Jonah Goldberg expertly explains the vast and highly visible chasm between the two parties when it comes to fundamental principles, on National Review Online. Republicans are driven by issues, while Democrats are driven by feelings based on group identity.[The Democrats'] debate is almost entirely theoretical, drowned out by the mad scramble to assemble an identity-politics coalition of generic "Hispanics," "blacks," "white women," etc. It's amazing how complacent the media is in carrying on with this kind of nakedly reductionist analysis. The notion that Hispanics may be voting one way or another for reasons other than their ethnicity seems never to come up.Meanwhile, on the Republican side, women, blacks and Hispanics vote too, but that's not how the demographics and coalitions of the right work. GOP candidates actually have to win over people who believe things. (After all, the famed, and tragically frayed, "Reagan coalition" was about...(Read Full Post)