“Here we reach an interesting, if somewhat surreal, question. What if, to some significant extent, the increase in partisanship is not really about anything?”
It is all our own fault. It starts with Baker middle school Rockets vs. Middleton middle school Sharks, then Middleton High Bears vs University High Sabers, and finally the Cleveland Browns vs Pittsburg Steelers. We cheer for no reason at all. We can't help ourselves.
6
As a lifelong Democrat (first voted in 1970) I've been "grasping" for answers. The images in this column of Trump supporters includes many young women. What do they get out of supporting such an man who continues to denigrate women, and has for most of his life? Do they think he is the strong male who will protect them? I get the white men trying to regain their power over women and minorities, but the women I don't get. My wife is similarly vexed.
6
In my opinion, the degree to which Trump supporters back him - after all that is known about him - and especially since he has not delivered a single tangible thing to the average supporter, is in direct proportion to how much they hate the other side. Hate is a big component here.
5
The big change started when the Kennedy brothers, and Johnson, picked up the Civil Rights mantle from the Eisenhower Republicans, including the Warren Supreme Court. They turned the Democratic Party into the latter-day party of Lincoln.
The Republicans were then able to harness the immense power of Civil Rights backlash and become, in effect, the party of the Ku Klux Klan, capturing the entire white South and Midwest, from the Democrats. With ideology, race, and political parties now in alignment there was no brake on partisan animosity.
2
The movie 'Birth of A Nation' greatly affected millions who watched it and it gave rise to the KKK and post WW1 militias. AG Palmer seized upon irrational hatred of foreigners and 'Reds' in 1919 and gave democrats a new bogyman that lit up the 1920's. In the 1930's radio became the new seducer of the gullible and thus the FCC set stern rules about fear mongering. After Carters victory in 1976 the republicans started a cynical alliance with TV preachers and in the 1980's erased FCC rules about abuse. With the coming of hate radio, Fox News and now the internet, the racist power of Birth of a Nation and A.G. Palmer's Xenophobia have returned ten fold. Raise the wages of the workers, prosecute the religious frauds and shut down hate radio, and Fox News and go after the internet trolls and in a few years all this tribalism and tacky partisanship will melt away.
3
What the heck are "content development practices"???
1
Everybody think about this.
QUID PRO QUO....
Call it what it is... BRIBERY,
Article Two, Section Four of the United States Constitution provides that: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and Misdemeanors."
Republicans can’t confuse the situation if the Democrats simply use the real definition ..... Bribery...
Everybody knows what that is... and everybody knows it’s illegal...
How can the Senate ignore that?
Pass it on...
2
Next year's presidential election will indeed be another "Flight 93" moment -- there's a lawless corrupt president who has hijacked America and it's up to responsible voters to retake the cockpit.
2
Another NYT example of 'both sides-ism'.
4
It can't be about policy because the only Republican policy is to slash taxes for the elite and run up the National Debt for everybody else. There's no arguing insanity, it just is.
2
At some point all of this becomes tiresome. It is possible for one group to go all tribal and culty and start crossing moral lines and knocking down guardrails, and for another group to say enough, we do not accept it, let us restore the social compact. It has happened in history. That doesn't make us tribalists too. We have law and truth on our side, they have only bluster and propaganda. Everyone who looks can see.
5
It's both! At least insofar as one side is passionate about policies and the other side wants tribal dominance.
Trumpism's defining feature is his supporters' desire to punish the "libs." It has no policy preferences. The Republican Party has no platform, at least not one it's willing to run on. Instead it runs on cultural issues and fake resentment toward the elite, even as it caters to the needs of the wealthy. Or it takes people's suffrage through racialized gerrymandering or voter purges.
Was Sarah Palin digging into policy when she invoked "real America?" How about Joe Wilson when he shouted "you lie!" at Obama? Was McConnell concerned about jurisprudence when he blocked Merrick Garland?
Now consider the Dems... They run on their policies... in fact, they're so policy-focused that they actually fight among themselves about their plans. They aren't clamoring for a backlash against middle America, the way red states are obsessed with punishing the supposed "coastal elites." In fact, many of their policies are aimed at helping the people of these states. We hear about how city folk sneer at middle Americans... Any sneering is reserved for bad faith political positions, like rejecting climate science, civil rights for gay people or racial justice. Rejecting such ideas isn't oppression or tribal war. It's a disagreement about policy.
Republicans prefer tribal war precisely because it elides policy. Democrats focus on policy, which is probably why they keep losing.
8
The solution is "simple". We desperately need a 3rd party. Trump is far to the right of the American center, just as Hillary is well to the left. Ditto a hypothetical Trump-Warren or Trump-Sanders match-up. With just two parties, the ~7% who are most conservative and the ~7% who are most liberal eliminate the desirable choices for the other 90% before election day. Unfortunately, opposition to new parties may be the only thing that the GOP and Democratic parties actually agree on...
1
It's not really about ideas either. Antipathy is stoked by trusted figures who USE ideas to make people feel offended. In these forums, for example, I feel restrained hostility toward me based on my rural home state - and it does not help if I reveal I'm a farmer. The prejudgement among educated NYT commenters here is discouraging. Misinformation from their trusted source, NYT, has much to do with this I think.
For example, in his recent column last week Dr. Krugman made the case that farmers are essentially social parasites. He uses the USDA-cited fact that '40% of projected farm and ranch income this year is related to various economic assistance/disaster relief programs' as grounds to claim that RURAL PEOPLE (not just farmers) are wards of the state! The deception he uses here (presumably politically-motivated) involves the use of pooled data for an entire group, i.e. US farm income, to make inferences about the average farmer. Because farm income is not REMOTELY close to having a normal distribution, this characterization is unfair and drives common prejudices among NYT readers. The vast majority of farmers in the US never see a cent of Farm Bill subsidies, like crop insurance, which mainly go to commodity "farmers" and other industrial-scale agribusinessmen. And "rural people" see even less of this, of course (and we all know trickle-down works minimally.) Not surprisingly, corporate agriculture has great influence over US farm policy... and apparently corporate media.
2
"Is the deepening animosity between Democrats and Republicans based on genuine differences over policy and ideology or is it a form of tribal warfare rooted in an atavistic us-versus-them mentality?"
Incredibly narrow framing. Completely false either/or choice. It is both of those, and about two dozen other things.
No mention of the effects technology has had on vastly enlarging and exacerbating any conflict about pretty much anything?
Or the general decline in what used to be called politeness and social civility (of which political rancor is just one of many expressions?)
Or the bizarre self-righteousness that has replaced what used to be vigorous, but respectful dialogue? Where Republicans felt fully justified in doing anything they could to stop Obama, and Democrats feel fully justified in doing anything they can to stop Trump? (And the fact that both sides will respond to that by saying "well, I AM justified, but the other side is not.")
We are quite a polarized nation right now. And I fear the level of dialogue with which we speak to people with opposing views has declined dramatically in the last couple of decades.
IMO, a democracy of free people requires one fundamental trait to work: the ability, and willingness, to try to understand an opponent's perspective, and to actively seek the middle ground. We used to have that.
If we do not figure out how to get it back, and this trend line continues, we're about a decade away from something really terrible.
There are partisan Democrats who will swing in the wind as there "side" does (but to be honest it doesn't swing that much). But this is primarily a problem on the Right. Nowhere in liberal circles will you see someone make a claim like Rush did about deficit spending on any issue that is a core concern of liberals. The fears on the Right are largely manufactured and have little to do with actual liberal goals and policies. This is demonstrated in polls regarding issues, from gun control to expanded access to medical services, in which sizable majorities back the liberal agenda. The conservative agenda is to divert from issues while they do every thing in their power to fragment and inflame the citizenry so that their real agenda can be pursued. This agenda is to return the United States government to a level last seen in the 1920s. The scary thing is that they think that "starving the beast," ie bankrupting the treasury, is the only way to get there. They are probably right, since the population at large loves all the stuff government does, unless it is someone else getting it. And this is what the Republicans play on. Us against them, while the us on their side are largely ignorant of the actual agenda and root for their "side" as if they were at a Basketball game. This is not a partisan issue, one side really is trying to destroy America as we know it, while the other side is focused on issues to help keep America great while making it better. Very Sad.
Curious to read the article and so many comments and hardly see the phrase "authoritarian personality."
The Republican Party has been the authoritarians' party for quite a while, but it took a long time to purify itself of older tendencies that coexisted with it. I still like Bob Altemeyer's book, the one that John Dean discovered that explained the new Republicans that seemed so foreign to him.
I find that when I try to talk with friends that have opposing political viewpoints from me, they assume ideologies and actions about me that have no basis in fact. I can’t ask questions to search for areas of agreement without being accused of having biases that I don’t hold. I try not to express opinions but rather find out why our opinions differ. My politics are middle-of-the-road, but find that I am a ‘liberal elite’ even though I grew up in the Midwest and went to State schools. Forty years ago, I never knew the political leanings of my friends. Now it appears that friendships are based mainly on politics and our country is poorer for it.
4
The two major parties have turned politics into "war" -- this is bad for America. When I play chess online with an opponent the other side of the planet, I know what they are thinking, and they know what I am thinking.
Yet, Democrats and Republicans, meeting face to face, don't communicate with each other, but with irrational zeal want to totally destroy the other, motivated by hate and fear.
This is a quite different sensibility than Stewart's and Colbert's 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
While I said in an old comment that the rulers are entitled to equal rights as you, they aren't entitled to rule you. However, since the major parties reject equality and want some to rule others, the better way for America is for the major parties to sit out the 2020 elections. Third parties field some qualified candidates who are not involved in this D&R War.
The D&R members should not join the third parties since they would bring their rabid hate and fear with them, thus corrupting the third parties.
In a WaPo comment, I said that impeachment is bad for America. Since then the almost purely partisan vote suggests that the Democrats will impeach while Republicans acquit. This will only exacerbate the vile hate and fear.
The D&R hopefully will realize that they are, in a sense, hate groups, bad for America, and stay away from politics until their members get rid of the hate.
2
Psychologists like myself study and work with (try to change)
clients like Trump and ... his followers. The followers either know that Trump is a pathological liar and ride with him politically to make money, or they believe his lies (themselves also narcissists of varying degrees like Mr. Trump.
The questions for psychologists have already been answered-
this is tribal warfare -the emotionally sick (tribe) against the
trying to get well (tribe.). This is not going to get better until every Democrat or Independent or ,yes Republican, sees this and confronts every Trumpster peacefully.
1
The Republicans know that their ideas are unpopular, so they set up an us vs. them contest against 'the other'. The legislative agenda for Republicans is tax cuts for the rich, unleash the banks and polluters, fill the courts with unqualified extremists, loot social security and claim that a party full of philanderers (Trump, Gingrich, Guliani, etc.) is morally superior to the rest of us. None of this is popular with the majority of Americans, so they crank up the racist, nativist messaging that somehow white Christian men are an oppressed minority. Sometimes it works.
3
This political brinkmanship is one of the inevitable consequences of America's declining quality of public awareness in almost each and every issue that require some basic education in science and perception about truth and logic.
That deterioration started mainly during Reagan era and then only worsened as various politicians, mainly the Republicans, systematically destroyed our public policy and more crucially in public education by- 1) infusing religion, 2) making education (both school & higher education) just another for-profit industry, 3) making quality education, mainly higher education, increasingly less affordable for even many middle class Americans.
Now more than 20% American adults are "functionally illiterate", more than half can't read a book of 8th grade, about 40% American college graduate "strongly believe" in fairy-tales of intelligent design or creationism and not hard science of evolution! That's worst among all 35 countries surveyed and also worse in our own recent history.
The gap between what experts think vs public perception is growing for many years now. Issues affected by religious belief include abortion, minority/LGBT rights, opposition to GMO, immigration reform, climate change etc.
Nonetheless, these issues gradually became more sociopolitically polarizing & damaging even to the core of our democracy/republic. It also affect our ability to innovate, worsening social mobility, income inequality, global industrial/trade competitiveness.
3
Humans live caught between hands. On one hand, the way it was done when I was a kid. On the other hand, what I think needs to be tried because the way it was done when I was a kid has stopped working.
Think of automobile size. For most of my half-century of life, I've been bombarded by messages that owning a big, powerful car means a person has won the game. Now, we're receiving messages that owning such a car is antisocial.
Full-size pickup trucks and crossovers, with base engines delivering '60s muscle car horsepower, dominate the top top 20 hottest selling vehicles, taking spots 1,2 and 3.
People who believe this is causing a planet-wide disaster (a view I perceive as liberal, requiring new thought models) are splitting from the "don't tell me my car's too big!" crowd, a view I perceive as conservatives, relying on previously learned information. Another example would be the rapid decline of religion in the USA. A liberal might say, "It appears there are roughly six trillion billion stars in a 13.8 billion year old universe - and it all pivots upon some guy who allegedly roamed a tiny backward nation two thousand years ago?" The conservative would say, "What do you mean, I'm not going to live past dying? It says in the Bible -"
I think our nation, which often tries to apply one-size-fits-all policy to all 370 million of us can' help but devolve into partisanship. I've been wondering if this is why democracies historically don't last.
US elections are puzzling to me. The Republicans use to be pro-military and anti-Russia. They have become the party of Putin. Putin must have developed a way to launder money to the Republican candidates via Trump with the Chinese as back-up donors, (i.e. Mitch McConnel's wife?) If the GOP is in bed with the Putin then the Republicans will never allow fair elections.
1
It might be a mistake to assume that both sides of the partisan divide are equally driven by passion and partisanship.
One side consistently expresses skepticism about science and the values taught in institutions of higher learning. One side is less likely to have a college degree or a post-graduate degree. One side leans more heavily on one ancient text as the source of all truth and knowledge worth knowing. One side is prone to calling the free press the enemy of the people. One side attacks "cultural elitists" on a daily basis.
"Americans are pursuing higher education at growing rates, but those without a college education are increasingly finding a home in the GOP." (Eugene Scott, March 21, 2018, The Washington Post)
2
I wonder if it would help to let Republicans vote in Democratic primaries, and Democrats vote in Republican primaries? Yes, it could produce misleading results, or it might indicate the other party's favorites to win.
It is pretty well established that people make decisions quickly based on instinct and emotion and then seek rationalizations for that decision. Politicians who win provide those rationales, true or false does not matter. But that quick first answer is nearly impossible to change.
So republicans believe that tax cuts pay for themselves, that man is too small to impact climate, that blacks are all welfare queens, and that social security and medicare are annuities and not welfare programs for the old paid for by today’s workers.
And democrats believe that single payer health care alone will cut health care costs without massive disruptions and losses of things people highly value, or that our schools would be great if we just raised teacher salaries, or that racism is what white republicans do but not what white progressives practice, or that taxing the super rich will pay for everything without consequence.
Every politician feeds these fantasies, feeds the fear of the other side, makes everything bigger than it possibly can be. It’s just reality TV, maybe less meaningful.
Thank whatever for gridlock, pray democrats hold onto the House in the face of a massive Trump win, turn off the news
2
The war of ideas revolves around money issues - taxes and who pays them.
The war of identity revolves around political correctness. I think President Obama's critique of excessive "wokeness" was correct, I think people shouldn't necessarily be judged by the worst thing they ever said, I think non public figures livelihoods should not be jeopardized by every objectionable opinion they've expressed in private or a single off color comment they may have made in the office. I think harassment and workplace intimidation are serious charges that should be leveled in cases of where concerns can't be addressed in another way.
Justice Kavanaugh played this fear of political correctness for all that it was worth, raising the specter that anyone who ever got mean when drunk as a young person could be labeled a sex offender for life who would no longer be allowed to coach his kids' soccer games.
I think that treating a drunk woman as being incapable of consent for sex, while criminalizing an equally drunk man when he initiates sex to be an unfortunate double standard.
I think we have gone too far in throwing out the label of sex offender/sexual predator.
Democrats will need to address the issue of political correctness in order to focus on the real issue of who wields power - those with money or those we elect.
3
Remarkably, not a word concerning fundamental, non-religious-based values mentioned.
Escalating, abject, and coordinated lying about basic facts in the political marketplace of ideas combined with un-self-conscious hypocrisy as well as apparent self-delusion among the public---that widely referred to as America's alternate reality---reflects abandonment of the most basic morality essential to all communities of people. When does it become an irreparable schism?
That behavior unmistakenly, very predominantly, describes the republican side of the partisan divide. The changes in the past 3 years, or from even just one year ago, is stark.
And the gop seems not to have payed any political price. Indeed, they now seem to realize, with trump's help, that they have a magic weapon.
This phenomenon is what academics need to explain---before it's too late. 1930s German autocracy rapidly crystalized once they decided the time was ripe to play their trump cards.
4
It seems to me the civics we had in junior high was never learned. The other words I want to use is that we cannot divorce ourselves from the world. All on this planet are interconnected. No one has everything they need. Yet, we persist, starting at the top in this man not only acting as if we can go back. This man, who would not only like to be dictator, he would like to be King of the world. He is a man--a crook--who thinks he can out Nixon, Nixon. As far as his underlings, the men and woman in Congress, it is not a post that is forever, no, your only allegiance is to the country and to those citizens who elected you. One more thought, when is equality going to be practiced in these United States?
1
This is not faction tribalism. This is classic in-group versus out-group social dynamics driven by politicians and the media - at the expense of all of us. Goebbels would be impressed. Trump (and Fox News) selects non-representative examples among immigrants in order to monger fear, while democrats and mainstream media select non-representative Trump supporters to do the same. I actually find there is far more fear and loathing of Trump supporters for being xenophobes, racists, bigots, misogynists, etc. than there is of immigrants, minorities, women, etc. among Trump supporters. The irony is profound, actually.
2
Isn’t it Us against Them as long as Them are seeing, reading and hearing lies?
I welcome a healthy and honest discussion of topics in public. Lord knows that no one party has a monopoly on good ideas for helping improve our society, or how best to implement those ideas.
But how can we have a discussion of such things when a segment of the population literally never hears truthful information?
A failure to update FCC rules, to cover emerging technologies has failed us all.
At one time, it was just newspapers, then radio, then television over the airwaves. Whenever the FCC was established, the scope of its responsibilities should have been written to manage all communications in the US, not only those known at the time, and not only those using traditional methods.
Unless and until cable, satellite, internet and streaming services are brought under the rules of the FCC, or some similar bipartisan organization, many of us will engage falsehoods in the public square. That is intolerable, and will lead to our downfall if we don’t do something soon.
1
Wait! Is that former Senator Al Franken in that picture?
My guy is righteous and your guy is bad. Who is making the rich richer? who is lining his pockets at the tax payers expense? I find it so hard to understand how decent people can hold a person in such high esteem who has cheated on all three of his wives. What religion says that is alright? How about taking money from the men and women of the military to build a wall that is a joke and has already been easily broken through. What has he actually done for the middle class. Not what he says he will do, but what he has actually done? If you are going to say you are righteous, at least back it up with real facts, not repeating phrases you heard on Fox and calling people names.
1
The suffering caused by climate denial will likely reach that done by 2 Hitlers + 2.5 Maos + 3 Stalins and a Mussolini thrown in for good measure.
I will be dead soon and will probably not suffer the consequences of current and future anti-science obduracy arising from mistaken religion, mistaken philosophy and simple greed. The climate changes that I have seen and will see prior to my final reckoning were set in motion by past denial.
I will be largely unaffected by the willful ignorance of my global-warming denying fellow Americans, I still rage at them. Although grateful to Trump for teaching us that good governance is a rare thing not to be taken for granted, I am still furious at the thought that he might be re-elected.
Is it the bogus ideas of the GOP or a very human willingness on my part to identify, create and hate enemies? Both I am sure.
Increasingly my climate-denying relatives are less a source of delight and more a test of patience. Jesus would advise me to love my enemies. I would advise Him to get together with his Dad, the Holy Ghost and the ancient prophets and do a rewrite of that Bible of theirs to include a books called Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics and to include books by prophets like Kelvin, Planck, Fourier, Darwin. Then I would counsel the economists to learn to value ecosystem services correctly and to attend to the sciences that they never studied when reading Adam Smith. As for the greed, lock it up.
I may die soon, but my kids live on.
It is okay that during elections the analysts talk of red and blue states for their predictions, but now instead of United States of America, the politicians, media and the people see red States of America and Blue States of America and vehemently refuse the ideology of the opposition. People now look at Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama as not the presidents of the USA and openly say “not my president”.
In such situation, it should be the leadership who should make efforts to see that they represent and work for the USA and not just the people following their ideology or party. Instead of making issues a common-sense ones, they make it partisan issues, viz immigration, health care, gun control etc. and maintain a status quo. Remember, with only one incident a civil country of New Zealand passed the gun control to handle the violence issue, while the Senate has still to take up this issue after empty promises every time the major violence occurs.
If people consider the ones with different ideologies or looks as untrustworthy or enemies, then it is very likely that the real enemies of the USA will benefit from this divide and rule policies.
1
To understand politics today, reread Berne's GAMES PEOPLE PLAY, one of the best books ever written on human psychology and best seller with over 10 million sold. Trump is very clearly paranoid, trashing everybody he ever knew and blaming all his faults on others. Its a Game he and his base are playing. Democrats are not game free either for sure. Read the book and see today's characters in it.
2
A moderate midwestern candidate that could be a winner for
Democrats is AMY KLOBUCHAR. She and Pete would be a
dream team. Let’s hear more about her.
3
@Amy Glynn
Klobuchar and "Pete" are just another pair of corporate/establishment candidates who stand for little and much like Biden, because they really have no new ideas to offer to especially first time and younger voters, will repeat the disaster that was 2016 and before when democrats lost ALL THREE branches of the Executive and up until 2018, almost 1000 seats at the state and federal levels.
Biden has virtually no support with the under 45 voter and Buttigieg and Klobuchar have little or no support among minorities hence, theses voters will stay away in 2020 all but guaranteeing another FOUR years for Trump.
There is a reason why Warren and Sanders are the top two of three front-running candidates and if there was only ONE progressive in the group, these primaries would be no contest.
1
Listen to the people who support Trump and it's pretty clear that Trump is more of a result of animosity towards those seen to dominate the Democratic Party who tend to ignore them in favor of other constituencies than what Trump actually offers. He represents an us against an unfriendly them. Most Republicans support Trump because he's not a Democrat, and that is plenty for them. But in fact, Trump is not really following policies advocated by Republicans with the tariff war and the super deficits his extreme tax cuts have produced.
Reagan benefited from a new Republican Party in 1980 with combined old style conservative and pro-business Republicans with religious conservatives who had been Democrats, and pro-segregationist former Democrats. His Party was just not even close to that of Eisenhower in the 1950's. That Party of Reagan has remained unified and Trump represents it to Republicans because he talks the talk.
1
Politics should be neither a war of ideas nor Us against Them. There is no need for "war" and no need to smear the other side. I once lived in a state legislative district where the worst thing the Republican's campaign manager could say about the Democratic incumbent is that she'd been in office a long time. That was and still is true. It's true because she has good ideas and knows how to execute them in the legislature.
This legislator is Mary Mushinsky of Wallingford, Ct. I wish we had a few more like her where I live and many more in Washington.
1
We have become more polarized because the issues that are at the fore are strong indicators we are as individuals. Whether it is guns, women's health, immigration, or taxation, the arguments are all now amplified because there are SO many guns, and SO many gun deaths, and because women's health care that was hard won is now being dismantled and denied. More people in the world, and failing economies and eroded environment means more immigration. I believe that Democrats are trying to find solutions while Republicans want to throw out the baby with the bathwater and have become ideologues. Take note, Mr. Biden.
2
Politics has always been competition between ideas, ideals, and values, but must rest on respect for differences in a democracy
For the most part, we have agreed to disagree and even enjoyed the disagreement and debate. My parents were an example: liberal Mom; conservative Dad, but loved to dance together, enjoyed good conversation, and fun. Political differences were tolerated. That was then.
The us-against-them is a tactic Republicans latched onto with Nixon's Lee Atwater southern strategy of ginning up racism to get white people in the GOP camp.
Then along came boy-genius Karl Rove, Republican strategist, who decided Republicans can't win elections with only the wealthy voting for them, and so courted the religious fundamentals and evangelicals by hyping wedge issues, such as anti-abortion, federal support for Christian schools, anti-gay, and trying to fuse church and state--most of which alienated the Democrats and made us mad.
The icing on the us against them cake was Fox News and right-wing media, which have gone all out to make liberals and Democrats the enemy by simple Pavlovian conditioning.
The partisan war shoved ahead by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnells' my-way-or-the-highway strategy against all Democrats, using unethical tactics such as McConnell's refusal to allow Obama's Supreme Court nomination to even be allowed to go through the confirmation process.
Trump is result with his intolerance and disrespect for differences and decency.
5
These "teams" formed long before Trump and will exist long after he's gone. IMO, two events from 1987 triggered this extreme tribalism: First and foremost, the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine. Second, the "borking " of Robert Bork. If those had not happened, I don't think we'd be irreparably divided.
It's about the soul of our nation. Two sides, both convinced that they are absolutely correct, who couldn't care less about the collective good, have no concept of selflessness and lack any respect for others.
Humans developed as a tribal species. It's been ingrained in us as members of an increasingly "fanboy" culture that has replaced the social interactions that make communication possible across ideological lines. The market square that used to allow people to co-mingle, even if they never discussed politics, is gone. There is no draft that forces disparate peoples to find common cause. So we have a retreat into false tribalism, made all the worse because the tribal leaders seem less and less interested to act on the needs of their followers, but rather enacted the agendas of the elite. The fear of reprisal is laughable. It simply isn't as big a factor as many say it is, and if there is any "sticking to what our voters want" it is on a narrow set of issues while the rest of the agenda is allowed to freely serve the backers who really matter. What do the wealthy, those who have captured both parties and who have benefited from runaway tax breaks that have disengaged them from participating in the works of our nation while simultaneously affording them the power/money to get their narrow interests enacted, care if people quibble about abortion, gay rights, gun control, et. al. These are control policies that corral the masses who should be rightfully angry that their jobs are disappearing, their opportunities for advancement are melting away, and the environment that makes life possible is being destroyed. Remember, they killed MLK because he was on an anti-poverty kick.
1
"Is Politics a War of Ideas or of Us Against Them?"
The correct answer is "Yes." Or "Both."
Ideas (Which can be good or bad; Don't confuse "ideas" with "reason;" There's a reason "idea" and "ideology" have the same root.) fuel antagonism. And antagonism will seek to rationalize itself with ideas.
