Polarizing Political Parties
Elections in the last 3 decades appear to be more passionate. With that passion, comes a polarization of America’s two powerful political parties. Is polarization really thing, or just an appeared phenomena by more people getting involved? What is driving either this real or received polarization? What does this mean for our society’s future?
Pew Research Center offers some interesting statistics on political opposition. People from each party are increasingly more critical of presidents representing other parties. Changes in demographics are shifting the coalitions. Especially interestingly, Pew found that supports of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have very different views of life compared to the past (81% of Trump voters say life is worse, while 19% of Clinton voters say that life is worse; 69% of Trump voters think that the lives of the future generations will be worse off, compared to the 30% of Clinton voters). There were high expectations that no matter who won the 2016 election, political difference was going to continue to polarize.
Pew also provides some possible reasoning behind the statistics above. People are more and more providing consistently stronger liberal or conservative positions, meaning the average voter is breaking away from the median. Party members are increasingly seeing the other party as a “threat to the nation”. Especially important to note is that the divide doesn’t just apply to politics; it is also marking a shift in society. 75% of conservatives would prefer to live in bigger, spaced out houses with restaurants and shops further away and three-times the conservatives compared to liberals prefer their communities to reflect their religious identity. Comparatively, 77% of liberals would like to live in smaller houses with closer amenities and prefer their community have racial and ethnic diversity.
Even how people socialize and shop are changing because of the polarization. “One-third of Democrats and nearly half of Republics would be deeply upset” if their child married someone from the other party. People are more likely to argue with a friend, family member or coworker. People have begun boycotting products and companies that are endorsed by or endorse Trump. It appears that political affiliation is affecting economic behavior.
One possible reason behind the increase in ideological consistency is because people are more educated. Not only do people know the big talking points, they also know the minor talking points and specifics, as well as policy options and the pros and cons of each. Also with this, members of both parties are more likely to recognize problems as existing (such as discrimination) but cannot agree on the forms themselves or how they manifest. These matching acknowledgments but differing opinions make it really hard to reach a bi-partisan conclusion about not just policy preference but also the subsequent policy options.
A LA Times opinion piece by James E. Campbell takes a new spin by actually putting the blame of polarization on the people, the voter, rather than the parties and lobbyists and such. Civilians have been more and more identifying as conservative or liberal, even when politics was still decently bipartisan (80’s and 90's). The parties themselves were diverse which allowed for liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats and thus a less polarized society. But over time the parts realigned to match the growing ideological consistency and thus became more polarized.
So now that we know polarization is a thing, what do we do about it? Can we go back to a centrist society? Or do we have to start a new political system with a new normative regime? In “What’s the Answer to Political Polarization in the U.S.?” by Russell Berman in The Atlantic, Berman discusses possible route to mitigate the polarization:
- Reverse the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision to discourage companies and billionaires from interfering in a process when their objectives do not align with the average citizen.
- Invoke automatic voter registration and perhaps even compulsory voting (like in Australia) to encourage true political representation and acknowledge the multiple sides (because there’s more than 2) to each debate that citizens could possible support.
- Adopt non-partisan elections as well as non-partisan over watch for gerrymandering to avoid over representation of Democrats and Republicans when there are other parties out there with lots of supporters (like Libertarians). This takes away political influence from elections and representation to create a more representative society.
For a scholarly article on this topic, see here.
