"In the United States, commentators recognize that, generally speaking, most people who hold liberal positions over a range of issues will likely vote Democratic, while most people, again generally speaking, who hold conservative positions will vote Republican"
About this Quote
There’s a quietly devastating banality to Stockwell Day’s line: it pretends to be analysis while mostly functioning as calibration. By piling on cushions like "commentators recognize" and "generally speaking" (twice), Day isn’t trying to persuade skeptics so much as to sound above the fight - a politician borrowing the neutral cadence of a pundit to smuggle in a very old idea: American politics is, at root, a two-team sorting exercise.
The intent is stabilizing. A politician in a polarized era benefits when voting behavior looks inevitable, almost natural. If liberals "will likely vote Democratic" and conservatives "will vote Republican", then politics becomes less about persuasion and more about alignment: pick your identity, accept your destination. The repetition is the tell. Day doesn’t argue for why people should vote this way; he narrates that they do, as if describing weather patterns. That move laundered through "commentators" creates distance and deniability - it’s not my claim, it’s what the experts say.
Subtext: the middle is marginal, complexity is noise, and cross-pressured voters are exceptions that prove the rule. It’s also a nod to the increasingly nationalized, ideological sorting of parties in the late 20th and early 21st century, when regional quirks and big-tent coalitions shrank, and partisan identity began tracking cultural identity more tightly.
Context matters because Day is Canadian, speaking about the U.S. from a comparative distance. That outside-looking-in posture lets him present American partisanship as legible, even simplistic - useful both as critique and as a warning about where any democracy can drift when ideology hardens into tribal reflex.
The intent is stabilizing. A politician in a polarized era benefits when voting behavior looks inevitable, almost natural. If liberals "will likely vote Democratic" and conservatives "will vote Republican", then politics becomes less about persuasion and more about alignment: pick your identity, accept your destination. The repetition is the tell. Day doesn’t argue for why people should vote this way; he narrates that they do, as if describing weather patterns. That move laundered through "commentators" creates distance and deniability - it’s not my claim, it’s what the experts say.
Subtext: the middle is marginal, complexity is noise, and cross-pressured voters are exceptions that prove the rule. It’s also a nod to the increasingly nationalized, ideological sorting of parties in the late 20th and early 21st century, when regional quirks and big-tent coalitions shrank, and partisan identity began tracking cultural identity more tightly.
Context matters because Day is Canadian, speaking about the U.S. from a comparative distance. That outside-looking-in posture lets him present American partisanship as legible, even simplistic - useful both as critique and as a warning about where any democracy can drift when ideology hardens into tribal reflex.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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