American Politics, Redux, Redux
I have a dataset and I'm not afraid to use it. Over and over. Ad nauseam.
Two more quick riffs on the Legislative timelines (part one, part two). I decided to ignore the third parties and independents (because I'm an American, dammit - that's what we do!) and take a closer look at how the two dominant parties (Democratic and Republican) relate. I flipped the Democrats below the timeline so as to have a field of red and a field of blue. I also added decade markers to the timeline.
Senate
House
Both visualizations show initial Republican activity followed by a period of less activity (more pronounced in the Senate). Then, around 1860, the Republican party comes back to stay.
- 1860 - "the Party of Abraham Lincoln" indeed
- I'm guessing that the Republican party of the early 1800s has little in common with the latter incarnation. But I'm no Political Science / History major.
(there's a story here, leading all the way to Liz Claiborne - yes, THAT Liz Claiborne)
The two parties firmly establish themselves as the status quo in the 1880s and America has had them ever since. The 1930s (the Great Depression) shows a significant number of Democrats (in the Senate) launching their arcs but then in the 1940s (post WWII), the Republicans seem to answer.
The visualizations do not show the number of Legislators that "share an arc" - it is not possible to look at an arc and determine if it represents more than one Legislator. Further riffs on the viz may do this.
Posted at 09:15AM Feb 24, 2010 by schnee in General |