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WHAT MAKES ME A NEW COALITION DEMOCRAT?
WHAT MAKES ME A NEW COALITION DEMOCRAT?
A Review of my assigned Political Typology
The Pew Research Center, in an attempt to more clearly define and associate the public
within Political Coalitions/ Typologies, developed a Political Typology test to make these
associations; “The public’s political mood is fractious. In this environment, many political
attitudes have become more doctrinaire at both ends of the ideological spectrum…at the same
time, a growing number of Americans are choosing not to identify with either political party, and
the center of the political spectrum is increasingly diverse” (Beyond Red vs. Blue, 2011). The
people’s indecision brings about a problem; the more the public fails to identify themselves with
a certain typology, the less of an influence these Coalition leaders have to influence public
opinion resulting in a more “generalized” mindset of the public. A generalized mindset cannot
stand firm in its ideologies because it’s neither radical nor liberal towards one clear ideology.
The Typology quiz assigned me to the Political Typology of a New Coalition Democrat, a New
Coalition Democrats are upbeat towards the government’s progress, and feel strongly that
success is brought upon from an individual’s perseverance. Disregarding the fact that I may not
appear to be the “typical” New Coalition Democrat I tend to agree with most of their ideologies,
in specific, their views towards issues of social and domestic policies such as immigration
reform, abortion, same-sex marriages and some of their military and foreign policies on the
Afghanistan troop removal, but also disagree with their military policies on the Libyan air strikes
and the U.S’s involvement in the world.
The entire purpose of the Pew Typology test is to affiliate citizens with a political party
because as years pass by and politics continues to change, so does the public’s associations with
certain political parties. Now these affiliations and assignment to groups were not based simply
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WHAT MAKES ME A NEW COALITION DEMOCRAT?
off responses to “black and white questions”, but rather it takes more into account when given
the duty to affiliate one with a typology, “To match you up with a group, we used the national
survey to determine how different patterns of responses to the values questions (and party
affiliation) were associated with each of the typology groups in the survey. To do this, we used a
technique known as logistic regression, which computes the strength of the association between a
given set of questions and a particular outcome or result, in this case, membership in a given
typology group” (How we identified your group, 2011). There is a lot more than an answer to a
question that goes into affiliating someone to a political party because assigning an individual to
a Typology without considering their age, race, own affiliation of themselves would cause errors
in this assignment process. In my case, I, along with 10 % of the general public, was affiliated
with the political party of New Coalition Democrats. The New Coalition Democrat typology
differs from other political parties within the umbrella of the Democratic party because it is a
much more modern mindset, more diverse group of individuals and though it only is made up of
about 10% of the general public it’s ideologies on major issues such as religion or diplomacy are
similar to those views of the general public.
Now the typical member of the New Coalition Democrats could be described as follows
“56% are Democrats, a majority-minority group: 34% white, 30% black and 26% Latino, about
three-in-ten are first or second generation Americans, 55% have only a high school education or
less, 23% are not registered to vote, only 34% read a daily newspaper, Half are regular
volunteers for charity or non-profit groups” (Research Center: Where do you Fit?, 2011). If this
description of the typical member were to be true, then I would have not been associated with the
New Coalition Democrats, simply because most of these qualities do not fit with me as an
individual. For example though I may be Latino and do perform a form of volunteering for a
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WHAT MAKES ME A NEW COALITION DEMOCRAT?
charity organization at my church, I am not a first or second generation American, I have more
education than a high school degree because of the fact I am a freshmen in college, and I do not
read a daily newspaper. If political party associations were based primarily off of physical
appearances, age, ethnicity, and financial situations then I most likely would be considered a
Bystander or a Disaffected for I only fit 2 of the characteristics of a New Coalition Democrat.
This meaning I “fit in” with the Bystanders because a majority of the mare non- white, in which
38% of them are Latino, 54 % of them have incomes less than 30,000 a year, I do not have a gun
within my household as most Bystanders do not, and an overwhelming amount are young there is
51% under the age of 30 (2011). Some of the characteristics I share with the Disaffected Political
Typology are that they describe their financial situation as “struggling”, 71% have experienced
unemployment in the past year, and 26% have a passport (2011). These two political parties
would better suit me if the test was based primarily of these types of characteristics because I
embody the appearance of one, but since the Typology test takes more into account like views on
topics such as immigration reform, diplomacy in other countries, military and foreign policy and
so on, the best affiliation for me is the New Coalition Democrats.
