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Partisan phrasing

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"opposing transgender rights" seems like partisan phrasing to me. Maybe there's a better way to put this? CalvinCoolidge228 (talk) 16:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe there is. Do you have any suggestions? – Muboshgu (talk) 17:03, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Naming specific issues, such as sexual education and sports. CalvinCoolidge228 (talk) 19:51, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a partisan ambiguation of both issues. For more clairty to readers "opposing transgender rights" is appropriate. SirM4X15 (talk) 01:41, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the point is that to Republicans, those rights aren't "rights" in the normal sense if the word. Maybe "opposing the transgender movement's policies" would avoid implying those policies are additional human rights? Phaesphoria (talk) 03:39, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's pretty inarguable the party opposes transgender rights, defined by the common meanings of the term. Can't tell you how many "Trump is for us, not they/them" ads I saw. But it is possible there are better ways to describe it. Maybe the specific policy issues (access to bathrooms, sports, surgeries, documents, etc.)? At that point it's just getting too broad. Toa Nidhiki05 18:58, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Toa Nidhiki05 Honestly culture war issues aren't worth delving into beyond their due weight. That advertisement is one thing, but voters' top priorities during the election were mainly: the economy (#1), democracy, abortion, and immigration.
  • I don't think having discussions about transgender issues on the talk page, which are bound to result in flame wars and conflicts, is a good idea.
JohnAdams1800 (talk) 16:42, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The party? Log Cabin Republicans… Not to mention Classical liberalism Mistletoe-alert (talk) 02:33, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Trump is not the Republican Party… Tytech038 (talk) 19:28, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, that is not partisan phrasing. The new republican administration has relised bills specifically targeted to remove trans rights. 206.186.186.88 (talk) 03:42, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which rights? Mistletoe-alert (talk) 14:06, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/
This is definitely anti trans. 206.186.186.88 (talk) 21:08, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We need reliable secondary sources to call it "anti trans" or we are in violation of WP:OR EvergreenFir (talk) 21:10, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand what you are saying, but this is an official decree from the ruling republican party. I don't think this needs a secondary sorce. 206.186.186.88 (talk) 21:16, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you lack understanding of the word transgender. Transgender refers to one whose sex != gender. That article specifically talks about sex. Mistletoe-alert (talk) 02:52, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Right wing to Far right

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Someone else mentioned this too. Why it isn't labelled as right wing to far right? Trump has clearly criticized former Republican governance and has abandoned neoliberalism and globalism as party policy. Also Trump and Republican Party have associated themselves with parties and people which are labelled as right wing to far right such as UKIP and Farage, Fidesz and Orban. Republican Party position of political spectrum really needs to be changed to right wing to far right so people know exactly what Republican Party actually believes or is situated on political spectrum and not this erroneous identification. 86.124.126.108 (talk) 06:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have reliable sources for this? Regardless of our personal political views--I voted for Harris and agree with the Democratic Party on most issues--the fact Trump won the popular vote in 2024 means that roughly half the country supported his agenda. See WP:SOAPBOX, and there have been plenty of discussions on this. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 00:42, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that a candidate who wins an election cannot possibly be far-right is just silly. Extremist candidates do sometimes win the popular vote. — Red XIV (talk) 19:09, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of editors have argued that although the Democratic Party is not center-left by international standards, it should be called center-left because it is by U.S. standards. Accordingly, if 50% voted for Donald Trump, they must be center-right.
I notice too that Meloni's party is described as center-right. Considering that she the Fascist youth leader and her party is a successor to Mussolini's Fascist Party, the definition of center-right is pretty elastic. My solution would be to remove these labels as there is no correct answer and the fields provide no meaningful information. TFD (talk) 21:05, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's...not how it works at all. Winning 50% of the vote (which Trump actually fell just short of, but I suppose 49.9% is close enough) does not mean they "must be center-right". The notion that only the center-left or center-right can ever win an election is absurd. It's entirely possible for a party that's either far-right or far-left by its own nation's standards to win an election.
Also, since when is Meloni's party labeled as center-right? Its infobox lists it as "right-wing to far-right". You seem to be mistaking the "centre-right coalition" (an alliance of Italian parties ranging from center-right to far-right), of which Brothers of Italy is a member, with Brothers of Italy's own political position. — Red XIV (talk) 15:50, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why I don't think we should determine position on the political spectrum differently in each country. TFD (talk) 16:42, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The alliance that Meloni is the leader of is called the center right coalition. It’s most likely in reference to that rather than her actual political position 2601:804:8700:17D0:EC66:5280:53A1:7D50 (talk) 05:08, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The alliance that Meloni is the leader of is called the center right coalition. It’s most likely in reference to that rather than her actual political position 2601:804:8700:17D0:EC66:5280:53A1:7D50 (talk) 05:09, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, where's your reliable sources then? 220.245.162.215 (talk) 07:58, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please, for all that is holy and just - back this claim up with sources. Take five minutes to browse the talk page. This is a discussion we have had a million times. Carlp941 (talk) 23:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is Republican populism against "elites" a backlash against educated "elites," rather than the rich?

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This is a draft space, but it appears that right-wing populism's core base in non-college voters could be explained directly by resentment against the well-educated.

One thing that strikes me is that while Elon Musk and Donald Trump are both billionaires, both only have a Bachelor's degree. JD Vance literally has a J.D. (Juris Doctor).

  • Meanwhile, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have law degrees (J.D.), and Tim Walz has a Master's degree.

I have my source on "Polarized by Degrees," but given Republican support among Whites without college degrees, and increasingly among non-Whites without college degrees. It seems that the populism against "elites" is that of well-educated "elites", rather than the rich. Specifically, this populism originates based on specific issues where a cleavage by education can inspire populism (i.e. immigration, globalization, and environmentalism). It appears Republican voters love the wealthy but resent the well-educated, which don't perfectly correlate.

Link: https://substack.com/@theliberalpatriot/p-152601288

  • Quote: "To put it bluntly, voters, particularly [non-college] voters, harbor deep resentment toward elites who they feel are telling them how to live their lives, even what to think and say, and incidentally are living a great deal more comfortably than they are. This is not the rich as conventionally defined by economic populism but rather the professional-dominated educated upper middle class who occupy positions of administrative and cultural power. By and large, these are Democrats in Democratic-dominated institutions. Looked at in this context, truly populist Democrats might want to say, with Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” This is a bitter pill for most Democrats to swallow. In today’s America, they are the Establishment even if in their imaginations they are sticking it to the Man and fighting nobly for social justice. The failure to understand that they themselves are central targets of populist anger leads Democratic elites and activists to overestimate the efficacy of economic populism and interpret populism on the right as driven solely by racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc. That’s more comfortable than realizing millions of populist voters hate you. But they do."

JohnAdams1800 (talk) 15:21, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"In today’s America, they are the Establishment" I thought that was obvious. Democrats and their leadership are stereotyped as being classic examples of limousine liberals: "...hypocritical wealthy dogooders insulated from the negative fallout of their bad ideas. This theme has remained a staple of conservative attacks ever since." Anyway, you may need to check the article on anti-intellectualism:
  • Support adding new content on anti-intellectualism in the Republican Party. I'll figure out how to get the wording to comply with NPOV. This new version of American conservatism, that is right-wing populism, does significantly differ with conservatism almost everywhere worldwide in its anti-intellectualism and negative correlation with increasing education among voters.
    The Republican Party is still pro-business, which does require practical expertise even if not intellectual. Whatever your views on Elon Musk, his companies Tesla and SpaceX require tremendous expertise in engineering for example. Almost all members of Congress have Bachelor's degrees, including Republicans.
    I've put a lot of work into the Social class in the United States article, and it still surprises me that the Republican Party's base is essentially the top 1% and voters without college degrees, while the Democratic Party's base is essentially voters with college degrees and African Americans. This has turned class politics in the United States nearly upside down, except for the top 1% and African Americans. Harris' voters were on average richer than Trump's voters in 2024.
    Thanks for the sources. I'll add content on how anti-intellectualism and resentment against the Democratic Party on issues perceived to be only for "educated elites" is part of the Republican Party's core appeal, particularly in the Trump era. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 22:11, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This is original research on your part and cannot be added to the article. Social scientists have studied reasons why people adopt ideologies and vote for parties since the end of WWII and only their conclusions can be added to the article. TFD (talk) 00:42, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    My goal, as a statistician and Wikipedia editor, is to understand right-wing populism and Trumpism. I'm not doing original research, but trying to understand what exactly the "elites" Trump is railing against are. The conclusion here is that the well-educated are the elites, not the rich. This is backed up by Trump's support statistically increasing as educational attainment decreases and sources on anti-intellectualism in Trumpism. I have a Gallup poll on Republican support for higher education in decline. The sources by Nate Silver that "Education, not Income Predicted Who Would Vote for Trump" and Harry Enten's "Even Among The Wealthy, Education Predicts Trump Support" . Finally, the book Polarized by Degrees by Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins has that excellent quote.
    "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." ~ John Steinbeck. In a nutshell, it appears that the Republican party's base loves the rich but hates the well-educated. The Democratic Party's base hates the rich but loves the well-educated. This has caused White voters with college degrees to leave the Republicans and become Democrats, and voters without college degrees to leave the Democrats and become Republicans.
    Links: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/ ; https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/even-among-the-wealthy-education-predicts-trump-support/ ; https://news.gallup.com/poll/508352/americans-confidence-higher-education-down-sharply.aspx JohnAdams1800 (talk) 03:28, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "America hits peak anti-intellectualism: Majority of Republicans now think college is bad". Salon. 2017-07-11. Retrieved 2019-09-18.

Consensus clearly exhibits inherent bias

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Consensus should equally weigh all views instead of letting certain groups present more information than others. Most Wiki editors fall into the educated bucket, and studies show that educated people lean left. Why should we not counter balance this by valuing non-consensus views more? Mistletoe-alert (talk) 22:41, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"equally weigh all views" Is this your first day on Wikipedia? The policy in Wikipedia:BALANCE specifically prevents us from doing this: "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence in reliable sources. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both points of view and work for balance." We have to determine the prominence of the various views before describing them in the text. Not all views are equal. Dimadick (talk) 23:21, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Only one reliable mass media source supports republican ideals. How could you think that weighing the rest of mass media less would not equally weigh all views? Please see my profile for when I joined. Mistletoe-alert (talk) 02:30, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
― Isaac Asimov --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:09, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Asia Pacific Democratic Union

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Any evidence this is still active? The website and members list seem defunct. If there isn't any, maybe the affiliation should be removed from Infobox. Jay942942 (talk) 01:27, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support removal just to reduce clutter. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:37, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Trivia

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Why mention “Republican administrations have, since the late 1960s, sustained or increased previous levels of government spending by supporting underfunded sectors like national defense, veterans affairs, and infrastructure,” in the spending section when it states vague trivialities that directly contradict the rest of the section? Mistletoe-alert (talk) 00:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ideology: missing Far-Right and Anti-Intellectualism

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I think it's pretty indisputable that there's a far right faction within the conservatives, particularly with the Freedom Caucus and that's quite easy to demonstrate in sources (ABC, NYTimes, Politico).

Same with anti-intellectualism as a major ideological element. Wapo, Academic, Christian Science Monitor.

We have little issue calling out these variables in other global right wing parties, we shouldn't shy away from what the RS descriptions are here, without needing to go into an attack. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:33, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is the sort of thing that needs clear consensus among sources. There are many sources that talk about this topic (ie the GOP). Picking just a few isn't a strong basis for such a claim. This is especially true in cases like the WashPo and NYT where the bias of the authors may be a concern. Even in academic papers we need to ask if this represents a consensus among academics or just a new paper. This is the sort of thing we really should take a very long term wait and see vs reacting to some recent sources. Springee (talk) 12:27, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, no. We have no problem calling the Freedom caucus far right and that's very clearly a faction. WP:RS is met, if a contingent of editors don't like the classification WP:IDONTLIKEIT isn't enough. We do need some consensus to change it, but I'm deeply reluctant to just make a claim that we need an overwhelming, uniform, and explicit consensus for something that's quite easy to meet on WP:RS grounds. We shouldn't put it in the lede, but it absolutely belongs in the ideology section of the sidebar. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:10, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Anti-intellectualism is not an ideology, and far-right has been rejected in numerous discussions. Neither of them will be going in the sidebar. Toa Nidhiki05 13:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm failing to see how "far right" doesn't belong as a faction (not in the lede). Anti-intellectualism is most certainly an ideology. If you have specific objections to the WP:RS suggestions above, I'm open to hearing them, but just declaring Neither of them will be going in the sidebar isn't an appropriate response here. I'm perfectly willing to discuss consensus with editors but have no time to spend on declaration by fiat against a perfectly sourced claim.
The Freedom Caucus is a signifficant republican faction and is undeniably far right. Anti-intellectualism is a noted and increasingly explicit ideological thrust. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:45, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The "far-right" isn't a faction. It's a sliver of right-wing populist members of the Freedom Caucus, which is more broadly identified as right-wing, and the Freedom Caucus itself is the smallest GOP grouping (it has 33 members, while the center-right Republican Study Committee has 173, the centrist Main Street Caucus has 67, and the centrist Republican Governance Group, which has 42). The far-right could broadly be defined as the dozen or so members who voted with all Democrats to remove McCarthy; like the similarly-tiny Blue Dogs on the Democratic Party, we don't have a dedicated section for them.
The current page is the result of broad and difficult consensus. Your suggestions, while made in good faith, will not be added. Toa Nidhiki05 14:12, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above never arrived at a consensus. 33 members is significant and I’d encourage you to rethink your WP:OWN attitude here. We have an abundant amount of RS passing sources that refer to them as far right and a meaningfully large faction, I don’t see any argument against its inclusion that isn’t a vibe check at present. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:31, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to go ahead and edit in far-right as an ideology, following mutliple WP:RS meeting standards. Before I do that, since there's a 1RR rule active in this place, do you have a substantive and specifc objection that relates to the fact that this claim is easy to pass with RS and I'm not advocating for overweighting the statement in the lede? If there's specific concerns, then sure. There was no consensus above that it doesn't belong unless I'm missing a discussion and twice you've said something like Neither of them will be going in the sidebar. and Your suggestions, while made in good faith, will not be added.. This is not your unilateral decision and you need to not communicate with other editors this way. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:47, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Multiple editors are telling you not to do this. If you add it, I will revert it - this has been discussed numerous (untold numerous) times before here and rejected each time. Nothing you added changes that. Toa Nidhiki05 14:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are one editor. I haven't seen a reason not to add it considering it passes WP:RS. I am open to hearing your reasons, but you haven't explained once other than to point to a non-existent consensus. You do not own this article. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:00, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Springee above also rejected it. And again - your sources here aren't good. Op-ed pieces are not sufficient for this.
You may think you're presenting a new case or argument here. But trust me: you aren't. This has been debated countless times here. You can look back on the talk history. We spent literally months coming up with the current consensus. I appreciate you want to contribute, but your addition will not be added. Toa Nidhiki05 15:03, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Springee and you both objected on "possible bias in authors given the source", which isn't the same as a substantive argument that it doesn't belong in the article given a plethora of WP:RS and the fact that the sourcing standards have been met, directly, in the Freedom Caucus article. I, again, would like to ask you to a: provide me with a substantive argument against inclusion given that it passes wikipedia's standards for inclusion. Not something "might" be wrong, but a specific reason and b: knock off your addition will not be added. This is beginning to look a bit like POV editing in the absence of substantive responses. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:10, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I created an RfC because it's clear that a good faith discussion is struggling with this one. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion has been ongoing for three hours, and you have two people who disagree with you and none who agree. With all due respect - maybe take a look at the mirror here before implying bad faith. Toa Nidhiki05 16:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, I think I was unclear. I meant that a discussion in good faith was going nowhere, not that it wasn’t staying good faith. I’ll reiterate, though, that I think you need to watch WP:OWN. You are not in a position to say that edits “won’t be done” on an article, especially if you’re unwilling to articulate why clearly. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 19:14, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on inclusion of "Far-right" as faction ideology in sidebar