I always value Mr. Edsell's pieces in the Times, and I'm glad he's brought up this timely issue. But couching this as an either or question is misleading, and unproductive, although I guess political scientists themselves are somewhat competitive and even perhaps tribal (They'll refer to their opposing views as "schools of thought.").
I know this piece is supposed to be general, i.e., to refer to politics both in the US and outside our borders. But in terms of who's right or wrong, or what they're right or wrong about, I'll ask, "What are the consequences if one side or the other dominates?
For instance, if abortion is legal, no one is forced to get an abortion. If one doesn't approve of same sex marriage, one is not forced to marry a same sex partner. Religious plurality doesn't ban a Christian from practicing Christianity. There is no war on Christmas, Christianity (At least not from non-Christians), or White people (At least not from non-White people.).
On the other hand, one side wants everyone to live by their beliefs (like no abortion, period). Even to the point of abandoning ideas, like the Constitution and democracy, we' all supposedly believe in.
2
In the case of current US politics, for about the last two decades, it have been a case of corrupt politicians AGAINST ideas.
Republican politicians have no ideas only tricks, deceits and lies.
Democrats have ideas, but lack the backbones to implement them.
Together, this duopoly is in a defacto war against ideas and against American democracy. The Republicans are destroying the possibility of actualizing ideas, in the process of bulldozing the Democrats laying down to let the Republicans run over them (because it "feels good" to "stand up" for what is right, in between being run over).
The current impeachment process may be an exception to that pattern, temporarily. There, the idea of upholding the Constitution is in competition with idea of helping Trump serve Putin.
2
Some political observers wonder whether democracy is being undermined by ideologically polarized and polarizing talk radio hosts and hyper-partisan TV talking heads who hurl insults and innuendos at their political opponents, sowing seeds of distrust and disrespect among the citizenry.
Other political observers claim that empirical evidence from public opinion polls and survey research strongly suggests that the specter of a badly polarized America is a myth created by political partisans and abetted by TV and talk radio to boost ratings and advertising revenue. According to this latter group, Americans of almost all political persuasions agree on far more than what they disagree about.
1
again with the false equivalency.
the right wing—Conservative ideologues—have been waging open war far against any and all that aren't 100 percent in alignment with their values going back to the days of reconstruction.
Post WWII mainstream moderate Republicans along with everyone to the left of them have been demonized based on values and identity not policy by the right wing.
The middle and left have never responded in kind even as we move through the first quarter of the 21st century facing an existential threat to our democracy, our Constitution and our republic from right wing Conservative ideology.
2
This analysis clearly explains why moderate, pragmatic Democrats who focus on issues such as healthcare and education are able to flip red states.
The swing voters have weak tribal bonds and act as if the substance of policy matters, even if their metrics for assessment may not be exclusively objective and rational.
This points clearly to the need for micro-targeted messaging and a careful avoidance of policies likely to either repel swing voters or capable of being used as a lever to shift swing voters.
For example, Elizabeth Warren’s proposals for:
(1) Offering free healthcare to illegal undocumented immigrants
(2) Adopting an open-doors immigration policy
have serious common-sense flaws likely to drive swing voters in the direction of Trump.
The point to note is that such voters are likely to consider the degree to which promises are kept and results are delivered.
This is the reason Trump is amplifying the ‘I am the frustrated victim of the deep state’ message - having failed to deliver for swing voters, he is distributing blame and asking these people for more time.
3
Who are the main source of power on both the right and the left that are heavily invested in keeping the citizens of the United States so seriously and emphatically divided? All this animosity has gotten the nation into dangerous territory. This situation is not just a random occurrence. There is serious and very well financed direction behind maintaining this division. The American people need to know who are involved and why. All the partisan stuff is their trade and tactic. Who are these power brokers and why are they working so hard to keep us divided?
2
In academia this issue has turned into false moral equivalence as evidenced by everything written here. That itself is a dreadful problem. If the truth needs to be submerged for academics to get published, we’re even in more trouble than I thought.
1
Trumpkins love tRump because he annoys LIBRULS, is busily packing Federal courts with conservative judges, and gives them hope of overturning Roe v Wade.
These are the same god fearing people who approve of putting babies in cages, allowing their neighbors who can't afford health care to die in the gutter, and who value a zygote more than an infant.
Jesus will not be pleased when he meets these people.
1
I blame football and professional wrestling.
This is really about red state Trumpers seeing liberals as the real enemy and ready to slaughter us.
3
Wow, whoever this unnamed limpid number cruncher is toward the end of the article––the DNC should listen to them.
There are no "both sides" answers to any of the problems facing America, to be frank Republicans are a "whites only" party. For example what is the Republican policy answer to the following questions:
- Global Warming? Fake News Hoax/Let the world burn!
- Healthcare? Let them DIE!
- Immigration? Concentration camps!
- Income Inequality? what problem, I just haven't hit the lottery yet
- Police brutality? Those people had it coming!
Bottom line, there is no GOP policy other than "whites r us". There is no compromise to be had because they don't mind watching the world burn as long as they can sit in the "whites only" section.
4
Dear Trumpsters...don't you dare wrap yourselves in the American flag. In Trump, you're following a systemic liar who, while embracing our flag, could't run faster or further from service to his country by cowardly hiding behind non-existent bone spurs.
As the daughter's of the doctor who wrote Donalds excuse.
Spare us the hypocrisy.
2
It’s the FOX News, STUPID.
FOX and the rest of the right wing media spun the web about the threat of the “libs” and all the horrible things they want and would do.
It is formula for cult.
The effects of this long term drip of poison is profound.
So, let's see a "considered analysis of the pros and cons" of racism, white supremacy, homophobia, Islamophobia, the subjugation of women, and killing me (I'm Jewish).
I'm all ears.
1
Before there was talk of impeaching Justice Kavanaugh the John Birch Society ran a national campaign to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren that featured bill boards—once upon a time an effective and widely used form of mass communication—spread across the country.
As recently as 2004 one could still be seen outside of Bakersfield [home of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, no relation to Joseph, as far as we know] on the side of California State Route 99 next to one calling for the US to get out of the UN.
The right wing in the US has always demonized and made an enemy of anyone and everyone not on "their side."
Such a sad place to be. Your quality of living is getting worse, your skin color is losing ground, you vote for someone you know is unlikeable in order to spite people you hate even more. Who wants to sign up?
I just can't reconcile any sense out of that t-shirt. God has nothing to do with guns or Trump. He is superior in every way and hates violence and hypocrites. He hates false witness and false tongues. He hates false worship and self worship.
On the other hand, the god of this world loves all of that (Satan). After all, he IS the Father of the lie.
I find it interesting that when it is working class people who are passionate about one or another party it is "tribal", but when billionaires cry on tv and wail about a candidate, it is because "we need moderates." Cause of course the rich can't be tribal.
Politics has, for the length of the neo-liberal period - with the downfall of labor movements, the freezing of wages, and the insane increase in income and wealth inequality - been all about the results of the big squeeze, as the vast majority had to adjust its lowered living standards to the privileges of the wealthy 1 percent. In the squeeze, the fights get very "tribal" - while at the top, the fights are conducted like gentle orchestral music, as the wealthy have, for decades, always won. Possibly this time, if Warren or Sanders wins the WH, we will see a whole new dimension of tribalism on the part of the wealthy. Which will be reflected all over the corporation owned media. Then things will get interesting.
1
One has to hand it to the GOP. They get a lot done despite being the minority party. Same with Trump. Dems for the last few decades have been the counterpoint - bunch of absentee, circle making wannabe Republicans. Mehinks that dynamic is changing. And not a minute too soon. Thanks Donald.
1
So basically political parties have turned into cults.
America, from day 1, never was the American ideal. Permitting slavery forever defaced what America should have been, along with our treatment of native Americans and other groups. We live with the remnants of Jim Crow mentality and that kind of ignorant hate will never completely disappear. Considering the guy wearing the blue shirt in the photo, I bet if they sold shirts that said, “God, Guns, Trump, Confederate Flag, and Segregation”, there would still be eager buyers. What’s scary is that this level of partisan division is growing to the point that loosing zealots might take some sort of “revenge”, especially from the right. Since the right is much more infatuated with guns, that has me very apprehensive.
1
I don't know who all these political scientists are who are so wrapped up in analyzing polls, that they don't remember what the Constitution says or notice that everything the Right says and does is designed to undermine it.
The history of Amendments to the Constitution show that the super majorities that ratified them wanted more equality, not less, and to give everyone equal protection under law.
The Right has been calling the government "the enemy" for my entire 50+ years. Large numbers of Right-wing Democrats now vote for Republicans because Democrats ended Jim Crow, which was state terror against monirities under unconstitional laws. The Right flies the flags of the Confederacy and Nazis. Ask the Right why they need a gun, and most will say to fight the government.
Republics Congressman Steve Kind of Iowa posted this on his Facebook Page, "One side has eight trillion bullets and the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use. Which side will win the Civil War?! Trump said, if he doesn't get a second term, his base will start a "Civil War." The Right bought most of the 330 million guns, trains to fight the government, and talk s about civil war.
It is naive for Democrats to keep trying to work with those that say "kill the liberals" or for political scientists to pretend both sides are are "partisan." This runs deeper than two parties.
One side is engaged in debate under the Constitutional framework and the other side is trying to rip up the Constitution.
I oppose 95% of what Trump says and does-and I bent over backwards trying to find SOMETHING I could agree with. No go. How I feel about him personally is immaterial.
Having said this, I think the "anger" we are all afraid of is just a bit oversstated. I have relatives and friends who support Trump and all of what he says and does. We all go about our business, however, and if politics come up, we keep it on the fringes of life where it belongs. They have their reasons and so do I. The open forum of ideas is the greatness of America.
Persuasion usually comes from example. Shouting at the opposition doesn't work. Calm discussion is a tool that is not used near enough.
I travel in a converted school bus. On the rear of the bus, where the "SCHOOL BUS" text used to be, I've inserted "GREEN NEW DEAL".
A few days ago, in liberal Monterey Ca., a very angry white middle aged man on a motorcycle stopped, and started screaming at me, claiming that the Green New Deal was preventing tractors and firefighters from battling wildfires.
He repeatedly called me a "liberal parasite" and demanded that I "go back to where I'm from" (I have Arizona license plates).
No doubt a Trumpist.
Since you raised the topic of race, two very angry Black males attacked my father as he stepped of a bus on his way home from work. We lived in Detroit at the time. My father was partially disabled as a result of the attack and no one was ever prosecuted.
Let's see, screamed at versus attacked and disabled, screamed at versus attacked and disabled...
You betcha.
I have come to believe that the main reason Trump's cult-like zombie following sticks with him no matter what is because they idolize the way in which he has turned his willful ignorance into gold (toilets, anyway).
Of course, what none of them have in common with the man are the undeniable entitlements and the fact the guy had several million dollars in a bank account before he even knew what a bank was.
The part that still shocks me is how much Donald Trump reminds me of a "dry drunk." I realize he claims to have never let alcohol touch his lips. But his bizarre combination of being a raging egomaniac with zero self-esteem reminds me a lot of the ongoing pathology of one who has quit drugs or drink yet found nothing to replace them with.
I find it interesting that the few times Trump has exposed himself to an urban area he's been booed and shouted down unmercifully.
Wake up, rural America --- you're supporting a modern-day P.T. Barnum. Or, in a comparison many of you may find more familiar still, remember Mr. Haney from "Green Acres?"
"America, have I got a deal for you!"
It's really simple. For poor white people, it is about race (and, therefore, "us vs. them") and making sure brown people have it worse off than they have it, or making sure LGBTQ+ folks "know their place." Period.
For the wealthy, it's ALWAYS about tax breaks (and draining the middle class dry) and easing regulations to maximize short-term profits - at any cost. The discrimination element is simply a bonus for them.
"The business or arousing your innate feelings of cultural and political superiority (and proving the inferiority of liberalism) is Fox's core business and emotional manipulation model"
This is a quote from Tobin Smith's new book Foxocracy. He spent 14 years on the inside of Fox news. I think it does a pretty good job oe explaining how republicans think and feel. It also talks about how Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes built this resentment based network. You can't understand the political polarization if you don't understand Fox news. The mainstream media including the NYTimes still don't get it.
1
My day dream is the Confederate States once again ask to secede.
This time we let them.
And they take the rest of the Red States with them.
I would have to move, but it would be worth it.
5
A dream?
The US would lose a majority of it's African-American population. The states with the 5 largest percentages of African-American populations would be gone.
That's an interesting dream of yours.
BTW, I started reading the linked Michael Anton piece about a “Flight 93 Election.” The guy is nuts – a True Believer who thinks anyone against him is the enemy. No surprise he worked for Trump. And you wonder why Democrats vehemently oppose this?
It is critical for jury members to be able to distinguish fact from fiction. No wonder so many people are wrongly convicted.
This approach has seen enemies sitting down to listen to one another in a matter of minutes in the most violent circumstances. A solution in plain sight: https://www.cnvc.org/home
The default in America is us vs. them with a slight republican advantage. However, policy in politics become more important the worse off the country is; and in recent history its Democratic leadership that we turn to to clean up the mess.
Republican ideas: 1) cut taxes for the wealthy too much or way too much, 2) reduce gun violence by having more guns around, 3) keep those inclined not to vote for you from voting, 4) dismantle the social safety net to pay for #1, 5) ignore the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state only as it applies to your religion, 6) take healthcare away from millions of poor and middle class Americans, 7) claim to be “pro life” despite supporting #'s 1-6.
You simply cannot separate these “ideas” from the people who promote them.
2
I think Americans' responses to politics is exactly like their responses to sports teams. The most important TV channel in this country is not MSNBC, CNN, or Fox but ESPN and people support chosen political figures and parties as they do their chosen teams. So there really is no substance to politics anymore just team/tribe group feeling.
May God help us ALL
1
I'd say the answer is both. Democrats are into policy. They want to solve health care, climate change, income and wealth inequality, gun violence and more. Republicans are into "making liberals cry again" even if it means voting against their best interests. That's how I see it.
3
Edsall writes, "The struggle between pro-Trump and anti-Trump forces has researchers — and party strategists — grasping for an answer." So the experts are stumped. But the explanation is a simple one, it comes down to the difference between what is good and what is evil; the same choice Americans had in 2016 when they chose good over evil. Let's hope that they make the same choice again in 2020, otherwise, our nation is doomed. Thank you.
16
@Southern Boy Good vs evil? What criteria are you using to determine what is good and what is evil?
Are we really better off now than we were in 2016? Is the USA greater than it was before?
I voted for Hillary Clinton because I believed she was more qualified to make the difficult choices any president faces. From my perspective, Donald Trump has demonstrated that I did not make a mistake.
By my measures, he has not been "good." If nothing else, his lies and distortions disqualify him. The corruption that has been revealed in this administration is worrisome. I find it hard to think that dismantling environment protections is good for our future. I understand, I think, concerns about immigration, but the truth is that, where I live, some enterprising immigrants would be helpful. The emotions unleashed against refugees appalls me.
The economy seems precarious and it is possible that trade wars could bring down the world economy. That will not be "good" by any measure.
Inequality is still increasing and the tax measures adopted will make it worse. What is "good" about that?
You may think the judges appointed during this administration are worth the other damages inflicted on the general welfare. I think those justices are notable for an orientation to afflict suffering people and, in my mind, that isn't "good."
I'm hoping for change in 2020. I believe the future of my grandchildren and children depends on it.
65
@Southern Boy
Just so no one misses it, CSA stands for Confederate States of America. Now lets analyze Southern Boys views on good vs. evil in the proper context.
87
@Southern Boy
When folks start describing a self-dealing, law-breaking, authority-abusing, self-admitted serial assaulter of women, who has ordered violations of basic human rights as "the good," I submit we really have reached the point of peak "Us v. Them."
79
When GOP pols take office, many of them work with rigor toward a laissez-faire political and economic state. Regulations and income taxes are cut to lessen government's impact in the community. With the reelection of GOP majorities, they continue this march toward a laissez-faire state. But, after reelection their cuts in income taxes and regs often result in growing federal deficits and exploitative markets for many consumers. As their length of time in office grows, more and more marginal cuts by GOP pols to taxes and regs accumulate greater costs, such as a weaker infrastructure and unfair income distributions.
To counter, Democrats campaign on strategic plans promising fairer income distributions and they also promise to add competitive vigor to an economy dominated by large, very powerful corporations with unbridled profit opportunities in this unregulated environment.
Recent data indicate that the manufacturing sectors in several key states voting for Trump in 2016 are currently facing reduced demand and growing unemployment in this sector. For ex., the DOL jobs report for the month of October showed a decline of -36,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide.
A rough economic patch heading into the 2020 election could doom the Trump campaign. And, the decrease in Oct. manufacturing jobs, with its potential swing vote effects, helps to explain Trump's continuous lobbying of the Fed for lower interest rates.
[11/06/2019 W 2:05 pm Greenville NC]
2
This Opinion boils down to HATE as the central motivation for most voters in the USA. The 'persuadables' or swing- voters make up, perhaps, 13 to 18% of the others. Writer Edsall consulted with a fair number of experts on what would influence these swing-voters one way or another, and they didn't know. Many of us are aware of the degree to which HATE has poisoned the country. It is what threatens our society the most. The crucial question is how can we turn down the temperature? Hatred may be outpacing Climate Change as the most lethal force.
1
This opinion and the responses seems to be part of the common theme of "what the heck is going on?" So many responses are variations on "I totally get it, but here's why I'm frustrated with the other side" or "If ________ wasn't an issue, this would not be happening" Facts based people blame religion. Rural blames Urban. It proves the point the writer is making. I don't know how to solve it, but I do know we all make it worse by deciding the ones we disagree with have less value because they don't see it the way we do. I think that's where the disagreement shifts to tribalism. We see articles emploring us to find common ground, and they are right. But how do I find common ground with the wall of media and internet coming at me 24/7 (sorry NYT)? How do I find common ground with stupid talking points being parroted back at me, when I'm not positive they know the full implication of what was said? It's so much easier to just discount people, file them all under whatever label I'm comfortable using that allows me to stay grounded in what I believe and get out of the uncomfortableness. The only problem with this approach is someone gets discounted, and the cycle is perpetuated and magnified. Politicians are seizing on it, and magnifying it. Social media is moving so fast, we make no time to think before we post.
This division is just getting bigger. It's going to take real effort to reverse it. We have to get uncomfortable.
2
You mean researchers are struggling to understand why single issue, emotional, non-factually based voters, who are looking to scapegoat minority groups for the problems they've inflicted upon themselves, whilst a propaganda channel (disguised as a 'news' channel) tells them they're right about 'this stuff' day in and day out, don't get along with those living in the real world?
1
This article, while intellectually interesting, smacks loudly of both-sides-ism. Many commenters know who is responsible for the divisiveness we all see. There is no liberal Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, etc., etc., and never has been.
3
A Canadian’s perspective:
To depict your county’s political differences as “polarized” would seem, to me, to give each side equal weight - that what the academics in this piece perceive as the two camp’s mutual inflexibility is somehow proof of equal political legitimacy.
Um, I think not - and I speak as a citizen of a former U.S. ally whose country was laughably demonized as an enemy to U.S. security.
From my perspective, I think Hillary Clinton got it right in her campaign - that those people who would support a race-baiting, infantile, lying, misogynistic mean-spirited man-child are in fact and deed “deplorables.” That they would continue to do so when his policies often work against their interests, and U.S. interests at large, do not speak to any kind of political belief but to some vague sense of grievance and wilful, gleeful ignorance. They don’t cast votes: they flip middle fingers.
To place any aspect of the other side of the political spectrum as equal to that, or as equally polarizing, as if the U.S. political landscape is a teeter-totter where both sides have rushed to the ends, is just plain wrong.
1
@Pete
We just don't want to see America become what we see Canada becoming. A Balkanized 'post nation state' with no core identity. Only part of that description that doesn't come from YOUR OWN Prime Minister is the Balkanized descriptor. Rest of it is his exact words.
unfortunately we should ask this question after Trump presidency is "history" and hopefully soon! Its till its "Trumpers" or "us USA citizens both gop and dems !"
I am hopeful GOP can clean up its "licking the 'Honorable (sic) ' Trump's feet act"after being seen "un patriotic" first time ever in my living memory!
1
Just a visceral reaction to the picture: I don't think that "God" would approve of the message on the gentleman's t-shirt. To me, it is the epitome of blasphemy to use the Lord's name with either "guns" or "Trump", the former because God's peace has NOTHING to do with guns, and the latter because Trump uses the name of God to garner votes, which is a vile affront to Christianity.
2
The culture wars are all over but the shoutin'. With the exception of some rear-guard actions, we live in the culture which former '60s radicals promised us. Their values, for better and for worse, are the sea we all swim in. They have transformed our popular culture and institutions.
The left doesn't recognize its victory, or doesn't want to, because struggle has become the liberal self-identity. It's why rhetoric around race, gender, sexuality, etc., always sounds so outsized, as if it's 1919 Alabama, not 2019 America. "Not enough girls in STEM classes!" "My transgender son doesn't feel fully celebrated!" There much Always be a Cause. As the joke about academics goes, the fights are so vicious because the stakes are so small.
Being unwilling or unable to admit victory, the left imposes a cultural Versailles Treaty, making the vanquished feel "...their values, their freedom, their right to express themselves, their very identity, are all at stake." The lawsuit against Masterpiece Cake shop, however legally valid, exemplifies this egregiously punitive attitude.
So this is what we all continue to fight over, in our heart of hearts, not policy. The secret message of 2016 was that both sides of the aisle are ready for trimming the horns of the oligarchy and making government more responsive to ordinary people again. But that would require putting our identities aside to work on ideas.
2
The president withheld desperately needed military aid in order to extort an ally into publicly denouncing his domestic political rival as corrupt.
His supporters are fine with this.
THAT'S our problem. I don't give a rip about their personal foibles. I care about their blatant civic incompetence.
4
so we are becoming more tribal - yes i can see that quite clearly / but that's not necessarily a bad thing / if we could take one more step and see that our tribe is all Homo sapiens and act for the common benefit of the whole tribe then we would be getting somewhere
Any sober person who would wear a shirt publicly equating our Lord God....with guns, clearly does not know the word of God, nor his teachings of love, tolerance and (above all) respect to others.
2
The republicans were already troubled by the perception of being "too mean" when George W. began calling himself a "compassionate" conservative. Now the scowling face of 45, the current brand of conservatives, seems apt to me as the party of meanness on steroids. But anger and division is easier and very effective in our current political environment and demos will increasingly find themselves copying the methods of fear and anger of fox and 45. It's difficult to have dialogue with someone yelling at you all the time. But I still have family on the wrong side of these political battles and I try to remember a mantra of be kind, try to listen and understand. Not always easy but for me it's the crux of the matter.
A whole article about the partisan division in America and race doesn't even get mentioned until 3/4 through. How can you talk about partisanship without noting that one party is a white supremacist party for white people?
Sometimes I think these researchers don't want to see the obvious and instead try to use these metrics to come to any other possible conclusion than the one right in front of them.
Long story short, this is about one group losing power and refusing to give up that power, not a new story in history. White people (in all the vagueness of the term) have always ruled America but they're on the cusp of losing that power for good due to demographic change, and they are keenly aware of this. And they are terrified of being marginalized in the ways they know this country is capable of.
It just seems absurd to approach polarization without putting it in the context that has shaped this country's entire history since before its founding: racism.
3
This article does not discuss or even raise the possibility that for one side the struggle is mainly Us against Them, while for the other it is mainly a war of ideas. But this war of ideas is against an opponent who does not value ideas and replaces them with simple slogans, conspiracy theories, and sales pitches, and struggle against such an opponent will look like Us versus Them.
Our current political war is an asymmetrical struggle, but most social science treats it as symmetrical. This treatment is a victory for the Us-or-Thems for whom ideals and ideas are a means to achieve power rather than power being the way to implement ideas and realize ideals.
1
The open primary in California gives some lessons. In the primary voters vote for anyone of any party, the top two vote getters move on to the general election. The idea is to force some moderation on the part of those running to appeal to more middle voters and so moderate the politics.
It is instructive that this has resulted in even less representation by Republicans - they only comprise 25% of voters in California now - largely because those repubs running STILL espouse ultra right wing policies. So the general election is often two Dems running against each other. It is clear that the vast majority of voters don't want right wingers in state politics, so there is really no reason for them to run. Maybe in the future some mythical "moderate" Republican will appear. Not holding my breath on that....
3
@Joe Rock bottom ...I agree. The presently used two party primary system selects for candidates with extreme positions. Democrats may well nominate a progressive that is too far left for independents and moderates to support in a general election.
1
Mindless "team" mentality promoted by parties is why far more Americans are independent than belong to a major party: 26% Republican, 29% Democrat, 43% independent.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
1
Unfortunately the Republican Party is now so far to the ultra right wing that they cannot even see the "center" anymore. Their are no "moderate" republicans. They are all at minimum, far right to ultra far right. Trump is a fringe ultra right wing delusionist, as are his hysterical followers.s
The vast majority of Dem politcians are solidly Center or center right. A few are center left, barely. There are one or two who could be considered left.
But, the right wingers, a minority in the population, dominate national politics due to the skewed nature of the electoral college and the grossly skewed Senate. Having a skewed EC and Senate makes it very difficult for the Dems in the center to make headway against the small number of fanatical ultra right wingers who vote in the small populaiton states.
That leaves only the "undecided" voter - people who can't make up their mind between a corrupt, lying con man and a decent, honest, middle of the road politician.
Really. That is the group we are depending on to save our country. Good luck with that.
5
@Joe Rock bottom …."The vast majority of Dem politicians are solidly Center or center right. "....Which explains why Warren and Sanders are leading in the polls????
@W.A. Spitzer
Yes. Because Sanders and Warren are basically centrists and promoting centrist needs. Because of decades of too much Republicanism the nation has tended well right of center, in actuality as well as much perception.
Political and social scientists hone their objectivity by bracketing out the fact that Republicans have become a cult that ignores evidence and reality and Democratic partisanship is basically a reaction to this. For Democratic partisanship to be the same sort of animal as the Republican variety, Democrats would have to believe a bunch of things that are just not true according to the evidence,and ignore or slant the evidence to fit their beliefs.
The belief among Democrats that Republicans have taken leave of reality and honesty is based on fact, while the belief among Republicans that Democrats have taken leave of reality and been consumed with hatred of Trump is part of the Republican cult. For Democrats, Trump gets accused of a variety of misdeeds because he has done them, and Democrats are frightened and angry because he is doing away with our normal government's separation of powers and rule of law. For Republicans, the rule of law was always an illusion used by the Deep State to perpetuate its power, and Trump is winning the battle to cut back and dismantle the Deep State.
