Which of the following are the most significant cultural differences?
Politifact, the political fact-checking site, has ranked the 25 most significant differences in American culture between the two major political parties.
The site’s methodology is to “combine the best scientific and academic data available from both political parties and assign a score based on how closely they resemble reality.”
In the case of the GOP, that would be “The Great Divide” — a division between the GOP’s establishment and the party’s populist wing.
The score is based on a number of factors, including the party platform, its candidates, its ideological stances and the way in which each candidate has approached the issues in the past.
Politifact uses a score of 0 to 100, with 100 being the “best score possible.”
The “great divide” is a key issue in the 2016 presidential election, and many of the differences in party platforms, policies and candidates reflect the differences between the parties.
“There is no perfect way to measure a difference in a party,” the site’s chief political fact taker, Mark Penn, said in a statement.
“But by combining the best available science and our own research, we can tell you what it is about the two parties’ platforms, candidates, positions and the ways they’ve framed issues that really matters.”
The site uses a wide range of criteria to rate each party’s platform, including how it treats minorities, its views on social issues, the size of its military and how it handles immigrants and the environment.
PolitiFact said that the Democratic Party’s policy positions and candidate stances are closer to the party than the Republican Party’s, but that the GOP has been able to maintain some of its “greatest conservative” policies, such as repealing the Affordable Care Act.
The Republican Party platform is also more liberal than the Democratic platform, the site said.
PoliticFact’s scoring method is “not meant to represent every aspect of American politics,” Penn said.
“We want to make sure our readers understand how each party values different values, different issues and different candidates.”