Janet Hook reports in the WSJ,
People who identify with either party increasingly disagree not just on policy; they inhabit separate worlds of differing social and cultural values and even see their economic outlook through a partisan lens.
The wide gulf is visible in an array of issues and attitudes: Democrats are twice as likely to say they never go to church as are Republicans, and they are eight times as likely to favor action on climate change. One-third of Republicans say they support the National Rifle Association, while just 4% of Democrats do. More than three-quarters of Democrats, but less than one-third of Republicans, said they felt comfortable with societal changes that have made the U.S. more diverse.
And these are much larger than the gaps that existed years ago.
Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster use the term “negative partisanship.”
American politics has become like a bitter sports rivalry, in which the parties hang together mainly out of sheer hatred of the other team, rather than a shared sense of purpose. Republicans might not love the president, but they absolutely loathe his Democratic adversaries. And it’s also true of Democrats, who might be consumed by their internal feuds over foreign policy and the proper role of government were it not for Trump.
What people have come to seek in political news and commentary is anger validation. That is, they want the news to be presented in such a way that it confirms and justifies their anger at political opponents. To say that the market is catering to this desire is an understatement.
I’ve now seen both the Anti-Trump and Pro-Trump versions of the joke meme “Rally in Miami! This Saturday 9/9! Be there to show your support!” I’m certain they get negligible downvotes from members of the party they are intended to humor.
Government can often resolve disputes with discretionary spending. But no more, past obligations are stressing government spending everywhere.
In a lot of ways this should not be that surprising:
1) Modern USA has not a single large enemy since the end of the Cold War (oustide the immediate years of 9/11.) An outside enemy is very binding to a society.
2) Judging by the hysteria of Confederate statues, there is no longer a group within our nation forced to be the ‘Losers’ of society. Did the US Reconciliation post-Civil War require an enforced race segregation and Southern Jim Crow for the South to continue to be part of the nation. (Note Union states had a lot of soft segregation in their communities.)
3) Both Parites are having internal Civil Wars. How the Parties end up post-2020 I don’t know but it will be different.
4) Since our economy is a part of a large global economy, there is no such thing as localism any more the way we look at our past.
My hope is that the brokenness of the political system will become so obvious to everyone that more and more decisions will be taken out of the political sphere, privatized. Perhaps that is a pipe dream.
Or, like people stuck in quicksand, people will flail in frustration and mire us all even deeper in it.
Abramowitz and Webster are not useful analysts. Let me explain with an example: In the early 4th Century CE, the Emperor Constantine shifted the focus of the Roman Empire from western Europe to the East. He built a new capital, Constantinople, which survives as Istanbul. Rome remained as a “western capital” until the early 5th century, when it fell to barbarians. Uninterested in, or unable to defend, the now backward western Empire, Byzantine emperors first agreed to cede Italy and other provinces to Vandals and Goths and Visigoths, etc,. In the late sixth century, the eastern empire was more confident of its strength and the Emperor Justinian sent armies with two of his better generals. Narsus and Belisaurus to reconquer what had been lost. Ultimately this failed, partially through Byzantine politics, partially from the economic disaster of a continent-wide plague, partially because Roman armies simply weren’t much better than barbarian forces. In the seventh century, Islam arose as an opponent …
Okay, you get the notion. Stuff happened. What sort of stuff, and just why? The strands of history got altered here, after all. Millions of lives changed for better or worse. Religions fell, sciences and dynasties rose, changing patterns of trade affected great nations thousands of miles apart. Why, why, why?
Because BOTH SIDES DID IT!
Isn’t that useful? Doesn’t that explain everything? Doesn’t that solve the nasty little issues of whether these changes were good or bad overall? Doesn’t it solve the somewhat larger issue f whether we should now fully embrace these alterations in human affairs or attempt to reverse them?
One consequence of “negative partisanship” is that neither party can claim a mandate for its own agenda, just a negative mandate to block the other party’s agenda. Republican victories are anti-mandates against higher taxes, greater regulations, social welfare programs, and government health care but not necessarily mandates for anti-immigration measures and, in Trump’s case, anti-trade measures. Democratic victories are anti-mandates against immigration and abortion restrictions but not positive mandates for higher taxes and more welfare. We should interpret election results as voters witholding consent for the losing side’s agenda.
I’m not sure how new this is:
“People can get far more excited working against a candidate than they can working for one.” President Nixon to John Mitchell, June 12, 1972 (From Patrick J. Buchanan, Nixon’s White House Wars)
And thinking back, how much did Americans see WW II as being for something as being against the people who had bombed Pearl Harbor and against those awful Nazis? It was for “saving civilization” but that was because those awful people were trying to destroy it.
And WW I. Getting the people who had sunk the Lusitania and who had raped neutral Belgium? Or making the world safe for democracy?