As far as ideologies on certain issues are concerned, there is likely to be disagreement
within each political group, but overall when talking about a main goal or purpose there is one
shared view on the subject by the typology. For example, 80% of new Coalition Democrats favor
creating a path to citizenship for immigrants, whereas 49% of Staunch-conservatives and 39% of
Main Street Republicans (Research Center: Where do you Fit?- “Immigration reform”, 2011)
oppose such an idea. There is a shared goal in creating and accomplishing this “Path to
Citizenship” and in this we have a similar opinion of the matter because taken as a whole, we
share the view that immigrants help towards the uplifting of society and work to improve it.
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WHAT MAKES ME A NEW COALITION DEMOCRAT?
Another example is abortion; 51% of New Coalition Democrats feel that abortion is illegal in all/
most cases whereas 22% of Post-moderns and 15% of Solid liberals (“Abortion”, 2011) feel the
same way on the matter. I agree with my typology on this matter and we share a same view on
the matter of life because we share a mindset that the view of life should be held as precious and
not tampered with no matter the situation. When looking at the differences held on the subject of
same-sex marriages we see that 51 % of New Coalition Democrats oppose same-sex marriages
and 80% of Post-Moderns and 85% of Solid Liberals (“Same-Sex Marriage”, 2011) feel strongly
in favor of them. The views of the three groups vary greatly in where the New Coalition
Democrats are on one side, the Post- Moderns and the Solid Liberals are on the other opposing
view. It shows how open to different terms of the meaning “marriage” each typology is, and I
like the New Coalition Democrats oppose same-sex marriages and that’s why I feel that the best
typology for me was chosen because we share a lot of similar views on different ideologies as
presented here. More proof of that is the shared opinion of myself and the New Coalition
Democrats as to if the extraction of Afghanistan troops has been done at the right pace. 60% of
New Coalition Democrats feel that the troop removal has been handled right, whereas 52% of
Staunch- Conservative feels it’s being handled too quickly and 44% of Disaffected
(“Afghanistan Troop Removal”, 2011) feel it’s not being done quick enough. This provides more
proof of the shared ideologies in matter of Political importance and the correct assignment as to
which group I’d best share them with.
But naturally there will be disagreement in certain topics as each member develops their
own ideal and mindsets on some subjects. For example looking at the majority of people within
the New Coalition Democrats only 36% of them feel it’s necessary to be active in the world
whereas 47% of solid liberals and 42% of Post-Moderns (“U.S. Involvement in the World”,
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WHAT MAKES ME A NEW COALITION DEMOCRAT?
2011) feel it necessary. In this case I’d associate myself with the solid Liberals and PostModerns because I have a differing view and feel it necessary to be actively helping around the
world to constantly be an influence. Another example of an opposing view is when you consider
the topic on the Libyan air strikes. In which 30% of New Coalition Democrats feel it was the
wrong decision, only 32% of Disaffected and 37% of Libertarians feel it was the right decision
(“Libyan Air Strikes”, 2011). On this matter I share the view that it was the wrong decision
because it brings about consequences which typically result in violence. So I feel the wrong
decision was made and now we must suffer the consequences of this act. Now though I may
disagree on these two particular topics, I share a lot of the same ideals with the New Coalition
Democrats and feel that the survey “labeled” me a New Coalition Democrat because on most
political views I share the view of many New Coalition Democrats. It’s more of a generalizing
each individual within a group rather than placing them in an individual discourse community
that share every individual idea that they do, because it’d simply be impossible and there would
be to many communities.
I feel that this typology test was correct and accurate in assigning political typologies and
I agree with my own personal assignment. Even though it was only a 20 question survey, I felt
that it captured my own personal ideologies well as a whole and placed me within a Typology
closest to those ideologies. The assigned typology may not completely fit all my attitudes
towards certain issues, but I feel that the typology as a whole shares a similar mindset to my own
on these particular political topics. In them I tend to be in the majority of the group and so I feel
as if I could very well belong to this certain discourse community. Though I hold different views
on a couple of issues and hold an opposing view toward the New Coalition Democrats, that is not
to say I disagree or disregard the typologies ideologies on all subjects of importance. As a result,
I feel that the typology test was correct and accurate in my placement of a New Coalition Democrat.
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WHAT MAKES ME A NEW COALITION DEMOCRAT?
Bibliography
Research Center (n.d.). Where Do You Fit? 2011 Pew Research Political Typology Quiz | Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press. Pew Research Center for the People and the
Press. Retrieved September 11, 2011, from http://peoplepress.org/typology/quiz/?pass&src=typology-report
Research Center. (2011, May 4). Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology | Pew Research
Center for the People and the Press. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Retrieved September 11, 2011, from http://people-press.org/2011/05/04/beyond-red-vs-bluethe-political-typology/?src=typology-quiz
Research Center. (2011, May 4). How We Identified Your Group | Pew Research Center for the People
and the Press. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Retrieved September 11,
2011, from http://people-press.org/2011/05/04/how-we-identified-your-group/?src=typologyquiz