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The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This discussion was procedurally closed by the submitter as malformed.


Wikipedia and multiple reliable sources explicitly refer to the Freedom Caucus as far-right. As the Freedom Caucus represents a not insignificant member of elected officials, and given that the Freedom Caucus is already explicitly in the Caucuses section of the infobar, should "far-right" be included as a faction ideology in the sidebar? It seems to easily meet WP:RS grounds for inclusion. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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  • Procedural close as malformed and pointless; the opening statement is also not neutral. This has been previously discussed on the talk page, and no new information has been provided. Opening an RfC less than a few hours after a discussion - in which two editors disagreed with you immediately - is baffling, honestly. Toa Nidhiki05 16:10, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    the opening statement is also not neutral.
    I think "This is already considered far right elsewhere on Wikipedia per WP:RS is sufficiently neutral. If there's a specific issue with my phrasing you have let me know and I can try to adjust it to be more neutral.
The above user is right in that it's been discussed, but not with apparent consensus. Given that this article appears to have local WP:OWN concerns, an RfC is appropriate. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:13, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Procedural close (Summoned by bot) per WP:BADRFC Keep the RfC statement (and heading) neutrally worded and short.[1] Statements are often phrased as questions, for example: "Should this article say in the lead that John Smith was a contender for the Pulitzer Prize?". The RFC question presupposes what WP:RS would lead us to conclude and is therefore not neutral. Ping me if/when a new question is put which meets the instructions. TarnishedPathtalk 00:49, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm actually struggling to grok how this is WP:BADRFC; there's no presupposition in "this is already the standard used in other articles, should it be applied here" except for a mere factual statement about the phrasing in question already unambiguously passing WP:RS even on controversial topic articles.
    This is sincere, I want to improve this as best I can, but two editors are trying to tell me that the bare minimum of neutrally-worded context is not passing a neutrality smell test, which is interesting because it seems a bit like presupposing that "far right" is inherently not neutral even in cases where it's a mere uncontested description, as it is in the case of the Freedom Caucus. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:19, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The question is Should "far-right" be included as a faction ideology in the sidebar? The rest of your RFC statement is your argument for inclusion. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:36, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You know what, that's a fair read. I think I'm butting up against WP:BLUESKY here, personally. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:44, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    How is far right supposed to be neutral or non-neutral, many parties on Wikipedia have far right description as per the sources. Theofunny (talk) 16:36, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No (Summoned by bot) - seems prior discussion has happened before and came to consensus of no. not sure there is significant non-op-ed sourcing suggesting republican party is currently far-right... Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:33, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Suggesting the Republican Party as a whole is far right and that’s not what the RFC is asking, it’s asking if it should be included as a factional ideology per the Freedom Caucus being a significant minority faction, which is unambiguously far right per a lot of WP:RS. The consensus above isn’t a local consensus, it’s a couple of editors shouting down these changes very consistently without articulating why other than that they don’t feel it should be included here. The reason this suggestion is coming up repeatedly is that despite the objections of a select few editors frequently watching this page it’s very, very, very easy to explain why it should be included as a minor factional ideology and its exclusion feels unambiguously editorialized.
    Seriously, the arguments presented above are a mix of “that’s never happening” and “Trump won an election so his party can’t partially be far right.” There’s not a consensus, just persistence, and it requires we keep ignoring WP:RS. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 10:26, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Procedural close as above. Additionally no new arguments are being made here and really it needs a moratorium. — Czello (music) 16:38, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Add my vote as Procedural close. I would also like a moratorium on this topic. I am very open to adding far right as a faction but absolutely nobody ia bringing academic sourcing to this discussion, which is quite frustrating. A pause would do some good and let other elements of the page get some work Carlp941 (talk) 21:27, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think a moratorium is inappropriate, I think we very clearly can pass WP:RS and procedural close aside, I’m seeing more general objections over its inclusion that are tautological than sourced and explained. The reason this is going to keep coming up is very clearly it should be included in the article, and some editors appear to have a fundamental objection to that which they seem somewhat unwilling to articulate. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 10:18, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm generally against moratoriums because they are in my opinion useless. A RFC which starts to get a bit of momentum for the suggested change implicitly replaces any previous consensus for a moratorium because WP:CCC is a thing. TarnishedPathtalk 10:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I also think that there's a few people arguing a local consensus here and if I read everything posted on this, including into the archives somewhat, then there isn't really evidence for a local consensus as much as a handful of very active editors opposing the inclusion of "far right" at any point in the article, without articulating why beyond "we've already established this before, read prior discussions". At no point in this have those opposed to the inclusion of "far right" as a factional ideology explained why the sources provided are insufficient or why we should wholly bifurcate our handling of the Freedom Caucus across this article and the article about them.
    At some point "this keeps coming up" needs to be addressed as an issue with those preventing the inclusion of seriously WP:RS-passing and WP:BLUESKY phrasing rather than the fault of what is clearly a small torrent of editors reasonably noticing that the phrasing in this article is incorrect and lacking nuance. It isn't reasonable to exclude pertinent information from an article due to the vigilance of those who want it excluded for unarticulated reasons. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 10:47, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if there was WP:LOCALCON, and I can't comment in that regard because I'm not familiar with the history of discussion on this page, a situation does not exist in which it overrides WP:PAG. TarnishedPathtalk 11:00, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not very active on this page, I just popped in because it was clearly missing phrasing that passes the standards for inclusion, and it's exclusion is frankly odd. In the above discussions it was never once articulated why it shouldn't be included. I think other editors are feeling that way too, or we wouldn't have this conversation coming up frequently from experienced editors, in contrast to the usual IP drive-by asking why some atomically controversial statement isn't included in the article. I think that what we're seeing with this editing pattern plus the calls for a moratorium feels like a WP:NPOV issue, even if unintentional. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly this, you articulated the point really well. Theofunny (talk) 11:11, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Anyway, we could have a back and forth all day and it wouldn't change that this current RFC is defective. I would recommend you close this discussion, making sure to remove the RFC tag in the process, and start a new RFC discussion of the form
    == RfC: Should "Far-right" be used in the infobox ==
    {{subst:DNAU|5|weeks}} {{rfc|pol|rfcid=15B9976}}
    Should "far-right" be included as a faction ideology in the sidebar?
    === Polling (RfC: Should "Far-right" be used in the infobox) ===
    __YOUR_ARGUMENT_FOR_WHY_RELIABLE_SOURCES_SUPPORT_THE_CHANGE_GO_HERE__ ps, include the sources you believe support the change (preferably academic sources from subject matter experts in politics).
    === Discussion (RfC: Should "Far-right" be used in the infobox) ===
    general discussion goes here. TarnishedPathtalk 11:11, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would also support a moratorium on changes to the political position, ideology, and faction sections. Toa Nidhiki05 00:00, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Mike Johnson's recent re-election

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"In October 2023, a member of the Christian right faction, Louisiana representative Mike Johnson, was elected the 56th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives"

Can we add a small change after his recent re-election? That would improve it a bit. Jjbomb (talk) 19:31, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Current Freedom Caucus leader is far-right

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Ideology is missing a Far-Right faction. The far right faction is strong in the Freedom Caucus.

Freedom Caucus leader endorses radical proposal for North Carolina to hand its electoral votes to Trump - POLITICO

Far-right congressman suggests N.C. Legislature should consider handing electors to Trump on Election Day

11 key lawmakers to watch in the new Congress

Andy Harris steers hard-line Freedom Caucus into the Trump era

Maryland Rep. Harris elected chair of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus

Theofunny (talk) 12:18, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please see the RfC and discussion on this topic above. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:06, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion RfC Should "Far-right" be used in the infobox

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Should "far-right" be included as a faction ideology in the sidebar? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:52, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (RfC: Should "Far-right" be mentioned as a minor ideology in the infobox)

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  • Third option The freedom caucus isn't so much the issue. However there should be mention of far-right as a Republican ideology because there is significant reliable sourcing of it. Examples:
  1. Donald Trump's Impact on the Republican Party by Michael Espinoza, Policy Studies, 01442872, Sep-Nov 2021, Vol. 42, Issue 5/6, Donald Trump has cast a lasting shadow on the Republican Party. His impact has been very influential on the party; and has triggered an overreliance on dishonesty as a means of debate (via paranoia and rage), which increased the socio-cultural appeal of embracing right-wing tendencies and has caused the party to become more openly hostile towards democracy as a way to gain/retain political power.
    The party has a choice to make. Will the post-Trump era be a time to refocus and move the GOP and Republican conservatism back towards a more inclusive approach like George W. Bush tried with compassionate conservatism – one that could appeal to Hispanics to a larger degree? Or, will the GOP double down and attempt to forge onward with an increasingly hostile and white minority driven approach that can work for them given the current framework of America democracy?
  2. The Koch Network and Republican Party Extremism by Theda Skocpol and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Perspectives on Politics Vol 14 Issue 3 Mann and Ornstein pointed out that even though the two parties did move symmetrically apart from the 1960s to the 1980s, since then continuing U.S. partisan polarization has mainly been driven by the unremitting rightward movement of the GOP. Tellingly, this far-right lunge has not slowed in the 2000s, not even during the presidency of self-declared “compassionate conservative” George W. Bush nor after Democrats won major electoral victories in 2006, 2008, and 2012.
  3. An International Far-Right Alliance? A Comparative Analysis of the Linkages Between the Republican Party and European Far-Right Parties by Guillem Colom, Social Science Research Network, Throughout the 2000s, political scholars evalauted the linkages between the Republican Party and European far-right parties regarding their ideological similarities. However, little has been examined on how the Republican Party and European far-right parties directly cooperate through political gatherings that enable them to establish common political agendas. To investigate far-right cooperation over time, I measured attendance of Republican and European far-right speakers at two prominent conservative gatherings, which were the Conservative Political Action Conference from 2013 to 2023 and National Conservatism Conference from 2016 to 2023.
  4. The Far-Right Threat in the United States: A European Perspective by Cas Mudde, American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Volume 699, Issue 1 The article ends with some suggestions of how democrats (not just Democrats) should address the far-right Republican challenge to U.S. democracy.
  5. Only Yesterday: The Strange Odyssey of the Republican Party by Steve Fraser and Joshua B Freeman, New Labour Forum, Issue 22, Volume 1, Pages 94-97 This year's presidential election confirmed how strong a grip the far right has achieved over the Republican Party



