Slide from Democracy: Part 4: Political Polarization

This is the fourth in the series of posts on “Sliding from Democracy,” in which I’m exploring how our history, especially since 1970, has both foreshadowed and prepared for the attacks on democracy during this Administration. 

In the first post I suggested that America’s democratic history has not been so glorious as it has sometimes been portrayed.  In the second post I concentrated on the 1945-1970 time period during which American prosperity seemed boundless and Western liberal democracies were considered “the end of history.”  We were tempted to let down our guard against the dangers threatening democracy. 

In the third post I examined the rise of corporate political power during the 1970s and the movement from more government regulation of the economy (Keynesianism) toward a greater free-market capitalism.

In today’s post I want to look at the rise in political polarization since the 1970s and its impact on democracy. 

Before I begin it’s important to recognize that Washington’s political polarized dysfunction does not necessarily exist at the local level.  The Atlantic’s James Fallows has spent several years crisscrossing the United States as a journalist and reports:

Dysfunction at the national level genuinely is a problem, as the world is reminded every time the federal government shuts down. Some of that pathology has spread to the state level. But [outside of Washington, America is] a country that is still capable of functioning far more effectively than national-level paralysis would indicate.

Political polarization (or hyper-partisanship) is characterized by populations that divide themselves sharply into political factions and who support their party’s policies to the exclusion of almost any kind of compromise.  In the extreme this leads to a distrust, dislike, rejection of the other side as a legitimate partner in the debate.  Each side sees the other as actually threatening to themselves, to the nation, to our way of life, even to the moral order. 

According to most measures, the United States is more politically polarized than at any time since the Civil War. 

One measure of political polarization is the degree of overlap between Republicans and Democrats.  In the 1970s there were 240 house representatives, who were either

• Republicans who were more liberal than the most conservative Democrat or
• Democrats who were more conservative than the most liberal Republican. 

By 2012 there were none.  (The Senate was similar.) 

The reasons for this political polarization are not clear.  Some have pointed to the moral debates around abortion or homosexuality, which have become litmus-test issues allowing no compromise.  Others have suggested that fifty years ago each party was more a mixture of conservatives and liberals, who have now sorted themselves into liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.  And for still others the problem is that

To some extent, people “vote with their feet” and gradually separate into different jurisdictions based upon political views and lifestyle preferences. This process is aided by technology that allows citizens to communicate only to those already in agreement.

[Furthermore,] over time in any political system the rival “teams” will accumulate grievances against one another to the point where they lose any interest in communicating across party lines.

Whatever the cause, the primary problem with ideological polarization is the near impossibility of compromise. 

From the late 1930s into the 1960s, roughly half the members of the House and Senate were “moderates” as measured by their voting records. The parties had not yet separated into rival ideological camps.

The existence of a large body of moderates in Congress facilitated compromise and a fair degree of consensus between the two parties. Thus, it was necessary to craft bipartisan coalitions in order pass important legislation. All of the important legislative achievements of that era were passed with bipartisan majorities, including the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, Medicare and Medicaid (1965) … [even] the nation’s Cold War policies from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s. There were no threats of “government shutdowns” during that entire era. (InsideSources)

Congresspeople mixed socially across party lines.  One’s best friend might be from the other party.  Compromise was always necessary; that was the art of being a politician.

Most problematic today is the antipathy of one party for the other.  If one side doesn’t trust the other or questions their integrity, the priority in politics becomes to wound the other side, to beat it in the next election, rather than to come together for the good of the country.  The most important issues of the day—climate change, inequality, poverty, deteriorating infrastructure, foreign policy, and health care —cannot be addressed.  Even Obama’s Affordable Care Act has been effectively destroyed by the following Republican Congress.

When the government is polarized, nothing happens.  When government can’t get anything done, people get angry with the government.  The stage is set for those who want to blow government up and do something—anything—different.  The stage is set for Donald Trump.