For Trump, everything is a power struggle. For Democrats, the power struggle is controlled and mediated by the Constitution that controls and transcends it, at least sometimes. In being objective and treating both sides as basically the same, social scientists adopt Trump's view and play on his playing field even if they play against his team.
3
I think the increase in partisan tribalism is because one party went crazy and decided truth, justice, and the American Way were no longer shared values.
5
Regarding the measurement of race/resentment the article states:
"For Republicans, the modal respondent still places at the scale’s maximum (most resentful)" -
the fact that there's a Modal that measures resentment and it's pinned at "maximum" for Republicans is all you need to know.
It's about values.
2
It's little different than sports teams at this point. The rise of the internet and particularly, social media, has made our worlds increasingly complex--regurgitating commentary on issues that most do not grasp well, and none grasp completely.
Meanwhile the mainstream media beats the labeling drum of conservatives/progressives, further dehumanizing sets of beliefs and sets of individuals until they are nothing more than a red/blue faceless horde.
We generalize each other's beliefs with these labels in the same ways we used to generalize race (with less savory labels). We perpetuate stereotypes like all liberals eat granola and stare at shapes in the clouds, or all conservatives are uneducated and deny climate change.
It's a simple societal construction that has been going on as long as language has been around. If you look, you can find many many more examples, both big and small. Whether its millennials/baby boomers, nerds/jocks, Democrats/Republicans, etc.--you probably don't need to look far to find negative words or even thoughts of your own about them.
1
This is not a surprise: the issues in politics haven't budged for over 30 years. We've been arguing on either side of the same trench, and the 'ideas' have already been argued out. Now, it's simply 'which side of the trench are you on?' There is no need to argue ideas, or to come to a compromise: how do you come to a compromise on abortion? State intervention for the common good vs destructively acquisitive libertarianism? I fear how all this pans out, but one side is definitely cheating on a consistent basis, and only just wants to win - and largely runs on fear and disdain to sway the populace. I'll leave it to the Gray Lady to figure out which.
3
Democrats are for a larger government that helps everyone.
Republicans are for a smaller government that helps just a select few.
Any questions?
5
The emotions can be feel during Trump era politics, but you mostly see high spirit in Trump supporters. People around me are easily identified, those who are eager, loud and attack in any type of social gathering - some may physically grab you to make you listen to their rhetoric - are Trump supporters, the quieter ones are Trump haters. But I still believe the division are ideology based. There are passionate about some social issues they believe the Democratic are too far left.
Someone once said "Nobody knows nothing" and the talking heads cited here are the proof. America today is pretty simple, good vs. evil. That's simplistic too but the Republicans have proved my point over and over this past year. They've sold their morality and honor for their power. This next election will be the most important one in a hundred years. We need to throw the rascals out.
3
The article is amazing. It reifys a horrible realization that many of us had when Trump was elected. Without sounding too naive, I have seen many events since the Vietnam war. Although I have a rather conservative way of thinking, I would be “profiled” as an East Coast liberal. I never fooled myself in believing everyone in this country thought in the same way. However, I always assumed that in our core, we held a common sense or vision of what America could be. In my writing, I call that, metaphorically, the “Shining City”. It’s a place we aspire to, but will never reach in terms of what we would wish our society to become. Up until 2016, America, haltingly, sometimes, losing ground and getting sidetracked, but never stopping, appeared to never loose the direction toward the Shining City.
Trump’s election revealed a horrible reality. First, Trump’s "base" IU s not Trump's at all. The "base" existed long by before Trump; and it will be around long after he is put out of our misery. Trump merely used the base. The base does not share my idea of the Shining City. Not even close. It probably never did. I am only starting to become aware of the extent of the differences. In a nightmarish sort of way, it's like realizing that some of the people around you and who you see every day, are really aliens, in the literal sense of the word.
We have a problem.
3
It is a debate about nothing. There was a time when it had the appearance of the ancient Dogma Empiricism debate but today empiricists like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are called radicals, ideologues and extremists. Expertise which has always been the touchstone of Empiricism is no longer seen as an asset.
When a conservative like Joe Biden can call an empiricist like Elizabeth Warren an elitist we must realize there is no more debate because words have no more meaning.
If you are a Republican calling yourself a Christian you can be either a Christian or anti Christian.
America has become George Orwell's nightmare where words mean whatever the speaker wants them to mean. America is on the wrong side of Alice's Looking Glass.
5
We are living in a world where what some one said or did 10 minutes ago can and is broadcast across the globe. This lack of privacy and immediate wide spread communication is not helpful when politics and character assassination are involved. In terms of weather or any other catastrophic event this communication is valuable but when people "season the truth" or simply make it up it creates an aura of "what to believe". Timing is everything and it's being used against everyone.
1
This is a remarkably even-handed (one doesn't expect that from the NYT) discussion of a hot topic in political science.
Except that the first illustration seems designed to cater to the idea that Trump supporters are "deplorable". They are our fellow-citizens, and should be respected as such, whatever we think of their political choices.
1
Mr. Edall, please write more on your important past column:
"After Citizens United, a Vicious Cycle of Corruption.
Unconstrained outside spending on elections is corrosive to our democracy." Dec. 6, 2018.
Rare for columnists to tackle this crucial topic.
Corporate mega donors are legally allowed to finance our elections without $ limits, calling the shots for their gain and our loss. and muffling the voice of the citizen majority.
Over time, how could this not lay the groundwork for our hostility and polarization? Mega donors watch as citizens compete for scarce resources, while the corporations increase their profits with favorable laws, and low taxes, then donate some of those increasing profits with candidates they pick.
Then we all stand in long lines to vote for candidates and policies the mega donors will allow to be in the platforms.
Ex Pres Jimmy Carter has stated America veers toward Oligarchy now, because it takes so much money to run for any office.
The country was primed for Trump exploitation.
So this is not a country where we citizens get Representation for Our Taxation---what the original colonists demanded when they overthrew royal/aristo colonial rule.
If this type politics continues, with the media just keeping score of who is raising the most money, then we can't start reforms we need. Then, future swamp creatures lurk, ready to rise from the depths and take power, with the financial backing of elites.
Sounds unAmerican, doesn't it?
4
Shanto Iyengar: "There is a growing body of work showing that policy preferences are driven more by partisans’ eagerness to support their party rather than considered analysis of the pros and cons of opposing positions on any given issue."
Watch a Trump rally. There is no discussions of pros and cons of an issue. There is just a demand to show support for Trump - no matter what.
Republicans have turned governance based on facts into reality TV based on maximizing money from lobby groups.
"affective partisanship" instead of thoughtful voters.
For Republicans it is a game that with the right cheerleaders they can win.
Important ideas and an important column. Critical reading for anyone who cares about the future of America.
1
It would be interesting to hear the experts' opinion on views of the federal deficit. Both parties (GOP more so) use this issue to stifle the agenda of the other side and then forget about it when they get power. Democrats condemned Bush for turning the surplus into a deficit. Republicans said Obama was putting the country in gave danger borrowing 500 billion a year. Republicans took power and doubled that to nearly a trillion, and they've forgotten the issue.
Setting aside the merits of the underlying issue, I'm interested in the psychology that allows people to go from thinking an issue is very important to unimportant in a matter of a year. Do they just have short memories? Or is partisanship driving policy opinions more than we think?
I would be interested to see what would happen if a maverick politician got elected president and drove her/his party to change direction radically on a hotbutton issue like abortion. Would feminists and fundamentalists contort themselves into supporting the same party as before?
2
After the last Democratic debate, I spent hours combing through the candidates' websites, determined to find one I could endorse. I was willing to overlook a lot - all I wanted was 1) sane 2) not Trump, and 3) not trying to take away the freedom to practice my religion.
Number of candidates who met those criteria: 0.
The official Democratic party platform this year is all about eliminating religious exemptions. Democrats don't seem to realize that if Christians were confident that they could invoke religious exemptions in extreme cases, they would overwhelmingly support the policies to which they might need exemptions! We want LGBT people to have a full slate of civil rights - we just want to also know that we won't get personally dragged in front of the supreme Court for refusing to bake a cake. We want universal health care, but we also want assurance that Catholic doctors and nurses will never be forced to participate in abortions.
In other words, we want peaceful coexistence and tolerance. But we want the same tolerance extended to us. And that is what no Democratic candidate is willing to promise.
Until Democrats abandon the one-sided view of what constitutes "tolerance" and "equality" they will keep alienating "persuadables" and losing elections. Which means Trump will win again by default, God help us all.
@caroline: Happy to hear your opinions. But remember, no where in the U.S. Constitution does the word "God" appear. So tell me how can LGBT people "have a full slate of civil rights" if those operating a public business are free to deny them the same rights as others? And I don't believe that doctors are "forced" to participate in abortions.
2
@John Glad to hear your response as well.
You’re right, happily doctors are not forced to participate in abortions currently. However, it’s not unrealistic to think that without robust religious exemptions they might be in the future (the reasoning might go something like this: abortion is a right, for a doctor to deny her patient care to which she has a right is criminal, so for a doctor to refuse to perform an abortion is criminal). I’m glad if there isn’t anyone on the left who would want to use such reasoning. But it doesn’t seem entirely ridiculous.
The problem of how LGBTQ rights can coexist with the free exercise of religion is a tricky one but I don’t think it’s insuperable. My intuition is that we need a way of being clear about what constitutes participating in or endorsing an *activity* vs what constitutes providing customer service to a *person*. The basic idea is that in the same way as a doctor or nurse should be able to legally say “sorry I don’t do abortions” a baker or photographer should be able to legally say “sorry I don’t participate in same sex weddings” without legal consequences, assuming that these services are still obtainable with reasonable ease from other providers in the same community.
It’s about compromise. On both sides the perfect can sometimes be an enemy of the good.
Peace.
I don’t think you can separate out what Trump has demonstrably done from increasing Dem hostility. If the party’s leader is committing obvious crimes —extortion, obstruction of justice, much of it on camera, that will turn people off. But what has really infuriated me is the way GOP Congressmen are saying there is nothing wrong with acts that are obviously illegal.
During previous GOP administrations, I didn’t agree with policies, but I didn’t see the entire party as corrupt top to bottom. I do now.
3
It is clearly no longer about red or blue "states", it is about blue urban/suburban conglomerates and red rural areas. So wherever states have populations/voter districts where cities exceed counties in numbers, they are "blue".
We have to ask why the red areas were so heavily hurt by the transition from industrial to information age, because many cities in America were home to factories and mills, and yet they managed to transition. The folks that were working in the steel mills in Indiana in the 70's told their kids...don't come to work at the mill, go to college. The communities that thrived around mills and factories had everything figured out...until they didn't.
Some of that is true today, you cannot say that globalization alone shut down the post-war boom. But it is easy to blame the "liberals" who saw the world changing and adjusted to it. It is harder to accept that the blinders never came off when it became clear that the economic model had to change, selling our steel, cars, refrigerators and crops from sea to shining sea could last forever, and we ignored the change at our own peril.
Red state parents have sent their kids off to colleges, and those kids are now living in blue cities, voting against their parent's party. Smugness in blue states is wrong, but being blue comes from not being closed to change.
5
Repubs have not put forth ANY rational ideas about anything for decades. Trump promised all kinds of Top Secret Plans that HE would reveal once elected. Apparently HE is still working on those because NONE of his Top Secret Plans have been made public.
Of course that is because NONE of them ever existed.
So it is beyond absurd that people are bashing the Dems for proposing ideas, proposing plans, proposing ways to pay for them (nothing a Repub would EVER do!). Apparently the Dems should just say they have Top Secret Plans and say nothing more.
That will get the Repubs on board, Right?
2
Politics is unavoidable in democracies but it should be for the benefit of the people and the nation and not for the exclusive benefit of politicians.
3
It takes nerve and Edsall seems to have that since he's been in the forefront of cherry picking polls that asked leading questions as evidence of the hard fragmentation he questions in his OP-ED piece.
Politics is a battle of ideas and no one should expect their ideas to be unchallenged. If they don't stand up to the light of day then so be it.
One's political outlook is heavily influenced by their experiences. Those experiences are far more diverse than the false dichotomy Edsall continually tries to sell.
It takes nerve.
1
Important topic. Three points:
1) How people reason/respond to questions about politics is depends greatly on how questions are framed. When people are asking about their feelings toward groups, or about catchphrase policy options ('higher taxes') they use rapid intuitive thinking/feeling (System 1) and become more partisan (using what social psychologists call "social referencing.") When questions focus on specific policy choices (which gun control measures do you favor, if any?) then partisanship wanes significantly. This is why peacemaking efforts that focus on promoting intergroup empathy are typically less effective than those that focus on identifying and building consensus around actions/choices to solve shared problems (see for example: Sherif's famous Robber's Cave experiments 50 + years ago).
2) As noted by others, the information environment has changed over the last 25 years, with increasingly divergent stories/themes/facts, creating two very different ways of construing reality. This has had a deleterious effect on problem solving and social perceptions.
3) The insight that that many people evaluate a policy option by imagining first how liked/nonliked groups feel toward it: This is really not a new finding. For example, Tetlock and Sniderman's work in the early 90s (e.g., Reasoning and Choice) showed that low information voters typically decide how they feel about an issue by seeking information about how identify-relevant groups feel about it.
Democrat, Republican, Independent or Neanderthal, if you can't see and hear the lies and sleazy rhetoric coming out of Trumps mouth - you are lost.
7
I see a long-running level of activity below the partisan divides that drives it deeper. That activity is the drive to stay in office. Politicians are selected, in part, because of their ability to understand what you want and how to harness that to their continued employment. Aligning with party continues that employment.
Politics of today is played like pro basketball. Of course you don't telegraph your real intentions, nor do you shy away from hard fouls if you can get away with it. The players ask themselves, "Was I elected to play nice or to win?"
Politics is a contact sport in which everyone scuffs up their opponents and promote their ideology through the media megaphones. Some megaphones project only certain attitudes and those close to those megaphones see an entirely different score.
In my experience, politics today is completely about Us Against Them. I spent a few years working for a pro-LGBT African-American elected official with a 100% pro-environment score, yet I dealt with hatred by people who considered him the Enemy. At first I tried to engage with the activists, since I was like them in being from a white, highly educated progressive background. But the more educated the activist was, the more immune they were to facts or logic.
Through this, I have come to have a much deeper respect of African-American elected officials, many of whom are dedicated providing real help to their real constituents. But I am afraid that Progressive activists see helping real people as some sort of corruption.
There is a fuzzy line between "us" and "them." Progressives risk losing allies if we draw the line too harshly.
It is of the utmost importance that objective observers emphasize that this increase in partisanship is overwhelmingly, and first, a phenomenon of the right. Democrats make very bad tribalists, maybe because there is no one unifying tribe, but many -- African-Americans, Hispanics, women, "progressives," LGBT people, the highly educated. Republicans long ago, but increasingly, have chosen their tribe: white Christianist gun-loving paranoid male-dominated less-educated rural and rural-romanticizing people. The very wealthy nihilists who value short-term profit over a survivable world fund this tribe for their own purposes. They twang the lower limbic system of the tribe of the right, and money pours out like Niagara.
What tribalism has arisen today, with great difficulty, on the left (really the center-left), is in reaction to the increasingly rabid tribalism of the right, and resembles nothing so much as the dilatory and fractious opposition to secession pre-1860. Conservatives, then as now, are natural tribalists. Liberals do not make good tribalists. Evading this central truth makes any solution to this crisis impossible.
4
As one of the 13% "persuadables" described here, I have to say that I found the thesis - that the vast majority of the American People are now politically defined by their self identified "tribe"- pretty depressing.
However, I found the comments on the column, and particularly the "Times Pick" comments, which appear to me to totally vindicate the "tribal" thesis, especially depressing.
Makes me wonder: is there any way back from here and, if not, where will this end?
2
There is clear animosity towards the stereotype "other". The stereotype Republican is white, male, evangelical, racist, gun loving, misogynistic. This is clearly nonsense, yet it appears time and again in the comments sections of NYT articles and in political statements. The stereotype Democrat is bent on destroying all values, is primarily feminist, is pro the killing of babies, prefers unorthodox genders to straight persons, has no religion, and is increasingly anti-white. This Is clearly nonsense, yet it is reinforced by messages, news articles, and politicians. There is no room for deviation from this stereotype, to the point where one is surprised to see Republican women or Democrat anti-abortionists. How can this be? All "others" must conform to our stereotype. It is the reason why even Republican Senators or Representatives who feel uncomfortable with the President, may even dislike what he stands for, will not support his impeachment. They hate the "others" more. For this impossible situation to change, it will require a candidate (from either party) of great courage, who can inspire shared values, who cuts past stereotypes on both sides and illuminates a common spirit. Someone whom all those in both parties who do not conform to the stereotype (the vast majority) will recognize as having their common humanity at heart. There are a few of these people among the current Democratic candidates.....it will do well for them not to beat their party drum too strongly....
How do you talk to someone who thinks that supporting the basic, human rights of LGBTQ people is a DIRECT offense against their religion? This is very real. A person who is LGBTQ is a HUMAN BEING, not an idea, not an offense to religious doctrine. How do you square that?
50 years ago, James Baldwin told Dick Cavett that when white people point to "all the progress... and that down the road there could even be an African American president," all we can think is "why not now(?)."
The basic rights of a human being is real, it's not an idea, and every day that we "debate" the issue is a day lost to that person.
4
Trump's win in 2016 was a victory for wealth and their zero sum strategy of wedge issues to the umpteenth degree. In the battle of capitalism v. democracy, it was huge victory for capital. Trump is the most visceral example of plutocratic indifference to humanity. The Democratic establishment and the infamous 800 superdelegates ramrodded Hillary Clinton to the nomination in 2016. They ran a lousy campaign that was a plainly misguided strategy that the US could not elect Trump. Added to the effort to tie Trump to the Russians. A strategy that nourished a lack luster performance. Much of the GOP energy came as pay back for the Democrats winning with a black candidate in 2008&2012. Now the Democrats are fixated in an anti Russia vortex that has driven their war mongering and the impeachment craziness. Progressives against the neo con ruination of US foreign policy look on with perplexity. Aren't the Dems the good guys? The GOP are more united with their, Trump is standing up against Democrat political elite with zero sum divisive social issues like anti abortion or opposition to gun control and the nebulous fixture of big gov't. Pelosi's strategy of making a the impeachment a weapon to undermine Trump though not removing him seems a two edged sword that could increase the Trump vote in 2020.
Democrats: Affordable healthcare, aggressive environmental policies to combat climate change, a woman’s right to chose, affordable housing, racial equality, religious tolerance, a renewed relationship with our former allies, sane foreign policy, a humane immigration policy where immigrant families are not separated and where children are not put into concentration camps, a logical and fair way to make corporations pay their fare share in taxes…
Trump Supporters: God, Guns and Trump.
And you’re saying there is parity here because… ?
4
That picture accompanying this opinion piece could have been taken in 1775, if you replace the word Trump with King George III. Royalists in a religious theocracy, with their new king. England supported the Confederacy, maybe the red states can now petition Queen Elizabeth to save them from the American Revolutionaries?
This nation is already embroiled in a "cold" civil war, and if you don't believe a real civil war is coming - then you are not paying attention.
Ours is a nation of kindling, just waiting for the unfortunate spark to send things hurtling off in a bloody direction.
What happens when trump loses the election and declares the results are "rigged"? What happens when armed supporters show up to "protect" him from being forced from the White House?
Sure. You might think that's implausible - but consider everything else that has happened in the last two years. Hate crime on the rise. Conspiracy theories as "news." Citizens living in alternate realities.
Everything ends. Maybe this is the beginning of ours.
5
The difference between now and Antebellum America was that people were making a heck of a lot of money owning slaves. Northern workers weren’t real thrilled about competing with slave labor. You think competing with Mexican labor is bad? Imagine competing with laborers who don’t get paid at all. Now THAT depressed wages. (Slavery was also evil, but economics drive wars more than anything else.)
Compromise was literally impossible because fortunes were at stake.
By the time the war was over, thousands and thousands were dead, the Southern economy was destroyed, and both sides hated the heck out of each other because they’d been destroying each other. Yet eventually those wounds healed.
The chunk Trump has taken out of the country will heal too.
There is mention of apocalyptic outcomes. US cities have burned before.
We've already seen the behaviors and outcomes of the crazies from the far right, and there may well be far more in the wings planning their horrific revenge schemes for when they lose the spotlight and have no more Riefenstahl-like rallies to pose for.
There is nothing comparable on the left - nothing.
The false equivalency arguments are absurd.
7
"Is Politics a War of Ideas or of Us Against Them?"
Neither of those, as far as I am concerned. At present politics for me is a nonpartisan battle between decency, ethics, and competence, and their opposites. Between right and wrong. Democracy and autocracy. Real facts and alternative facts. Courage and opportunistic cowardice. Truth and lies. First, I want to win that battle. Otherwise we will not live to fight another day.
4
Perhaps one of the biggest differences between Trump supporters and the rest of us is that Trump supporters are now quite addicted to vaping hatred. It’s warped their minds to the extent that they have abandoned most of what they value and seem to actually enjoy watching the country and perhaps the rest of the world get ripped apart. Those who oppose Trump, on the other hand, value society and would prefer to help our country be the kind of place where that plaque on the Statue of Liberty says “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Now honestly, can anyone who considers him/herself to be a Trump supporter say they support that sentiment?
This is definitely one case where we cannot fight fire with fire—we’ll need to fight it with water.
4
The piece by Mr. Grillo may overemphasize the role of American guns when the more fundamental problem is American drug abuse, but it contains a brilliant, prescriptive and concise phrase: Mexican cartels are a criminal insurgency.
America has its own criminal insurgencies, and at least one of them has hijacked the Republican party. Many aspects of the environmental movement are, in my experience, similarly compromised.
With both sides pretending their own rot is either nonexistent or acceptable to avoid confronting it, it is easy to see how our politics has eroded into two rival camps where substance is only sometimes relevant.
Politics is the selection of the most rational way to protect individual rights. What passes for politics now is mere tribal war for the privilege of looting, destroying, murdering and enslaving. It’s a preview of the concrete reality, as distinct from the transcendental ideal, of traditionalism and egalitarianism. See _Atlas Shrugged_ for more.
1
Lazy politicians have ginned up this surreal Hatfields & McCoys, Red/Blue world. “Winning is the only thing that matters. The color of my jersey is all you need to know. My legislative achievements, ethical or moral behaviors are irrelevant. Only I can save you from THEM. Armageddon will ensue if you allow them to win.”
It is way past time for America to pull back the curtain and reveal the Wizards of Washington for the phonies that THEY have become. Our infrastructure rots beneath our feet, the debt soars into the stratosphere, the middle class stagnates in a pool of college debt and run away health care costs, ladders of opportunity out of poverty need repair and creation, while beside our highways and by-ways encampments of pathetically, opioid addicted, homeless spring up like mushrooms.
Wake up America! It’s time to take back our country. Politicians work for us. We need to demand better from both sides of the aisle.
1
There was a political advertisement in Israel during a prior election cycle that aimed to illustrate the lengths Netanyahu will go to please Orthodox religious interest groups. It depicted Netanyahu dancing to increasingly physically demanding traditional songs that were being chosen and played by traditional rabbis. It was effective because it was funny—the music (and Netanyahu’s dancing) got faster and faster, reminding voters of the irritating special concessions Netanyahu secured for to appease that special interest group.
We need a similar advertisement to illustrate the lengths Trump will go to please Putin.
In this advertisement, Trump would dance the physically demanding traditional Cossack Russian folk songs that were being chosen and played by Putin. Putin would be playing the mandolin. There could be montages of Putin phoning Orban or Erdogan; Orban or Erdogan visiting or phoning Trump and then headlines of Trump pressuring Ukraine or pulling troops out of Syria, while Putin smiles. Meanwhile the President dances harder and harder to keep up with the Cossack folk song played by Putin.
You get the point.
Maybe couple it with Reagan’s ‘there’s a bear in the woods’ commercial from 1980. Only in 2019, the bear isn’t in the woods anymore. It’s in the White House.
5
As an immigrant, I keep wondering how school education failed and went so wrong for so many people. The divide is bigger than the Grand Canyon, the lack of information, the ignorance, racism, and total lack of connection with reality. In a country so rich, full of opportunities, I see so many people lost, who adore guns, wish to kill others, just people they are different. Yet, believe in God and uses The Bible as a reason to discriminate and attack others. Where did the country go so wrong?
4
Not "Us vs Them," but facts vs propaganda. Legitimate differences on policy issues is not the same as differences in reality. Those poisoned by propaganda will vote against their own interests, even as they embrace lies as facts, wrong as right, and rubbish as enlightenment. Those who cheer as trump exits the Paris accord on climate change would rather see the planet destroyed than admit they have been bamboozled. The list is endless, but you can't argue with those who are addicted to the shadows on the cave wall. They believe they are gazing at reality, and hate those who would help guide them from the cave.
4
Alas, this monstrosity of a construct called the modern Republican party is feeding off of it's victims and it all goes back to "God" or, to be more precise, abortion.
The abortion issue truly is the equivalent of what civil rights are to the Democratic party. Republican leaders cry out for Team Red to fight radical Christian ideas like helping the poor and that's perfectly okay for their marks. Oddly, there is little cognitive dissonance resulting from this request which goes directly against the commandments of Christ, but it doesn't matter.
Those following the Republican Christ machine, know that the powerhouse message is that abortion must be stopped. To not back this notion, even if it means bowing to everything harmful this party represents, is as good as painting the word "sinner" on your forehead.
And the Democrats do nothing to counteract that Republicans paint them as people who actually enjoy the idea of killing humans who they consider simply unborn.
Until Democrats counter that argument by offering their own policy on abortion then these God, Gun and Trumpers will always sneer at us as though they are right about everything, not just abortion.
The solution? It's already in the Democratic mindset. Extra care for women who want to keep their baby but can't afford to. Birth assistance. A possibly public/private endeavor that allows those against abortion to volunteer to help women keep their baby.
It's a place to start and we better start.
1
@Jojojo
Sorry, the Democratic solution is not by buy in to Republican paranoia on abortion.
The Democratic solutions is that if a safe, legal, abortion, is against your religious beliefs, then DON'T HAVE AN ABORTION. Same goes for marriage between two loving adults!
Republicans are free to mind their own business, or leave. Stop trying to turn America into a Christian Theocracy!
2
@Jojojo
Statistics indicate that factual sex ed and easy, affordable/free access to effective birth control (IUDs, morning after pill, implants) lowers the abortion rate. (See stats for Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc).
