False dichotomy of equivalence

The title is not clickbait. It’s a mouthful. But then again, I don’t write on this blog worried about the traffic or making any money off of it. So I’m free to ignore all the wonderful advice that is out there for growing an audience on a blog. LOL.

Today is Primary Day. It’s the day that the residents of Pennsylvania who are registered as either a Democrat or Republican go and vote on who will represent their parties for the General Election in November.

I’m registered non-partisan and so I don’t get to go to the polls today. Especially since there isn’t a ballot question either.

Here’s what I’ve heard though, far too often — that there is a 50/50 split in our nation.

That’s only true if all you consider are people registered in the two major political parties. The percentages vary slightly, but in essence the nation is pretty split between Democrats and Republicans. You can see this play out in General Election results too.

But is this really the case? No.

The reality is far different. In reality, neither of the two political parties represent anywhere close to 50% of the population.

Here’s some things to consider:

333.3 million people live in the US. A 50/50 split would mean that would mean that 166.65 million people voted for a Democrat and that same number voted for a Republican. And that all those people nicely aligned with what these parties stand for.