A recent Pew Survey reports growing partisan polarization over the Bush and Obama years. That is, over time, a growing number of people identifying as Democrats or Republicans strongly disagree with positions held by those of the other party. For example, in 1987 23% fewer Republicans than Democrats agreed with the statements "The government should take care of people who cannot take care of themselves" and "The government should help more needy people, even if it means going deeper in debt (social safety net)." This year there is a 41% difference.
 |
| From "Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years" |
And as you can see in the chart to the left, partisan gaps have grown greatly over issues of the environment, and immigration. These changes result not from growing Democratic support for the environmental regulation and comprehensive immigration reform, but because of sharp declines within the GOP ranks for these positions.
Conversely, the growing divisions over religiosity and social conservatism (i.e. "family values" positions) are due to changing attitudes among Democrats. For example, in 1987 86% of Demos agreed with the statement "I have old-fashioned values about marriage and family." That number dropped to 60% in 2012.
The survey does not explain why this polarization has occurred. One reason could be the decline of our two main parties, their weakening ability to pull in new supporters and hold on to their present ones. Though the numbers bump up and down raggedly over the past twenty years, the percentage of people identifying as Republicans has dropped from 31 to 24% while Democrats has inched down from 33 to 32%. Independents have surged, from 29 to 38%.
This may mean that those who do join a party, or remain it, are more likely to be stalwart supporters of key party positions--the Pew survey does say that people within each party have become more "ideologically homogenous." However, majorities in both parties, particularly the Republicans, are unhappy with their party's advancement of their traditional goals (71% of GOPers, and 58% of Demos). What do we make of that--having more like-minded people in the party means a more dysfunctional organization?
CNN pundit Fareed Zakaria blames four things: 1) redistricting, which creates safe seats for many House members, who then need only appeal to their base to get re-elected rather than reach out to the center; 2) small groups of party activists who take over the primary campaigns, pushing candidates to more extreme positions; 3) Congress's "sunshine laws," which opened up committee deliberations to the public, though in practice it opened it to those who pay the most attention to the legislative--well-financed lobbyists, whose carrots and sticks make it hard for bipartisan, compromise legislation; and 4) the new media, which feeds off and fuels polarization.
Sensible reasons, though we've had safe seats for generations--most incumbents win reelection (over 80% since 1964 in House races, see "Reelection Rates Over the Years" at opensecrets.org). So I'm not sure why gerrymandering matters so much more now. As for the second reason, I think Zakaria is really talking about the impact of the Tea Party in GOP primaries, and that begs the question (as Zakaria himself says) of what explains the rise of the Tea Party, and whether it's a symptom of polarization, or one of its causes (or both?). I find his third and fourth reasons more convincing, though people have been able to find media material--conspiracy theory stuff--to support their extremist positions before the internet (think of the anti-Catholic Know-Nothings back in the 1850s, or the John Birchers a century later). Still, the internet's speed, its delivery of news and opinion that match one's predilections, and its sheer glossiness, probably leads some (or many) to confuse hype with authenticity and content.
I guess where I'm headed here is that I remain mystified over the origins of polarization. Maybe because I am a part of it, and have contributed something to it with this blog which has been very critical of some conservative positions and people, and of Christian fundamentalism, among other things. It's not that my views have gone further left. I score the same on political ideology surveys as I did in my early twenties. And I argued with people I disagreed with back then--it was the beginning of the so-called "Reagan Revolution," accompanied by the rise of the "Moral Majority." Maybe I'm glossing the past, but I don't remember a lot of acrimony in those arguments. I don't remember the anger, despite, or disgust that I feel today about certain beliefs, movements, and public figures. I thought as I aged I would mellow, either becoming more centrist and pragmatic along with my fellow baby-boomers, or learning how to deal with political differences with more equanimity, more charity. But I've become more strident, more disposed to defend my positions and criticize those of others.
I could say that the Bush years radicalized me, including the start of my academic career in a small liberal arts college with numerous vocal neo-conservative faculty and students, in a very conservative part of Indiana. It was if the world around me was daring me not to say anything.
Or maybe I'm just the flip side of the Tea Party folks. Repeatedly disappointed by their party's inability to rein in spending, or move on social issues, they got tired, irritable, especially when the Democrats seemed like a juggernaut immediately after the 2008 elections, taking the presidency and enjoying majorities in both the Senate and House (boy, that juggernaut turned out to be an empty shell).
Similarly, I endured eight years of Reagan and four more of Bush, Sr. Lots of disappointment during the eight years of Clinton, starting with the failed effort to reform healthcare, and ending with his lies about an affair (though I hardly think that merited an impeachment circus). And then eight years of Bush, Jr., who for me was far worse than Reagan. The Iran-Contra scandal, as stinky as it was, doesn't stack up to two wars, one in Afghanistan that turned into an ill-advised nation-building exercise; the other in Iraq based on false pretenses (and I'm still flummoxed by all the people around me, especially Democrats, who initially went along with it). Finally, Obama encouraged high expectations, but ran into the wall of GOP filibusters, and then the turnover of the House to Republicans in 2010. And though his administration does not use the term "war on terror," it has continued many of the Bush era practices in prosecuting this war.
I realize, of course, that relatively few people share all my views on economic, social, and foreign policy. And given that I'm far more attached to the ideas of egalitarianism and communitarianism than freedom and individualism, I'm bound to be disappointed in a country that celebrates the latter far more than the former.
Or perhaps I'm just caught up in one of the cycles of US history. We've had polarized moments before. There was that civil war. Strife over labor rights in the decades around the turn of the 19th century. Vast disagreements over whether to enter what we now call the First World War. Then the civil rights movement and Vietnam. Maybe we think our particular moment is unprecedented because we're living in it. Maybe it's a collective senility--it's never been like this before!
But if it's a cycle, that's cold comfort. These are noisy, angry times, and disheartening for this political scientist. And I am a part of that noise and anger. In response to a local Republican candidate's email, I responded: "I will never vote for a party who selected Sarah Palin as a VP, and that panders to anti-science loonies and the Christian far right." Yeah, I'm polarized, but not happy with how I'm dealing with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment