(This article was originally published at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, and syndicated at StatsBlogs.)
Byron Gajewski writes in with a good question:
My seven year old daughter asked us “what is a Republican?” We struggled. Do you have a working definition? Democrat too?
My reply:
There are different answers to this one. Simplest is party registration (that is public record), or party identification (which is a survey response). It’s kinda like being a Christian: One one hand, you are a Democrat if you say you are, similarly to how you are a Christian if that’s how you identify. On the other hand, others might not accept your identification. For example, Mormons consider themselves Christian, but I think most Christian churches don’t consider Mormons to be a Christian denomination. Similarly, Jeb Bush etc have argued about whether Donald Trump can really be considered a Republican. And remember what Ronald Reagan said: “I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic Party left me.”
P.S. Some commenters didn’t like my answer! Here’s what Gajewski wrote to me a few months ago in response:
This is what I was thinking too, kind of a fluid definition of republican/democrat throughout history. I might give examples of democrat and republican presidents to my daughter to help her understand. Regan and Truman will be where I begin, probably. We have the Truman library in town here and I took her to that which may help build an answer to her fundamental question.
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