However, the same groups who want to ban abortion oppose these measures.
I think that's because abortion has to some extent become a proxy for women's independence and equality in social and economic hierarchies.
1
I am anti-Trump because I am terrified about what his policies are doing to accelerate climate change, pollute our environment, damage the economy, and balloon the national debt. He has infected our politics with racism and bigotry, and goes after anyone who stands up to him with such venom that I feel morally obligated to reject him. The impeachment inquiry has shown that Trump and his law-less band of amoral sycophants are running our country like the mafia. I categorically reject the idea that my opposition to 4 more years (or even another day) of this is born out of tribalism, partisanship, or a deep-seated need to win.
4
The photograph says it all.
"God" - presumably the Christian God, for which there is no empirical evidence of its existence, and the entire history of human beings begs the credulity that a benevolent, omniscient entity could exist.
Jesus Christ, if he ever existed, would loathe everything about guns which are made to kill, some specifically made to kill human beings.
And Trump. A person who literally bragged about sexually assaulting women; has been married multiple times; has committed adultery, often times by paying for sex; has dedicated his life to making money, at any cost.
That there are Americans who believe that "God, Guns, and Trump" are what matter in this country is not a difference of opinion - It's psychosis.
4
The Horse Race Rules 1
Thomas Edsall asks:
“Is American political conflict relatively content-free — emotionally motivated electoral competition — . . . “ the answer is: YES!
and Edsall continues:
“or is it primarily a war of ideas, a matter of feuding visions both of what America is and what it should become?” – and here the answer is a resounding, NO!
And why are these key questions so easily answered? Because the media and the press and Thomas Edsall and that wedge of a deeply conditioned public online, and, . . .
all give the electorate much more in the way of political horse race coverage and analysis than close study of the party and candidates programs and bed rock philosophies.
The media, etc, patronize their readers and viewers. They cheapen ideas and dismiss detailed policy program through lack of critical attention. (This is not meant to be a mindless Trump-like attack on the fourth estate. It is a Neil Postman, “entertaining ourselves to death” sigh.)
2
Since there are no parallels between “God, Guns and Trump”—none— it is clear these voters’ attachment to Party eliminates any need to justify positions based on Christian, Jewish or Muslim values. Trumpeters have lost all sense of the values upon which our Constitution is based. Totally lost. Our President, Steve Bannon and Mitch McConnell have buried such values in the name of what is “White” not what us “Right.”
2
Call me a partisan because I believe that our leaders must tell the truth, most of the time. Call me partisan because I think that our leaders should not actively solicit personal advantage and engage in practices that not only are clearly illegal but look illegal as well. Call me partisan to believe that America needs its allies and hold the concurrent recognition that they need America. Call me partisan for believing our leaders should not give aid and comfort to those who would degrade or destroy us.
The foregoing are not hot button, partisan issues like Medicare for all... The foregoing should be principles for conservatives and liberals alike. But we cannot embrace those principles as long as Don-the-Con occupies the White House.
Let us not forget that Trump, while lazy as president, has worked like a demon to exacerbate and make permanent the cleavage of the body politic.
Remove him, vote him out, and excise this parasite from the heart of the nation.
4
Is my freedom, my right to express myself, my very identity at stake? I mean, as a queer woman, all of that is VERY much at stake if fascism takes over America in full force, as it is for anyone who isn't a straight, white, cis, able-bodied, Christian man. What part of conservative identity is at stake here if Sanders or Warren are elected? The part that tells them that they are morally superior to anyone who isn't them? Please. One side is expressing their right to exist as themselves and seeking economic liberation, while the other side is expressing their right to dominate others, justified by racial or religious "superiority". This sort of both sides thinking about the future of America only works if you believe that the fight for liberation and the fight for domination are morally equivalent, or if you're a liberal for whom politics is merely an aesthetics game.
2
Just one question: Will one of the stable geniuses wearing a red hat please explain what God, Guns and Trump have got to do with one another?
Because you see, I’m just a tad confused.
I’m no biblical scholar, but I’m reasonably confident that the God of the ‘scriptures’ - and that young Jewish guy named Christ - had not word one to say about ‘guns,’ which were not even a gleam in anyone’s eye in the ‘biblical times’ in which that Christ kid walked the planet. I’ve got a hunch that if guns had been in the picture, that peace, love and tabbouleh fellow Christ would not have been an advocate for muskets, much less AK 47s. Didn’t he have an aversion to violence?
And as for ‘God,’ my understanding is that his alleged son — that young Jewish kid, the rabble-rouser in Jerusalem — was one of those ‘meek shall inherit the Earth’ types. You know, what the RNC now calls a ‘Socialist.’
Trump? Well, when asked point blank about his religion, he mockingly said something about ‘sip the little wine, eat the little wafer’ and averred as how he didn’t have anything he needed from ‘God,’ atoned for nothing, and was doing just fine all by himself, thank you very much. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is also a guy who has spent his life shattering just about every moral and ethical code imaginable. Sure, people can change — but where’s the evidence of that?
So please, inquiring minds want to know: how in the name of heaven do God, Guns and Trump constitute a holy trinity?
3
We like to believe that our politics are based upon a rational analysis of the facts, but in most cases our "principles" are really based on emotional identification with some group or other, whether it's family, ethnicity, or community. This is partly why it's so difficult to ever persuade anyone about guns, or abortion, or any number of issues. Your "position" on these things is part of who you are.
This is nothing new. We've had a number of eras where the country was even more divided than it is today: 1968, 1860, for starters. But I don't think we've ever had a president who so ruthlessly exploited these divisions, and that's doing a lot of damage.
Remember that John McCain rally when a woman said Obama was a muslim who wanted to destroy America, and McCain said no, Obama was a good American with whom he had some disagreements? That seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?
Trump and the Republicans have taken every opportunity to demonize Obama, Clinton, every Democratic candidate, and Democratic voters. They're not subtle about it, either. You're either for Trump or you're an enemy of the people.
Over the course of the coming, we'll decide if this is the new normal. Trump and Trumpism will either be rejected, or it will prevail. The whole world is watching.
2
The current hyperpartisanship came from one side, as shown in detail by Washington's most respected and bi-partisan analysts, Ornstein and Mann. It began when Bill Clinton was elected and Rush Limbaugh ruled the political airwaves with no counterpart on the other side. Ironically, the attack on the legitimacy of the Clinton presidency was largely based on criticisms of his character; Clinton was ideologically a centrist.
When Newt Gingrich became House speaker in 1994, the Republican party declared politics to be warfare with the enemy having no valid claim to hold office or enact laws. We saw that again when Obama was elected--the Republicans attacked the legitimacy of an African-American holding the office, policy aside. Mitch McConnell embodied the approach that partisan warfare was all there is to political life. Any remaining Republican moderates have been forced to leave the party or repent.
Democrats have tried repeatedly to go back to ideology and compromise, but that takes two willing sides. If Dems attitudes toward Republican have shifted, well, that happens when someone makes all-out war against you for 25 years.
5
Of note is the fact that some neurological research shows that conservative folks have more easily activated primal centers.
This makes it easier for certain types of targeted communication to by-pass the prefrontal cortex, which is active in reason, and directly activate the fight/flight mechanism.
People who are already inclined to be more easily thrown into reactivity are being intentionally targeted in order to accomplish this, for political goals.
2
To a large degree it is both plus a polar opposite view of a single person.
9
American politics is supposed to be a way to compromise and do the best you can for everyone concerned.
With republicans politics is a war and winning is the only goal since they found out since the Civil and Voting Rights acts that they can never have a legit majority at the federal level if they played by those rules. With democrats they still want to try to compromise and do the best possible thing.
Basically the democrats are bringing a glass of water to a gun fight with a fish.
The Press is a large player in this problem. They have lost the plot.
2
As usual, and as most journalists and researchers do, almost everyone in this article gets it wrong. They all say either that "voters" are all partisan, or all ideological. The correct answer to the question "Is Politics a War of Ideas or of Us Against Them?" is: It is a War of Ideas for liberals and Us Against Them for Republicans. It makes me angry to see supposedly well informed people who still don't get this. Caveat: liberals may have no choice but to respond in kind.
6
@Paul Rogers
Hence my allegation in the post above you that the Press is a big player in this problem and has lost the plot.
1
Western thinkers have long posited that politics are all about self-interest. Hobbes, Locke and Adam Smith all viewed self-interest as the foundation for free association. That we are given a choice here between a war of ideas or blind partisanship reflects an abandonment of the principal theory of western democracy.
The great theorists of democracy believed that we all assess our interests and pursue them through our politics. They posited that we are self-aware and that our decision-making is tailored to suit our wants and needs. They hold the ordinary citizen in esteem as well as the government, which manages public interest to serve the greatest good for the greatest number.
Moral beliefs, abstract ideas, and unchecked emotion are beside the point. The foundation of democracy is neither justice nor the management of unchained motions. It is delivering to all what they want and what they need.
The view here is that we are motivated by abstract ideas or visceral rivalries. Neither supports a stable society because they do not give rise to a common interest.
I doubt that any commentator before Trump would have depicted our politics as founded in quick sand. But that is the view here. Either we are becoming dangerously unhinged or Mr. Edsall is himself unhinged. If we are not self-interested there is no reason to join as one with those with whom we have little in common. If Mr. Edsall is right, there is little hope for American democracy.
As usual, Edsall gets lost in details and 'bothsiderism', while missing the big picture.
Negative partisanship has been at the core of 'movement conservatism' and (what used to be) the GOP, for decades. You are seeing negative partisanship on the left now as a reaction to the rights' abandonment of many traditional American values (honesty, compromise, the rule of law, democracy, to name a few) over the course of the past few decades.
Why has the right abandon traditional American values? Power. How else can you get masses of people to vote against their own interest other than to divide them up over race, urban vs. rural, socioeconomic class - over any divide that leaves the Trump party with the bigger piece.
Negative partisanship is a result of elite polarization. Elite polarization was the root cause of the Civil War.
4
As a foreigner who lives and works in the United States and who is married to an American, I recall an occasion a couple of years ago when a politician appeared on the television and I innocently said to my wife, “I know you like that person but I can’t stand them”. The response from my wife, and we were dating back then, was instantaneous and vitriolic - “So you’re one of them!” I could not believe it.
Growing up overseas I was immersed in various forms of American culture, as most children are, through movies, television programs, music and other aspects of American culture. When I moved here I energetically set out to see as much of the country as I could. I visited 38 out of 50 states in three years. Everywhere I travelled I couldn’t get over how polite, friendly and well mannered Americans are - and this was in the lead to, during and following the 2016 election. I ponder at where the America of my childhood went to, what is to come and if the great chasm that currently exists will ever diminish? The United States is a truly great country and the American people are truly wonderful, but I shudder to think that the current great divide of “us” versus “them” will ever resolve itself.
1
Edsall is being overly affected by the prevailing strident tone, and fears we are losing our consensus, as well as our senses. There is no notion of "fairness" agreed to by all. Add to this the very different ideas and information being fed to different groups of the population, and the decline of establishment news sources, and there is no agreed overall story. Ex unum, pluribus (bad latin).
But there is a solution -- majority rule. Even if it gets distorted by gerrymandering and voter suppression, it still tends to force the disagreeing groups to pick a winner and unite under him or her. This process is under way right now.
It is important that the impeachment investigations are now well launched and producing information, and the legal issues are ripening into some big decisions what will soon have to get to the Supreme Court. Remember the main lesson of Watergate: cover-ups eventually lose. So, I'm not so very worried about a permanent schism appearing in our nation. The House did the right thing by holding a formal vote on the procedures; let them roll.
We have been seeing the early stages of the dispute, in which the partisans shout at each other from their fortresses, but what will play out over the next year will be the process of persuading the undecided middle, and even if there are distortions in the information flow, I doubt these are so great that the court of public opinion will be unable to function.
1
It is regrettable that neither Mr. Edsall or his interlocutors examined the question from the perspective of education level, religion or habitat (urban, suburban, or rural) of geographic location(north , south etc). Perhaps another column is warranted. It would also be of interest to examine the putative agnosticism of his respondents. Or are the watchers above the fray or is there ever a view from nowhere?
Considering the amount of documented illegality, corruption and treasonous behavior committed by one party over the past 3 years, a party that insists on one party-rule for only itself, the future of democracy in America has never been more in doubt than it is today. All of us share the responsibility for this catastrophic condition, many for ignoring or denying it for too long, many for recklessly and continuously exploiting it.
What's required to move forward is moral and pragmatic leadership.
It's that simple. It's that complex. It's that vital. It's that urgent.
5
This seems like an academic discussion: trying to establish a distinction between the ideological and the tribal, when the distinction is really blurred. The tribal informs ideology. And policy is frequently driven by values and identity. The net result, in over-simplified terms, is us vs. them – my ideology, values, and policies versus yours. The sum total of my life experience versus yours.
The American Creed is built on a religious faith in the “rational” individual – on individual property rights, on individual initiative, on individual freedom, and individualism manifested in the free-market. It is the idea that disparate individuals with different desires and needs, all making divergent individual choices, will somehow magically produce an effective collective outcome.
But humans are not rational; they run on emotion. And we have more than enough evidence to show that supposedly “rational” individual decisions in fact produce irrational collective outcomes like income equality and climate change.
So, one way to look at our political divisions is to ask what is more important: to cling to the ingrained illusion of practical outcomes claimed by individualism, or to make difficult adjustments in our thinking and pursue practical ways to achieve a well-functioning collective?
It’s not magic. We can’t wait for “exceptionalism” to rescue us. How can we raise the economic expectations for everyone, raise individual self-esteem, reduce fear, and save the planet?
3
Presumably Edsall has read some Carl Schmitt-- the most discussed political theorist of the post-9/11 era. He didn't have to make all those phone calls and email everybody and his uncle to see that it is both. Ideological positions are attributed to "the enemy" who is defined on an identity basis in what then becomes a self-fueling dynamic.
1
Not a war of ideas. A war of belief. I live at the Red end of California where Republican registration is 60%. Income is lower than the in the urban areas of the state. These are good and very kind people who work hard.However, they do not get that the taxes they pay. The State gas tax just paid for badly needed repairs to the roads that bring in ecotourists, skiers, and visitors. Damage from big haul logging trucks is being repaired. In the small towns we have federally funded rural clinics and low income housing as well as access to food stamps and Cal Fresh.
This area benefits in a big way from big government yet folks still complain about laws, taxes, and anything else involved in democracy. There is a push to form the State of Jefferson yet the strongest proponents have no plan on how that would work. No thought other than I want my guns and no taxes drives this movement.
You can not argue with this group. They are your neighbors and friends. Their kids are genuinely well mannered and fun. This is a small community that helps one another. Little issues are resolved independently. Big issues...not so much. You avoid discussing politics and ideas. It isn’t worth it. Kind of like a holiday dinner but 365 days a year.
4
Oh my, did Mr. Edsall notice some of the Democrats finally fighting back against the decades long us against them political warfare that the conservative "movement" and it's handmaiden the Republican Party have been waging against everyone else for decades? And of course it's equivalent. well, it is not.
The Republicans have reached the point where they are now openly embracing criminality if it means partisan gain. They are destroying the country with their seditious partisanship. It's about the time the liberals and Democrats started fighting back.
4
The field of psychology needs an update to Freud's theories of the mind. It is clear that humans are overly groupish. It is clear that a tribal imperative is deeply embedded in our sub-conscious, just as much as the Darwinian biological imperative.
Biological Imperative (very strong and subconscious, rigid)
Tribal Imperative (very strong and subconscious, rigid)
Abstract Thinking (weak, conscious, but quite flexible and amenable to rapid adaptation)
3
@Gustav - Interesting point. To expound on you comment I would bring in psychologist Irving Janus who coined the phrase "group think". Splitting off from the individual psychology's theories as well as the behavior, the social psychologists tended to overlap with the sociologists. Janus postulated that "group think refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing & moral judgment that results from in-group pressures. It also explains the tendency of groups to fall into herd like behavior when confronted with powerful & intimidating bosses. When the individuals are given just 2 options, they tend to go along with the group that provides them with the most social support, appeal to their own financial or personal self interest & reinforce existing believes especially revolving around faith, laws & customs.
2
Yes it is us vs. them.
Us: the ones who want healthcare, education, social safety nets, racial and sex equality, separation of church and state, to take seriously challenges like climate change, to have clean and breathable air, drinkable water, to tackle the horrors of gun violence, and to make sure everyone has a chance, even when they run into challenges.
Them: the ones who want to make the rest of us cry, to enforce their religion on everyone, to poison the earth for short term financial gain, to have unlimited guns, to keep women and racial minorities lower than white males, and to help nobody since it isn't their business to care about anyone other than themselves.
Yes, this is Us vs Them, and there is no way to compromise.
11
@Kate
Well said, thank you.
1
@Kate - You said it! In a nutshell. Thank you!
1
The other aspect of all of this is demographic change. While non-Hispanic white voters continue to represent the largest basket of votes, they are not a monolith. As I scan the election results in many places like Texas, Florida and Georgia the races are being decided by razor thin margins. Evangelicals and hard core conservative voting blocks have become the reliable base for the Republican Party. But the problem with reliance on them is that with them alone the GOP cannot grow. Indeed, these groups will shrink over time as this population is not increasing in size. On the other side of the equation is the Democratic Party who attracts a more diverse group of voters but unlike the Republicans they often don't turn out.
Perhaps as the demography shifts, there might be a way to talk to the electorate in more human terms, convincing them to look at issues from the standpoint of what is best for all. The right to affordable healthcare is certainly one area that more and more people can agree upon. Our current political strategists find it necessary to foment division in order to win. But in the future that will not work. The answer it seems is to craft a political strategy that can bring people together.
3
I thank NYT for always improving my vocabulary.
The article's first paragraph uses the word "Atavistic" meaning relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient or ancestral. And I think that one word really sums up our Nation's tribal attitudes, two distinct tribes where one is advancing towards the future while the other is grasping for a post World War II era that once enabled a middle-class existence that no longer exists for a number of reasons: automation, globalization, immigration from those who work harder and smarter.
8
The divide is not a matter of beliefs except in the sense that the poor white men who defended the South in the Civil War believed that they were protecting a Way of Life and States Rights. The more important insight is that they had been talked into that view by the slaveholders, whose interests it served. Similarly, the wealthy patrons of the Republican Party can't win elections by their own votes and need to sell some other reasons to at least a strong minority of voters to get their way.
3
From an academic perspective, it’s important to examine the evidence and analysis of the toxic polarization of identity politics that currently dominate US public life. But everyone already understands this ugly battlefield. It saturates and corrupts everyday life.
While there always has been, and always will be, an exploitable human weakness for the us-and-them narratives that give comfort to people who — for whatever reasons — feel disempowered, today’s extreme and dangerous state of conflict has metastasized for three main reasons:
1) a range of genuine systemic crises at the global and local level — environmental, social and economic — that are driving change and threatening everyone’s stability and way of life;
2) an amoral, charismatic leader with a ruthless will to power and no respect for the truth;
3) powerful viral media outside the bounds of accountable journalism that constantly deliver unfiltered propaganda and misinformation, making objective facts increasingly irrelevant.
Of these three problems, we currently have the effective means to correct only the second one — leadership — quickly. It’s called democracy. Use it or lose it.
4
I think the way Edsall poses the question in the second sentence of this piece as either/or is silly. As he later writes, "This debate is sometimes framed in either-or terms, but the argument is less a matter of direct conflict and more a matter of emphasis and nuance."
Also, I'm surprised that in a piece about partisan animosity there's no mention of the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity and their ilk in this article. We've always had partisanship, but now we have hyperpartisianship thanks in large part, I believe, to such conservative extremists.
4
@Chuck, “conservative extremist” isn’t actually a thing. They are right wing, not conservative. Call ‘em that.
2
What's the difference?
I readily acknowledge that there is some degree of automatic partisan behavior, but for me and most people I talk to, the division is clearly based on where people stand on issues. The issues that are important to people are
-treatment of minority groups and of women
-support for civil and human rights
-economic inequality driven by structural factors and/or an imbalance in power and its influence on voting, legislation, regulation, and the courts
-respect for the environment and climate change issues
-conservation of species and habitats, wilderness, unique natural areas, and national features versus exploitation
-separation of religion from laws and enforced personal behavior
-respect for truth, learning, and evidence-based decision making
-respect for a free press that is not a vehicle for propaganda
-tolerance of diversity
I may have left some issues out, but I think most fall into these broad categories. I would also say that the partisan divide reveals itself by where people stand, not superficially but as core beliefs put into practice, on these issues. There is of course some shared support for one or more of these issues, but broadly, the divide is there because of where groups stand on these.
To me, that is only secondarily tribalism and only in the sense that I know "my tribe" mostly feels the way I do on these issues. The key point though, is that they have clear opinions on these issues. That argues for a rationally driven divide.
3
This conversation can't be had without acknowledging that one political party - the GOP - has for the past 30 years (and brazenly so in the past 10 years) used divisive social issues, voter suppression, gerrymandering, lies and other tricks to retain a level of power that purely by demographics they shouldn't hold any longer. There is PLENTY to complain about RE the Democratic party, but the GOP ceased a long time ago to care about running the country. Their only goal is retaining power at any cost. When one party stops acting in anything that can be perceived as good faith, all these other discussions are moot until they can be removed from power and forced to actually compete in the marketplace of ideas and solutions.
11
For this to be a difference about issues would require reason, logic, shared facts and data and a clear understanding of each other's positions. The differences should be in identification of problems and approaches to solving a common set of problems. Do we have that? No, this whole mess is tribal.
It is tribal because the GOP has been reduced to just this emotional tribal hoard. The bunch who are tired of being told they need to evolve, that they can no longer cruise to a good middle class life on a high school diploma or no diploma. They have long decided that the cause is due to immigrants legal and illegal. This frustration and anger were once confined to their precincts. Trump has saved them!
When Trump incites, this hoard hears not the words but the emotional release. Consequences of the words spoken were inconsequential. Hoisting their long held frustrations and anger over everyone else is paramount.
With Trump, these are their days in the Sun and they intend to make it last. Their frustrations and anger will support any and all suppressive measures to ensure we submit.
There is no reason to any of this except to vent, strike back and win. So this is not a difference in issues but mindless tribal warfare. The issue slogans are just triggers and catalysts for emotional outbursts, not reasoned productive debate.
7
How is it even possible to get to a substantive argument over ideas when Republican leadership refuses even to play the game. Witness Sen. Lindsey Graham tell us that he's not even going to read the witness statements because, well, I couldn't quite figure out why.
How is it possible to get to a substantive argument when many in the Trump cult refuse to acknowledge any sort of reality. Some realities? Coal jobs are not coming back. A wall will not stop illegal immigration. It's not right to put children in cages. Climate change is real.
Some of the election results suggest that voters in red states can change their minds. That's great. But is it true? Perhaps more independents voted D. Perhaps the GOTV movements have been successful. Perhaps R voters stayed home. If these developments resulted in the changes we've seen, then it's possible that red voters were not in fact moved to vote for a Democrat.
So, my guess? For confirmed R or D voters, there's no changing their positions. And this Democrat, at least, doesn't believe for a second that the sorts of people pictured in the photo accompanying this op-ed will change their minds. It that's tribalism, so be it. That leaves us with GOTV and moving independents into the blue. Is that enough to make a difference in 2020? We'd better hope so.
6
Both-sides-ism is unfair. The GOP's side is not normal, not OK. There is a clear right side in this fight.
7
Debate? DEBATE? Give me a break! What we are witnessing is the manipulation of voters to achieve one goal and one goal only: accumulation of wealth. It's all about money. One side lends some morality in its quest for money with an outreach to doing the best for most. The other side has cast aside any degree of morality and is ONLY about the money.
3
Enlightenment political liberalism on which our nation was founded has quite simply run out of steam. Ken Wilber wrote an interesting piece on this, here: https://tinyurl.com/y2owb7x9 We are groping around in the dark for the emerging but still largely inchoate new paradigm that will re-center us and give us the social cohesiveness we need to survive as a nation and as a species. Meanwhile, all of the old paradigms from the beginning of civilization are reasserting their own claims for control. It's a coin toss as to whether we annihilate ourselves or find a new way to live together.
3
Agreed. But at this moment in time, a clear change in US leadership — one that acts decisively, values truth, inspires confidence, and rewards mutual respect — is essential for buying the time to find our way to this next paradigm. This is step one, and it’s urgent. No one said this would be easy.
2
If it is all about emotional loyalties we have a problem. People will be forever fighting over issues when the thing they are really contending for is validation. The emotionally weak are vulnerable to manipulation because weakness is the last thing they are prepared to admit. Politicians fan the emotional flames to keep people distracted from the actual business of government, i.e., who is spending the people's money on what. Thus oligarchy presides over a low-grade civil war.
3
The remaining “persuadables” — an estimated 13 percent of voters, with little or no partisan commitment — will play a central role in determining the outcome in 2020.
"The Persuadables" seems to be the theme of the week.
Actually, 38% of Americans identify themselves as Independent, 31% as Democrat, and 29% identified as Republican.
Millions of voters are dumping their party registrations
In about half the states that register voters by party, independent voters outnumber at least one of the two major political parties.
In 9 States, (Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island), Independents outnumber registered Republicans AND Democrats.
Politics as a war of ideas, made transparent and explained in detail, serves the public good; it is critical for a healthy and sustainable democracy. Those without sound ideas or with ideas that, when clearly and factually detailed, most would find reprehensible or unpopular, politics, by necessity, becomes purely us against them.
2
Given the state of politics worldwide, the traits that Mr. Edsall and his contributors highlight would appear to be not so much American as universally human.
I think the media influence is important. Both major party establishments are emphasizing personalities over policy. So are their increasingly affiliated partisan media outlets, to judge by the coverage on Fox and MSNBC.
This is a dismal state of affairs. The overall level of discourse on commercial television news was incomparably higher in the 1960s. And some of that problem is structural: too many commercial breaks, and news reporting degenerates into infotainment snacking. Continuity and follow-up doesn't apply to the examination of issues. As with a television entertainment series, the narrative revolves around the cast of characters.
In the wider sense, I don't think the impact of visual propaganda can be underestimated. The state of California is currently not so much being critiqued in Fox News reports as it is being demonized as if it were a hostile nation, for example.
2
Mr. Edsall: Politics or rather political identity is as strong as religious identity. 4 years ago I would not have said that such strong identification was much more obvious in Republican voters. No longer is that true. Trump has been the catalyst for that development. Let is hope that this trend reverses itself because we know what happens when rancor and partisan feeling turn into hatred and contempt. Nothing good!
