Without going into the object level, per your own number, “the 35% most extreme members of the ideological camp you disagree with are being outright reprehensible” doesn’t seem like an insane thing to believe at all?
If we assume the camps (left/right) are split 50⁄50, then it would follow that 35% (35% of 50%, the 17.5% most left-wing plus most right-wing fraction) of the population “are being outright reprehensible”, i.e. more than a third of the entire population. That seems to be a rather extreme view.
For example, most academics and journalists are far more left-wing than the general population, so most of them would fall into the 17.5% (35% of 50%) of the most left-wing fraction of the population. Therefore, most academics would be “outright reprehensible” according to your view.
Most academics and journalists are Democrats, but “most of them would fall into the 17.5%” doesn’t follow. I’m not particularly interested enough in this tangent to dive in the FEC data myself, but per the articles Claude found about it, academics and journalists disproportionately did not donate to Sanders among the presidential primary candidates.
If we assume the camps (left/right) are split 50⁄50, then it would follow that 35% (35% of 50%, the 17.5% most left-wing plus most right-wing fraction) of the population “are being outright reprehensible”, i.e. more than a third of the entire population. That seems to be a rather extreme view.
For example, most academics and journalists are far more left-wing than the general population, so most of them would fall into the 17.5% (35% of 50%) of the most left-wing fraction of the population. Therefore, most academics would be “outright reprehensible” according to your view.
Most academics and journalists are Democrats, but “most of them would fall into the 17.5%” doesn’t follow. I’m not particularly interested enough in this tangent to dive in the FEC data myself, but per the articles Claude found about it, academics and journalists disproportionately did not donate to Sanders among the presidential primary candidates.
Most people don’t donate to anyone, so this is not informative. We know that there is a heavy imbalance between left/right faculty in academia. For example, [29% of Harvard faculty say they are “very liberal”, while only 1% say they are “very conservative”](https://www.foxnews.com/media/fewer-harvard-faculty-members-identifying-liberal-although-staff-still-strongly-left-leaning-survey). [Many departments employ zero registered Republicans or show heavy imbalance in registered Democrat/Republican ratio.](https://www.ff.org/nearly-four-in-five-college-departments-dont-employ-a-single-conservative/) [Journalists also heavily lean left.](https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/)
Notably, 29 is a lower number than 35.