Interestingly, it turns out that there’s only a weak relationship between how much a person identifies as a conservative or liberal and how conservative or liberal their views actually are—to be exact, in both cases it’s about a .25 correlation. One reason policy is not the driver of political disagreement is most people don’t have very strong views about policy. It’s the rare hobbyist who thinks often about cybersecurity and who should lead the Federal Reserve. But all of us are experts on our own identities. Over and again, Mason finds that identity is far more powerful than issue positions
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