There are many more such sources - Google Scholar returns 53,000 results for the search string republican party far-right and, from the first page, the majority are not false hits. Frankly the Freedom Caucus is irrelevant. It isn't so much a faction as it is a way of describing Republicans who want to "reveal their power level" so to speak. However the academic consensus appears to pretty strongly support that the Republican Party, at least as it was under Trump although some say this is pre-existing, is a far-right party. Simonm223 (talk) 16:13, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why did you make this, @Simonm223:? - We already have all comments and #votes below. This will confuse readers into thinking this is the first post here. Toa Nidhiki05 20:13, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Because Nemov asked to separate out survey from discussion and it is standard format. If consensus is to proceed as we've carried on feel free to revert. Simonm223 (talk) 21:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Simonm223 there's no policy or guideline which states that survey and polling needs to be separated. TarnishedPathtalk 04:56, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Freedom Caucus is a significant faction in the Republican Party. The Freedom Caucus is typically considered far-right. Source 1 Source 2 Source 3 Source 4 Source 5 Source 6. Should "Far right" be listed as a minor ideology of the Republican Party on the article's infobox? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:52, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: I'd like to return to the suggested compromise. Using the footnotes section of the infobox as a method of improving the infobox's display of factions/caucuses and using that to display each of the factions'/caucuses' positions. i.e.
    footnotes = {{cnote|A|
    The Republican Governance Group is a faction described as fiscally conservative and centrist to center-right
    The Republican Main Street Partnership is considered to be a group of pragmatic conservatives and its political position is rarely defined
    The Republican Study Committee is the largest faction of the party, described as conservative and center-right to right-wing
    The Freedom Caucus is the faction formed most recently and is regarded as a right-wing populist and national conservative group on the right-wing to far-right of the political spectrum
    }}
    Goes without saying there would be sources to back up these claims and the wording is easily changeable if people prefer. I just believe it might be a good compromise, since we're not putting it in the position section, so there's no WP:DUE issue, but it still includes far-right.
    What do people think? – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 12:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I presume this would reduce the infobox display size? If so I'm on board. TarnishedPathtalk 12:43, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In my mind, it could replace the Caucuses section and would just appear at the bottom of the infobox – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 12:45, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think this is still an issue with essentially burying what is a significant detail of the contemporary Republican Party. The issue is that a huge number of the individuals and an entire caucus are unambiguously described as far right in the literature and on Wikipedia. The problem with any compromise that buries a mention of the far right is that is itself a massive WP:DUEWEIGHT issue, relegating a significant far-right portion of a major political party in a major global player to a single footnote and no mentions in the article isn't WP:NPOV, it's whitewashing. Given the abundance of sources describing individuals, factions, and caucuses within the modern Republican Party as far-right, relegating it to a footnote is absolutely getting deep into self-censoring territory, especially considering how loathe a lot of people here seem to be for any kind of mention, Wikipedia's standards for inclusion on factual claims be damned. Even if we relegate it to the footnote, we probably need to include it somewhere more prominently than that, at the very least in the Political positions entry. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:44, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not everything needs to go into the infobox. So far I have been supporting putting far-right under the factions section for completeness and because RS supports it. Given the option of reducing the infobox I will support that. TarnishedPathtalk 12:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd be fine with reworking the infobox, but not simply memory-hole-ing any mention of the far-right in the article. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:10, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    GlowstoneUnknown's proposal is to make _ALL_ of the faction ideologies a footnote, not just far-right. TarnishedPathtalk 23:55, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If it needs to be a footnote then it shouldn't be in the info box. Springee (talk) 23:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Given that the freedom caucus is far right, they should replace right wing with far right Zman19964 (talk) 20:22, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Given they are far right"? Far right of the GOP or next door to neo Nazis? Certainly they are the far right of the GOP but that doesn't mean they are next door to neo Nazis as our far right article would suggest. It would be far better to neutrally explain their policies etc rather than fixating on applying LABELS. Springee (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm definitely on-board with this—it shortens the infobox and avoids WP:DUE issues, since describing the Freedom Caucus specifically as having a meaningful far-right faction is correct. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:12, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support: As per reliable sources EarthDude (talk) 18:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: There seemed to be a misunderstanding that there is a local consensus in the above RFC. Reading the threads currently on this page and some of the archive doesn't show a local consensus as much as arguments that it's discussed to death (which is true). Unless I'm missing an old discussion in the archive there is not a substantive and adjudicated reason why "far right" shouldn't be included in the article per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:58, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose; RfC unnecessary - Please see the above threads. Only one active discussion-engaged user has expressed interest in adding this, while all others have rejected the idea, or called for a moratorium on changes. Toa Nidhiki05 01:22, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The above threads do not clearly articulate why it should be excluded. There are, however, a lot of threads of users saying “see the above threads” and the user being active in this thread isn’t really relevant, the reason we see so many users asking about this change is its inclusion is almost certainly WP:BLUESKY at this point. I've asked you, several times, to articulate what the substantive and specific points against the inclusion of “far right” are and you’ve only ever gone as far as to cast some shade at the authors for potential bias due to the organizations they work for or try to point at prior threads which didn’t contain discussions or conclusions, only blanket statements.
    as I said above:

    it's exclusion is frankly odd. In the above discussions it was never once articulated why it shouldn't be included. I think other editors are feeling that way too, or we wouldn't have this conversation coming up frequently from experienced editors, in contrast to the usual IP drive-by asking why some atomically controversial statement isn't included in the article. I think that what we're seeing with this editing pattern plus the calls for a moratorium feels like a WP:NPOV issue, even if unintentional.

    Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 07:36, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Its exclusion is not odd, as academic sources do not widely or generally or even often refer to the party as far-right, which is typically associated with literal fascism or Nazism. Believe it or not, this has been discussed dozens of times - including several in the last few months - and editors have reached a consensus that academic sources broadly refer to the party as center-right or right-wing. Additional sources establish that centrists Republicans comprise a far larger share than the Freedom Caucus (which is, broadly, identified as right-wing or far-right, with the far-right faction being the minority) The fact that multiple editors have told you this at this point - and directed you to look at previous discussions on the matter - should give you a clear indication of our general exhaustion and frustration with repeatedly dealing with this debate. If you'd like, I can tag literally everyone involved in previous discussions on the material and they'll probably say the same thing.
    If you can't be bothered to look back yourself, here's recent archives with relevant discussions. here and here and here. Toa Nidhiki05 15:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Except the RfC isn’t about labelling the party far right, it’s about naming it as a minor ideology, which you here acknowledge? I’m quite confused. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:14, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Which is labeling the party as it. I'm not sure what you're talking about here, frankly. We already include the Freedom Caucus in a list of caucuses in the infobox. Toa Nidhiki05 16:19, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Which is labeling the party as it
    Er, no? It’s labelling a faction of the party with that. Accuracy doesn’t need to be sacrificed to protect the article from what editors may possibly think if they skip context? This isn’t reasonable. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:16, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Should "far-right" be included as a faction ideology in the sidebar?"
    You may want to reword this, as it implies two separate and distinct characterizations...A faction is not necessarily an ideology. I agree with others here that the appropriate categorization for "far-right" is as an ideology per Far-right politics. The MAGA movement is mentioned by sources as a faction that has shown far-right characteristics. DN (talk) 18:06, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Is this your original research that the far right is a minority in the freedom caucus since their elected leader, Andy Harris is himself described as far-right by various reliable sources? Theofunny (talk) 10:44, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Any WP:OR argument against inclusion rings hollow given that there are reliable sources, some of which are academic, which assign "far-right" as an ideology of the Freedom Caucus. TarnishedPathtalk 11:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes per the reliable sources given above by Warrenmck. The ideology of other factions of the party are already in the infobox and so it is reasonable that the ideology of the Freedom Caucus be listed also. That said I do have some concern that the infobox is too long and there should be discussion of ways to reduce its length. TarnishedPathtalk 09:19, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notice how all of the current sources in the info box are academic? None of the ones proposed here are. The sources presented are comparatively low-quality, only barely going into detail or using “far-right” as a generic term (see also: using “far left” to describe progressive Democrats). The Freedom Caucus is already covered by “right-wing populism”.Toa Nidhiki05 11:11, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Warrenmck do you have any academic sources from subject matter experts which support Far-right? TarnishedPathtalk 11:50, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I just provided one, but WP:RS doesn't require them and inventing new standards around sourcing should be done through the Village Pump rather than a talk page for a random article, no? Especially when those standards cause Wikipedia to be less accurate. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Academic sources are better than news media" has long been understood in Wikipedia (see e.g. WP:TIERS). More importantly, though, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. We don't need to go through a rigamarole of magical incantations at the Village Pump just to realize we should trust peer-reviewed scientific journals over the media when the two disagree. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:01, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Except they agree. There’s a standard being set here for far-right that isn’t being held for other details included in the article. The arguments against are mostly disparate and disjointed calls for either a new specific standard or WP:OR, which tells me that the arguments against including it aren’t necessarily all coming from Wikipedia’s own policies and norms. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 06:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Right-wing populism" and "Far right" are not synonymous. Progressive democrats aren't far left for the most part, except by false equivalency. You yourself made an argument that it's an accurate description of a segment of the Republican party and your explicit reason for its exclusion runs pretty directly counter to how Wikipedia works. We're not going to whitewash this article for fear that readers could accidentally map a minor ideology to the entire party.
    But regardless, if we're inventing new sourcing standards (and to answer @TarnishedPath):
    From The Original Split in America:

    "The Freedom Caucus and the Tea Party anchor the far-right end of the political spectrum along with Fox News."

    Allcorn, Seth; Stein, Howard F.  The Journal of Psychohistory; New York Vol. 49, Iss. 2, (Fall 2021): 82-100.
    Which really shouldn't have been necessary given the abundance of clearly reliable sources above. There isn't a requirement that only academic sources can count here, and in fact WP:SECONDARYSOURCES makes that a bit more challenging to justify as policy here. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • It’s not an arbitrary standard. I could find an abundance of medium-quality news sources that refer to “far-left” Democrats, but that doesn’t mean there is a faction of Democrats that are in the political far-left. Terms like this are often used fast and loose to refer to the extreme ends of a party’s internal coalitions - like how a “liberal Republican” or a “conservative Democrat”, in modern terms, is not affiliated with the left or the right. Toa Nidhiki05 13:04, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's an arbitrary standard because you're unilaterally imposing extra caveats on the rules around sourcing. I could find an abundance of medium-quality news sources that refer to “far-left” Democrats If the same sourcing standards can be met, then it should be included. Tu quoque isn't a valid concern here, because what's being discussed is this article's inclusion of the term. If you think Democratic party should include far left as a factional ideology then by all means, be the change you want to see. I suspect the "medium" in "medium quality" is going to have WP:RS issues, considering there's objectively no far left bloc with power among the Democrats in contrast to the far right with the Republicans. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:10, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is not arbitrary to preference high-quality, academic sources from subject matter experts. This is normal practice on Wikipedia, and you are fundamentally wrong about this. And your proposal is fundamentally not accurate either - “far right” is a political position, not an ideology.
  • I don’t support adding far-left as a faction. However, it’s objectively false to say there arent’t powerful far-left Democrats - see the Squad, which has more members than there were votes to remove McCarthy, the Progressive Caucus, the left-wing, largest Democratic faction. Toa Nidhiki05 13:22, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    “far right” is a political position, not an ideology.
    "Far-right" is literally a term that refers to a range of ideologies, which is routinely used to describe the Freedom Caucus. That the ideology is not a single, unitary thing, doesn't mean it's not an ideology, just as "conservatism" isn't or indeed practically any ideology. I don't think you'll find many political theorists agreeing with your WP:OR take there.
    it’s objectively false to say there arent’t powerful far-left Democrats - see the Squad
    I'm not sure you're familiar with what "far left" means, respectfully. And we should leave this discussion out of it, it has no baring on the proposed changes to this article. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think you're the one who doesn't understand what you're proposing. Newsweek, POLITICO, the New York Times, International Business Times, Northeastern, and CNN have all referred to them as far-left. We don't include "far-left" as a faction there because 1) it's not a faction and 2) academic sources do not regard the Democratic Party as being or having a substantial far-left faction, even if the term is used to identify the furthest-left members of the party. This distinction is extremely relevant here. Toa Nidhiki05 14:15, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not going to keep engaging on questions relating to the Democrats. This isn't a political discussion, it's a discussion around the accuracy of information in an article. Reliable, academic sources consider the Freedom Caucus to be far right. Even if we accept the modification of WP:RS to account for that specific standard. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Adding to my !vote above, there has also been additional sources provided by Cortador which support the change. As long as the ideology of other factions is addressed in the infobox, so should be the ideology of that portion of the Republican party which is far-right. TarnishedPathtalk 07:22, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Extended content
  • Complimentary bar plots made by me, showing that if you just knew what percentage of adults had a Bachelor's degree in each state, you would almost certainly know who won each state. The only exception for Harris was New Mexico, and the only exceptions for Trump were Utah, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and North Carolina.
    Bar plot of the percentage of the population with a BA or higher in the states won by Donald Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election.
    Bar plot of the percentage of the population of the electoral jurisdictions won by Kamala Harris in the 2024 United States presidential election.
    JohnAdams1800 (talk) 16:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To me at least, the footnote idea is somewhat problematic, if only because I think it's too much explanation. I wouldn't mind using that section to clarify factions though (ie. which caucuses in the House are which ideology.). That would probably be more useful than the current somewhat arbitrary list of "factions". Something like:

Sources identify the Republican Main Street Caucus as centrist,[1] the Republican Governance Group as center[2] to center-right,[3] the Republican Study Committee as center-right[4] to right-wing,[5] and the Freedom Caucus as Right-wing[6] to far-right[7]

