The party bases, sure, they always are, but not the party rank and file or even identifiers. American polity is showing none of the behavioral signs of significant division.

Oh, they fuss a lot. That’s normal American politics re-emerging after a couple decades of vacation time. We Americans will argue about the time of day. But real polarization should lead to a bar fight, not everyone having a beer and turning on a game. They seem to be watching the ball games, not escalating their political dissention.

The legacy media, on the other hand, is in full meltdown. Only this time, they seem to really be melting down instead of the usual overblown rhetoric. What’s up with that?

The legacy media is overwhelmingly made up not only of Democrats, but Democrat activists. It has not done good things for their journalism skills. It’s presently doing worse things for their balance sheets. Well, they definitely are not going quietly into that good night.

The fancy term for this is a party system shift. It just means the major parties, either both or separately, are realigning. Remember I said we have weak parties? That’s because major parties are fairly loose coalitions. Often these coalitions have members that are at odds with each other like Big Tech and Unions. They get along in order for the party to gain power and use that power to favor its coalition membership.

That’s the idea, anyway. Eventually, the party can’t keep all its members happy and it starts a realignment. Minor ones happen all the time but when the largest parts of the coalition start infighting the party is about to have some major changes.

This doesn’t happen very often. We’re only on number 6 or 7, depending on how you count them. When they do happen, they can be pretty lackluster as with what appears to be a recent major realignment in the Republican Party or it can be spectacular. The Democrats have opted for spectacular.

This is not a good thing.

The Democrats are destroying their own party. That’s what you’re seeing playing out in the legacy media. Hilariously, the New York Times found out it didn’t have the power to force Biden to step aside. Arrogance and stupidity aside, the mere fact that they were trying likely portends a very, very nasty convention in August despite the fact that Biden will have the nomination as of next week.

Edit: Obviously, this was written before Biden stepped down.

The main point remains the same so I’ve left the original version.

Back to your blog, already in progress:

The Democrats mucked up their schedule and have to have an early nomination in order to have their nominee on the Ohio ballot. Presumably, the Democrat Convention will still take place in Chicago in August. They will desperately need the boost going into September if they are to have any hope of salvaging the Presidential election as well as the House and Senate.

But if the legacy media is any indication, the convention is more likely to damage the Democrats than boost them. Technically, it’s not possible to have a negative number of seats, but danged if it doesn’t look like they are trying for it. Less than four months from the election, a week from their own party’s nomination and they didn’t last 24 hours after Biden called for the rhetoric to be calmed down.

Biden didn’t last that long, either, but he’s got a better excuse. Dementia or whatever is going on with him doesn’t make for good short term memory.

On the heels of the assassination attempt, the legacy media is right back at the offensive, nasty rhetoric. That’s both desperation and stupidity. Acting like decent people for a few weeks might just get the American people to be more sympathetic to the Democrat Party. It might not be enough to win this election but it would staunch the bleeding and maybe even help save the party.

Nope, nope, none of that. Knives all out, demonization on full!

If the professionals can’t hold it together for three days, what chance is there of this party surviving when Trump is re-elected?

I’ll take zero for $500, Alex!

America is a centrist nation. She has no right to be. We fuss and fight over everything. We argue as a national sport. But once the dust settles, we bearhug and talk about how great the fight was on the way to having a beer. We’re weird that way. We’re Americans.

The only way to be successful as a major American political party is to hug the center. That’s where the majority is. That’s where all the cool cats are.

That’s how you win elections in the US of A. You play to the center. Nothing has changed.

Nothing much will change. Oh, it’s scary while it’s happening but it’s just like fireworks: loud, bright and best observed from a distance. Once it’s all over, we pile in the car and head to the nearest barbeque place.

The Democrat Party is in its death throes. It will likely implode. The fireworks will be impressive. What rises from the ashes will not be a phoenix. It will be a new, more vibrant, political coalition. It may or may not take the old name but it will be a completely new bird. We’ll have to wait and see how she flies.

America, however, will be just fine. This old bird has a lot of flight left in her.

And she does love the fireworks.