The following article stub comes from “This Is Why So Many Voters Hate Both Parties” by German Lopez at The New York Times,” recommended by Michael Baharaeen and Ruy Teixeira at welcomestack.org:

American politics is often described as a battle between liberals and conservatives, but most voters have much messier views than those partisan labels suggest. They aren’t reliably liberal. They aren’t reliably conservative. They have a mix of opinions that are almost impossible to find in any one politician.

By contrast, today’s Democratic Party has liberal views almost across the board, and today’s Republican Party has the opposite. Few Democratic politicians oppose climate regulations and few Republican politicians oppose gun rights, for example. Among voters, this kind of purity is rare — more typical among voters with four-year college degrees.

The disconnect helps explain why many Americans are unhappy with both parties in this midterm election year. The Democratic Party’s approval rating hovers around 40 percent, and the Republican Party’s is even lower.

To see the disconnect, let’s start with two hot-button issues that divide along conservative and liberal lines: whether to allow organized prayer in public schools and whether to allow homeless people to camp in public spaces. In a world of ideological purity, a Democratic voter would always oppose the first and support the second, while a Republican voter would do the reverse.

But it doesn’t work that way. In reality, people often have heterodox views that defy strict partisanship.

More here.