I'd prefer not to use news sources, but individual caucuses are generally not as focused on in academic sources.
Toa Nidhiki05 15:09, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This looks viable. DN (talk) 00:36, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just as a comment, @Toa Nidhiki05, your use of inline sourcing broke the talk page, you may want to refactor those into links. We have academic sources now for “far-right”, how do you feel about the suggestion above to include it in the position section instead of the ideology one? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:27, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose including it in the position section. Toa Nidhiki05 15:29, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So we have sources that meet the standards you outlined before. Would you be in favour of adding it to the ideology section then? What is your preferred handling of the whole far-right thing here, since you’ve not been terribly clear what you want, rather than don’t want. The citations are still disabling the “reply” button and burying these replies, by the way.Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am not in favor of adding it to either; "far-right" is not an ideology, and as previous discussions have agreed to, the majority of academic sources refer to the party as either center-right or right-wing, and so that is what we label the party as. As far as I can tell, there has been no shift in academia within the last 3-6 months towards labeling the party any differently. Toa Nidhiki05 15:47, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
the majority of academic sources refer to the party as either center-right or right-wing
This is not, and it has never been, what the RFC is about. Nobody at any point here has asked for the party to be labeled far-right. If your explicit concern is that it being included at all, regardless of what sources say, results in labeling the party as it then I'm struggling to see how that fits into Wikipedia's framework and guidelines. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:29, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That was a typo above, fwiw.
But yes, I oppose including it at all. It's not the prevailing academic view. Unless you can demonstrate this has changed in the last 3-6 months. Toa Nidhiki05 16:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Toa Nidhiki05 Can you keep in mind that Trump's main support is from voters without college degrees, and academic sources are written by people with college degrees. Also as Wikipedia editors, we almost all have college degrees too, and thus perceive Trump and the GOP as further to the right than the median American voter. It's Actor–observer asymmetry, which is a key part of statistics in the first place. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 16:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is WP:OR and not particularly helpful here. It's also worth remembering that not everyone in this thread is American or on the political left. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:43, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But is everyone in this thread college-educated? Because if they are, they are statistically less likely to vote for Trump, are more likely to perceive Trump as too far on the right, and are less likely to be appealed to him ideologically because education appears to be the ideological divider now, not income. Sources: Polarized by Degrees by Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins; Can Democrats Win Back the White Working Class?; What Explains Educational Realignment Among White Americans? JohnAdams1800 (talk) 16:45, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please see WP:NOTFORUM. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:50, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not sure how attempting to control discussion here is a good idea. Toa Nidhiki05 17:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because sidebars about electorate educational attainment are unrelated to the discussion here, and the user above already inserted a bunch of WP:OR bar charts into the discussion about something unrelated that broke the formatting of the page. It’s not trying to “control the discussion” to point out that this RfC isn’t the appropriate venue for these analyses of the electorate and conversations around implicit bias. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:18, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose We need some more solid, academic sources that describe a far-right faction. Adding a far-right faction to the sidebar would require us to add a far-right faction in the factions section in the body of the article below. The right-wing populist faction already notes that it is "described as the American political variant of the far-right". I don't think we need another far-right faction without some more solid sourcing. BootsED (talk) 17:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What do we use as a benchmark for far-right politics in the first place? We can certainly do so for individual politicians or say the Freedom Caucus. When judging on the political spectrum, we largely use the standards of the country and RS.
    I've written plenty about the section about right-wing populism, and there are some sources on how some Republican populists are far-right. But I haven't encountered any sources saying that the Republican Party is far-right or that far-right politics is a minor ideology of the party.
    I regularly read books, academic sources, and reputable newspapers--I've added plenty of sources to the article. I just haven't encountered any sources saying the party is far-right as part of its ideology. Regardless of our personal political views, the party's positions are clearly not far-right to the national electorate.
    Note: I voted for Harris, and largely agree with the Democratic Party's views. I'm just using statistics and the sources I've added, not my personal political views. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 20:30, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The Freedom Caucus is consistently described as right-wing to far-right. There not much to debate there. Cheers. DN (talk) 00:28, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose (Summoned by bot) Having given some thought to this, I'm going to by-pass many questions to answer what I deem the central one in this case, which is "is the infobox the place to characterise (all?) the groups within a political party?". My answer is no. Infoboxes of political parties already end up overburdened with detail and this one seems at present about right to summarise broad trends in the party. If the Freedom Caucus is now a significant distinct faction, its name could be added to, or preferably replace one of the other named factions of the party. The infobox should provide a quick handy 'key facts'. Coverage of the caucus, and how the caucus impacts the whole party can be covered better in text in the normal way and with due weight. btw I'm European, and some of Harris's positions were relatively 'far-right' seen from here.Pincrete (talk) 06:24, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is some of my thinking. The infobox at present contains ideologies of the factions and I wrote above that the infobox is too long and ways should be explored to shorten it. One of those ways would be to remove the faction ideologies altogether. However given that the infobox does contain faction ideologies, in the absense of discussion about removing them altogether I think I'd have to support listing all faction ideologies. Agree on both major US parties looking fairly hard-right from over in Australia. Both parties are a unity ticket on perpetual war and unrestrained capitalism. The Democrats only fiddle around the edges with individualism which by and large is not a socialist or anarchist concern (actual left-wing politics). TarnishedPathtalk 07:13, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Just as a quick note @Pincrete: - the Freedom Caucus is already listed in the "Caucuses" section of the infobox. So not including "far-right" doesn't mean the Freedom Caucus is not listed - it already is. It is, contrary to popular belief, the smallest of the GOP's major caucuses (the centrist Republican Main Street Caucus and Republican Governance Group have nearly double the members). And political scientists routinely regard the GOP as either center-right or right-wing, even relative to Europe (which doesn't matter here - political positions are a national scale, not an international one, and both parties are the big-tents of either side of the aisle). Toa Nidhiki05 13:51, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    TN05, thanks for the correction. I only scanned down as far as the 'ideologies' where three primary ideological positions were listed. I didn't see factions. Obviously we should be consistent with regard to the various 'wings' of a party, but IMO, as a general principle, listing ideologies and factions and 'positions on the L-R spectrum' is overburdening the infobox, to a large extent these overlap. Obviously I agree that L-R can only be assessed within a particular country, my remark was simply an 'aside'. Pincrete (talk) 14:06, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Just because left-leaning polities in America have sometimes labeled the party as such, doesn't mean it's true. We must be careful as the party represents the views of millions of Americans and actively participates in our democratic process. Labeling the Republican Party "far-right" would be as preposterous as labeling the Democratic Party "far-left". I might remind everyone here that Wikipedia has a carefully crafted list of "reliable sources" that are selected specifically to reinforce specific viewpoints that to the unaware wikipedia reader give false and/or unreliable information that will be taken at face value. It's sort of an information war. If it is far-right, we must first define far-right, then research and conclude if the party is far right or not, and then find the scholarly sources that support that designation. We must not rely on opinionated legacy media to give us an answer which unfortunately a large portion of Wikipedia does. We must be extremely neutral and unbiased in our labeling, and for that reason I strongly oppose that label. Completely Random Guy (talk) 15:24, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We can ignore all of that and describe the party as sources do. Wikipedia has no obligation to pander to American voters, and should in fact avoid doing so.
    Likewise, suggesting "we must first define far-right, then research and conclude if the party is far right or not" is textbook original research and we should avoid it at all cost. Cortador (talk) 15:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is totally incorrect to say that "labeling the Republican Party "far-right" would be as preposterous as labeling the Democratic Party "far-left"". For one, it is easy to find senior figures and organizations in the Republican Party that are associated with politics that meet the standard definition of far-right; that absolutely does not apply to the Democrats.
    Second, there's a very simple litmus test here. Do people and groups that are unambiguously far-right or far-left support one of the major parties? On the far-right, groups that are explicitly fascist, Nazi, white supremacist, or Christian nationalist pretty much uniformly are supportive of the Republican Party and/or actively engaged with Republican politics. On the far-left, groups that are communist, Marxist, or anarchist, are nearly always outside of the Democratic Party, and critical of centre-left (and sometimes left-wing) social democrats and democratic socialists who might argue for working within the Democratic Party. ChristyMcMorrow (talk) 17:50, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, adding "far-right" is WP:UNDUE entirely. Should we start an RfC to mention far-left as a minor ideology in the infobox of the Democratic Party (United States)? Iljhgtn (talk) 21:33, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If you think that the Democratic party article should include far left as a faction and it is backed by reliable sources then by all means, you should try to include it. Theofunny (talk) 11:08, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose — Per BootsED, who articulated my beliefs concisely. The provided sourcing is acceptable, but in order to include such a grand statement in the infobox, more association between the Republican Party and the far-right is necessary, let alone if the Freedom Caucus' existence can constitute a proper Republican faction with a hold in the internal operation of the party. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 22:32, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The Freedom Caucus has 33 elected members of Congress, of course they’re a meaningful faction. It’s not a “grand statement” if the sourcing is acceptable. There’s a reason that there are explicit arguments being made in here by editors concerned with sanitizing the reputation of the Republican Party (this isn’t an accusation, it’s been an explicit argument made in opposing the changes in here so far) and another entire subset of editors can’t help but discuss the article on Democrats: because a subset of editors is openly concerned with “far right” seeming inflammatory regardless of what WP:RS say and are making the mistake of viewing this as a political discussion, and Wikipedia shouldn’t self-censor. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 06:34, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This exactly. Additionally, a number of editors are proposing that we conduct original research to determine whether or not the GOP has a far-right faction instead of simply assessing whether or not there are sufficient sources that state that they do. Cortador (talk) 07:13, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If you think the sourcing is acceptable but want to omit the information anyway, you are coming to a conclusion that the sources didn't come to i.e. you are conducting original research. Cortador (talk) 09:26, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. WP:UNDUE and no highly-reliable academic sources are provided, as would be needed for a highly-controversial label like this. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:11, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Original comment moved to survey section above. Simonm223 (talk) 19:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We really need sources that show this is a consensus view, not just a view that some argue for. The difficulty with a topic with as much coverage as this one is trying to decide what counts as a consensus view vs a view a source subscribes to or is advocating to be true. An additional problem is that "far-right" is not well defined. In an earlier discussion a source was offered to support something "far-right". When looking at the actual text it was clear that the source was referring to the far-right of the GOP. Thinking of this as a venn diagram, what our far-right article calls far right and those who are the furthest right of the elected GOP members aren't the same. "Far-right" is an inherently vague term so we need to be careful when we imply that sources that use the term to refer to members/parts of the GOP are intending to lump those people in with Neo-Nazis etc. Additionally, if those sources are we should question if their claims are valid. Unfortunately we are going through a partisan political period. We need to be careful that we are really reflecting a NPOV take vs we are listening to the partisan sources trying to make their cases. If nothing else we need true historical hindsight to see what claims really come true. Springee (talk) 16:41, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean a lot of these articles actually do lump the Republicans in with neo nazis. Or the "alt-right" anyway. And, for those citations I provided, I provided quotes so that you can see precisely how they are calling the republicans far-right. I also provided links to the articles. I'm only one man and have neither the time nor inclination to read fifty-three-thousand journal articles just to justify your arbitrarily high standard for inclusion. These are best sources. Please feel free to demonstrate that these positions are contested. If you cannot do so then I'd say "the republican party is far-right" should go in the lede. Simonm223 (talk) 16:46, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Any source that is honestly trying to associate the GOP with neo nazis is going to be a wp:REDFLAG and should be discounted absent some serious support from a wide range of other sources. I appreciate the issue with trying to read, as you said, 53,000 articles. However, that actually is part of the problem. How do we know what represents a consensus among those 53,000 articles (and other sources that could apply here). This is why we really need good summary sources to make such claims. At the same time, thanks to key word searching etc, we have 53,000 sources that will make a huge range of claims, many that will not stand the test of time or will not be widely accepted. How do you know the sources you are picking don't fall into that camp? It's not an easy problem but it does suggest that, as an encyclopedia, one that is supposed to be both neutral and impartial, and not a political journal where scholars need to put forth the next idea that will help them get published (and grant money), that we need to be err on the side of caution with such claims. Springee (talk) 16:54, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I am citing peer reviewed sources here. They're right above. Please feel free to review them rather than declaring them unreliable unread just because their findings make you uncomfortable. Simonm223 (talk) 16:57, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not questioning that they are peer reviewed. As you just said, there are 53,000 articles so how do we know which of the peer reviewed ones are the good ones and the ones that represent a consensus vs the ones just making a new argument. While peer review is a step in the right direction, it's not a talisman that ensures the claims related to politics are true, will never be challenged etc. When we have so much information we should resort to summary sources to help us sort what has staying power from things that don't. Springee (talk) 17:16, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Suggesting an editor needs to read 53,000 sources before we can put far-right in an infobox is WP:CPUSH pretty unambiguously. Simonm223 (talk) 17:20, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not suggesting that. I'm acknowledging the number you provided (presumably a rhetorical number but useful for argument sake). When we have so, so many sources how do we decide which ones to use, not use? I'm arguing that we need to find those that are summary sources, the sources that have a zoomed out view, rather than those that argue things are changing and we need to follow that lead. As I've said in the past, Wikipedia shouldn't present new ideas, views as fact. When we include such ideas we acknowledge they are new or not established. That is the case here. It would be wrong to avoid including the view that the party is now more populist than conservative. It would be wrong to avoid any inclusion of the claim that parts of the party are "far-right". However, we need to treat those as claims put forth rather than as agreed facts. Springee (talk) 17:36, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are literally 53000 references to review on Google Scholar regarding the Republican party and its relationship to the far-right. I was not using hyperbole that's literally what my search string returned. I went through the first page, sticking only to peer reviewed media, and there was like... one? false positive on the list. The rest directly addressed the relationship with the far-right. There was some variability. Some said that Trump was pushing the Republicans far-right. Some suggested this was an acceleration of a process that began in the 1980s but that the Rs had been moving farther and farther right over a very extensive and consistent time period. There was some disagreement over whether Bush's "compassionate conservativism" had slowed the roll. Of two mentions one said it had slowed the far-right acceleration the other said it did not. Others pointed to Koch funding as beginning a far-right shift. But the one thing that they all agreed with is that there were ideological connections between the Republican party and the far right. Simonm223 (talk) 20:28, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Based on what you are saying there are 53000 key word hits that have both phrases (or similar) within the article/source. That isn't the same as saying they are the same. Just for reference, doing a Google scholar search for "Republican far-left" resulted in 29,000 hits. I don't think we would argue that the GOP is far-left. Springee (talk) 23:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but you are leaving off part of what I said here - which is that I went through the peer reviewed articles on the first page and had only one that was a false hit. Simonm223 (talk) 12:24, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure those (the ones at the top of this string) price what you are hoping to prove. Springee (talk) 14:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well good thing it's an all you can eat buffet of various academics calling the Republican party politically extreme.
  1. Rise of the Reactionaries: The American Far Right and U.S. Foreign Policy By: Rehman, Iskander, Washington Quarterly, 0163660X, Oct2017, Vol. 40, Issue 4 Public opinion polling also appears to show that, by and large, the American populace remains profoundly committed to internationalism and to living within an open democratic society.[80] That said, on closer examination it also reveals some troubling trendlines, particularly among Republican voters. For example, it has become apparent that now close to 32 percent of Republican voters have a positive image of Vladimir Putin, while during the election 62 percent (compared with 47 percent of Democrats) stated that they favored "letting other countries deal with their own problems."[81] An October 2016 poll also indicated that more and more Americans—across the political spectrum—are skeptical of global economic engagement.[82]
    It is around these issues that the future of the Republican Party's foreign policy will be decided. With a man of the far right occupying the highest office in the land, internationalist conservatives will have their work cut out for them. As one historical overview of Republican foreign policy has noted, "Presidents have acted as focal points for their party, and Republican presidents have been given remarkable leeway to redefine not only conservative foreign policies but what it means to be a conservative in the United States."[83]     This one is interesting because it's an older one. It establishes that Trump was being called reactionary and far-right from the outset, and that academics saw a Republican party capitulation to Trumpism as being far-right, should it occur. Of course, as a plethora of reliable sources demonstrate, that did, in fact, occur. Simonm223 (talk) 19:01, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The Far Right Today (book) By Cass Mudde, published by Wiley, 2019, Ch. 10: Twelve Theses on the Fourth Wave, Subsection: Populist Radical Right Politics Is No Longer Limited to Populist Radical Right Parties, In the US, (neo)conservatives in the Repubican Party, including Texas senator Ted Cruz, were parroting far-right conspiracy theories about the UN (and the alleged "New World Order") well before President Trump brought them into the White House.
    But Decades of authoritarian and nativist responses to jihadist terrorist attacks, as well as the so-called "refugee crisis" of 2015 have led to a change not just in discourse, but also in policies... while a majority of Republican governors in the US supported a "Muslim ban."
  3. How Far-Right Extremism Changed American Body Politic By Nacos, Brigitte and Bloch-Elkon, Yaeli, Political Science Quarterly (Oxford University Press / USA). Fall2024, Vol. 139 Issue 3, p387-406. 20p. Modern-day, violent, far-right extremism existed well before Trump entered the political arena as presidential candidate in mid-2015. But during his first campaign, his first presidency, and after he left office, hate speech and violent extremism of the far-right variety moved from the fringe to the political mainstream, as the glorification of the January 6 insurrectionists by the former and aspiring future U.S. president; elected GOP officials in local, state, and federal bodies; and millions of MAGA loyalists attested to. and Three decades later, Trump stood on what remained of the violent far-right's sacred ground and spoke in the same tongue as McVeigh and contemporary extremists. He depicted himself and his supporters as victims of an America-hating deep state, proclaimed that 2024 would be “the final battle,” and promised to make America free again “if you put me back into the White House.”
    For Jeffrey Toobin, who studied McVeigh and the modern roots of right-wing extremism, “[A]ll trends that McVeigh embodied—the political extremism, the obsession with gun rights, the search for like-minded allies, and above all the embrace of violence—came together under the forty-fifth president [Trump].”8 However, the revival of far-right extremism in the 21st century began actually after the election of the first Black U.S. president, Barack Obama, and intensified after Donald Trump's jump into the political arena. It was fostered by the same radical ideas of white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and white Christian nationalism that incited far-right radicals in the 1980s and 1990s, including McVeigh.     and very, very explicitly and overtly To assess whether Trump would be able to act on his repeated threats to jail his political opponent once back in the Oval Office, we consulted and found disconcerting answers in the comprehensive Heritage Foundation's “Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project.”1 The sole focus here is on the aggressive rhetoric and violence of far-right extremism directly associated with the Tea Party and later with a Republican president and his party. Let's repeat for emphasis: The sole focus here is on the aggressive rhetoric and violence of far-right extremism directly associated with the Tea Party and later with a Republican president and his party. The article continues Racial prejudices found a home in the Tea Party, which was established just a few weeks after Obama's inauguration; in the Tea Party's quasi-militant arm, the heavily armed and militarily trained Oath Keepers; and, most of all, in anti-Obama conspiracy theorists.
    I'm going to stop now except for one last pull quote from this very explicit and thorough article, now from the conclusion: It is no a secret that Donald Trump admires strongmen, such as Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong Un, Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan, and Hungary's Viktor Orban; he has praised these men often and publicly. Although Trump said repeatedly that he wanted to be a dictator only on the first day of his second presidency, there was no outcry by the political class, business leaders, or the public at large. Instead, 76 percent of Republicans, 36 percent of Independents, and 13 percent of Democrats told pollsters that a Trumpian 1-day dictatorship was definitely or probably a good idea.66 Even the most extreme threats issued by Trumps, his inner circle, and fanatical followers of his Truth Social posts considered this behavior as normal. The same was true for several Wall Street billionaires, who donated generously to Trump's 2016 campaign, disavowed him after 6 January, and renewed their support in 2024, if only to avoid new taxes on the wealthiest individuals, one of Biden's campaign promises. They and an increasing number of Silicon Valley billionaires followed the example of almost all GOP officials in Washington, DC, and around the country who had been critical of Trump after he incited the breach the U.S. Capitol; they all crawled back into the fold.
    In the epilogue of his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, Jason Stanley concludes,
    What normalization does is transform the morally extraordinary into the ordinary. It makes us able to tolerate what was once intolerable by making it seem as if this is the way things have always been…Normalization means precisely that encroaching ideologically extreme conditions are not recognized as such because they have come to seem normal.67    .
    I'm reaching the limit of how many "the Republican party are far-right" journal articles I can stomach in a day now. I think, from my momentary source confusion earlier today, that it's clear they're kind of starting to blur together with the sheer number I've read in the last two days so I'm going to leave it here for now. But I guess the question is this: when is enough enough? How many peer-reviewed sources calling the republicans far right, extremist, authoritarian, racist, etc. do we need before we can do away with the absurd notion that the Republicans can be treated as a center-right party? Simonm223 (talk) 19:01, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Y'all mind taking this to a discussion section? It took me three times to leave a simple survey comment. If no one object I'm going to collapse this so it's easier to leave a comment. Nemov (talk) 19:24, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No I object strongly. This is the discussion section. No section was established for !votes. Simonm223 (talk) 19:26, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So, it's not that it doesn't include center-right, it's that it also includes far-right according to those RS, and whether or not DUE, Neutral etc...
    I've tried to paraphrase most of the recent arguments against inclusion below, to help us keep track. Forgive me if I missed any, or mistakenly misconstrued any context, I'm only trying to help keep things organized.
    By all means feel free to mention any needed corrections or amendments the list...
    1. POV/Claim
    2. Wikipedia shouldn't present new ideas, views as fact
    3. lacking good summary sources
    4. HFC is not just far-right
    5. WP:UNDUE/Needs academic sources
    6. more association (than just the HFC) between the Republican Party and the far-right is necessary
    7. left-leaning polities in America have sometimes labeled the party as such, doesn't mean it's true
    8. Wiki should not rely on opinionated legacy media
    9. The info-box may not be the place to characterize the groups within a political party
    10. political scientists routinely regard the GOP as either center-right or right-wing
    11. The right-wing populist faction already notes that it is "described as the American political variant of the far-right"
    12. the majority of academic sources refer to the party as either center-right or right-wing. It's not the prevailing academic view.
    13. far-right has been rejected in numerous/previous discussions
    Cheers. DN (talk) 11:09, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This has been one of the things that's stood out to me the most. The support arguments are all using similar logic and rhetoric, and the oppose arguments are all over the map in terms of why. Per WP:CONSENSUS:

