By Peter Hasson
The New York Times published an analysis Wednesday that blamed the Republican Party for political polarization in America, but the article’s argument was undermined by the very data it cited.
“The Republican Party leans much farther right than most traditional conservative parties in Western Europe and Canada, according to an analysis of their election manifestos,” Times graphics editor Sahil Chinoy wrote in his article.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
But a graph accompanying Chinoy’s article showed the current gap between the Republican and Democratic parties isn’t the result of a Republican shift to the Right, but rather the result of a sharp Democratic pivot to the Left.
The graph shows the Democratic Party has veered far to the Left since 2000 — and especially since 2008 — while the Republican Party only moved slightly right during that same time period.
Plain as day. I guarantee if the opposite had happened, we'd be treated to endless odes to "asymmetric polarization" pic.twitter.com/L4QK0lejoa
— Scott Winship (@swinshi) June 27, 2019
“The change isn’t a Trumpified GOP, it’s a post-08 swerve left by Dems,” noted Scott Winship, a staffer for Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee.
Chinoy’s conclusions had other issues as well.
His analysis measured “how frequently the party platforms mention each topic” tracked by the Manifesto Project, a European non-profit.
References to God, for example, were filed under “traditional morality” and would push a party farther right on the graph.
But analyzing party platforms that way comes closer to measuring platitudes than measuring how extreme a party’s proposed policies are.
Chinoy did not return an email seeking comment by press time.
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