…for our political partys’ ideological purity.
Over the last three decades, liberals have been banished from the G.O.P., while Democrats who vote regularly with conservative Republicans have also disappeared. On the edges, sometimes that’s happened by switching sides (on the 1994 chart, the most conservative Democrat, Sen. Richard Shelby, switched parties the next year, while Sen. James Jeffords, the most liberal Republican, switched parties in 2001.) But the middle has also been a politically dangerous place to be.