    Many of these discussions will involve polls of one sort or another; but as consensus is determined by the quality of arguments (not by a simple counted majority), polls should be regarded as structured discussions rather than voting. Responses indicating individual explanations of positions using Wikipedia policies and guidelines are given the highest weight.

    Also, you're missing "too close to a change of presidents" on the list. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:19, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Completely Random Guy also brought up that the addition shouldn't be made because the GOP got a lot of votes during the election. Note that I don't think this is a valid argument in any way, shape, or form, but it was made. Cortador (talk) 11:50, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @JohnAdams1800 also made the argument that since the GOP got elected by the majority of the populace, it isn't far right. Theofunny (talk) 14:19, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Even if this isn't the intention, jamming stuff like this into the infobox just seems like POV pushing. This is especially the case after an election and inauguration of a new president. Nemov (talk) 19:22, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Requesting close - As it stands right now, this discussion has been up for nearly two weeks, and opposes outnumber supports by a 2:1 margin, with the consesnus unlikely to change. A close is probably in order here. Toa Nidhiki05 14:02, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion is still very much active, not sure why you are so eager to close it regardless of the outcome. Theofunny (talk) 14:20, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A RfC isn't decided by vote counting, it is decided by the quality of arguments made. As per list of arguments DN provided above, I very much doubt that the oppose arguments are sufficient to close the RfC their favour.
    Also, I don't know why you claim that "the consesnus [is] unlikely to change" - we don't have a consensus yet. Cortador (talk) 14:26, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    opposes outnumber supports by a 2:1 margin, with the consesnus unlikely to change
    This is not how WP:CONSENSUS is determined. Consensus is based off the strength of argument and agreement, not raw votes. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:28, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
extended discussion
Coded implementation
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • @Warrenmck can you give an example of how the infobox would look with your proposed change? At present the infobox on this article is quite long and I am interested how you would implement the change. TarnishedPathtalk 08:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is the entire change I’m proposing, ordering is just alphabetical:
    *:| ideology         = 
*:{{unbulleted list|class=nowrap|
*: | '''Majority:'''
*: | [[Conservatism in the United States|Conservatism]]
*: | [[Right-wing populism]]
*:}}
*:'''[[Factions in the Republican Party (United States)|Factions]]:'''{{unbulleted list|class=nowrap|
*: | [[Centrism#United States|Centrism]]
*: | [[Christian right]]
*: | [[Far-right]]
*: | [[Libertarian Republican|Libertarianism]]
*:}}
*:
    Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 08:46, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't be arsed going through the code, so it would just be adding a single point for Far-right in the unbulleted list? TarnishedPathtalk 09:06, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    With a citation, yes. The only change in the above code from whats there now is the addition of “Far right” in the bulleted list and that’s the total content of what the RfC is about. Hence me saying this seems like a WP:BLUESKY issue. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 09:09, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Pengelly, Martin; Greve, Joan E. (October 4, 2023). "Republicans Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise launch House speakership bids". The Guardian.
  2. ^ "Three Minor Parties Merge Ahead of April Elections". The Hill. November 7, 2007. Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), a longtime member and former co-chairman of the Tuesday Group, said lawmakers launched the PAC to help vulnerable centrists as well as liberal-leaning Republicans running for open congressional seats.
  3. ^ Kapur, Sahil (July 18, 2023). "Centrist Republicans warn far-right tactics could backfire in funding fight". NBC News. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  4. ^ Stening, Tanner (June 5, 2023). "Is the US now a four-party system? Progressives split Democrats, and far-right divides Republicans". Northeastern Global News. Retrieved May 29, 2024.
  5. ^ Clarke, Andrew J. (July 2020). "Party Sub-Brands and American Party Factions". American Journal of Political Science. 64 (3): 9. doi:10.1111/ajps.12504.
  6. ^ Lizza, Ryan (December 7, 2015). "A House divided". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 10, 2017. Meadows is one of the more active members of the House Freedom Caucus, an invitation-only group of about forty right-wing conservatives that formed at the beginning of this year.
  7. ^ Wong, Scott; Allen, Jonathan (April 28, 2022). "Trump expected to stump for Illinois congresswoman in primary fight against fellow lawmaker". NBC News. Retrieved November 24, 2022. Rep. Mary Miller, a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, said Trump has vowed to campaign for her ahead of her primary against GOP Rep. Rodney Davis.

Better sourcing on the conservatism faction of the GOP

[edit]

I'm going to bring this here considering the template blanking. @Toa Nidhiki05, do you think you'll be able to back up that it's a majority faction at present with a reliable source? The first source about conservatism is mostly talking about the Reagan years and the recent one you added is both pre-2015 and is drawing some nuance in the definition of "conservatism" used that makes it a bit tricky to use to support the claim you're making here. I'm pretty sure it's going to be hard to find good sources arguing that classical big-C conservatism is the majority position of the party in 2025, rather than a signifficant minority one. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 07:31, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe Conservatism should be shifted from the majority section, to the factions section EarthDude (talk) 12:12, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it’s clearly a faction, and a minority one at present. I see that being controversial, but the mainly on POV editing grounds. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is controversial and there was literally a discussion about factions here about a week ago. Come on. It’s clear you are very passionate in your beliefs on this, but they simply don’t align what what reliable sources say. Toa Nidhiki05 14:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But reliable sources don't stand for conservatism being a majority ideology anymore. Most reliable sources speak of right-wing populism or Trumpism being the dominant majority ideology of the party. The only reliable sources I can find so far which do state conservatism to be a majority ideology, aren't updated for recent years, in which the party has clearly gone through an ideological metamorphosis EarthDude (talk) 15:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You’re not looking in the right places then. Like, say, the sources already used. Toa Nidhiki05 15:56, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The sources already being used are outdated. That's why, there's a "failed verification" template added for conservatism as a majority ideology in the infobox EarthDude (talk) 15:57, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I just added that; the paper straight up does not make the claim that it's a majority ideology. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:16, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s clear you are very passionate in your beliefs on this
Beliefs is an interesting choice of words. I'm a political theory wonk, but sure, why not. I'm not particularly interested in a status quo article that presents internal rhetoric as fact in the absence of evidence backing up that rhetoric; this is why we don't treat the DPRK as a democratic republic on Wikipedia, for example. It's pretty in-line with the academic understanding at this point to say that classical Conservatism isn't a mainstream ideology in the contemporary GOP. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:15, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"classical Conservatism isn't a mainstream ideology in the contemporary GOP" What is your point? Classical conservatism is another term for traditionalist conservatism, a grouping of ideologies which includes Jacobitism, Whiggism, the Counter-Enlightenment, and Romanticism. The last American President who was a traditionalist conservative was John Adams in the early 1800s. Dimadick (talk) 17:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was careful to use "classical Conservatism", not "Classical conservatism" :) Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:40, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is classical U.S. conservatism when the term wasn't used before the 1930s and was only adopted by advocates in the 1950s through the 1970s? TFD (talk) 01:27, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It sure is a good thing we’ve had half a century of usage of conservatism as a distinct political ideology we can fall back on. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 07:26, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Toa Nidhiki05 that source you added back in does not make the claim at all that conservatism is the majority ideology. Neither does the source I tagged as failing verification. I directly quoted the paper in the edit reason removing the added citation. I'm not going to run every factual edit on this page through you personally for approval, you need to actually discuss the edits instead of just reverting things and asserting that your way is the only acceptable way. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:21, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Trump is not a conservative" has become a mantra among never-Trump Republicans and some Democrats. They are able to make this argument based on the ambiguity of the term. However the term has become synonymous with the Republican Party: they are conservatives by definition. TFD (talk) 17:58, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Republican Party is a rather typical neo-fascist party: "Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, ultraconservatism, racial supremacy, right-wing populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sentiment, sometimes with economic liberal issues,[1]" Dimadick (talk) 04:15, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Trump is not a conservative" has become a mantra among never-Trump Republicans and some Democrats.
Phrasing this in a dismissive manner, or trying to imply these edits are political, probably isn’t the best tactic here. There’s a lot of arguments that could be made that are inherently political and loaded, but a reevaluation of an article to be less, essentially, in-universe isn’t a bad call. This article treats the GOP with kid gloves and comes across as censored, an experience that is only reinforced by any attempts to actually improve the article being viscerally resisted by editors who just can’t help but try and turn this into a useful-vs-them political discussion.
The article shouldn’t set out to be a hit piece, but what’s there now is doing quite a lot of pretending the last decade never happened, and vastly overweight historical perspectives within the GOP without appropriate acknowledgement of those as pretty exclusively historical. This is a party that has undergone two sunstabtial ideological shifts, one with the Southern Strategy and one in the last decade, and it’s written in many places like neither of those shifts happened. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 07:37, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"treats the GOP with kid gloves and comes across as censored" Overly verbose way to describe the whitewashing of this article. The text should emphasize the party's "vices, crimes or scandals", instead of trying to hide them under the rug. Dimadick (talk) 07:42, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’m trying my best to avoid coming across as a partisan hack in a setting where acknowledging reality pretty quickly causes people to jump there. This needs to be treated like a fringe-y religious topic, we shouldn’t even slightly tolerate in-universe language and clear whitewashing WP:POV editing. This is an article about an authoritarian strongman aligned party that backed an attempted coup and which has a relationship with objective reality which can increasingly be described as fraught. We shouldn’t be letting said tenuous relationship be treated as an equally valid perspective for editing, because it’s not.
“But what about the Democrats” isn’t an argument any editor should be making when it comes to verifiable, factual edits on an article like this. Or any article, actually. People need to check their political rhetoric at the door; wikipedia operates with more strict verifiability and sourcing parameters than a Facebook conversation about partisan politics among friends. If they really find the labels “authoritarian” and “anti-intellectual” to be so offensive as to not deserve a serious discussion in this in this article, well, too bad? That’s not Wikipedia’s fault. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 08:00, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we look at similar parties like Fidesz

Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈfidɛs]; Hungarian: Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség pronounced [ˈfidɛs ˈmɒɟɒr ˈpolɡaːri ˈsøvɛt͡ʃːeːɡ]) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Hungary led by Viktor Orbán. It has increasingly identified as illiberal.

Originally formed in 1988 under the name of Alliance of Young Democrats (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége) as a centre-left and liberal activist movement that opposed the ruling Marxist–Leninist government. It was registered as a political party in 1990, with Orbán as its leader. It entered the National Assembly following the 1990 parliamentary election. Following the 1998 election, it successfully formed a centre-right government. It adopted nationalism in the early 2000s, but its popularity declined due to corruption scandals. It was in opposition between 2002 and 2010, and in 2006 it formed a coalition with the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP).

and Justice and Development Party (Turkey)

The Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi [adaːˈlet ve kaɫkɯnˈma paɾtiˈsi], AK PARTİ), abbreviated officially as AK Party in English, is a political party in Turkey self-describing as conservative-democratic. It has been the ruling party of Turkey since 2002. Third-party sources often refer to the party as national conservative, social conservative, right-wing populist and as espousing neo-Ottomanism. The party is generally regarded as being right-wing on the political spectrum, although some sources have described it as far-right since 2011. It is one of the two major parties of contemporary Turkey along with the Republican People's Party (CHP).

Both of these discuss how they self style and are described by neutral sources. This article jumps into a history lesson and doesn't even touch on the contemporary party until the bottom of the third paragraph:

Since 2009, the party has faced significant factionalism within its own ranks and shifted towards right-wing populism, ultimately becoming its dominant faction. Following the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump, the party has pivoted towards Trumpism.

Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:52, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's interesting that editors seem intent on deemphasizing conservative and promoting "far-right". Some of the discussion above seems to fall into the no true Scotsman sort of argument. "Sure sources call the GOP conservative but they aren't really conservatives". At the same time editors feel that any mention of "far-right" are clearly aligned with our far-right article that prominently highlights Neo-Nazis etc. Does any reasonable source feel the "far-right" Freedom Caucus of the GOP is really a the same as a neo-nazi group? I suspect we don't have a lot of recent sources outright stating GOP is primarily conservative in part because most treat this as a sky is blue sort of claim. Comments such as the GOP being is a rather typical neo-fascist party are fine tongue and cheek sort of thing but hardly reflect reality, even in the age of Trump. Springee (talk) 12:34, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's interesting that editors seem intent on deemphasizing conservative and promoting "far-right".
I'm uncertain why this is "interesting". It's a completely logical followthrough on a party that's undergone a major ideological shift over the last decade. "Sure sources call the GOP conservative but they aren't really conservatives" the sources being discussed here are actively making the claim themselves that they're using "Conservative" in a distinct way from Conservative (the ideology).
Does any reasonable source feel the "far-right" Freedom Caucus of the GOP is really a the same as a neo-nazi group?
Did anyone here make this claim? Just because you're keeping ideological bedfellows doesn't mean it's a direct policy or moral equivalent. That you jump to "far right" being the same as equating the Freedom Caucus to Nazis probably belongs in a political discussion, not one around article accuracy. If you need to be brought up to speed on what the far right is and means, that's okay, but editing from incredulity isn't helping Wikipedia.
I suspect we don't have a lot of recent sources outright stating GOP is primarily conservative in part because most treat this as a sky is blue sort of claim.
It's incredibly easy to find sources making the opposite claim, which sort of tanks that theory. The GOP in 2025 is not a conservative party, except insofar as Republicans are definitionally conservatives in American political parlance. That doesn't mean we can conflate that with the ideology of Conservatism. So basically: Republicans are conservatives. That doesn't mean their ideology is Conservatism.
Also, please knock off the insinuation that editors aren't engaging in good faith when trying to deal with the fact that what's currently here is very, very clearly whitewashed. Addressing whitewashing isn't an inherently political activity, fighting to keep it while insinuating other editors are cherry picking absolutely is. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:09, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect we don't have a lot of recent sources outright stating GOP is primarily conservative in part because most treat this as a sky is blue sort of claim
As a further addendum on this: Wikipedia is concerned with verifiability and accuracy. That this seems obvious to many in an American political milieu speaks to that political milieu and the state of education around political theory. It does not, however, mean that a party actually is that way. This isn't a left vs. right discussion, this isn't right wing editors vs left wing editors. Rather it's editors familiar with political theory who are able to discuss technicalities vs., apparently, editors who can't help but assume any critical evaluation from an academic source is inherently anti-GOP in its nature and intention.
A scholarly and accurate treatment of the GOP is inherently going to be unpalatable to many people, particularly those who politically align with the GOP, but we shouldn't let that stop us from working towards an accurate article. This isn't any more a political statement than it is to say Falun Gong members are often deeply unhappy with the state of that article, or chiropractors with that article. Wikipedia isn't censored. While I think we need to be careful not to have it come across as inflammatory changes for the sake of rhetoric, wasting a bunch of time trying to point out, over and over, that the GOP's self-styling and internal rhetoric isn't useful in this article is getting us nowhere when people keep interpreting it as politics bleeding into the article talk pages. Hence all the "Well what about the Democrats!?" comments we're getting. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s clear you have very strong views on this topic. However, those views simply don’t align with what reliable sources say, or with basic reality (the Republican Party is, in fact, conservative). I’d recommend taking a step back for a bit if you’re unable to separate your personal feelings from what reliable sources say. Nothing you’ve shown has indicated the party is no longer conservative. Toa Nidhiki05 13:55, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
those views simply don’t align with what reliable sources say
If the sources make that claim, would you mind editing one of said sources into the ideology section of the infobox? You've sidestepped me directly asking you about the sources you included and the template removal multiple times now. Because you've edited in an extra source for the conservative claim that doesn't make that claim in the paper, and you reverted me removing that on the grounds that the paper didn't make that claim. You also didn't bother to actually engage with this discussion here, which is directly about your added in source, and instead feel it's appropriate to tell other editors to disengage.
I’d recommend taking a step back for a bit if you’re unable to separate your personal feelings from what reliable sources say.
This is wildly out of line. You've called for moratoriums on discussion topics, unilateral declarations of article content, blanked a [failed verification] template despite two sources simply not making the claims you used them for (I assume you read the abstract and not the whole thing?), refused to engage with direct dicussions around your own edits, and here call for editors who don't agree with your vision for this article to step back. You need to read, and internalize, WP:OWN. As I said above, I'm not going to run every single content edit in this article through you, personally, to include it. You're beyond out of line here in how you're engaging with both this article and other editors. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:04, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You say things are being white washed. I would argue they are being blackwashed in context of contemporary partisan rhetoric. You are correct that Wikipedia isn't censored. However, it is also an encyclopedia and should be, well conservative, in how it handles subjects. Linking the GOP to Neo-Nazis via far-right isn't that. Suggesting that they are even ideological bedfellows, any more than the most left wing of the Democrats are ideologically aligned with the Khmer Rouge, is not helpful and certainly moves us towards black washing the article vs creating a balanced, encyclopedic text. You want editors to "knock off claims of bad faith". I would agree. It would help if you down played talk comments suggesting the GOP is a facists party even when those comments are tongue in cheek. To zoom out a bit, this is a case where we really need sources that are talking a broad view rather than academics trying to either make the case for a new idea. In a sense what we need to be presenting is the text book material vs latest research. As two examples of high level over view consider that the US State Department says the following [1] The Republican Party is known to support right-leaning ideologies of conservatism, social conservatism, and economic libertarianism, among other -isms. Thus, Republicans broadly advocate for traditional values, a low degree of government interference, and large support of the private sector. Khan Adacamies isn't what I would consider to be a robust source but, like Wikipedia, they are trying to provide a summary vs a latest trends view. [[2]] the Republican Party’s platform has also transformed over the years to address issues of concern to its constituents. Today, the core values of the Republican Party align with conservative ideology. When we zoom out and try to find sources that summaries vs argue about the details, we find that "conservative" does appear to be a core ideology of the current party. I don't think those sources are "white washing" anything. Springee (talk) 14:02, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You appear to be conflating two editors in your reply here. I don't think it's fair to call the GOP neo-fascist, for example. Elements? Absolutely, but that's easy enough to pass RS standards as well, and including too much on it is probably WP:UNDUE. But any claim that the GOP is a party of small government should be treated as it is by most political scientists: internal rhetoric that is very, very, very clearly not a reflection of a party who is, at present, largely authoritarian in bent.Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:07, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know you didn't say GOP=facists. I also think that reply was tongue in cheek but, in context of this discussion not helpful. I'm not sure that evidence really supports the authoritarian part. Yeah, that has been a lot of rhetoric since say 2016 but compared to what? Are we saying more authoritarian vs the "Reagan" GOP? Are we saying vs the Democrats? The problem with this type of discussion is it inherently dives into contemporary, partisan politics where the opinions of those who are making the arguments become a factor and where we lack long term objectivity. This is why I've argued we really need to be looking to summary sources to guide how much weight we apply vs trying to find the latest academic article that supports what we feel the article should say. I would argue that the two summary sources I've provided are too zoomed out but they are the sort of broad overviews we should use to decide what is the right balance in this article. Too much emphasis on "far-right" and any sort of ties to Neo-Nazi's (even via implicit linking) are always going to be a problem. Rejecting the idea that conservativism, broadly construed, is a major, perhaps the major, ideology of the GOP also seems questionable. Springee (talk) 14:24, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that evidence really supports the authoritarian part.
Oh it's quite a thing.
Yeah, that has been a lot of rhetoric since say 2016 but compared to what?
The US doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it's pretty easy to look at global political trends. That the GOP has embrace authoritarianism is widely acknowldeged in scholarly sources and by the incoming President of the United States of America. This isn't a hot take.
we should use to decide what is the right balance in this article.
This article deeply suffers from a middle ground fallacy. If there's an abundance of sources making the claim that the GOP has a signifficant far-right faction, it's not against the neutral tone to state that. If it feels that way to some people in the GOP, then that's not really an issue with factual accuracy, but rather their understanding of where the middle is.
Too much emphasis on "far-right" and any sort of ties to Neo-Nazi's (even via implicit linking)
I don't mean this to sound rude, and without tone on the internet I'm not actually sure how to avoid that, so please understand I'm being sincere here: what if the reason that there's so much attention being drawn to it is it isn't insignificant? I don't think it should be the focus of the article, and if you look above at the RfC I was specifically calling for its inclusion as a minor ideology, but at some point it is worth recognizing that a whole lot of the experts worldwide are specifically sounding alarm bells, alarms that they frequently publish in an WP:RS passing way. This is something it's possible to discuss neutrally, but not with someone whose baseline understanding of neutrality is rooted in taking American political rhetoric (from either side) at face value. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:37, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it quite a thing? You have someone who is arguing, in 2016, that this is a thing but now that we are 8 years out was his claim correct? Just because an academic makes a case for something doesn't mean it's a consensus view or true. One of the big problem with politics in particular is there are may opinions and views. As for your last comment, again we need to decide what is actual long term fact and what is political rhetoric and alarmism. What are the odds that at least some, perhaps the majority of this is a case of political rhetoric echoed by members of the media etc. It's like how many people/sources were happy to accept that Trump "called neo-Nazi's" very fine people. I don't agree in the least that this article suffers from any middle ground fallacy. To me that looks like very motivating thinking. Find the summary sources that emphasize "far-right" etc as you wish. Not academics who are trying to make a name for themselves by making alarming predictions/claims and not political pundits who profit from emphasizing partisanship. If you can't find a high level summary source that supports it them perhaps you are applying undue weight. Springee (talk) 15:13, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I don’t think you’re familiar with the academic discussions on this topic. Sorry, I’m not trying to be dismissive or rude here, but you’re conflating very confusing American political rhetoric with some very cut and dry theory. If you think it’s motivated thinking I’m not sure what to say; it doesn’t seem like you’re super familiar with political theory? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:20, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This article deeply suffers from a middle ground fallacy
While I agree, this seems to be a persistent problem with many political articles and subjects that have left/right viewpoints attached. It's definitely a good discussion for the village pump. DN (talk) 20:01, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that there's a consistent contingent of editors who see any edits as left/right. A factual edit with a pile of RS attached to it which is uncontroversial with nonpartisan sources shouldn't be met with insinuations from editors that it's a political discussion at play, rather than "one side" finding factual edits unpalatable. This is a similar situation we've seen play out here plenty of times on fringe topics, but mainstream US politics makes it much touchier to a lot of people. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:33, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll also add that while the public at large isn't the same as the GOP, when looking at public poling it's clear that "conservative" is viewed as one of the major sections of the public at large and those voters are typically Republican. Here's Gallup saying 36% of the US considers themselves as "conservative" in 2021 [3]. Pew splits things up a bit differently [4]. They have "conservative" as the core of about 1/3rd of GOP leaning voters but also the largest part (combining their two "conservative" groups). They also show populist right as more towards the political middle vs the conservatives. Springee (talk) 14:14, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And the source added above for conservatism by Toa makes a similar distinction between the self-identification and the ideological label. I think it wouldn't be reasonable to say that Conservatism isn't a significant factor in the GOP, but I don't think it'd be reasonable to call it the dominant ideology. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:25, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone have access to the first source used to say conservative is a majority faction of the Republican Party? I do not seem to have access but I swear I remember reading it once before. I think it was discussing that Trump's populism was on track to overtake traditional conservatism as the future of the party, but I don't remember exactly and it doesn't seem to be open-access.
In either case, a lot of sources are now saying that right-wing populism has taken over the Republican Party. I have one NYT source that describes it as a "hostile takeover" and another that describes his election as displacing the old conservative establishment with populism. There are some others, but I'm looking at the page itself and right-wing populism has a bunch of sources describing how it is the dominant faction and has replaced traditional conservatism. The GOP is certainly still conservative, but it seems to me the "majority" right now is right-wing populism, especially after the 2024 election.
Note, that I still support the center-right to right-wing definition. I'm not referring to that in this post. BootsED (talk) 06:33, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I had access to it, that’s why I tagged it as failing verification and started this thread. It doesn’t make a claim that the Conservatism-conservatives are a majority. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 06:54, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that we have a trove of sources confirming that right-wing populism is the majority ideology of the GOP, that's what it should be. Even if he had more recent sources claiming that it is conservatism instead (which we don't - the sole source is pre-Trump), they would have to outweigh the considerable number of other sources as well. Also, since at least two editors have moved from providing sources to personal attacks on other editors, I'm led to believe there's no such sources. Cortador (talk) 13:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think if the sources aren't going to be put forward the phrasing in the article should probably just be changed, not just here but in general. If editors puppy-guarding this article aren't actually engaging in the D part of WP:BRD other than to make blanket statements that the status quo will not change I do think there's a point at which just ignoring those editors as engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour is warranted. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:59, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In that spirit, I've gone and removed the source. @Toa Nidhiki05, since you reverted its removal last time: if you actually read the paper they're quite clear that the definition of Conservative they're using isn't applicable for the claim that you used the paper to site. I directly quoted that part of the paper in the edit summary you reverted. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:06, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we have sources that argue that it's the majority ideology but do we have a consensus among sources to that end? The 2021 Pew study I linked to doesn't support right wing populism as the majority. In that study "populist right" was tied with "faith and flag conservative" at 23% each. "Committed conservative" was another 15%. While the current crop of leaders may be more populist than conservative there is also a lot of overlap and when we talk about the party as a whole we need to consider all of these factors. Springee (talk) 14:30, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Only one ideology can be the majority, unless one is a subset of the other. Pew is using nonstandard terminology in their groupings (Most sources wouldn't call "Faith and Flag Conservatives" a distinct ideology on its own, for example). There's an issue with people grabbing sources and reading overviews or abstracts but not into the weeds of how definitions are being used. I'd really love a source that says Conservatives represent a majority of the party that doesn't at the same time explicitly acknowledge using nonstandard definitions. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:49, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is no reason that a majority can't believe in multiple ideologies - but if there is to be one, it should be conservatism, which has long been recognized as the ideology of this party by reliable sources. Toa Nidhiki05 14:51, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is an issue if they're mutually exclusive in places, hence the subset comment. But you're right in that it is a bit more nuanced than that. Multiple editors have now pointed out to you that the sourcing standards have been met for including populism as the majority and merely edit warring and removing the failed verification tag for a paper that, to be clear, doesn't make the claim you're using it to cite does not constitute discussing it per BRD. If you believe that paper belongs in and I've misread it, please, explain why it doesn't fail verification, because I very clearly explained why I added that tag. I also added it without removing the source (initially) and brought the discussion here, and only removed it when it became clear you weren't actually intending on engaging with the substance of the discussion except to call anything other than the status quo acceptable.
I've said several times now, I have no interest in getting your permission for edits to this page. You have no more right to prohibit edits you don't like than I do, but I'm the one making an effort here to involve other editors and discuss the changes, and I've repeatedly been open to modifying my stances in light of new information or compelling arguments. If you want editors to seriously consider your perspective then you need to engage with the discussions taking place, but if your primary contribution is to move goalposts around on sourcing requirements and revert any change at all then that's a problem. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:02, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Conservatism has historically been the majority ideology, but things have changed, and that's clearly not the case anymore EarthDude (talk) 11:15, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See Cas Mudde: "Populism is an ideology, i.e. a worldview, but it is thin-centered, meaning it addresses only part of the political agenda – for example, it has no opinion on what the best economic or political system is. Consequently, almost all relevant political actors will combine populism with a host ideology, normally some form of nationalism on the right and some form of socialism on the left."[5]
The host ideology here is U.S. conservatism: a combination of libertarianism and social conservatism united by opposition to socialism. Furthermore, populism has been an element of conservatism in the U.S. since at least the end of WWII, with the conservative wing of the GOP attacking the Eastern liberal establishment. TFD (talk) 15:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a source that explicitly states that the GOP is a populist party with conservatism as the majority "host ideology" being conservatism, and does that source outweighs the plethora of other sources that call right-wing populism its dominant ideology? Cortador (talk) 15:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am not saying that. I am saying that the fact the party has populist elements does not refute that it is a conservative (as defined in the U.S.) party, TFD (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm certainly open to this argument if it's being made in reliable sources. I'd find it pretty suspect considering the strain of populism present in the Republican party right now is clearly really all-in on an expansion of government powers outside of some very narrowly defined places, but I'm curious what RS's say on this one. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:47, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Warrenmck: this is your second revert on this page in the last 24 hours. This page has a 1 revert rule. Please revert back. If you don't, I will report you. Toa Nidhiki05 14:59, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
An accidental violation, since the previous one wasn't tagged revert. I've walked it back now. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:03, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We can disagree on content but that was certainly an accidental revert and Warren did the right thing and self reverted. I appreciate that when I violated the 1RR rule (I don't make enough page edits here to have noticed the rule) they notified me and gave me the chance to self revert. Springee (talk) 15:41, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That’s entirely fair - I didn’t realize it didn’t technically show as a revert. That’s an understandable mistake that has been rectified. Toa Nidhiki05 16:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Without threatening you! :) Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I tagged another recently added source. The source (Politische Viertaljahresschrift) merely states that conservatism is mainly represented by the GOP, not that it is its majority ideology. Even if it did, there's a large number of other sources (including academic ones) stating that right-wing populism is, so stronger sourcing would still be needed to outweigh that. Cortador (talk) 20:21, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not sure you can take a source that says the Republican Party is the institutional representative of the conservative movement and that that isn’t sufficient. That’s a remarkably frivolous tag. Toa Nidhiki05 22:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The source doesn't state that the GOP's majority ideology is conservatism. It's as simpel as that. The GOP is probably also the main domestic representative of e.g. evangelical Zionism or radical free market libertarianism, and that's not the party's majority ideology either. Cortador (talk) 10:28, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of failed verification: looking at the sourcing for right-wing populism, I’m not impressed with these citations. It reads like a gish gallop of sources - primarily breaking news, op eds, and only a handful of academic sources, most of which have no quotation given. For example, one quoted news source simply says populists on the left and right are gaining influence. This is obviously insufficient to back up the claim. Toa Nidhiki05 22:32, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quick update on this: I wasn't able to scan the academic sources yet. But the news ones fairly uniformly fail to verify the claim that right-wing populism is the dominant faction of the Republican Party. Toa Nidhiki05 00:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can anyone who thinks they are not conservatives provide a definition of what U.S. conservatism is? Some writers look to Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush as true conservatives, but they had the same criticisms as Trump today. And each of them lost part of the party to the Democrats. TFD (talk) 04:38, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Whom are you asking this? Nobody has made this claim. Cortador (talk) 05:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Deutsch, Sandra McGee (2009). "Fascism, Neo-Fascism, or Post-Fascism? Chile, 1945-1988". Diálogos - Revista do Departamento de História e do Programa de Pós-Graduação em História. 13 (1): 19–44. ISSN 1415-9945.

