Where We Stand 1 – Partisanship

David Hilfiker

This post will deal with current American political partisanship and polarization, the first of six issues I mentioned in my last post.  

Partisanship has become a disabling condition in our American politics.

• We have not had a well-functioning government for many years because “winning” has taken precedence over what’s good for the country.   
• Political affiliation has become more important than the health of the country (eg wearing masks).   
• Half of the Americans in one party are afraid of the other party.  Similar conditions in other countries have frequently led to the failure of democracy.
  

Partisanship Is Not Necessarily Bad

Often lost in our disgust with the polarization, however, is the fact that that political parties and the partisan conflict that follows are healthy and necessary aspects of any democracy; they are its lifeblood:  

• Parties bind disparate citizens together in a common purpose, providing a shared sense of collective energy necessary for a functioning democracy. 
• Competition gives parties incentives to respond to voters. 
• Losing parties keep the winning parties accountable by threatening to take away their supporters.  
• Parties mobilize and engage citizens to win elections, in the process bringing many otherwise apathetic citizens into politics.  

As E.E. Schattschneider observed in 1942, 

“Modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties.” It is unthinkable, because without competing parties, voters lack meaningful choices. Partisan conflict is necessary for democracy, because one-party politics is not democracy. It’s totalitarianism.

At the end of the day, citizens in a functioning democracy understand that there are no permanent winners or losers — just temporary electoral swings.  As the editors of the Washington Post write:

Democracy can work if citizens can view the opposition as patriots such as themselves who happen to disagree, perhaps fervently, about the issues of the day. It cannot work if citizens view one another as enemies … Democracies die when they can no longer distinguish between honest opponents of another ideological kind and toxic enemies who come from far outside all normal values.

Extreme Polarization

Our democracy is, however, under deep threat.  But it is not partisanship in itself that is the problem but rather the degree of polarization.  As we seek to repair our country, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  We must find our way back to a healthy partisanship rather than this deep hostility.   

In the United States, the core problem is that the fundamental disagreement in our politics is now not over policy but over what it means to be an American; it’s over what our nation’s core values are.  When division involves purity and impurity, when it devolves into an unadulterated contest between “us” and “them,” then there can be no bargaining, because there are no negotiable principles, just team loyalties.  “We” are good and pure, while “they” are evil and corrupt. And, of course, you cannot compromise with evil and corruption.  

According to a recent CBS News poll most (almost 60%) of Republicans view Democrats as enemies rather than political opponents.  A little over 40% of Democrats view Republicans as enemies.  The hostility toward the other (not just policy differences with the other) is even encouraging Democrats and Republicans to reside in separate geographic areas creating echo chambers that then reinforce the hostile feeling toward “the other.”  Research indicates that identity (as part of a group) drives polarization more than do policies.

This is the kind of politics that leads to democratic breakdown and violence, and it’s where we appear to be headed, if we are not already there.  

This Is Not New

We should not imagine, however, that this degree of partisanship is new to our country.  According to the Institute of American History:

The presidential election of 1800 was an angry, dirty, crisis-ridden contest that seemed to threaten the nation’s very survival.

The unfolding of this crisis tested the new nation’s durability. Nasty political mud-slinging. Campaign attacks and counterattacks. Personal insults. Outrageous newspaper invective. Dire predictions of warfare and national collapse.

Presidential candidates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were tied in the Electoral College throwing the election into the House of Representatives where each state had one vote.  That vote was also tied.  It took six days and 36 votes before the only delegate from Delaware switched votes, making Jefferson president.  It wasn’t until twelve years later that the unity inspired by the War of 1812 began a process reconciliation, ultimately ushering in the “Era of Good Feelings.”

Not all periods of partisanship ended so happily, of course.  Certainly, the worst polarization in the nation’s history developed in the mid-19th Century after the Era of Good Feelings degenerated over the issue of slavery.  That, too, was a bitter, ugly time, ultimately precipitating the Civil War.  Regrettably racial animus infects us still.

So, today’s polarization is not new, but its history should not inspire an easy confidence.  Healing will take effort and, undoubtedly, sacrifice and compromise.

Local Non-Partisanship

What might make reconciliation possible is that the most extreme of American partisanship is about national politics.  At least some writers suggest that the country is far less partisan than it seems.  After a several-year-long set of trips around the country, James Fallows writes in the Atlantic, that although people are quite pessimistic about the nation, they are very hopeful about their own town, even in those Rust Belt places that are so negatively described in the national media.  (They are all, as Garrison Keillor might say ironically, above average places to live.)  Civic engagement; civic governance; positive attitudes about the local immigrant community (although worse since Trump); enthusiasm about schools and libraries, and other signs of vibrance are commonplace.  Similarly, in a 2016 Atlantic poll,

only 36 percent of Americans thought the country as a whole was headed in the right direction. But in the same poll, two-thirds of Americans said they were satisfied with their own financial situation, and 85 percent said they were very or somewhat satisfied with their general position in life and their ability to pursue the American dream.

 Even after the US pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords, governors of sixteen states plus the territory of Puerto Rico and nearly four hundred mayors announced that they would continue to observe the Paris climate goals.

If the partisans described above were asked about members of the opposite party who live in their town, the animus would be much less.  This might give us a starting place for healing.

This Is Where We Stand and Where We Might Go

We stand in a time of sharp political partisanship and increasing social and geographic polarization.  The 2020 election was far closer than we like to admit.  Despite the huge popular vote victory and the seemingly large Electoral College victory, a swing of only 90,000 votes over three states would have given not only the presidency, but also the House and the Senate to the Republicans.  The election of Joe Biden and his desire to move toward reconciliation are important, but they do not change the underlying hostility and separation.    

In his inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln spoke to a nation facing civil war:  

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

At an intellectual level, many in the country recognize that our democracy is threatened by our current extreme polarization.  These people, however, seem to be able to ignore their partisanship when it comes to local issues.  What matters is what’s best for their community not their party affiliation.  Local communities not only view the national partisanship negatively, but, despite it, they also get stuff done.  Perhaps dispersing more power to localized political and regional institutions might give us an avenue toward less polarization.  Although there are obvious policy differences between the parties, it’s not the issues that separate us; it’s the tribal loyalty.

Without being facile or pollyannish about the chances for ultimate success, is it possible to enlarge our tribe to include all of us?  Is there a way out that does not involve more violence?

 David Hilfiker