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Parties are made up of people with significant differences.
But when it comes to policy, or how to get there, the sides end up remarkably equal. Some of this is due to the usual pressures of politics. A lot of it is unseen by the general public.
For example,
The Republican party is highly anti-abortion and receives a great number of votes from anti-abortion voters. But when the Republicans were in charge of the House, Senate, and Presidency, the only thing they did about it was to ban "partial birth" abortion, a rare occurrence which affects less than a thousand abortions per year.
Thus, an enormous amount of fighting and arguing, very little change.
The reasons for this are subtle, and not well-understood. One reason is that if abortion were widely made illegal, the slight majority which is not in favor of that policy would more likely vote Democratic. But also, the Republican "hard-liners" who vote solely on the basis of abortion, would stop caring about politics and stop giving money to campaigns.
Continued in next post.
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