1
This article overlooks the power of propaganda. Yet the Times highlighted a comment that IS propaganda. Read it. It claims San Francisco is a "Trekkie theme park," that Blue State residents are "smug" and want to impose "woke culture" on Red States.
This is a) false b) lies c) repeating catch phrases guaranteed to create division and reinforce stereotypes. It's reflective of the kind of propaganda used by Hitler and Goebbels.
It establishes the idea that there is an Us and a THEM. It creates the the idea that THEY are smug, THEY live in a theme park as opposed to YOU who are a Real Person, that we don't in fact share a reality or a world in which we all overlap and interact, in which we're all related, but that in fact THEY are out to hurt us and gloat over our misery.
Dear Times Editors: I don't know if you're aware of what you did here. But it's worthy of an article in itself. The comment by "aloysha" that you chose to highlight IS the problem. Right wing media and Russian intelligence and other people opposed to American power and democracy are driving us apart. They are working along pre-existing fault lines in our economy, our rural/suburban/urban diversity which is a GOOD thing, and making it a bad thing; and they are repeating lies like "smug liberals" and of course use catch words like "globalist" which is code for Jew.
Somebody please write about this. Because this is the problem, it's happening in Europe also. Propaganda is hurting democracy.
10
Mr. Edsall cites Mr. Anton regarding the victors of the 2016 election:
"....It will be coupled with a level of vindictive persecution against resistance and dissent hitherto unseen in the supposedly liberal West.” Anton was writing from the right, but the same apocalyptic fear of the consequences of defeat applies to the left."
That ship has sailed as trump has used his powers to wreak vengeance on democrats, women, liberals, Obama, and anyone who doesn't bend a knee to his "unmatched wisdom":
He's threatened to withhold federal aid from California, raised taxes on the entire east and west coasts, wants to take away health care programs from his own voters, and threatens farmers and small business owners with his trade wars.
We know what vindictive persecution is like. It's AG Barr going after anyone who investigated trump and it's Guiliani going around the world getting our ambassadors fired.. We have a chance to throw the malignancy out, but only if we continue to vote in large numbers.
3
Fox news.
The end.
8
Religion, Reagan, Roe v. Wade, racists + homophobes.
America was making good strides until 1980. There certainly were divisions, but the religious white male entitlement violence began then and was 100% stoked by Republicans.
Murder of abortion doctors across the country, the rise of Operation Rescue, bombings, even firebombing homes of little hemophiliac children who contracted AIDS from blood transfusions. That's all on the bible bangers, Catholics and Republicans.
BTW, white males have never been more than 1/3 of the U.S. population. They just believe they should run everything and everyone, especially majority females and minorities, as some grifter corrupt gift from their god.
5
WWJD
2
Tribal identities had been lodged in neighborhood ethnic clubs and similar organizations that could more or less serve the function of a social infrastructure courted by all politicians. Political identity has replaced the hole caused by the collapse of that infrastructure. Now, it is an us vs. them monolithic political structure of outrage- imagined or not - instead of an us and them alliance of differing political interest cobbled together by the identification of some common ground of reality.
Seeing the first word, "God..." on the shirt of the man in the photo says it all. The GOP have hijacked the separation of church and state and weaponized it. They sound at times as if they believe they actually own God. I even heard trump say at one of his rallies that "the other side (Dems) are not believers," and the crowd went wild. When the GOP base comes from a belief that there is no separation between the Christian church and the state, then you can throw policy and ideology out the window. There is no deliberation, no discussion, no reflection and no compromise available to work things out from that framework. It is very personal to these people - all trump had to do was light the match. I'm reminded of a New Yorker magazine cartoon that showed people running from their church with a sign and yelling, "Our God is #1!!!!" The GOP base believes their God is #1, and the most immature, childish and unsound individual we could be unlucky enough to have in the White House is there, stoking those fires. What I know about those believers is that they cannot accept that they might be wrong about where they are certain their God has brought them. And what I know about bullies is that they thrive off just that kind of certainty. For our democracy to survive, they have to be crushed, beyond their certainty. They need to lose by a large margin in 2020 or we are doomed by their ignorance and arrogance.
7
What, no mention of Fox News and Newt Gingrich or even the late great R.R? Sure this is not the party of Reagan but the underpinning of today's Republicans slowly started to bubble out of the ground like an artesian oil spring: gurgling black and spreading itself across the land smothering everything it touches eventually morphing into Rick Wilson's "Everything Trump Touches Dies".
Too much false equivalency. The Dems have their issues and warts but it isn't blind all encompassing partisanship. The artesian oil bubbling for years blew its top with Newt the Hat Trick divorcee and then Murdoch and Ailes establishing Fox for the sole purpose of creating a far right "News" organization. Trump boldly stepped onto the escalator while giving legitimization to the lying racist xenophobic misogynist hate filled seething underbelly of America.
As a white man who understood and knew white privilege well the only thing that surprised me how is wide and deep the underbelly of that depravity is. I never expected at most 1/3 of the country living there. But even with everything we have experienced from Trump it holds stead in the near mid 40s%. That and the Electoral
College more than anything scares about the future of our Republic.
6
I think the biggest challenge for liberals is a lack of general understanding of what makes conservatives tick.
They're clueless.
Even Jonathan Haidt (liberal professor at NYU; author of The Righteous Mind) conceded as much.
Fact is...300 million years of nature have created some strands of DNA that appear to draw morality from some key tenets that are different for conservatives and liberals.
Liberals largely are all about FAIRNESS and ENDING OPPRESSION.
Though one can argue..what is fairness and what is oppression? Is a black student with parents making a million a year while attending Harvard really "oppressed"?
That's the very narrow baseline liberals use to form their morality.
With conservatives, we too believe in Fairness and Ending Oppression, but we also draw from Sanctity, Tradition, Institutional Authority, Loyalty and Reverence.
It's why we attend 4th of July parades and get goosebumps when Lee Greenwood's song I'm Proud to be an American comes on..while liberals are throwing up in disgust.
Worse..liberals don't want to understand why 50% of the country believes differently than they. It's easier to dismiss them as rubes, deplorables, or worse.
One other thing..we believe in the power of Redemption.
We believe that had Bill Clinton sincerely apologized for dalliance with the 23 year old intern, we would have forgiven him and moved on.
Liberals don't seem to have this ability. They will deflect, divert or redirect responsibility..blaming the rubes.
2
"It's why we attend 4th of July parades and get goosebumps when Lee Greenwood's song I'm Proud to be an American comes on..while liberals are throwing up in disgust."
What do you think about when you look at the U.S. flag? My guess is you think about freedom and the men and women who have served our country honorably and given so much - willingly or not - in defense of that freedom. You probably are not thinking about the history of slavery and racism in the U.S., income inequality, the misuse of American military power, etc. To some people, the U.S. flag represents a lot more than it probably does to you, but of course I don't know you so I'm just guessing.
4
As Lilliana Mason says so brilliantly: We are increasingly blind to our commonalities.
This has been part of the human race for years, decades, centuries and millennia.
It is the Evil Genius of power and how to keep it. Take people ( like our family members who are on the opposite side of the political spectrum) and give them reasons to hate each other. That is what trump does best. Look at the support the intelligence community is getting from the left. Unprecedented.
We must rise above that and find commonalities. With trump out of office we have a better chance to accomplish that. Impeach!!!!!
The guy in the blue shirt clearly fails to comprehend that his love of guns and a Trump means he has turned away from god. These people are truly besotted.
2
On the republican side, it is 100% tribal "us vs. them," win at any cost, fueled by anti-abortion Christian fundamentalists, racists, and a couple of rich guys that don't want to pay taxes.
That explains the extreme hatred of President Obama, criticizing him with the tiniest of transgressions - remember the Tan Suit debacle, the Commander in Chief failure because of his less than perfect salute to the Marine (holding a cup of coffee), and his "weakness" to Russia, NK, Iraq, etc., etc.,?
It also explains their beloved 5 miles of new wall--that Mexicans are sawing through with a $100 battery-powered tool.
The photograph says it all, emphasizing the brilliance of Sinclair Lewis, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."
6
This article is total nonsense. It postulates that if Democrats win, they will engage in retribution and vendettas like Trump. No way that his happening. The only targets will be those who react to the loss with violence and wealthy people who will lose their favorable tax treatment. You do not hear talk of armed insurrection if Democrats lose, something that did not happen in 2016. Democrats kept their cool in the face of all the Republican gloating and vocal bigotry. We understand that Trump conned working class white Americans. Most of us are sympathetic with them, because Trump has done nothing to benefit them rather than stroke their ego. Four more years of Trump will be an economic disaster for farmers and blue collar workers, because when the Trump produced recession, he will leave them out to dry, setting up his rich buddies to cash in. Don’t believe me - look at farm bankruptcies and plant closings in the very industries he promised to rebuild. Reformed healthcare - nothing. Infrastructure - nothing. Trade deals nothing. He has done nothing that does help people just like him. Women as a group now understand exactly how vile he is, and only those traditional women who defer to the husbands believe his nonsense. His hatred of all minorities is so apparent, as well as his indifference to how difficult it is for young adults to pay off student loans, get married, buy houses and have children, if they turn out in numbers, he is toast.
3
I look at that guy in the photo and am just amazed that we share the same country. Hard to imagine what it must be like to be in that head.
4
Like most people here I am horrified by Trump. However, apparently unlike most NYT readers, I am not convinced that he is solely responsible for the heightened partisanship that we're witnessing. Rather, I think he is one particularly virulent metastase of the much more widespread cancer that is eating at our society (our societies - this is a worldwide phenomenon). The main reason why many of us can't see the other metastases is we are infected too, and none of us want to admit it to ourselves or to others.
For instance, aggressive partisanship on the left-wing tends to present itself under the guise of vindicative righteousness. In the last couple of decades, that type of discourse has dramatically increased in frequency and intensity: people who do not believe the correct things are "problematic" and liable to "cancellation". No doubt Trump supporters view some of their most partisan behaviors as merely reacting to this: indeed both sides, Republicans and Democrats, think the other side "started it".
But neither of them "started it". Instead, technological and cultural changes have made confirmation bubbles thicker, stronger, better insulated, encouraging a gradual escalation of partisanship across the board - not only in party politics, but also on matters such as race relations, the generational divide, etc. The net effect is to discourage rational debate and compromise, instead favoring appeals to emotion and inflexible grandstanding.
The article seems to point out the central importance of one issue in polarizing America. The knife that cuts our county in two is Abortion.
One side feels deeply the rights of the unborn, and the other side empathizes with the women who bear the babies growing inside them.
Why can't we work together to find a way to do both? Why can't we bend a little to respect the feelings of the other side?
As a lifelong Democrat, and a man, I admit to feeling that women should make this difficult decision rather than the government.
I also feel children should be wanted and loved by their mothers, rather than resented or given up to other parents by a young woman who is smart enough to realize she's not ready to be parent.
That shouldn't be so difficult for others on the other side of this issue to understand.
Also, I don't understand why so called "right to life" proponents don't also embrace repealing the death penalty and gun control. If they are celebrating life, why not go all the way?
In some way, I am sure these attitudes prove out some of the findings presented in this article.
But somehow, we need to find a way to have a conversation with the other side. Perhaps our political system needs to facilitate the process of compromise that could help bring us closer together.
Watched a Frontline program on Artificial Intelligence. It is amazing how advanced this is and the predictions of what it will do. Millions of jobs will be lost. A factory in Michigan can produce more and better cars with 700 employees where there used to be 7000. Thousands in poverty ,on food stamps and bewildered. Families dysfunctional. Not off shore loss, AI loss.
You could see the despair, the fear, the anger in these people and a Con man comes along and says all the things they feel, promises them a simple quick fix, reenforces their misinformation , blames others. Yes, they are drowning and grab hold. Now, realizing it was not true, the jobs are gone, the Con Man represents the elite wealthy they hate but they cannot admit their mistake so they go back for more lies and hope things will change.
They won't.
3
Given the psychology of self-identification with groups, the attempt to tease out policy differences from emotional partisanship seems bizarre to me.
When people perceive themselves to belong to a particular group based on some shared characteristic(s) (which could be values, attitudes, race, location of residence, or pretty much anything), they tend to adopt the the group’s attitudes, values, and behaviours, even if it means modifying their own previous beliefs and behaviours.
This group identity and its associated characteristics become part of the group member’s concept of self. An attack on the group and its characteristics (including its beliefs) then becomes an attack on the self, which of course evokes an emotional response.
You can see that emotions and group identity and its corresponding beliefs are inextricably linked. This is why I find that thinking about emotional partisanship and core policy beliefs as being separate is misleading.
1
While much of their pronouncements may deserve a fair measure of skepticism, social scientists have develop a pretty interesting (and apparent universal) insight:
People develop social drives in non-cognitive parts of their brain and then use their cognitive skills to reverse engineer why those desires are good.
... and one of the biggest of these social drives is to protect our immediate tribe and to hate, fear, and oppress those outside of it. While a useful survival mechanism for millions of years, the manifestation of this dynamic in today's politics are really destructive. Our immigration policies purposefully hurt those outside our nation. Our criminal policies purposefully hurt minority races. Our social safety net remains purposefully threadbare to intentionally hurt those that need it. Our foreign policy purposefully (and gleefully) hurts people of other nations, races, and religions.
Trump may not know much about policy, but he has this one insight down. The crux of his appeal is that he takes this hatred that people have for others outside their tribe and draws easily lines to political action. Whoever you hate, he can help you develop a rationale for why that hatred is justifies and satisfy your need to hurt those people.
2
A huge fraction of the things in the US that Americans love are clearly of the socialist variety. Good roads and schools and food protections and good laws and social protections, including social security and medicare, the VA, the military, and a thousand little things, like election protections.
No one -- esp. supporters of good social practices -- wants to terminate our enterprise or our capitalism connected to enterprise. What you hear about are ideas for improvement and protection, and you'll wisely listen.
The dog-whistle bristle at the word 'socialism' is nauseating.
1
False equivalencies aren't grounded in reality - "partisans" aren't coming to the table from equal footing. One of the major two parties in the U.S. has embraced both ideology and practice that are anti-science, contributing to the demise of a habitable planet, racist, misogynistic, and devoid of ethical decision-making.
When one group actively works to diminish the safety and humanity of the "other," responsibility for the resulting partisan divide is not equally shared.
1
...but don’t either of the “others” feel they are the downtrodden, under-appreciated ones? And, have we really moved toward an under-educated vs. educated divide? And what do we do about that? Each side has such ugly perceptions of what motivates the “other.” Am I hearing that the moderate is no more, on either side?
Serious policy differences? You're kidding. How can anyone disagree on ideas when the other party has no ideas. Trump's ONLY idea is to win and he'll do anything, legality aside, to do that. His minions' only idea is to survive politically, which means erecting roadblocks to any ideas that don't serve their master. The only ideas in presidential politics are coming from Warren, Sanders, and Yang.
Democrats are doomed if they can't find a candidate with both ideas and a bloodlust for humiliating Trump at the polls--and saving America. The stakes are that high. The latest battleground state polls should be a call to arms (metaphorically). I have serious doubts that any candidate in the current Democratic field can win the electoral college.
1
Serious policy differences? You're kidding. How can anyone disagree on ideas when the other party has no ideas. Trump's ONLY idea is to win and he'll do anything, legality aside, to do that. His minions' only idea is to survive politically, which means erecting roadblocks to any ideas that don't serve their master. The only ideas in presidential politics are coming from Warren, Sanders, and Yang.
Democrats are doomed if they can't find a candidate with both ideas and a bloodlust for humiliating Trump at the polls--and saving America. The stakes are that high. The latest battleground state polls should be a call to arms (metaphorically). I have serious doubts that any candidate in the current Democratic field can win the electoral college.
Here in Asheville North Carolina all Progressive, or even left-leaning talk radio has been banished from the air waves, except for a static filled transmission of NPR. While Thom Hartmann, Norman Goldman, Revolution Radio, Stefanie Miller all gone. Nada. Yet the right wing raving lunatics, and Christian militants come across loud and clear. Yes, some of us do still listen to radio in the car, even at home. I can't help but think of all these conservative workers driving home with nothing to listen to on talk radio but the lies paid for by citizens united and spewed by maniacs . And who even bothers to listen to "Democracy Now " when you can only receive it on TV with Roku or PC. The fairness Doctrine was a no-brainer and it needs to be brought back, and quickly.
3
@Lisa Simeone nails it. Somewhere in the lives of her educated, comfortable “bully” social acquaintances lurk a deep anger and bitterness at having been over-looked, cheated, taken advantage of, mocked, or having been left with an inner void that was never adequately filled with the makings of satisfaction with oneself. Every single time I speak with a jubilant Trump supporter I get a projected storm of hate. Never once have I gotten an informed or educated answer to my questions, offered in all sincerity. When I say. “Please give me a reason for your position or an example . . .” the supporter gets angry. I hear, “Just shoot them when they try to cross the border.” Even children? “Yes.” Why? “They breed like rabbits, carry diseases, and take federal money.” When I research and then show the supporter data proving the opposite, the person brushes it away and gets angry, repeating the claims. When I probe a little and listen to the life stories, I hear about their childhood neglect, poverty, abuse, rejection, family alcoholism, and more. What does it take to break out of that bitterness and resentment? It takes a conversion, or tremendous commitment, or the intervention of love, or a skilled therapist, a miracle or all of the above. Well, once the jail break has been made, the anger and hatred do not dominate a life. A freer person can then decide which way that person wants to lean politically. But that person doesn’t need a bully to replace a void.
Please tell me Trump supporters, which god are you referring to? I know all about the guns and more than I want to know about Trump. So could it be the man who walked the earth thousands of years ago, was considered a revolutionary although he preached nonviolence; the man who was comfortable and supported lepers, prostitutes, and thieves; the one who had dark skin and spoke Arabic; the person who was against violence of any kind including torture, and murder; a guy that embraced immigrants, the homeless, and championed the poor.
Because of Trump's policies of excluding anyone who is not a supporter, and people on the low socioeconomic scale, or someone that doesn't look like him, then based on those facts, I would have to say it is not the person described above. No, Jesus is definitely not your guy. So who exactly is it?
1
Politics is a struggle between various groupings for influence, power, goods and services provided by a government.
Racism. That is what drives politics in America. It is about issues, it is about policy. The policy one side supports is xenophobic racism, the other does not.
But you're supposed to respect other people's points of view, don't you know? Seriously, though, there is sometimes a kernel of truth behind what someone believes, but it takes a willingness to communicate to get to an understanding.
1
I would like to believe that the era of the aggrieved white male boomer is coming to an end. The new era can only begin if young people (millennials Xers and yes Z’s) coalesce around a more egalitarian society with a genuine social fabric and the courage to address human extinction from climate change head on.
They alone will have to save themselves and future generations by rejection of racist, xenophobic, theocratic, misogynistic, rent seeking, unfettered Capitalist. In other words, Republicans.
Sorry we Boomers were so willing to end the world for rampant capitalism.
1
Much has been written lately about tribalism, civil war, even succession. But unless people have been riled up by someone (usually for their own gain) who accentuates the differences, grievances, slights and injustices, etc., people just mostly want to get along. For the most part, people aren't looking for conflict, but want to live their lives as carefree as possible.
I'm a Democrat living in a state where 84% of registered voters are Republican. I get an occasional gentle ribbing, but never any hostilities or fist fights.
@jhine
If they are the 84%, then they're not feeling very threatened, and so have no need to be hostile.
It is definitely more cultural and social than economic. Although the media stereotype Trump loyalists as the man in the red tee-shirt above, there are plenty of non- and mainstream Christians, baccalaureate and professional degree holders, brain workers, business owners and executives, and federal employees (yes, Mr. Trump!) who cheer him on. They are people who are tired of being lectured and criticized for almost every aspect of how they live their lives. Even when well-meaning Democrats tell them, "We're better than this" they hear, "I'm better than you." It's really the same message some versions of Christianity send when they talk about "sin" and "sinners" but focus on specific sins they themselves don't commit, not the ones they do. There is a lot of ""We're Christians and we're better than you" thinking and messaging on the political right. Somehow, we all have to get a place of humility and "Live and Let Live."
I would gladly consider voting for a Republican for President who is interested in the business of governing. Take Kay Ivey, for instance, our very conservative governor here in Alabama, who just does her job and doesn’t call those who disagree with her “enemies.” It would be helpful to me to have a party to vote for that made me feel like an American first.
1
I agree it should not be seen as an either/or question. There is always an interplay between ideology and tribalism. One's ideology is an important factor in determining where you get your news and which sources of news you deem reliable. One's tribal identity is reinforced by your choice news sources, resulting in a positive(?) feedback loop.
But there is also the question of whether the two factors are of equal importance on both sides of the aisle. I see the Democratic candidates laying out ideologically-inspired plans to solve a variety of substantive problems, while Republican politicians offer emotional, tribal "solutions" to relatively trivial matters. Republicans deliberately use tribal resentments to.... pass tax cuts for the wealthy. As the Republican base becomes evermore rural, blue collar, and non-colleged, Republicans seem to have chosen a business model that is neither rational nor sustainable.
1
We are most certainly tribalized, and perhaps have always been. What was the Civil War but a war between tribes? And while Appomattox ended the open warfare, it's never really ended completely. Much of the Republican base - and almost all of Trump's support - comes from descendants of the Old South, regardless of where they might live today.
And yes, sub-tribes can shift party allegiance if the party fails to endorse their beliefs - the Dixiecrats moved from the Democratic Party after the endorsement and enactment of Civil Rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, and Roe v. Wade to the Republicans who were happy to embrace them.
So the tribalism doesn't necessarily originate with parties, but is certainly inflamed by them. But at this point, does the cause really matter? Because the reality is that we are as tribally divided as we were prior to Fort Sumter. In such a partisan atmosphere, trying to find people who are TRULY independent and non-partisan is virtually impossible. There may be 13% of voters who say they're uncommitted, but as Nate Cohn's article yesterday in the NYT revealed, this isn't really true. Looking more closely you find that most of these "undecideds" lean one way or the other, and in fact, will NEVER lean the other way. They would refuse to vote before voting against their nature.
This is why the Dems need to stop worrying about pleasing this small fraction, and instead embrace the desires of their natural constituency. Quit being Republican-lite.
1
If it is us against them we have got to stop it. We are all Americans. Given the bombardment of information in people's lives it has become difficult to simply talk with one another. Seek out those who think differently and listen. I believe you will find there aren't that many real differences. Not enough to take the response to hatred. Hatred is not a "Christian" value. It is not a human value. It is a fear response and we can diminish fear. Do not believe that we don't have alternatives. We have lots of them. Turn off the fear buzz.
1
This piece merely asks about the causes of political partisanship; it says little about the why. In American politics (the discipline, not the practice), there is a tendency toward the same exceptionalism that infects the entire field. What is going on here is going on all over the world, so the better question might be: what is it about economic and political liberalism, whose vision is individual expression through voting and individual prosperity through economic growth, that is blowing up political systems all over the world? We are not the exception.
2
@Ronnie: In 2016, thru a fluke in our archaic electoral system, a candidate with 3 million fewer popular votes than his opponent won the presidential election. The minority of voters who chose Trump were a coalition of types, but they prominently featured those left behind by world-wide economic changes you rightly identify. "Left-Behind" could rightly be the overall description of Trump voters, who are nostalgic for a past when women and black people were of little political importance, when homosexuals were hidden or outcasts, when abortion was illegal, and when American business and industry ruled the world. That world is gone, and with it the yeasty US economy that promised a better life for everyone's children.
But the Left Behinds are bitter about the change, and want to Make America Great Again. No president can turn back the clock in this way, but at least Trump voters can register their anguish about their losses. And ironically, it's the very economic powers who are behind that change that are funding candidates whom the Left Behinds are electing - Trump above all, who actually accelerates American economic decline, while claiming to do the opposite.
1
When one party under Trump abuses control of the government and supports an oligarchy, how can us create with them a lawful and democratic country. Get the foreign parties out of Washington.
1
I don't think most of us want the guy in the photo in our neighborhood, or anywhere near our children.
So it's both.
2
@Josh
I want that guy in my neighborhood. I know exactly where he stands and how much I can trust him.
Did you see the other day in Florida a pregnant woman saved herself and unborn baby, 11 y/o daughter and husband from 2 home intruders who pistol whipped and severely injured her husband? And were then laying hands on the 11 y/o daughter. She shot them with an AR-15 they keep for home defense. That's what the guns part of the t-shirt are for. I also understand the God part. And the trump part allows them to have the 1st 2 things.
So before you jump off a cliff judging what you think is meant by that t-shirt, you should try to think about it from the perspective of what that guy thinks it means. And I guarantee you that you are thinking something completely different than he is.
2
But how much do you know about the guy in the photo other than that he has tattoos, apparently believes in God and the right to bear arms, and that he supports Trump? I'd like to know why he supports Trump, what he believes about various issues and why. The fact that you disagree with him on certain issues doesn't necessarily mean he'd be a bad neighbor. He might or might not be a bad neighbor.
1
Constantly underestimated in discussions like this is that some Americans base their decisions on facts and some on fakes. The effects of propaganda in the US now are huge. If I based my decisions only on what is seen on Faux News or Breitbart I too would think that criminals crossing the border is the #1 crisis facing us. Articles like this talk about what political parties stand for, but what matters is what people THINK parties stand for. If you convince people that the other party is filled with baby-killing socialists then they will respond as if it IS filled with dangerous extremists. That is logical given the false information they have.
I’ve been to 48 countries and I find Fox News in the US to be the most effective propaganda I’ve ever seen. In China you have one source of News. Most people know it is propaganda. In the US you could do fact checking, which is why Fox labors so mightily to convince it’s viewers not to change the channel, that any other source of news is fake, that there’s no need to check. It is sophisticated, persistent, well-funded, and successful.
In addition to reading, writing, and math, our schools should be teaching how to use media and not get fooled. I teach such a course to college freshmen...
3
'Us' vs 'them' ? You bet. Look at how America voted county by county in the '16 election. Virtually every metropolitan area voted Democratic. Rust Belt, Corn Belt, Bible Belt, countrywide. It's urban America vs rural America.
3
After a recent visit to my extended family this past month in Wisconsin, I have to concur with the authors premise. My hard working low skilled relatives are incredibly fearful for their future and feel no one cares about their plight. Conversely, my highly educated tech savoy relatives are incredibly fearful that our country is not progressing quick enough and in fact regressing. Neither of them seem to understand one another. Both are incredibly frustrated with one another that they don't get it.
