This is a reprint from WFAE's The Party Line blog:
As the game of gridlock "chicken" in Washington continues to march on, commentators are trying to explain 'how did we get to this point of polarization?"
Recently, long-time DC observer Dan Balz of the Washington
Post offered his explanation
of the roots of the government shutdown as being “deeply embedded divisions in
America’s politics.”
Among the factors, Balz contends, underlying the division is
the fact that the congressional
parties have separated themselves and increased the level of polarization,
especially in the U.S. House of Representatives.
As one of the leading scholars tracking this trend described
it, the post-Civil War period of Reconstruction was “a highly polarized time,”
but today’s levels “are far worse than we observed then.” In fact, some of the measures are close to
going off the charts.
Another factor that Balz cites is that the parties have
become much more homogenous, especially due to the realignment of the South
from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party and the demise of the
Northeast and Midwest liberal wing of the Republican Party.
This realignment has sparked questions about how deep it
went in terms of actual voters. Some
scholars contend that it is only the elites of society that are polarized; one
of the leading proponents of this view, Morris
Fiorina, argues
that the sensationalism created by the media over red states versus blue states
is exaggerated.
Instead, he argues that Americans are closely divided, but
not “deeply” divided. Other scholars
contend that Americans are deeply divided, and it’s not just the elites but the
masses as well; Alan
Abramowitz contends
that a large segment of the public are deeply divided, but that this
polarization and division “energizes the electorate and stimulates political participation.”
One way to measure this possible polarization in the public
is to look at how the public classifies themselves by both political party and
ideology.
One great wealth of data is from the American National Election Studies,
which has surveyed citizens since the mid-20th Century and allows
scholars and researchers to explore a host of different questions on the
nation’s political environment.
One basic way of looking at the political landscape is to
classify the survey’s respondents by their self-identified partisan
affiliation, going from “strong Democrats” to “pure independent” to “strong
Republicans.” In addition, the surveys
asked respondents to classify themselves into different categories based on
their ideology, from “extremely liberal” to “moderate, middle of the road” to
“extremely conservative.”
Going back 40 years to 1972, we find a general mix among
partisans when it comes to their ideology, or “their vision of how they see the
world.”
While one can see a concentration of liberals (extremely to
slightly liberal) across the range of politicial party affiliation, conservatives
were present in the Democratic affiliations.
Moderates appear to classify themselves more heavily within the
Democratic ranks, but were distributed even along the independents to strong
Republicans.
Flash forward to 2012, and a different picture emerges of
the country. Now, the ideological partisans
have “sorted” themselves between the two parties, with the range of liberals
camping out within the Democratic Party, while conservatives have fully
migrated into the GOP.
Interestingly, modern-day moderates have adjusted themselves
more into the middle as “pure independents,” with an alignment to the
Democratic party over the GOP.
In fact, when you look at just “pure independents” who don’t
see themselves aligned to either of the two major parties, you find a pretty
stable distribution in 1972 across the ideological spectrum.
In today’s environment, there’s an even larger alignment to
the “moderate, middle of the road” among pure independents.
Unfortunately, in 2012, only 14% of the respondents said
they were a pure independent. With 86%
of public aligning themselves with one of the two major parties, and voting at least
85% of the time for their party’s candidate, is it any wonder that it’s not
just the political elites in government, but the rest of us who can’t seem to
understand the other political side?
