America At 250: Polarized, But Not 50-50

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player here.Happy 250th birthday, America! To mark the occasion, Gabe Fleisher of Wake Up To Politics joined me to run a full diagnostic on the republic as it wraps up its 250th year.First up: good data, bad data, or not data? Americans are about as interested in commemorating the country’s 250th birthday as they were in commemorating the bicentennial 50 years ago. But underneath that stable topline is a much more divided country. In 1976, Democrats and Republicans were roughly equally interested in the celebration. Today, Republicans are 33 points likelier than Democrats to say they want to commemorate the occasion.Then, a look back at a blockbuster Supreme Court term. The justices closed out the term by overturning two precedents: greenlighting presidential removal of independent agency officials in Trump v. Slaughter and lifting limits on party-candidate coordinated spending. They also rejected Trump’s reinterpretation of birthright citizenship. Gabe, who was in the courtroom when NPR briefly “retired” Justice Alito, explains why this is a conservative court but not a MAGA court.Congress, meanwhile, is on pace to be the least productive in modern history, and yet it just passed the first major housing package in 30 years with veto-proof majorities. Will Trump accept yes for an answer? And will the housing bill become law regardless?Finally, the latest New York Times polls show Senate races in North Carolina, Maine, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska all within the margin of error, even as majorities in nearly every one of those states call the Democratic Party too extreme. And a new Pew typology survey finds that beneath our 50-50 stalemate, Americans hold supermajority positions on issue after issue. We’re emotionally polarized (see the feelings about our semiquincentennial above). Ideologically? Not so much.I hope everyone has a nice Independence Day. We’ll see you in year 251!