The hypocrisy by politicians is staggering as well. I am convinced if Jesus Christ came down from heaven and declared the Democrats the better person(s), the Republicans would deny, obfuscate, and demonize that JC was really the devil and not the real Jesus Christ.
At this point, I wish the madness was just over so we can concentrate on fixing our problems.
4
@Progers9--
I have edited your paragraph to provoke thought, because my edit is also true.
"The hypocrisy by politicians is staggering as well. I am convinced if Jesus Christ came down from heaven and declared the Republicans the better person(s), the Democrats would deny, obfuscate, and demonize that JC was really the devil and not the real Jesus Christ."
Either the above is true or as many Democrats will tell you, there is no Jesus Christ and there is no God.
1
Partisan tribalism has my vote -- increasing ideological consistency is not the result of rational voters doing prudent comparison shopping but of the mutual echo chambers that tribalism has created. The causality is reversed.
Rational man (ideological) models also fail to explain the willingness of the Trumpian opposition to fight dirty, as a recent Times op-ed put it, no matter the intellectual incoherence this requires.
The vote in 2020 will come down to who can better appeal to the tribal allegiances operating out of the reptilian brain stem than to the executive functions in the frontal lobes. Sadly.
1
The man's t-shirt say it all: God, Guns and Trump.
Anyone who really believes in God, wouldn't support guns or Trump (e.g. hate politics, hate speech, racism, misogyny, corruption).
Most of the pro-Trump supporters don't even know who Trump is (a pro-choice, former Democrat and non-member of the NRA, who never was a church goer) or what he stands for.
They are amped-up on on hate politics, and hate speech.
God, Guns and Trump isn't even part of the same ideology. It doesn't make sense.
Republicans allowed these people to hijack their party, when Gov Weld and others stepped up to run against Trump, they could have back them, or not backed Trump during impeachment.
They could have easily gotten rid of Trump.
The Republicans use these people for their votes, all while working against them, taking away their jobs, healthcare, imposing more taxes on them (while they pay nothing), cutting their services, etc.
6
For republicans it is us against Them. Their only idea, tax cuts increase revenue, has been disproved time and again and yet they insanely trumpet it. This is a dead idea.
Democrats, on the other hand, are attempting to build a society that benefits the many rather than the parasitic elite few.
Last night, reason prevailed.
5
@kirk
During the 8 years under obama, for democrats it was us vs them. Dems made no attempt to work together with anyone in their zeal to divide the american people into smaller and smaller factions under the premise of making sure these smaller and smaller groups were assured of "their" rights. At the expense of others rights who now became subjugated by the smaller groups rights. It is the dems who in their quest, tried time and time again to force the fullest extent of their agenda down the throats of americans who we just not ready for that much change. Could they have achieved a more moderate change willingly? Yes they could have. But they were unwilling to wait and work through reasonable amounts of change that most people could accept. After constantly being told how stupid and sexist amd racist they were and having just too much shoved down their throats all at once, they reacted amd pushed back. All this division in the country today is the result of the progressive democratic elite deciding that the entire population had to completely and utterly change their way of thinking overnight. Would most people have been able to accept a certain amount of change, and then a little more, and then a little more to ultimately achieve the dems goals? Yes they would have. Too bad they didnt have any patience or compassion for the people they were trying to change. It could be a very different place we could be in today.
1
I think it boils down to what you believe in from a values and policy perspective and whether or not you will forgive your side for that violation, which I translate to as partisanship.
If adultery and lying were wrong for Clinton and forgiven for Trump, then that is not only partisanship, but hypocrisy.
Where I disagree with a lot of Republican policies, I don't see them as the enemy. I'm sure quite a few of my Republican friends see Democrats as the enemy.
1
@C Lee
and more Republicans than you think dont see you as the enemy. Yet many of your dem friends do see the Republicans as the enemy. It goes both ways and please dont think otherwise.
1
If Republicans were about policy and ideas why has the only major legislation to come from them in the past eleven years been major tax breaks for the welthy and big coorporation. At the moment Mitch mcConnell has well over a 100 bills for consideration sitting in his desk stonewalled. This is not about policy, this is not about people or country, this is about absolute raw power.
6
"Negative partisanship — based on animosity toward the opposition party, not love of your own — turns out to be one of the crucial factors in the outcome of recent elections and it will almost certainly be a key factor going into the next election."
It's not hard to conceptualize this, particularly when the right has the worst example of human behavior running the country, destroying institutions, treaties, trust, etc. How can I not loathe his supporters and enablers? What is wrong with them, that they'd put this false idol above country and all else? Really, what is wrong with them? I point toward lack of education and tribal behavior. They are being duped, OR, they are just like Trump, there really is not in between when considering why Christians and other ostensibly moral people support this morally bankrupt man.
3
Faux “news” is a propaganda machine masquerading as a vetted news organization pretending, barely-superficially, to follow long-standing rigorous journalistic-integrity standards. They have undermined the 4th Estate for decades with devastating long-term consequences.
This is why Rep Faux “news” watchers were so dismayed and confused when an entire collection of Trump’s cronies were convicted and jailed, taking plea deals despite the best teams of lawyers money can buy, because the evidence was so overwhelming.
Faux propaganda, again masquerading as bonafide vetted news that is presented as if they engage in long-standing, journalistic-integrity standards, had convinced their viewers that the accusations against Trump’s cronies were just smoke and mirrors without substance. They claimed the court cases would exonerate these individuals.
This didn’t happen because these individuals were guilty of actual, serious, federal felony crimes, and were facing a substantial amount of evidence that was overwhelming in veracity, fidelity and backed up by a variety of conclusive sources.
The same is now true regarding the Impeachment of the President. He broke a number of actual, very-serious, federal felony laws and there is a steadily-accumulating mountain of rigorous evidence proving he did so.
But you wouldn’t know it if all you are watching is Faux “news” and right-wing conservative media.
5
The photograph you used on the cover says it all. The God I believe in doesn't need guns to protect me. And the God I believe in does not like ugly. Donald J. Trump expresses nothing but ugly. I am at a point where I do not want to defend my values by being a cheerleader for my side. All I know is that at the end of the day my expression will be at the ballot box, and it is going to be based on the God that I believe in: a good and just God. Simple.
2
Closest think I can come with these days is comparing political affiliation with support for pro sports teams. People will live and die with a their choice no matter how inept or corrupt their side is.
1
Interesting. The fact that white liberal Democrats now say they like black people better than themselves sheds light on support for Trump. For a few years now conservatives have been complaining about how schools are teaching white kids self hatred. It turns out they were correct. I'm not a conservative but I am alarmed. It seems like brainwashing. In what other country or society do people claim they like another ethnic group better than their own? It defies science, which shows that people have preference for their genetic kin. The support for Trump, I believe is a reaction to the vast program of bizarre lies enforced by a so-called "liberal" media and educational system. In this program white people are evil, men are women if they say they are, agreement is mandatory and people with independent opinions are pilloried. I'm not a Trump supporter but I am genuinely afraid of the "liberal" mob who are not in fact liberal but totalitarian in a way extremely reminiscent of "1984."
2
@Anne
Thank you Anne. Well said and I agree with you completely.
2
"Negative partisanship": each side believes that the opposite side's ideology is based on lies. Be careful of false equivalence here. Could it be that one side's attitudes really are based on lies they've been sold, and the other side sees this correctly? Hmmm....
1
I am still trying to understand why "sticking it to the Libruls" is such a strong point for Republicans. Looking at issues is considered a Librul plot. Political correctness (common courtesy) is a crime. Could someone explain that?
1
Heightened partisanship?
Despite the seemingly intense political circus, sports-arena media culture pushing partisan politics, I would argue, only a minority of Americans are committed to one party or the other--30% identify as Democrats; 26% as GOP. The largest percentage of voters identify as political Independents (42%). According to Gallup, 30 years ago, 33% said they were Independents.
Plus, a majority (70%) say they are "angry because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street or in Washington" (2019 NBC-WSJ poll). Lots of Americans don't really "like" our politics.
So, why all this party & media hoopla over divisiveness and partisanship? 3 (of many) key reasons are:
1. $$ & special interests pay to game the system & get what they want (e.g., Fossil fuels: no climate change; NRA no gun safety)
2. Political extremism: Leftist politics in the 1960s; right-wing swing from Nixon-Trump (partly in reaction to the 1960s & #1).
But political extremists (on both sides) tend to accept only a narrow range of political views and reject views even close to their own (e.g., GOP has chased out its moderates to go tea party). Moderates like compromise; extremists refuse. Gridlock
3. The media seeks conflict & the bizarre to generate interest, advertisers, & $. Moderation is ho-hum-dull. TV ratings drive extremism, and Fox capitalizes. Keep the circus going,
Many of us are fed up, but who listens to us?
1
I am very concerned that we have a President who lies and I am more concenedhis supporters are not concerned. The most glaring example of this was during the hurricane this fall. The weather department reported that the storm would not affect Alabama. The President tweeted the storm would affect Alabama and its residents ought to evacuate. This is a serious lie. It all indicates a very incompetent President. The President appoints the people who oversee the weather forecasters.
1
@Cindy-L
That's what you're worried about?
1
The debate is about something. It is about whether or not reason and substantive argument is valid.
We are living in a world that tests reasoning skills.
Let us take the argument of abortion. There are some who totally oppose abortion and contraception. Now throw in biology. We know what happens when resources become limited. Throw in economics and human behavior. We know what happens when our systems get taxed to the limit and cannot provide solutions to the problems in question. The Christian tells us God will solve all problems, ignoring the fact that reality permits deadly inefficiencies capitalism cannot solve. In the end, we ignore real solutions in favor of old worn out slogans.
We should look at places where the enlightenment has been dimmed. Many religious bodies and right-wing media place faith in capitalism and ignore the real Christian solutions in socialism. Capitalism is good and, hence, rich people are good and smart. Socialism is evil and, hence, poor people are undeserving and dumb.
Reason is the thing under assault. It is the inability of many in America to digest scientific argument, statistics and probability. They therefore, listen to unfounded simplistic dogmas to take them to the magical place of yesteryear where the world was not so complex.
In the assault on the environment, healthcare, education, etc, we are being told to let capitalism flourish as it did before science became the urgent voice calling us to curb our excessive tendencies.
154
@tom
Excellent description of my less eloquent opinion on this - the crux - of the matter.
6
"The debate is about something. It is about whether or not reason and substantive argument is valid. "
Rephrased, that means "Its about whether the arguments and reasoning that the left wing puts forth overrides the actual Constitutional rights that I have always enjoyed". I.e. whether you can "reason away"
my freedom.
My answer is "no". You can only take it away legally by amending the constitution or by a coup. The latter is exactly what you are trying to do.
I have, CURRENTLY, as much right to rephrase as you do .. THAT right is among those you wish to remove.
Also you want to impose Orwell's Newspeak.
@Doug McDonald - No one is talking about taking away your right to free expression ("rephrase") or worship as you so choose.
However, it seems to me that you are rejecting objective facts, scientific reasoning, and cogent argumentation between disagreeing - yet civil - parties.
Oh, and there is no coup, sir. The ongoing investigation is based on events that happened after the election, not during or before it. Or do you deny the facts that the now-public testimony has revealed? That, indeed, would involve Newspeak, doublethink, and control of the past.
16
The GOP seems to represent the conservative voter mostly. If you have a liberal viewpoint, the Democrats are the solution. If the GOP did not cheat with gerrymandering and large amounts of voter suppression, both undemocratic and illegal measures, the GOP would never win another national election as political beliefs of the majority of voters now stand. Trump would not exist. Elitism in politics would be greatly reduced. Public Safety measures for the benefit of the masses would be stronger. We would not have the political divisions and conflict we have now. We would as a nation have a more homogeneous approach in our belief systems.
2
@DENOTE REDMOND
And dems dont gerrymander? Of course they do. And just what do you think all the flap over immigration is. Its dem gerrymandering for the future. Do you think the dem pols actually care about individual immigrants? It's a voting bloc for the future. That's all they care about. And they're doing it because they are afraid.
1
@bored critic
Frightened of what pray tell?
Not the GOP. They are fading away with the diversification of the voters. That is why the GOP spends so much effort suppressing voting rights of blacks and immigrants, a losers proposition.
2
@DENOTE REDMOND
Then why such the big push against what many americans are saying that's not what they want?
For most of American political history, voters and office holders adhered to the middle ground of the liberal/conservative spectrum. Ideologues and extremists have had their moments, but ultimately failed, as politicians understood that their constituents both wanted and needed workable solutions to festering problems. They wanted and preferred bipartisan ideas enacted. (Two examples: the post WWII G.I. Bill, and Nixon's Clean Water Act of 1973).
However, it appears that encroaching right wing propaganda has undermined the center and driven the two parties to suspicion and antagonism. This has not been a bi-partisan development; rather, it sprouted in the 1970's and 80's under Ronald Reagan's two terms in the Oval Office, He brought to the surface the divisive idea that government was the problem, never the solution, and the Republican Party has echoed that mantra ever since, increasingly with strident voices.
Democrats have chased all kinds of what seemed like good ideas at the time, and continue to do so today. When, what they really need to focus their efforts on, is bolstering the center, where the majority of Americans live out their lives.
The results in Kentucky and Virginia last night underscore this point, I believe. When politicians go after extreme solutions, or refuse to even barter over ways forward, (Matt Bevin, the Virginia GOP), they will be rejected.
Which is why I cling to the belief that Donald Trump's days are numbered.
Mr. Edsall's first reference is to Michael Anton of the Claremont Institute, the conservative think tank in San Bernardino County. Mr. Edsall then lists opinions of various academics, stating that, yep, things are partisan. He finishes with an anonymous Democrat analyst referencing negative voting.
Of these three sources, does Mr. Edsall note where the partisanship is coming from? He quotes Mr. Anton as saying a Democratic win will be "the assault on one’s own values and principles will be worse than any “of us have yet imagined in our darkest moments. Nor is even that the worst. It will be coupled with a level of vindictive persecution against resistance and dissent hitherto unseen in the supposedly liberal West.”
I'm reminded of Kathryn Olmsted's "Right Out of California: The 1930s and Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism". It has long been the business of conservative think tanks to manufacture identity politics and fan partisanship.
2
When James Mattis left the DOD, he said that with all the foreign threats facing America, what worries him most is domestic division. Someone campaigning on addressing that threat would likely do well among the 13% who lack partisan commitment. Unfortunately, under the present voting system, that counts for nothing.
However, instituting a pairwise-rated voting system, in which candidates run in a pairwise contest against all other candidates based on the ratings voters give to the candidates, would change that. If the negative partisans of both sides prefer a unifier over someone from the other side, then under pairwise-rated voting they would cancel each other out. Doing this would give the 13% non-committed carte blanche to select whom they choose. The result would be fewer dividers and more unifiers getting elected.
Public education is very bad in the USA . The ability to conceptualize for Americans is often overwhelmed by assimilation and identification into sameness . Even college education and Ivy League conceptual levels are not the equivalent of European universities. The USA have stayed what they were in the 18th century : a colonist patchwork of communities that still think with trivial ideas and stand way back from European refinements about health care ( no global organization ) violence ( 8 times more violent crime per capita in US ) , guns in every household, religious archaism of metonymical force, social void, etc...
Good old cowboys .
"Cowboys " were those selling their cows for meat to the British during the war of Independence .
Independence won and paid for by France .
War furniture contracts with France never reimbursed .Never honored .Hundreds of billions of dollars in today's money.
2
@JPH
I will go so far to say that America is quite possibly going to turn out to be a total failure and it’s creation simply a bad idea. One can easily argue that the birth of America was the beginning of the end for France and Britain.
@Peter It caused the French Revolution, which of course was not only triggered by economic crisis of 1789 but by the Encyclopedie, the philosophical enlightment of the 18th century before the French revolution, under which the French democracy was created, global health care, the Napoleonic code, the French justice system, French culture of literacy, free education, etc...
All things and ideas that are far advanced compared to the USA .
1
@JPH
Yes exactly as you say but I think you have much too high an opinion of France. I’m a French citizen through my Mom (also Italian) but France and the EU are doomed in my opinion. Although I have never lived in France it is easy to see that they don’t stand much of a future. Nor does England or Germany. Hope I’m wrong though.
"This debate has both strategic and substantive consequences. If left and right are split mainly because of differences over policy, the chances of achieving compromise and overcoming gridlock are higher than if the two sides believe that their values, their freedom, their right to express themselves, their very identity, are all at stake. "
Ummm ..... in this particular case, those are exactly, identically, the same thing. The policy of the Democrats is to demonize ordinary white citizens, and reduce their opportunities by giving better perks (such as money and educational opportunities) to less-deserving special interests. Its in the economic and private (safety) interest of the white pcitizens, who are on average substantially more law abiding than blacks and illegal immigrants (who are, by definition, criminals), to demand enforcement of the laws, which the Democrats do not want to do. Its not exactly an official policy to demonize white people by calling them "deplorables" but its awfully common.
You leftists seem to try extremely hard to argue this away with far too many words. Actions speak louder than words.
1
There has always been a section of the population that have always been partisan right or wrong ; what has happened , especially in the time of Trump is that critical thinking has been tossed out the window. Americans have simply lost their minds . Those few undecided ( if indeed as the article states) who will decide the outcome of the upcoming election are probably conflicted , knowing full well Trump is not the answer but at the same time not liking the other choices . It is a choice of right or wrong where the mind latches onto some nuance and is fueled by the feeding frenzy of the media and Facebook , where disinformation , distrust of any information , confuses and makes difficult to distinguish spin from truth . In the end it seems truth is questionable . Perhaps the country needs to go thru this upheaval to finally arrive at the values this country was founded upon .
Oh how I long for a war of ideas.
But this has been, and will continue to be, an era of white rage and resentment.
Few things fuel more anxiety than a sense that one is losing a social location they have long occupied, secure in the illusion that the location would always be a refuge from the tumult and change outside.
Give many white Americans some credit for seeing that in fact they are being pushed out of a secure space that they have long occupied for no reason other than unearned privilege.
There's not much that can be done. They will rage, rage against the dying of the light until -- slowly but inevitably -- demography finally has its way.
3
It is a matter of policies of Trump and his so-called supporters and I might inject the republican party. Who else would vote in the House to take away Obamacare w/o a replacement and they are still (Trump) at it today. Trump pollutes everything and anyone he touches w his verbal taunts and lies. He was not elected but placed in power by a handful of disgruntled voters in the mid-west w a great boost by the KGB and Putin. How was this fair? And today Trump swats away any blame towards his bare chested horsebacker-Putin. He is in love w the North Korean dictator Kim-love? He is largely supported by rural voters and I have lived among them in Maine, NY, Ca and now NC and to back to what Obama said-'they cling to their bibles and guns' and did not and do not hestiate to back this golden toliet user from The City-go figure.
When election day 2020 arrives, I will have 60 years of voting experience behind me. I've been a registered Democrat during that time and I've never been nor have I ever known another Democrat devoted to "The Party" so I disagree with anyone who says the partisan divide is party loyalty even for republican voters.
What I have witnessed is a concerted and long-running effort by the republican party to turn liberals/Democrats into the enemy rather than worthy opponents. From Rush Limbaugh to trump the drum beat has been the same: feminazis, baby killers, welfare queen, etc. This is what republican voters, the republican base, are reacting to.
Republican politicians, on the other hand, are totally party oriented and regimented. They have almost 90 years of progress to undo while they are in power which makes staying in power their #1 priority - whatever it takes. Lockstep party loyalty is fundamental for them to achieve their goals.
1
The fundamental Trump rule: “As long as you hate someone else, you can ignore your own self-loathing”.
2
You bet it's an us vs. them situation. We are now in a cold civil war with no end in sight. Civil discourse is a thing of the past. While some people try to develop informed opinions by reading, listening, and researching real history and science, Trump loyalists indulge in vile smear campaigns, stupid conspiracy theories and fact-free arguments, and a dogged cult-like loyalty to the least qualified most corrupt president in US history.
1
In the past two years, I have been reminded of the Nazi take-over in 1933 and the death of the Weimar Republic.
Hitler used a couple of themes: (1) deep resentment about the end of World War I ("stabbed in the back"), (2) deep resentment about the Versailles Treaty, (3) catastrophic hyperinflation, then Depression and unemployment, (4) tribalism (of the Volk) poised against a threatening international and internal conspiracy (Jews), (5) paramilitaries (SA and SS) and political police (Gestapo) and public violence against "enemies" (6) the transfer of political power to one man, and, finally, (7) the promotion of a secular apocalyptic eschaton ("Germany will die...")
We're not there yet, but we have to note the deep resentments, pervasive economic distress in the Rust Belt, social disorganization and economic inequalities (found in drug abused cities, and automation), polarization against "unworthies" (affirmative action, immigrants, welfare), political corruption, and so forth. I'd guess that we are 50% there.
The only thing we lack is the sacralization of violence and the political paramilitaries.
But, we've got enough AR-15s out there and enough crazed people to make it more difficult for all of us.
1
Trump has always had contempt for the very people who are supporting him now. He condemns the elite to his base but courts them because he wants to be part of them. Everything he does is for him and him alone. He loves nobody and nothing. Especially his country.
3
Let me offer a simple interpretation: voters are basically divided between the smarter and less smart. 'Smart' is of course a somewhat fuzzy and variable understanding. Let's just take this as a given, and try to deal with the ambiguities this provides.
Voters can't be divided perfectly between the two groups but, generally and reliably at approximately a 50-50 break. Of course this is very close to what we see and have seen for years.
But natural selection and evolution are real, so the tendency is toward improvement: people get smarter, and especially in the more evolved, smarter places: urban areas, where the action, and the selective competition, is.
Again, this is what we have seen: urban areas tending in ONE direction. Of course this is Democratic, and, as an interpretation, smarter.
Why haven't (?) the political scientists done a simple comparison/correlation of smart (basically, knowledgeable), and political preference. Of course results will be complicated and often subjective, the latter as self-serving according to the researchers. But we need hard research, not opinion.
I think we can be confident, however, of the eventual and convincing findings.
2
I am partisan and for good reason. At least in my voting lifetime,
the Democratic party has advocated for causes that are important to me. The Republican party has priorities that I do not share. What may appear to be blind partisanship is quite the opposite.
With eyes wide open, I can see the chance of Republicans fighting for the things I think are important are next to none. I am proudly partisan looking forward to change in Washington and across the country so that we can get back to working on healthcare, the environment, income inequality, immigration reform and public education instead of building walls, tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and companies, abandoning our allies and supporting Russia, Korea, and other autocrats around the world. There is no wishy washy middle ground for me!
4
With due respect, every election over the last few decades was sold as do-or-die. Partisanship and dirty tricks go all the way back to Jefferson vs Adams.
The underlying human psychology that drives this hasn’t changed in millennia.
What’s different, however, is our ability to form partisan kinship with people around the world using technology.
In other words, the fertile grounds and the seeds of partisanship always existed. We just added a potent fertilizer through technology, specifically social media.
3
Another tired column, parroting the "both sides" theme. And Mr. Edsall needs to understand that there is much more going on here than two battling "tribes".
I'm a native-born American in my 60's. I also have Middle Eastern ancestry. Republican voters (now overwhelmingly white) hate me simply for who I am. There is nothing I could say or do to take this hate away from them. And I can definitely attest to the uptick of ethnic slurs, strangers yelling epithets at me and my family, since the 2016 election. The fact is, Republican voters are the ultimate identity voters. They want a country in which white nationalism reigns supreme, and the rest of us - if they don't make us "go back to where we came from" - should be content with the scraps of second-class citizenship.
I'm a Democrat. The last I checked, all of the policies Democrats espouse help everyone in this country. Support for climate change measures that will help preserve our environment. Ensuring equal opportunities for all people. Support for programs once again making higher education affordable. Ensuring that all of us have access to affordable health care. Democrats draw no such racial lines.
But back to Mr. Edsall's thesis. At this point, I do very much hate Republican voters. But I hate them for what they believe, not for who they are. And I know I will never be welcome in their America.
7
Mr. Edsall. Thank you.
Thank you for the excellent analysis in your Opinion today.
We see what is happening right now. An Impeachment Inquiry in progress. Much evidence has come forward for us all to see. Yet, a number of the Republican Party members continue to dispute and disagree with the facts and even the justification for the Inquiry. At the same time, Trump as well, continues to lie and distort the facts.
The question there is - why are the Republican Party members behaving in this manner? Why is it that they are not convinced that Trump has done something wrong. Yet, they continue to go along with him? We ask, what is it that is more important - is it allegiance to Trump, or to our Constitution, people and country? This is so very baffling and incomprehensible.
3
This article is undermined throughout by false equivalence. The hyperpartisanship and hostility are largely on one side, that of the Trumpites, whipped into anger by Trump’s tweets and rally speeches and Fox News. The Democrats run normal campaigns and propose actual policies and ideas; the right and Trump supporters attack us as if we were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The dog whistles, the death threats, the speeches inviting armed action against fellow citizens who don’t vote their way? All from one side. The real problem to be solved isn’t some chimerical shared hostility; it’s the efforts of one party to turn its political opponents into “enemies of the people” and its supporters into brown shirts.
6
A Trump rally picture is worth a thousand neo-Confederate words.
5
The GOP is now based on hating and punishing anyone that is not a white Christian. That's about it.
7
An interesting academic article.
Let me simplify the issue for everybody.
Who do you really “hate?” It’s that thin friend who suggests you’d be better off if you lost some weight. It’s that vegan friend who gives you that look as you enjoy your hamburger. It’s that guy next door who drives a Prius (you really love that SUV you own). It’s that opera lover friend who grimaces at your playlist.
Yes, those people are right, and we hate them for it.
Trumpists know guns are a problem, immigrants have rights, climate change is real, etc. etc., but they hate the morally superior attitude of those who lecture them about these topics. So they join the team that hates those folks.
That’s pretty much all there is to it.
5
The path that Trump is following is a fascist path. The rallies, with the modeling of a victim mentality, and the short, repetitive chants , are not unlike Hitler's. Their slogan was analogous to "make Germany great again."
I see stark differences between that path and the Democratic path - both big D and little d.
This is a nice democracy we have, it would be a shame if something happened to it....
3
Trump is a mean, angry, white man. It’s no surprise that most of his supporters are the same.
5
White evangelists support Trump more than any other group, they think he will sit next to god, where Jesus previously stood, this is a cult. When religious cults clash with reality the outcomes are never good, when your worldview is destroyed you have little to live for and violence is an easy answer.
6
Thomas, I love your question and the sub-heading of your column, “The struggle between pro-Trump and anti-Trump forces has researchers — and party strategists — grasping for an answer.” I like your thinking for the simple reason that I’m a strategist — an analogy-thinking strategist — and good strategy wins.
