Political Memes

It's difficult to say, but they're definitely overrepresented both online and in the news. They're definitely a minority, the Republican party knows this and it's why they fight so hard to maintain control, but other context in the country makes it hard to say how much of a minority they are. Conservatives generally make up the areas of the country with the lowest population density, with cities running very much in the opposite direction. And a big part of Republican policy is convincing voters to vote against their own interests. I've seen stats that say that 60% of the population is more left-leaning than the government at any time. But we also have very low voter turnout here due to things like disenfranchisement and gerrymandering. Without that and things like the Electoral College, Republicans would never hold enough seats to hold any real power ever again. Trump actually got noticeably less votes in 2024 than he did in 2016 - it's just that the Dems got way less votes and the Electoral College that allowed him to win.

As for the political spectrum here, I'd argue that the spectrum in Germany (and the rest of Europe) is normal, while the spectrum here is so shifted to the right that it's unhealthy. And it's gotten way worse just in my lifetime. Trump's party called the Republican party of the 90s communists for their policies. Back then, the two parties largely disagreed on the details of policy, though there has always been the bigoted side of the Republicans. It wasn't until the country elected a black man to office that things really went off the deep end. The Democrats every year say that they have to court some mythical moderate Republican to vote for them or else they won't win, so they shift to the right and disenfranchise the left. But that's not how Republicans operate, especially anymore. They no longer care about policy but about hurting Democrats, so they'd never vote for them anyway.

It's also important to note that Bernie isn't even really a Democrat, he just runs with them because they're the closest to being a leftwing party. The Democrats don't want him, he's too leftist for them.