Move of post 2009 material to opening of lead

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Cortador, you have violated BRD by restoring this recent move without gaining consensus [6]. The opening of the article should be at the highest level of the topic. This political party has been around for over 150 years. Putting recent changes into the second sentence of the lead needs a consensus as it violates MOS:OPEN. The original change was BOLD but rejected so the next step should have been a talk page discussion to gain consensus for the change (on a page like this 2:1 is not a consensus). Part of the problem with this change is it's not clear if this is a long term change, a blip while people hitch to Trump because he is winning or even how much of his winning is true support for Trump vs unhappiness with recent Democratic policies/moves/lawfair etc. Regardless, such a change needs clear consensus. Springee (talk) 14:57, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's been a decade and a half, there's no reason to utterly ignore the politics of the modern party until the fourth paragraph. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:05, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Since broke this article's 1RR, do me a favour and don't talk about conduct if you yourself are edit warring. Cortador (talk) 15:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, your edit violated BRD so I don't see a reason not to mention that you didn't engage in consensus building first. It would be more productive if you provided an argument for why you think the change was needed. At least that would help build a new consensus. Springee (talk) 15:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have already done so. Cortador (talk) 15:50, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe in the past you have made similar claims. Springee (talk) 16:15, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So are you going to be more productive now and avoid 1RR violations? Cortador (talk) 10:26, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The status quo (whatever it is) should be restored. GoodDay (talk) 15:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also in agreement here. We've had a slew of low-quality editing here which has, frankly, not been based off of existing reliable sources. We've had no consensus for these changes. Rather than persuade editors, it seems editors are attempting to force these changes through. There should be a mass-scale rollback to the status quo, where discussion can then actually continue. Toa Nidhiki05 15:09, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a content-based case to make here or do you just declare editor's contributions to be "low quality" if you disagree with them? Cortador (talk) 15:28, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do believe this has gone quite far enough and is better dealt with at ANI, and then perhaps editors other than myself can weigh in on the content dispute. My intention here was to engage as someone with a formal political theory background but clearly this article requires more active cycles than I'm willing to dedicate to the topic. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:44, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the edit in dispute over-states the factionalism of the Republican party and under-states the significance of its right-wing pivot. Please see the RFC above for a few examples of peer reviewed sources that support that Wikipedia is underestimating how right-wing this party is seen by academia. Simonm223 (talk) 16:30, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would support putting the post-2009 sentence back where it was originally. I think it works better there for readability and also keeps the page relatively synchronous with the Democratic Party page. BootsED (talk) 19:43, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of failed verification: looking at the sourcing for right-wing populism, I’m not impressed with these citations. It reads like a gish gallop of sources - primarily breaking news, op eds, and only a handful of academic sources, most of which have no quotation given. For example, one quoted news source simply says populists on the left and right are gaining influence. This is obviously insufficient to back up the claim. Toa Nidhiki05 22:32, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Absent a consensus to support this move I've restored the status quo position of the text. No changes to the text or current references, just the location. Springee (talk) 23:43, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Political position