Since I just wrote a reply to a column, “Debatable: How Do the Democrats Beat Trump in 2020?” by Spencer Bokat-Lindell,
in the “Times” Opinion section, and because, like most good strategists, I’m lazy, I will apologize for leveraging what I wrote to him and re-purpose it to your fine column, if you don’t mind:
Spencer, you are certainly correct to ask the question; “How Do the Democrats Beat Trump in 2020?” along with your equally important question about questions in your sub-heading, “Left or right is the wrong question”.
The only effective answers, IMHO, to your column title question, and the only accurate reply to your observation that “Left or right is the wrong question” are immutably linked together in this one combined truth:
“The Democrats can Beat Trump in 2020” by exposing him as Emperor Trump — and that wrong question of “Left or Right?” can be easily corrected with the compelling and essential question that our founders, farmers, trades people, sailors, and patriots had to answer, “Empire or democracy”?
Thomas, the essential strategy is anti-Empire.
The strategic narrative:
DUMP
EMPEROR
TRUMP
The goal, democracy because “We can’t be an EMPIRE”
4
@Alan MacDonald
Thomas, as far as Abramowitz, Webster, et al. focus, later in your column, and alternatively on the "Issues", I would only suggest this:
"Can't see the Forest for the Trees" now politically translates into
"Can't see the Empire for the Issues"
IMHO, our fast approaching 11th "Least Worst voting cycle" should strategically focus on the meta-causal cancer of Empire vs. a Second American people's peaceful Political/economic & social "Revolution Against Empire" [Justin du Rivage] for the simple and "Common Sense" reason that Empires always crash.
1
@Alan MacDonald
Thomas, within your rich array of researchers, academics, authors, political scientists, senior fellows, and political/economic 'R' Vichy Party and 'D' Vichy Party strategists --- the skies are in a virtual vortex of swirling "analogy-thinking" [George Lakoff UC Berkeley] regarding "affective partisanship", "Elite Partisan Polarization Affects",
"Negative/Rabid Partisanship", and "Lethal Mass Partisanship" --- but the analogy that caught my thinking was the visual analogy between the photo of the supporter's shirt with "God, Guns, and Trump" and Michael Anton's reference to a “Flight 93 Election”.
In this link to the article he explains, "Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.
Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances." --- which invokes a violent ending --- but he also mentioned Gibbon, "The stakes can’t be that high because they are never that high—except perhaps in the pages of Gibbon"
Edward Gibbon, was the author of "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" --- as Kennedy was of the "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (Empires) 1500 to 2000".
"Our Vichy Gamble" [Wm. Langer] must be on democracy not EMPIRE.
1
Current campaign financing, in any other place and time, would be seen as what it truly is - BRIBERY of public officials. Politicians see campaign donors as their real constituents, not the voters, and certainly not the public good. So, how do you get voters on board?
Well, primarily the Reps have resorted to stoking cultural, existential fear to motive people to vote for their candidates, framing races as contests for our cultural identity, peddling fear using rigorous studies revealing & guiding which buttons to push for maximum effect and return.
Culture is the existential answer for human’s self-awareness and subsequent existential terror: Dr. Sheldon Solomon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCJAdFjPcnw & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7GZrgWKj9o
This is how the Reps get the very victims of their policies and pro-wealthy, pro-Corporate greed, Union-busting, anti-middle-class political agenda to vote for them.
The trick to get people to vote against their own interests and well-being, including the well-being of the middle-America communities across America in which these voters live, is both genius and horrific.
It helps that they have one of the most powerful propaganda machines America has ever seen: Faux “news,” a well-oiled political apparatus masquerading as vetted news.
The level of misinformation, misdirection, flat-out lies, gross-disparity of coverage compared to most other, authentic news organizations, is profound and thus far, highly effective.
3
This is why Rep Faux “news” watchers were so dismayed and confused when an entire collection of Trump’s cronies were convicted and jailed, taking plea deals despite the best teams of lawyers money can buy, because the evidence was so overwhelming.
Faux propaganda, again masquerading as bonafide vetted news that is presented as if they engage in long-standing, journalistic-integrity standards, had convinced their viewers that the accusations against Trump’s cronies were just smoke and mirrors without substance. They claimed the court cases would exonerate these individuals.
This didn’t happen because these individuals were guilty of actual, serious, federal felony crimes, and were facing a substantial amount of evidence that was overwhelming in veracity, fidelity and backed up by a variety of conclusive sources.
The same is now true regarding the Impeachment of the President. He broke a number of actual, very-serious, federal felony laws and there is a steadily-accumulating mountain of rigorous evidence proving he did so.
But you wouldn’t know it if all you are watching is Faux “news” and right-wing conservative media.
.
1
Trump did not win the 2016 election because of his great hair, his skill as an orator and a debater; or because voters believed that he is a good family man, an honest man who pays his taxes, a dignified man, a compassionate man, a man who cares about people in trouble, a man who treats women and minorities well, a man who knows a lot about foreign affairs, economics, terrorism, education and the Second Amendment or because they believed that Mrs. Clinton was the devil.
They voted for him because he is a lout and a zany with big appetites, a mean man, a crude man, a humorless man, an ignorant man, an unethical man, a huge crook who gets away with doing things that other people don’t get away with, who is notoriously effective at lying; and who as President they thought maybe would do some things that would end up helping them or at least hurting their perceived enemies among liberals, minorities and foreigners.
Which is to say that 62,984,828 Americans saw in him a man who satisfies all of their worst notions of what is good, true and beautiful in themselves; who -- but for a few deserters -- will make him almost impossible to beat in 2020.
4
It just simply is not principles and ideology. The Trump partisans, like Trump himself, are immune to facts and rational argumentation based upon facts. All the sentimental nonsense about the need for civility and talking to one another is just that, nonsense. Trump supporters, like Trump, believe there is no climate crisis, and that major media outlets--NYT, Wash. Post, AP, Reuters, CNN, to name only a few--report only "fake news." All the women who say he sexually assaulted him are liars, and there was no "quid pro quo" with Ukraine, but if there was it's o.k. The emoluments clause is a "phony" part of the Constitution. And on and on: Ukraine not Russian interfered in the 2016 elections, and two former Soviet thugs Mutt Parnas and Jeff Fruman are providing legal advice to the president along with Rudy 9/11. Lindsey Graham is good with all this because--he is a shameful coward and hypocrite and sycophant. The Trump "base" is o.k. with this because--I can't say. But facts and reason are irrelevant to them.
2
A Monmouth University poll released Tuesday found that 62 percent of Trump supporters said they could not think of "anything that Trump could do, or fail to do, in his term as president that would make [them] disapprove of the job he is doing."
We're not talking about a political candidate or campaign. THIS IS A CULT and I've seen my own friends and loved ones fall into it themselves. We're literally in a fight for the existence of our republic. What we do now will be remembered for all of human history.
6
Politics is a binary choice. You don't get to vote for policies (ok., an occasional bond vote or referendum in some states), you vote for parties. I would love to pick and choose policies from both major parties and others (can's Silicon Valley come up with a app for this?), but I have to choose a party. Until that changes, the we versus them zeitgeist will persist.
3
@MTHouston
Policy differences aside, can you really vote for party that falls in lockstep behind a traitor who is sullying the office, the party, and the country? If the vote was 25 years ago, I would agree that it is simply a vote for the party whose policy proposals most closely align with yours. But for one of the two parties that exist today, you would be arguing that selling out our country to a Russian despot is a policy difference. I do not buy that.
Thomas, I love your question and the sub-heading of your column, “The struggle between pro-Trump and anti-Trump forces has researchers — and party strategists — grasping for an answer.” I like your thinking for the simple reason that I’m a strategist — an analogy-thinking strategist — and good strategy wins.
Since I just wrote a reply to a column, “Debatable: How Do the Democrats Beat Trump in 2020?” by Spencer Bokat-Lindell,
who is a writer in the “Times” Opinion section, and because, like most good strategists, I’m lazy, I will apologize for leveraging what I wrote to him and re-purpose it to your fine column, if you don’t mind:
Spencer, you are certainly correct to ask the question; “How Do the Democrats Beat Trump in 2020?” along with your equally important question about questions in your sub-heading, “Left or right is the wrong question”.
The only effective answers, IMHO, to your column title question, and the only accurate reply to your observation that “Left or right is the wrong question” are immutably linked together in this one combined truth:
“The Democrats can Beat Trump in 2020” by exposing him as Emperor Trump — and that wrong question of “Left or Right?” can be easily corrected with the compelling and essential question that our founders, farmers, trades people, sailors, and patriots had to answer, “Empire or democracy”?
Thomas, the essential strategy is anti-Empire.
The strategic narrative is:
DUMP
EMPEROR
TRUMP
and the goal is winning!
3
Republicans are people I disagree with. Trumpers are my enemy.
169
@Nate I agree - with one change - deadly enemy.
13
@Nate
But they are now one in the same.
10
@Nate
Perfectly sums it up.
2
I prefer not to swear blind allegiance to Political Parties. I think they are all bad. The DNC, a corporation which controls the Democrats, has basicly done....well.....nothing....except stay in power by promissing things to everyone.....that they never, ever deliver.
Does anyone else see a clear pattern? You're all being played!
The same observation applies to the Bush Minions, most often confused these days for being the Republican Party.
But they're not. They are loyal only to themselves....and just like the DNC......they promise and never, ever deliver.....they just keep getting re-elected.
They laugh at their support base! They simply cannot believe that its that easy to fool all the people all the time.
...
Please recall the very accurate definition of a Politician.
"A politician is someone who can tell you to go to h3!! and convince you that you're happy to be on your way".
....
The best thing that ever happened, by accident,,,,,was the election of Donald Trump. Single handedly, Trump has destroyed the Bush Minion Power Base. Effectively, the GOP no longer exists.
.....
This makes the DNC wobbly too....as the DNC needs a reliable foil, a party on which to dump all the DNC's policy failures, the sleight of hand to convince the voters to keep voting for DNC hand picked candidates.
1
Us against them. If 'trigger the libs' is your main operating imperative, then we're going to do nothing but fight.
I saw a pickup truck parked outside the library.
Yes, really, the library....Irony Alert.
Three bumper stickers: infowars, Flat Earth 101, Trump 2020. American flag sticker on the rear window.
When did this start? It wasn’t so long ago that I would often hear non- voters excuse themselves by saying “there’s no difference between them.” That was not my opinion, but it was a defensible position. I think it began with the voting rights act of 1964. Lyndon Johnson knew it would push the South toward Republicans, but he did not foresee the larger effect—that it allowed the parties to begin to align totally with policy. With the “conservative” wing of the Democratic Party gone, both parties could take on their true colors. This has been exacerbated in recent years by the persistent bullhorn of social media. As is usual in the US, the underlying cause is racism, pure and simple.
1
Just take the T shirt the gentleman is wearing on the cover photo: God, Guns, and Trump......
Really? He is screaming that he supports God, and in God's name devices to kill people, and a man who puts children in cages.... Really? And I am supposed to respect this view?
Sorry GOP. You and your supporters are not promoting a view of American Values.
3
Rallying to a single physical symbol exerts a centripetal pull that is hard to break. Caius Marius, the wildly popular demagogue and creator of the first professional Roman army, employed the eagle as his magnetic meme. The Cross has been another powerful galvanizing force in history. Identity-forging uniforms in 1930's Germany went from brown shirts to red armbands (cum swastika) and elaborate military uniforms with a uniform military salute. Ronald Reagan matched out the red tie and the flag. Now they have red baseball caps, while the President and Vice President wear an almost daily regular 'uniform' - a gift from Reagan - that connotes their status as authentic patriots, the real red-blooded Americans. Red has a historically undeniable effect on people. To be sure, the democratic blue has little of the power that the red projects. Perhaps the dems need to work on their color(s)...and their messaging!
What a mess the NRA, FOX, and the Republican party has created.
Jesus would be horrifed at that tee shirt that man is wearing. Too much is at stake including human lives. If they are true Christians they should be praying hard for America. What happened to "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as you love yourself"? and
Thous shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not steal!
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor!
Do not let thyself lust after thy neighbor’s wife!
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, nor his farm, nor his cattle, nor anything that is his!
1
This says everything about the quality and content of education the average American receives. Education in America has been steadily devolving into trade school, skill-based learning. We have almost completely decimated the humanities—where we learn about critical thinking, complex human behavior—basically thinking about our fellow humans.
Is it any wonder our politics sound more like a professional football game than a conflict of ideas?
2
The struggle between pro-Trump and anti-Trump forces has researchers — and party strategists — grasping for an answer.“
Have we not heard about Cambridge Analytics and V. Putin’s concerted efforts to divide , polarize, disturb and confuse the entire western world? The sliver fringe that used to hide under rocks is now 30pct. of the population. The Russians have a Petri dish for growing hate, fear, and mistrust and it’s working as I write, on our future elections.
It’s helpful to have an outside force to blame, particularly when it’s true!
1
The big question in my mind is why?
Why has partisanship increased so much in the past 20 years?
Some possibilities might include:
Technology - the rise of social media, targeted TV?
Economics - income disparity increasing?
Cultural Awareness of other ethnic groups?
Education opportunities?
This country has seen this before - the years before the civil war, and the big reason for partisanship was pretty clear.
But why now?
@John D Everyone, and I mean everyone, wants or needs someone to blame for the state of their lives. The references the GOP has chosen for demonizing their opponents are, at least, easy to grasp - brown or black skin, whites living in prosperous coastal states, non-citizens, etcetera. It is a conscious decision made by GOP politicians to go down this road; it works.
@John D
Simple. In the mind of the right wing, the Civil War is not over, and will not be until the country is all white, except for the “servants.”
Scary thought
I literally remember thinking when I was in sixth grade that Republicans were mean and racist. I remember being in the classroom where I had that realization. Thirty years later, I can't say my opinion of the group generally has changed, despite individual members who have proven otherwise.
2
Too many people are less concerned with actual policies and whether they help/hurt society, most of their interest is "does this make the other side angry?" If so, I am all for it, even if it might hurt me, if they hate it then I am all for it. There seems to be a large segment of the population that wants to rule out of spite.
I have been saying for years the biggest problem with society is that it is always "Us vs Them". It can be in your office where the sales team hates the operations team, it's Ford vs Chevy, Coke vs Pepsi, Straight vs Gay, etc. People seem to always want to pick sides and fight it out. I think that is a big part of why sports are so popular: there are 2 clearly defined teams and a winner and a loser, and the winner gets to say "na na, we're better than you are." Unfortunately, this is what politics have become. It's all about winning and destroying your opponent, and not governing and trying to make a better society and nation for all of us.
@Darrin Personal animus towards Republicans isn't part of my voting calculus. I despise ideas that make our nation meaner, dirtier, more divided. They're pushing many ideas like that. That's why we need to win elections and demonstrate by our actions what our values are and take no action that punishes political opponents for who they are.
1
In school we were given a project to figure out how the "good" German people turned to Nazism -- and away from it.
In short: look to America. How did the "good" America repeat the history of Germany Nazism?
We are witness to it today in who would enable Donald and Mitch to wipe the "good" of America.
4
Well, we're not actually a democratic nation. The Senators from Montana represent tens of millions of less citizens than the Senators from California, but have the same power. What? How dumb and corrupt is that? We haven't progressed from that plum for the small states 250 years ago? We are bad at citizenship.
The electoral college is a joke. We see two Presidents 'elected' by millions of 'fewer' votes by Americans. We are our own problem. We have no political/moral spine. We're much more interested in capitalism and self-promotion than real and basic democratic rules, regulations and values. Just shameful.
Now, we have the lowering of the percentage of folks that can actually achieve this 'American Dream', while our multi-billionaires ride the Wall Street wave into plutocracy. Wow, was I born in a bad spot for honor and compassion.
Many are sold on two issues: abortion and guns. They like things simple and emotional. The rich use this against them. The rich use the poor to do their bidding. No? Well, the first thing Trump and the Republicans did was cut taxes for the rich and corporations, with some cuts for others to be phased-out (ha, what a joke, right in our faces). We deserve this worthless guy.
Fake President braggart, bully, shyster, liar, cheat, traitor, thief, loud-mouth that never relents. He just wants more money; he doesn't care about America, Russia, Christians, veterans, anyone: except himself.
The worst of America, writ large.
2
A State's population is reflected in the house of representatives. Each state is supposed to have only 2 senators.
@CJ
Well, democracy is supposed to count every vote, so to me the Senate and the electoral college are shams upon real democratic values. We need to change; the founders knew this and did not want us always saying that what they decided hundreds of years ago was somehow 'eternal' wisdom. We need to step up.
1
@CJ
One down, two to go. We need to reform the other house of Congress so that it too represents something more like democracy. And the we need to abolish the electoral college, and simply count all votes nationwide. I don’t care which party is in th e majority; just make it a simple democratic election.
Nuking hurricanes? Climate denial? Ukraine ? Incarcerating children for profit? Worthless walls in the desert? Unconscionable economic disparity? Seems like chaos and ignorance to me. I often consider that responding to such as if it represented policy or ideology or opinion is the fools errand of our times.
3
Politics is an African ape pundit euphemism for the one and only human race species that began in Africa 300,000 years ago biological DNA genetic quest for fat, salt, sugar, habitat, water, kin and sex by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation.
The subject of parody and satire most memorably in Pierre Boulle 'Planet of the Apes'.
1
The answer is right on this avatar's shirt: "God, Guns & Trump." God is a delusion. Guns are real and kill people and other life. Trump is delusional and real and can kill people (on Fifth Avenue)--and get away with it.
3
Us against Them.
1
Answer: Both.
1
Such dancing on a pin head!
I go with the "we don't like them and they don't like us" notion.
I don't like them because:
They want to control my daughter and granddaughters' bodies.
They want to thrust their Christianity in my face at each turn.
They want to re-segregate schools and communities.
They support a president who is unfit and destroying my country.
They are ignorant of science and would allow the Earth to perish.
They think my LGBTQ friends may be discriminated against.
They think obscenely rich people deserve what they get.
They think obscenely poor people deserve what they get.
They don't care about brown children who are put in cages.
They don't care about a foreign leader interfering in our elections.
They don't like me because they think I am "elitist" and smug.
They don't like me because I like all those people they don't like.
They don't like me because I want their "president" to go to jail.
They don't like me because I don't believe in their god.
That's about it.
8
Us against them.
1
It’s real simple how we persuade the persuadables we know: “vote for Trump again, and I’m done with you - forever.”
2
You can't argue with stupid. Why do we bend over backwards to try. Focus on those who are receptive to listening, and who's head aren't buried in the sand, and let's move on. Their inertia and anger is holding us back, and muddying the ability to steer any form of helpful dialogue. Trump rants, they believe and listen. It's sad, pathetic, and bottom line boring. Frankly, I'm exhausted by everyone (in the media) parading their attention towards them and him. It's a dark hole of rage and misguided righteousness. Let's just accept a broad swath of people are just not too swift and won't change.
4
The T-shirt in the photo from Mississippi says it all: God, Guns and Trump. Really. I have conservative friends, but we should all be against abject stupidity. Let's get rid of this stain on the White House and start over.
3
Trump and Republicans like Edsall peddle propaganda, untruth, baloney, twisted logic, lack of intelligent self defense in foreign policy. This is a struggle between those who know lies and falsehoods when they hear them simply by comparing these mythologIcal twisted tales with actual events.
This “perfect call” of the President is the “perfect shakedown” — anyone who has ever read a news article or seen a movie about the Mafia knows what it is. If I ask my neighbor for a cup of sugar, that is not a pressure move. But if I ask for the sugar and I simultaneously have my kid ready to cut her electricity line — I’d recognize that as pressure — and if I also expect her to tell the neighborhood on TV that her own son smashed my oven . . . that’s a shakedown and incidentally a quid pro quo, also criminal.
What part of this call does the Right wing not get? They get all of it! They understand it perfectly well, including Edsall, Stephens and Brooks whose columns have all been excuses for the wimpy, unpatriotic, non-reactive comments of the Right that gives cover to a President who anyone with ordinary common sense recognizes as a traitor to his oath of office, a traitor to the Constitution, a traitor to democracy. All of these people lack the courage to proclaim that the President is actually innocent. Instead, they go after the opposition. This tactic is in use by them for thirty years and yet it continues to ensorcel the gullible and those without knowledge of history.
2
Good, it’s a relief to know that I’m not crazy to think that politics and sports have merged. We are now all fans all the time, and endless TV talk coverage contributes mightily to our inability to intellectually and emotionally distinguish one from the other. We all understand that the sport fan base is fundamentally geographic and inelastic. If nothing else that pretty much explains the persistent enthusiasm of Trump’s base despite all evidence that he is an incompetent, lying, conman. Doesn’t matter. Grab a stupid hat. MAGA, RAH, RAH!
1
Trump supporters are gleefully dragging America down to their undereducated, underachieving level. They think what they’re doing is “winning,” but we’re all losing.
2
The racism and misogyny of the Republican Party turned me off in the 1970s. Reagan’s states’ rights speech was the deal breaker for me, reinforced by Republicans wedding themselves to the “religious right.”
After decades of watching the Republican Party goosestep farther and farther right, now pushing the USA toward a fascist theocracy, one can imagine what I think and feel now.
It’s not as if the left hadn’t tried using reason and facts to dialogue with the right; it’s just that the right didn’t reciprocate.
And, here we are, with experts wondering if the partisans have become “tribal.”
The president’s supporters are armed and dangerous and will need to be monitored come January 2021. They will be aflame with aggrieved entitlement and seeking retribution.
1
This may help explain the phenomena of people voting against their interests.
http://politi.co/2Cfymeg
This mindless partisanship will be the nation’s undoing.
It seems to me that psychologists can help us here. Can we try to understand how our tribal brains work? Even if it's just the Liberals who are willing to do this, why not? Maybe we can lead the path back toward reason.
Let Florida Man Secede. And take all his Fans with him. Let them ALL move to the Deep South, and try to survive on their own. It will NOT be pretty.
1
Does Mr Edsall realize that his bothsiderism is equally as defining of him?
I have considered very carefully whether misogyny, racism, and anti-LGBT stances are good for the country.
I have also considered very carefully whether people should die without healthcare.
I have considered carefully whether asking foreign powers to interfere in our elections for personal gain is a bad thing.
I have also considered very carefully whether global warming is a real human caused problem. And whether we have to do something towards keeping the overall temperature lower, as well as mitigating the effects already seen from its results.
I also believe in free and fair elections, open to all.
The problem with Mr Edsall is that in an attempt to draw a both siderism is that by attempting to reduce it to identity, there might actually be real problems at stake.
Yes, in all of society's interactions, people will be driven to be both lovely in the eyes of others, and feel good about themselves to paraphrase Adam Smith. But that doesn't mean that this is the complete story.
And it is not. Many people tied themselves to identifiers as suffragettes and abolitionists. It did help them define themselves as individuals, but also the society in which they lived.
Mr Edsall simplifies because he can't deal with the complex, and makes a mockery of meaning and of society. It ignores real meaning and ends in amorality that this paper excels at.
2
@Edward Brennan
So, Ed, enlighten us with your nuanced approach instead of complaining.
I am surprised and dismayed that the climate emergency is not (1) the driving issue across the board and (2) that the topic doesn't even come up in an analysis of partisan views, which indicate what matters most.
I know most people are in denial and don't want to hear about the climate emergency. The media is in a powerful position to educate people, nudge them along, get them to take the blinders off. In any article about politics, the issue must be raised, because in truth, if we elect another government that does not aggressively address the climate emergency, none of this matters.
With no disrespect for Mr. Edsall or the scholars cited in this article, this analysis testifies to the rhetorical gymnastics employed to deny the existence of class conflict in the United States. Instead of reinforcing the ideology of exceptionalism, why not publish a simple graph to demonstrate the correlation between the rate of inequality and the rise of partisan antagonisms? Or perhaps another one showing the decline of labor unions relative to the hardening of positions between the two parties? Or the failure of services versus rising costs of education, healthcare, public utilities, and financial indebtedness? All questions considered in the surveys and the issues raised by the commentators will avail themselves of more lucid formulations than the muddle presented herein.
2
I think the "we" versus "them" stops very quickly with proportional representation. If there are multiple viable parties it is much harder to maintain an "us" vs. them.
Decades of sports hysteria, colorful teams, cheerleaders, tail-gate parties, boozy rah-rah, fabulous media coverage, the all-important need to WIN and fan cohesiveness has carried over effortlessly to politics. Elections are now a sport--anyone can play, all you need is voice and a platform--and the country has neatly divided into teams. Only a few care about the rules of the game--winning is everything, team loyalty is all.
1
Politics have become a football-thing, where we root for our team and winning/losing is a zero sum game. There is no middle ground any more.
2
Right Wing = Us vs Them
Left Wing = Inconceivably boring details of policy.
2
Quality comment. Accurate and pithy.
How about turning to a historian or historians for input and advice, particularly about how our dominant parties have changed over the past 50 years or more. Today’s Democratic and republican parties are far different organizations than they were in 1950 or 1960. Southern Dixiecrats or Democrats have become Republicans and formerly liberal northern republicans have been isolated or purged from the party. So today we have two quite different parties competing for voter allegiance.
2
In the course of this article it states that either side is afraid of what the winner in coming elections would meter out as punishment for their opponents. I would suggest we already have the answer. Look at the agenda of The senate majority leaders actions : ignoring all the bills the majority in Congress has passed, pushing unqualified judicial nominees for judges purely on the recommendations of right wing foundations, refusing to acknowledge any of the presidents action as anything but”disturbing “. This has occurred since day one when the republicans controlled both houses and refused to take up the emoluments clause when it was being so flagrantly ignored. So we know what the stakes are. When you are dealing with a group of people who say if Trump shot someone, they wouldn’t condemn him immediately, they’d want to know the reason ;Would they be so pragmatic if it was any democratic president?
1
I’ve noticed that Republicans have frequently used the term “socialism “ but I’ve heard nobody define what that means.
When a rural farm road has little traffic and serves only a couple farmers the gas tax, property tax, etc. doesn’t come close to paying for that road, let alone the schools, police, fire, and other public services. That farm road sure seems like the socialism they are talking about.
6
Certainly many, many Americans were left behind with the loss of manufacturing jobs, coal jobs, a dramatically shifting economy, technology, etc.
They were further left behind, neglected even, in the Obama and Hillary campaigns...no one seemed to realize how badly these folks had been damaged by the recession.
But many wealthy folks support Trump, too.
The over used cliche,"This is about the Soul of America," is actually quite apt.
