The Political Bell Curve - One Look at The Dilemma

[MineralMan]

There seems to be some confusion about the distribution of the population, in terms of their political beliefs. That confusion may result in anger over unmet expectations. Here's a bell curve that pretty much matches the US population from the far left to the far right. Measuring the area under the curve should provide a pretty good idea of the proportions of the population from the far left to the far right.



Given the teetering between GOP and DEM control of Congress and the White House, it's clear that the voting public is pretty equally divided. The sheer area under this curve in the middle is why stuff doesn't happen faster. There's an awful lot of mass to move.

Disclaimer: This is not based on any particular statistics...just my impression. Your impression may differ. But we do shift back and forth with considerable frequency. I don't expect that to change, based on historical information.

[Sinistrous]

1. K&R

[bbgrunt]

2. It is not clear that the normal bell curve is applicable

in today's political climate. With income divisions accelerating and the predominance of the right wing noise machine, it appears that the distribution of political preferences is becoming a lopsided bimodal distribution--which is why the US is becoming more and more ungovernable.

More like a "banana republic". The forces that are trying to keep power must use increasingly repressive message control (noise machine) and military style policing to keep the masses under their thumb.

[MineralMan]

3. Election results seem to indicate that it does fit a bell curve.

I can't think of another explanation. The weighting is clearly centralized like a typical bell curve. Extreme left and right positions are clearly small in the number of adherents to those positions. I think the bell curve accurately predicts historical results, so I'm extrapolating history into the future with this.

As I said, this is my interpretation.