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The political position needs to be re-evaluated. This party can no longer be considered center-right, and the center-right faction is now a dwindling minority. It is WP:UNDUE to have the position displayed as "Center-right to right-wing". I suggest the simple position of "Right-wing", with no mentions of center-right and far-right. Trumpism (described as "Right-wing to far-right" on its respective article) is the dominant ideology by far and large, and we should stop playing these games that try to hide the reality. I believe the sourcing also supports my proposal. Paul Vaurie (talk) 02:57, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Probably best to remove the field as it is subjective. BTW, what makes you think Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush were more moderate? TFD (talk) 04:40, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it's subjective. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have it. To a Nazi, the Nazi Party isn't far-right, it's mainstream right-wing. This argument is bogus, that because political position is subjective, it should be omitted from this article. Hell, everything is subjective. The fact that this article even exists is also subjective. It is based on community consensus of notability guidelines.
Also, I never stated that Nixon, Reagan, or the Bushes are somehow more moderate. My argument is that the GOP at this moment in time can be best captured as a solely "right-wing" party, given its stances and characteristics. The traditional definition of center-right doesn't apply to the party of today. Paul Vaurie (talk) 05:27, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The designation of the modern Republican Party as "center" right is absurd. The party very explicitly and publicly aligns itself globally with parties that are unproblematically defined as hard-right at minimum and more frequently far-right, including Fidesz, Brothers of Italy, Law and Justice, National Rally, Reform UK and many more. These are parties that the GOP openly praises and pointedly looks to as models, and vice-versa.
Conversely, the modern Republican Party is indifferent at best and hostile at worst to international parties that are more traditionally "center" right, including Germany's Christian Democrats, Poland's Civic Platform or the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. These parties, mind you, are ones that the GOP would likely have considered itself relatively ideologically close to a few decades ago.
While the "center" may be a relative and shifting term, calling the modern GOP "center-right" is patently false. It's a clear form of appeasement of a party that's been relentlessly critical of Wikipedia's coverage of it. TKSnaevarr (talk) 02:30, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Republican Party continues to have close ties with so-called center right parties, particularly in English speaking countries. TFD (talk) 02:56, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We really need a moratorium on this. Toa Nidhiki05 03:09, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On what grounds? That you want to stifle conversation? No. It's clearly a load of BS that the party is still classified as center-right. The sourcing for it is very poor. Paul Vaurie (talk) 04:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No - because this topic comes up constantly, the discussion always ends the same way, nothing new is presented. It's a waste of time. Toa Nidhiki05 04:52, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A previous discussion on the matter evidently resulted in the designation "center-right to right-wing" being added, when there was none previously. At minimum, the misleading "center-right" designation should be removed and the article reverted to its previous version that did not specify any status on the political spectrum at all. TKSnaevarr (talk) 10:45, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To the contrary, I've presented so many new, academic, peer reviewed, sources that contradict the "center-right" claim that I've actually got complaints about the volume. Quite a lot new has been presented. You have chosen to ignore it. Simonm223 (talk) 14:34, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Addition of new content that doesn't back up claims

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I'm taking a closer look at the content added by editors here, specifically related to far-right content. Increasingly, this content resembles a gish gallop of sources - sources that don't back up the claim. Let's take a look at this one, for example:

They have been described as the American political variant of the far-right.[a]

  1. ^ Lowndes, Joseph (2019). "Populism and race in the United States from George Wallace to Donald Trump". In de la Torre, Carlos (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Global Populism. London & New York: Routledge. "Trumpism" section, pp. 197–200. ISBN 978-1315226446. Trump unabashedly employed the language of white supremacy and misogyny, rage and even violence at Trump rallies was like nothing seen in decades.
  2. ^ Bennhold, Katrin (September 7, 2020). "Trump Emerges as Inspiration for Germany's Far Right". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 20, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
  3. ^ Gardner, J.A.; Charles, G.U. (2023). Election Law in the American Political System. Aspen Casebook Series. Aspen Publishing. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-5438-2683-8. Retrieved 2023-12-31.
  4. ^ Klein, Rick; Parks, MaryAlice (2018-06-13). "Trumpism again dominates Republican Party". ABC News. Archived from the original on June 12, 2024. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
  5. ^ "Trump remains dominant force in GOP following acquittal". AP News. 2021-02-14. Archived from the original on June 12, 2024. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
  6. ^ Martin, Jonathan (2021-03-01). "Trumpism Grips a Post-Policy G.O.P. as Traditional Conservatism Fades". The New York Times. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
  7. ^ The Christian Science Monitor (2020-11-05). "Why Trumpism is here to stay". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on June 12, 2024. Retrieved 2024-06-12.

Look at all those sources - looks great, right? Except, no. Here's what the sources say:

1) Does not specifically call it the "American political variant of the far-right". It merely says that one person - Donald Trump - said bad things at rallies.

2) Article is about the German far-right liking Trump. It is not about the American far-right.

3) Book source, no quote given. Cannot confirm or deny.

4) Does not mention "far-right" once, or even right-wing.

5) Does not mention "far-right" once, or even right-wing.

6) Does not mention "far-right" once, or even right-wing.

7) Does not mention "far-right" once, or even right-wing.

What do these articles have in common? They all are about Donald Trump. But none of them (except maybe the book source, which has no quote given) even come close to backing this claim. We have seven different citations presenting the illusion that a claim is backed, when it simply is not. Obviously, I've removed this - but at this point I'm wondering just how many more are like this. Toa Nidhiki05 05:27, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding citatoin 4 - It’s evident in another round of primaries that has demonstrated no available daylight between Trump and Republican candidates for Congress. followed by The national campaign arm of Senate Republicans declined to comment on the news and Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine immediately pounced on Stewart, telling ABC News, "Corey Stewart stokes white supremacists."
Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a Republican, had this to say of Stewart: "I am extremely disappointed that a candidate like Corey Stewart could win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. This is clearly not the Republican Party I once knew, loved and proudly served. Every time I think things can't get worse they do, and there is no end in sight."
So, again, if we are actually cleaving rigidly to the words in the source, we should be saying that the Republican party is increasingly aligning with white supremacism. Simonm223 (talk) 14:55, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What "new content" are you referring to? None of the content is new. It's been in the article for quite some time. Cortador (talk) 20:23, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Failed verification tag for right-wing populism being the dominant GOP faction

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This recently-tagged claimed is currently backed by a few sources, and had other removed, despite plenty of them confirming the claim:

Trump remains dominant force in GOP following acquittal: "Even before the crisis, co-founder Reed Galen acknowledged that Trumpism was winning. “The authoritarian side of the Republican Party is the dominant side,” he said. “They have the momentum. For now, they have the money.”"

THE REPUBLICAN TRUMP VOTER: A Populist Radical Right Voter Like Any Other?: "In this article, we first illustrate that the Republican Party, or at least the dominant wing, which supports or tolerates Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda have become a prototypical populist radical right-wing party (PRRP)."

Republicans unveil two minimum wage bills in response to Democrats' push: "In keeping with the party’s deep division between its dominant Trumpist faction and its more traditionalist party elites, the twin responses seem aimed at appealing on one hand to its corporate-friendly allies and on the other hand to its populist rightwing base."

The Crisis of American Conservatism in Historical–Comparative Perspective: "The focus will be on the permutations and internal tensions of conservative discourse broadly understood both as an intellectual tradition as well as its political organization(s) (i.e., first and foremost, the Republican Party), and, of course, on those developments that foreshadow the rise of MAGA and its domination of the contemporary GOP."

The Progressive Moment in Global Politics Is Over: "While one of the two establishment parties won in the U.S., the Republicans have largely been taken over by the insurgent figure of Trump, who clearly has a mandate from voters to shake things up, said Teixeira. He said he doesn’t see either the left or conventional right easily recapturing Trump’s populist, multiracial working-class majority."

Trumpism again dominates Republican Party: "But either way, he arrives back in the United States having again demonstrated the triumph of Trumpism inside his own party, and amid fresh evidence that the forces he exploited are stronger than ever in the GOP."

Why Trumpism is here to stay: "President Donald Trump may lose reelection, but if the nail-biter contest of 2020 has shown anything, it’s that “Trumpism” is here to stay. As long as President Trump himself remains in the public eye – which he is expected to do, win or lose – his outsize persona will ensure that his political brand dominates the Republican Party for the foreseeable future."

There's more than that, but even just these sources are sufficient. Note that when right-wing populism was added as a faction/ideology to the article, there was a discussion about what this group should be referred to i.e. Trumpist/right-wing populist/far right, and the consensus was the use "right-wing populist" as the banner term. Cortador (talk) 06:18, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for posting the relevant quotes.
  • 1) Reed Galen is a political activist for the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump organization. He doesn't have any particular expertise in political science - so this is not very useful. Moreover, he calls it "authoritarian", not right-wing populist.
  • 2) This source is fine.
  • 3) This source simply refers to "MAGA", not Trumpism or right-wing populism. I've removed it from the citation group as a result.
  • 4) This generally seems to be referring to Trump and his electoral coalition, not right-wing populism or Trumpism.
  • 5) This one is iffy, as it does refer to Trumpism, but it's unclear if it's referring to an ideology, a faction, or something else.
  • 6) This is once again referring entirely to Trump. It's also an op-ed that is predicting the future.
  • Of the sources, exactly one of them apperas to back up the specific claim that the dominant faction of the Republican Party is right-wing populism. This is not very compelling evidence for inclusion. As I mentioned in the previous thread - these mostly appear to be talking about how prominent Trump is as a person, but not a specific faction or wing or ideology. Toa Nidhiki05 14:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you're being a bit careless with some of your readings here in discounting material too quickly. For instance in the book review we have the following: Unlike Reagan, with no moderates or liberals to contend with in the Party, Trump governed as the ideological purist of the mythical Reagan. This, along with other statements, clearly indicate that the Republican party has undergone a transformation, purging moderates and liberals. Although the author of this review seems to refer to the Republican party as being institutionally racist as a key ideology, saying In regard to race, then, Lucks is correct that “Trump’s rise to become the face of the conservative movement is not a complete rupture from the overall trajectory of the Republican Party and the conservative movement since Goldwater” (2020, 255). Lucks describes Trump’s racism as “overt” compared to Reagan’s “polite” racism, but “Reagan was more sinister than Trump because he was able to mask his heinous policies on race behind his amiable façade and convince the American public that he was a great man…. This legacy is something Reagan’s acolytes can no longer ignore” So how about we put "Racism" in the infobox for ideologies? Simonm223 (talk) 14:21, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Unfortunately the Ball WSJ article is paywalled and I can't get around that with any of my normal tools. However, while trying to access it I did come across the following in Wikipedia Library: It’s Trump’s Party Now. By: Last, Jonathan V., New Republic, 00286583, Dec2020, Vol. 251, Issue 12 They never imagined that the party and the movement they wanted to reform might turn into something closer to George Wallace and Father Coughlin than Liddle Marco. But that’s exactly what happened. Donald Trump is the reformed version of the GOP. There are still people at Washington think tanks who believe that the party can go back to what it was in 2014, just with a touch more populism around the edges. These people are living in a fantasy. George Wallace - A governor of Alabama who we describe as being known for "his staunch segregationist and populist views" Father Coughlin "After making attacks on Jewish bankers, Coughlin began to use his radio program Golden Hour to broadcast antisemitic commentary. In the late 1930s, he supported some of the policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The broadcasts have been described as "a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture"."
    So the new republic compares the Republican party, under Trump, as having not just "a touch more populism around the edges" but rather as being close to a populist segregationist and a Nazi sympathizer. Simonm223 (talk) 14:40, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Toa Nidhiki05 your characterization of the NYT source as a "Gish Gallop" is incorrect and, as such, also a failure of WP:AGF - I suggest you come to article talk and discuss removals rather than whole-cloth reverting reliably sourced material sans discussion. Simonm223 (talk) 14:46, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We need sources that specifically back up the claim. If the sources don't back up the claim, it's not appropriate to use them - thus, gish gallop ("a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm an opponent by presenting an excessive number of arguments, with no regard for their accuracy or strength, with a rapidity that makes it impossible for the opponent to address them in the time available") is an utterly appropriate term to use. I will continue to use the term as I find other source groupings that present dozens of sources, none or few of which back up the claim given.
    If the source doesn't say right-wing populism is the dominant ideology, we can't use it to back up that claim. If the source doesn't even once mention populism, we can't use it to claim populism has become more prominent. It's as simple as that. The fact that most of these sources don't even have visible quotes, or cite entire papers rather than specific sections, does not help either. Toa Nidhiki05 14:52, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Your rigidity in interpretation here more than edges into disruptive territory. We have a line that says the republican party is not just "a touch more populist" and that is followed by a line as describing the Republican party in terms of a racist populist and a fascist. This is frankly clear enough to support "right-wing populism". Simonm223 (talk) 14:58, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think it's "rigid" for sources to back up the claim. As it stands right now, we have two sources for the dominant faction claim, and maybe four or five unchallenged ones for the rising populism claim. All I have done is remove sources that don't back up those claims. I'm, frankly, not sure why you're reacting in such a hostile manner to a routine source check. Toa Nidhiki05 15:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Two sources backed the claim, yet you initially claimed none of them did (and tagged them). Clearly there's an issue with your "routine source check". Cortador (talk) 18:12, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The final source is not an "opinion piece". It is tagged as "politics". As I have laid out before, there's consensus to use "right-wing populism" as the banner term for this faction/ideology (which you keep ignoring). Sources don't need to define Trumpism or other term for you, they need to state that they are the dominant faction in the party. Also, you call one source "fine" here but previously tagged it with a failed verification tag. Did you not read it before you tagged it? Cortador (talk) 15:40, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm going to say that (as much as I may be a bit grumpy over needing to vet a sloppy source review) the characterization of the Christian Science Monitor as an opinion piece seems broadly correct. Simonm223 (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The internal labeling of a page on a website doesn't define whether it is an op-ed, news, or something else. It's clearly an opinion piece in this case. Toa Nidhiki05 16:16, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's an op-ed unless clearly labelled as not an op-ed? What kind of logic is that? Cortador (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's an op-ed because it's clearly the author writing their opinion about what they believe should happen or is likely to happen on the basis of the circumstances on the ground at time of writing. I'm sorry. I disagree with TN about most of these but they're right about this one. Simonm223 (talk) 16:44, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have to agree with Toa on this one as well. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    CSM has an opinion/commentary section, and that article is not tagged there. It's just listed under politics. Cortador (talk) 14:30, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Once again: how a site labels an article does not determine what said article is. The content of the article does. As Simonm223 said, it's an opinion piece because it's the author writing about their opinions. Toa Nidhiki05 14:45, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-Protection Upgrade

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There seems to be some sort of an edit war/disagreement exacerbated by a recent X post. Should the page be upgraded to Semi Protected? Tytech038 (talk) 19:32, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What X post/dispute are you referring to? Cortador (talk) 19:55, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it’s this one and a few others. Tytech038 (talk) 03:38, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's just some screenshot, possibly doctored. Has this been subject of any discussion here before you brought it up? Cortador (talk) 06:34, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No I know exactly what that is. It was a drive-by vandalism. The person who did it was brought to AN/I and said they wouldn't do it again. It was reverted after ~30 minutes up. It's done. I don't think they'll do it again. Simonm223 (talk) Simonm223 (talk) 12:46, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]


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