Are we blaming, shaming, finger-pointing, exclusionary, divisive victims in this nation?
Or are we a people who choose to recognize and own our failings and our flaws, accept our responsibility fully for where we are as a society, scorn the "victim" ethos...
...and begin anew to work in partnership - in community - with one another to fix and heal what is clearly not working, and what is increasingly devoid of our humanity?
A democracy is about caring for - and fighting for - the "whole of the community," not just ourselves. That's what built this country. It was an identity respected and revered around the globe.
Is this the essence of our Soul? Or are we Rome revisited?
2
@Kelly Grace Smith
You say: "A democracy is about caring for - and fighting for - the "whole of the community," not just ourselves. That's what built this country." I guess you do not consider Blacks, and Native Americans as part of the whole community.
This is a strong argument for the major parties to focus on mobilizing their base to vote rather than attempting to win over ‘swing voters’. A good winning strategy that will make our nation’s division even worse.
The current regime has run up the national debt by >$2 trillion, but the increase in debt is dwarfed by the loss of our nation’s social capital.
My hope is that a Democrat will win the Presidency and then appoint a bipartisan cabinet and convene bipartisan citizens’ advisory groups on infrastructure, environment, inequality, education, etc. The President might engage a spiritual advisor who would broadcast messages about forgiveness and reconciliation. Invite the party of Lincoln recover its decency, integrity and humanity, and welcome people’s changes in attitude regardless of their views on guns, abortion, Medicare for all, etc. (Denial of science and embrace of brutal dictators would still not be OK.). Healing is better than ‘winning’. Americans are not too far gone to be unmoved by moral leadership.
2
Your article, which cites numerous papers and studies, disturbs me because it puts me, a person who carefully considers the facts before choosing a "tribe" (really dislike that word), on equal footing with Trump supporters who blindly and openly refute empirical facts at every turn.
And your article misses the most important element in the describing the current divide: The We in "Us" are not merely disagreeing with "Them" over policy or ideology. No, I believe that We oppose Them because we see Them trying to destroy Truth, Integrity, and the Constitution at every opportunity for personal rather than political reasons.
This is no Us vs. Them over ideas. This is an existential struggle not to save our "tribe," but to save our Country.
2
At some point, the question must be asked: why are we bothering with this?
Given the trend of nearly a half-century now, I find it increasingly difficult to imagine an American politics in which about half the country doesn't feel like it's under occupation--where everyone recognizes and respects the legitimacy of the person/s and party in power.
The bulk of Republicans pretty clearly would rather win with foreign interference than lose "fairly" and be governed by Democrats. The Democrats aren't quite as categorical... but we're getting there; I strain to imagine a circumstance in which I could see a Trump re-election as legitimate and fair. (This is a change. When Bush won in 2004, I was devastated--but I didn't doubt the outcome. I think this was generally true among Democrats then.)
We still have interests in common--peace and prosperity--but not values. At some point, we either need to come back together, or reconsider our political arrangements. Some kind of EU-like organization, in which we share a currency and some rules but devolve most everything else, could be the way out. It'd be preferable to civil war, certainly.
3
"What if, to some significant extent, the increase in partisanship is not really about anything?”
Between the press and the polititions who's rhetoric frames issues in stark partizen terms, the people of this country have been led down the path of a false pretense. The press is complicit by promoting the divisive rhetoric in breathless and 24/7 coverage of these messages from those who mean to keep us divided.
Until we are presented information in terms of right and wrong, helpful and harmful to the nations interests and our Republic's democracy, we will continue to be divided.
Stop it. Do not blast divisive rhetoric 24/7. Point it out for what it is when ever ANY politician uses this tactic for political gain. If the press calls this out and refuses to use it to get eyeballs and money, then people will be able to see how they are being manipulated and divided and maybe, just maybe, will think twice before buying into it.
3
It is sad to think that our national politics has distilled itself down to a point where most citizens approach it with all the thoughtfulness of Red Sox vs Yankees. Looking back over the span of my life, I wonder if we harmed public education so badly that now understanding issues and policies is just too hard. Did the Cold War provide us with an external “them” that was so necessary for our identities that we created new internal “thems” when the Soviet Union dissolved? Did the science of polling and more targeted campaigning lead us to sort the two parties using identity issues: abortion, gun control, gay rights, religious rights, race?
Our inability to compromise on abortion has been and will continue to be the most dramatic fault line in America. Both parties are beholden to absolutists. Until we can craft legislative compromises on the state and federal level, it will be all or nothing hysteria guiding party loyalty and affiliation.
From what I've seen of the Trump supporters they appear to be at the deepest end of the economic spectrum. They have lost jobs to technology, environmental protection laws, a shift in the economy from labor capacity to intellect capacity, etc.
As a result, they feel that their life has been ruined because a bunch of smart, gay, mixed ethnicity and mixed gender people have risen past them with skills that they can never hope to match.
There are about 60,000 jobs in the coal industry, even though coal as a fuel is pretty much a dead-end street, it's the only thing those 60,000 people know how to do. Mining coal doesn't give you skills that can be easily transferred to a technology and service-based economy.
Trump's supporters have their backs to the wall, there's no place for them to go. Of course, they're going to fight and they don't care if that fight is led by a person as pervasive as Trump.
Quit deriding Trump's base and concentrate on finding options through public works jobs and programs like the old WPA. The first Democrat to offer a lifeline and an opportunity to increase their own image of their self-worth will become the next president.
The "Green New Deal" and other liberal euphemisms aren't of interest to these people. Let them build roads, tear down coal mines, clean-up pollution, and participate in things they can take pride in doing, and show their children what they have done.
In the long run, we’re all going to be better off and more cohesive as a nation.
1
I'd like to propose a different theory. What is driving the schism we see in our politics is "reactive" partisanship.
We are seeing different groups who until the last few decades held moderate or soft positions on either side of the idological spectrum shift towards the extreme end of the spectrum. The shift is a result of an abandonment of the Equal Time Doctrine that ended the requirement by TV and radio broadcasters to provide equal time to opposing viewpoints and by the combative shift in party politics and tone that Newt Gingrich left the Republican Party with.
Absent any brake or countervailing force in our debates, extreme speech, cherry-picked partisan red meat and spurious interpretations of events created thier counter-points on the other end of the ideological spectrum. Each side pushing the other side to a more extreme and alienating politics.
One can't be coy about this. Republicans are largely responsible for this. Both the abandonment of the Equal Time Doctrine and the abandonment of political norms of decorum were driven by Republicans.
Democrats however can be faulted for attempting to push "social welfare" and "social justice" issues and policies that were perceived as less than fair and often extreme. They assumed that an electoral victory justified wrenching the culture to the Left leaving behind those voters for whom these abrupt cultural changes would be difficult to manage.
But we need to stop seeing each side as represented by thier extremes.
1
It is pretty simple. We Americans have a wide streak of "We would rather fight than win" in our national character going back centuries. Among other things it got us the Constitution we still have.
1
Lelkes' quote is probably the best summation. Republicans care very much about guns, abortion, immigration, the right of religious people to discriminate if they believe it falls within their value system etc.. Those are policy issues and Democrats have a similar group of core policy issues. Beyond that most people don't pay a lot of attention to individual candidates so it is easier to pull the republican lever in the booth if you hold republican positions than it is to do homework on the candidates- and that makes some sense because the "partisan" question i.e. toeing the party line, defines for the most part who will be a nominee- especially among republicans.
At this point in time trump is not popular with persuadable voters but I suspect they will be very attentive to the final policy positions of the Democratic candidate. If that candidate's policies are not viewed favorably the election will probably go to trump and the question of partisan or policy will be irrelevant to the outcome.
So we're just going to ignore the historical context where an entire party's motivation is increasingly just to "own the libs", even when their actions decimate their own communities? Where since 1994 one entire party's ethos has been to destroy government at all costs? Why are we pretending like we aren't dealing with a reordering of American politics into a governing camp and a growing nihilist/authoritarian camp?
3
Thank You Trump for inciting America's second Civil War! What is scary is so many of Trumps supporters are ready to take up Arms ( as in guns) against fellow American just because we don't agree with Trumps view of what he believes America should stand for. Very sad time and I lived through the Civil Rights era and now this.
I have told I am Unamerican because I don't agree with Trumps political ideals nor his character, and his willingness to solicit foreign counties to further political career.
I have been alive since Eisenhower. I do not recall previous any President during these years holding even one 'Rally' whereby attendees were either fed partisan propagana or aggressively encouraged to be at war with other US citizens registered with a non republican party, nor claiming the Press are 'enemies of the people.' Since 2016 I have wondered by this is not against the law. He shouts at these mob gatherings that he loves those who support him and together they should hate everyone who does not love him as they do.
I have even heard say we are 'family.'
I thought all citizen's were just that, citizen's, not ostracised or identified as collective enemies by the President because of their political views or registration to any political party.
I still wonder why this is not illegal.
2
It’s us v them. How could it be otherwise when Trump’s senate toady, Graham, announces that he’s not going to read the transcripts of those who testified to house committees? No intellectual curiosity, and therefore no ideas, there.
3
@Tom
You mean the toddler put his fingers in his ears and start saying la-la-la-la? I am not surprised.
The Republican Party has become the Party of Trump. You see Graham, Cruz, and many of the leading Republican pols completely abandon their most cherished positions, free trade, their attitudes towards Russia, the deficit,the character counts
christianity component. NATO, and cravenly reverse their previous positions just to kowtow and prostrate themselves to Trump.
It reminds me of the problem the far left had with Stalin during the thirties thru the fifties. Stalin was a authoritarian dictator who was a pacifist one year and switched to a war monger the next and the far left in the states had to do complete 180,s in their rhetoric from year to year depending on the whims of a madman. Watching the old moral majority do handstands to defend a a man who openly bragged about his multiple affairs with married women, his public vulgarity, his use of lying as a political tactic is stunning display of hypocrisy. Bennent, Prager, and Hewitt were outraged by Clinton and led a theology based political attack on him yet they have been put in a position of rationalizing and excusing behaviour that they raged against just a decade ago.
1
This article needs to give a big shout out to the characters at Fox News. The evening dose of hate medicine they provide drives the animus towards any and all Democrats. As soon as that shout out is complete, extend congratulations to Mark Zuckerberg. For the Trumpers who believe anything they read, Facebook is a gift from Heaven. And apparently it will be the gift that keeps on giving.
Who needs God and guns when you have Fox and Facebook?
2
I feel bad when I have negative thoughts seeing Trump supporters at his highly choreographed rallies. I don't want to dislike them - I wish they rallied behind a Republican who was worthy of their passion and support. I don't want to believe they are all crazy racists. As a progressive I know change is going to happen and some of it I will like and some I won't but I believe fundamentally deep in my bones in equality, a huge pay increase for the lower and middle classes, medical coverage for all, less war, a women's right to choose and transitioning from a manufacturer of weapons to a diplomatic super power. Dems are more demanding of their leadership and it is difficult for us to be united at times but what have the Republicans given their constituents in the last 40 years but slogans, wars and huge debit.
1
This article starts with an entirely false premise: that we have two legitimate political parties in this nation.
We have one party, and one collection of anti-democratic, un-American and essentially criminal power-crazed mobsters who seek to destroy the fabric of our democratic society.
2
@Doug
@Doug
Zackly. Thanks for stating that more succinctly than I did in my comment.
1
@Doug
Zackly. Thanks for stating that more succinctly in my comment.
1
Why do we keep recycling philosophies about our political culture when the facts are plain.
The Republican Party has never been the party of the working class or the middle class.
They are the Party of the rich and the investor class. They have gotten rich from wars, natural resource extracting, and financial investing.
Of course there are too few people to vote in their political benefactors so they spent years developing scare tactics among the masses.
“They” meaning Democrats, will take away your jobs and give them to immigrants, they will overtax you, they will kill babies in the womb, etc.
They are very good at controlling organizations that make loans or put out propaganda like Fox Television, and in trying to sever the separation of church and state.
They try to starve public education because a less educated population won’t question their motives.
And they foster a culture of us and them.
Nothing new here!
1
"Is politics a war of ideas or of 'us' against 'them'?'
That depends upon whether you are willing to go slow, listen carefully, and think.
Anyone who combines 'God', 'Guns', and a leader together is fanatical on the side that includes ISIS and other threats to society. Add that the leader is Trump and we have a festering cancer that needs to be put into remission. The only way is to elect intelligent leaders. Unfortunately you need a majority that is intelligent. Unfortunately there is this issue of the electoral college which gives and edge to states that are not represented in a healthy way with intelligence. God, Guns, and Trump represents the frustration of someone who is severely limited. The essence of a con.
Politics is a struggle of critical thinkers vs. believers.
Trump says it is “ treason!” when people reveal or investigate his misbehaviors.
(It reminds me that our ancestors were sometimes ruled by corrupt kings who would yell out “ Treason! Off with their heads!” Again, bypassing any fair trials.)
We literally have large portions of the nation who prefer to have a “ strong man” ruler. Fox and others have convinced much of our population that this is necessary because otherwise “socialists” will take over.
Freedom is not something that is won once and forever. We see the proof of that every day in our nation.
It is time to register voters, protect against purges of voters from rolls, protect against horrific limits on voting hours that make it impossible for working poor to get to the correct voting location.
Help register accurately voters in your community. Help with transportation or babysitting.
This is an argument for reducing the influence and power of government, so there is less to fight about.
When the dispute is about money (for example, the struggle between management and labor that was the center of our politics in the last century) it can be compromised. No compromise is possible when it is about "identity" and ideology.
1
My wife and I moved from San Francisco to rural Eastern California 7 years ago—straight into Trump country. It's been an eye-opening experience because we don't entirely fit into either of these words.
I've been amazed at the number of good, smart, successful and thoroughly decent people we've met in our new home; and yet there's a lack of perspective, humility and self-awareness that is really frustrating. It's the enigma of someone who'd take a bullet for you, but refuse to consider a world without guns.
Again and again I've tried to find a deeper understanding of our growing polarity, and ways to reach across the chasm—only to be actively rebuffed or stymied by willful ignorance. Sifting through all the justifications, I've come to conclude that most of it translates to "I've already decided that I don't like liberals". Sadly, it doesn't appear a lot more complicated than that in the end.
Deep down I think we're all growing increasingly afraid and desperate, and it's making us a little crazy. Even climate change deniers must see that the weather is turning on us; and the ideal of the American Dream is really showing some deep and existential cracks. Even people on the furthest reaches of the political spectrum must recognize that there standing on some shaky ground.
Is it any wonder that we'd rather point the finger at someone else than take a hard look in the mirror?
6
The drum beat that Warren cannot win is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
If Democrats attack Warren's positions as pie in the sky and so radical that if enacted will destroy the US economy they will have done Trump and enablers work for them. Warren has produced a detailed plan that critics are attacking with glee. But that plan is just a preliminary blue print, she needs to concentrate now on how we get from here to there. And she needs to spend more time in battle ground states, face the hostility calmly while hammering on the fact that the present system does not work for them and Republicans are offering nothing that will improve it. Majorities in those states are hostile to Democrats but she does not need to convert them all, only those who can imagine the future will not change their situation if Republicans stay in power.
Definitely Us vs. Them. I like the analogy for folks who root for an opposing team in a championship only because the other team is their main rival.
Ex.) Yanks fans rooting for anyone playing Boston.
God, Guns, and Trump. What could possibly go wrong?
246
@Spokes We're experiencing it and will continue to experience it, well after he is gone. We must hope, pray, and/or work so that he is gone by Nov 2020 at the latest.
17
@Spokes Before Trump I took a casual attitude toward politics. Trump is a threat to America;Democracy; the Truth. Basically; everything that is good. We must push back on Trumpism; or kiss the World goodbye. Ray Sipe
20
@Ray Sipe
I have voted in every election for 50 years. Sometimes my candidate won, sometimes he lost. In each case, the day after the election, we all accepted the vote and got back to our regular lives, wishing the new president well. Until Trump. Now, all of my friends live with their hair permanently on fire, and we are obsessed with politics. We recognized from the election that our Democracy is in jeopardy. I hope there are enough of us to take back the country in 2020.
20
Polarization is amplified by small population states getting at least two senators and one
representative. Several million blue state citizens moving to low population red states would end the political stalemate.
3
My wife and I moved from San Francisco to rural Eastern California 7 years ago—straight into Trump country. It's been an eye-opening experience because we don't entirely fit into either of these words.
I've been amazed at the number of good, smart, successful and thoroughly decent people we've met in our new home; and yet there's a lack of perspective, humility and self-awareness that is really frustrating. It's the enigma of someone who'd take a bullet for you, but refuse to consider a world without guns.
Again and again I've tried to find a deeper understanding of our growing polarity, and ways to reach across the chasm—only to be actively rebuffed or stymied by willful ignorance. Sifting through all the justifications, I've come to conclude that most of it translates to "I've already decided that I don't like liberals". Sadly, it doesn't appear a lot more complicated than that in the end.
Deep down I think we're all growing increasingly afraid and desperate, and it's making us a little crazy. Even climate change deniers must see that the weather is turning on us; and the ideal of the American Dream is really showing some deep and existential cracks. Even people on the furthest reaches of the political spectrum must recognize that there standing on some shaky ground.
Is it any wonder that we'd rather point the finger at someone else than take a hard look in the mirror?
3
I think much of the partisanship is due to Fox News. Its artful medley of brutal attacks on Democrats, lies, the occasional truth, and misdirection does not really exist on the left. Rachel Maddow and her cohort are actually constrained by norms of truthfulness and civility to aim for truthfulness, even if they sometimes miss it. Fox, Limbaugh, Trump, his cabinet members, many more GOP legislators than Dem legislators have no constraints. They say whatever they think will sell. And that seems to attract more eyes and ears than fair-minded and well reasoned commentary ever can.
2
@Keithofrpi
If American citizens aren't strong enough to repel Australian Rupert Murdoch and his degenerate greedy media cabal empire, then what chance does the U.S. stand against the degenerate greedy Putin autocrats?
1
A British observer of the current state of American politics and its people stated that "the U.S. is a country massively at odds from within." If this is how we are viewed by others outside of the country, his statement represents a welcome gift to Russia in their long-standing goal of destabilizing our democracy and establishing once again their social, cultural, and ideological influence in the world.
We must never discount Russia's power to exploit this deeply divided nation. They have successfully penetrated and will continue to invade our elections with the primary purpose of dividing us further as we continue to become more and more incapable of coming to some middle ground that "we are stronger together" despite ideological and partisan differences.
Historically, there is always a rise and fall of the great powers. Perhaps the great implacable divisions we are witnessing today are indicative of the beginning of America's decline as a world power. Were it not for our powerful military complex, we might already be there.
2
Can only speak for myself. Years ago it was clear that Democrats called for big government designed to help the people. Republicans called for smaller government to help the people help themselves. Simple ideas. You chose one and ran with it.
When Trump arrived, things got muddled and he became the story. With him or against him. Simple as that.
83
There was and is certainly some truth to the distinction but in further review, Republicans had the largest deficits and Republicans helped a few people help themselves to large pieces of the pie. Trump is certainly a change but the absence of civility includes an absence of disguise.
35
@Wayne
The whole Republicans want government to get out of the way so that people can help themselves is belied in the way they hand out farm subsidies, Defense spending, etc.... Republicans want government to get out of the way so that people they like (the wealthy) can help themselves. This is not just an aberration of Trump. He just ripped the mask off.
51
Years ago, the Democrats bailed out the banks and not the American people, who were left homeless after predatory loans made them bankrupt, and their millions of pets were left behind or dumped in shelters to die. None of the perps who cheated the people went to jail. Then Obama signed the Monsanto Protection Act. I didn't see big government doing very much to help the people under Democratic rule - that hasn't really happened since LBJ.
10
If you are right, please explain Charlie Baker, Republican Governor of Massachusetts, or for that matter Andy Beshear, the apparent Democratic Governor-elect of Kentucky. Even partisan voters can be persuaded by non-ideological, common-sense candidates, even if they don't agree 100% with their platforms. It's not all tribal.
2
I have been making this argument to my incredulous friends for awhile -- though without all the research, just based on what the conversation (or more likely, argument) looks like. This is why people will vote for candidates that support policies that have a negative impact on their everyday lives.
It seems to be pretty much the same dynamic as being a sports fan. People experience the emotional reward of their team winning and the anger at opponents, especially rivals. I am a big baseball fan and when I think about the dynamic, it's familiar. It doesn't matter to me that the LA Dodgers have played better baseball than the SF Giants since 2014. I still adopt the ABD attitude in the post-season: anyone but Dodgers. Because they are the Giants' baseball nemesis.
I guess it's a reptilian brain thing. It isn't intellectual or analytical. It's emotional. Nick Hornby wrote in "Fever Pitch"
“...So please, be tolerant of those who describe a sporting moment as their best ever. We do not lack imagination, nor have we had sad and barren lives; it is just that real life is paler, duller, and contains less potential for unexpected delirium.”
Choosing the people who make policy and laws and set the national tenor shouldn't be like this. But how do we put a stick in the spokes of this powerful cycle?
It seems plain to believe that more than anything, right wing media needs to rely on the us-vs-them model in order to stay afloat. What is disconcerting is that this model is leading to more violence and division.
3
This article paints partisanship as symmetrical. Many of the researchers write in passive voice, and don’t assign responsibility for partisanship to any particular actor.
Partisanship is not the weather.
It is encouraged and manipulated. It is the bi-product of human’s intentional behavior and choice.
From what I observe - some in our nation think thar abiding by the law and behavioral norms is a foundational principle. Others in the nation refer to exogenous foundational principles to justify ignoring the law or disrupting norms.
So, widening partisanship is not about policy, and it’s not «about nothing," it’s become a question of the viability of democracy itself.
Thinking about rivalries based on identity rather than ideas would be more relevant if the ideas involved were similar, and all that was different was group identity. Something like the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry. There are some on the extremes who see the two parties as mostly similar, and they can make a sort of case, but there are some very real differences going on in the areas of economic and social policy. (Differences somewhat clouded by the Republicans often pretending to support Democratic policies: "saving" Social Security, rather than doing away with it, and promising better, more affordable health care for all, and so on...) But when it comes to the right to abortion, the Republicans don't even pretend, and this is one of the clear issues that helped Trump squeak to his EC win.
If only we could vote on the important issues or at least give every citizen a chance to state where they stand on the bigger issues like gun control. We would see people from both parties realizing that they agree on some issues. Polling doesn’t work, we need a national way to find out where most people stand on the issues. Then we could vote for a leader who has great leadership skills to carry out our chosen policies rather than the one with the best sound bites.
Gallup says that as of October 1, 2019, 26% of voters identified as Republican, 29% as Democrat and 43% as independent, and that of the independent voters, 41% lean more to the Republican party and 48% lean more to the Democratic party.
On the fringes, the most avid Democrats vs the most avid Republicans, this is tribal warfare, pure us vs them. Moving from the fringes towards the center, the debate becomes more policy/issue-based, more focused on the quality of the leader. Trump pushes the process more to the warfare side because he believes he is most effective as a campaigner in that zone.
But all this notwithstanding, there is still the question of who are you going to vote for. It is far from clear that any of the democratic contenders will be able to beat Trump in 2020. It is complicated, there are many who feel a person like Trump is needed to get done what needs to be done and that, although he will misbehave, congress and the courts will control him enough to prevent a disaster. Maybe they are right.
1
In fact, it is articles like this one which is partially responsible for our current state of division. The most consequential divide in this country is our irreconcilable perceptions of truth.
Though there had always been ideological differences between conservative and progressive ideology, there were liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. With the passage of the Civil Right Act, Republicans seized upon the Southern Strategy - aligning themselves with largely racists sentiments to define their party. The Right sought out singularly divisive issues like abortion, religion, and gun rights taking up one side and demonizing the opposing position. Reagan pushed distrust in government, saying the liberals were taxing you too high to give it to welfare queens, were fiscally irresponsible, and were weak militarily. Republicans dismantled the Fairness Doctrine giving rise to a perverted reality that focused on sewing resentment and fear and distrust of Americans of a different party and the media. It was either you were with us or against us with no compromise. Ideology no longer matters.
This article fails to define a reality. It does not acknowledge that this was a designed, organized, and implemented method to garner support among people who might not be interested in the deeper agenda which is manifest in the form of income inequality. It is mainstream media's responsibility to help define reality but sadly it has been neutered by engineered fears of bias.
1
A large percentage of whites perceive that Christian culture and values are under assault and that America is becoming a bewildering place for people who still, knowingly or unknowingly, cling to the Original formula for America: Of, By and For the White Male Landowners and their preferred ways of thinking and doing. It appears Christian culture (whatever that actually is, for it has little to do with what Christ allegedly espoused) is doing better than ever, with more political clout than at any time, and I can see no conspiracy to restrain Christians in any way. Evangelical churches and organization flourish and they have influenced their agendas in a majority of the nation's state houses, and in a number of large school districts. (Christian doctrine is now included in some school textbooks, particularly science.) But there are convincing trends showing that all this cannot last more than another generation or two. White Fright is a powerful thing, because humans, as all animals, react to existential threats with anger and possibly violence. It is hard wired, after all. So those who are stirring up these fears in especially, non-college educated whites, are doing a disservice to all. That being said, progressives need to adopt a habit of "acknowledgement and reassurance" towards those who are so fearful, meaning: we need practice some acceptance towards those who perceive threats to their culture and way of life, and we need to demonstrate that they will not lose them.
1
@Gary Pippenger
They will, and should, lose them.
As long as the media and the American public treats politics as a spectator sport, this increase of tribalism and diminishment of policy as deciding factors for people’s votes will continue.
1
As you allude to in your last paragraphs, the answer to these kinds of questions is not either/or but both/and. Partisanship and ideology feedback on each other so the better approach is to try to understand competing ideas and find solutions that address both.
this is not even hard.
"If left and right are split mainly because of differences over policy, the chances of achieving compromise and overcoming gridlock are higher than if the two sides believe that their values, their freedom, their right to express themselves, their very identity, are all at stake."
the democrats are debating policies, and the republicans are debating from a bunker. it's the republicans, not the democrats, who are motivated by a fear for their values, freedom, expression and identity.
the two sides are not even fighting over the same things on the same terms. this is why, for example, congressional republicans are so willing to march into hypocrisy to defend the indefensible.
3
In my experience, most people I talk with about politics lack the skill or knowledge to have a cogent discussion - it therefore turns into a us vs. them stalemate. Those I speak with can't articulate their point and rely upon conspiracy talking points or news person(s) opinions to state "their" opinion. I think it is laziness and poor education at the heart of the schism.
4
Take my team, the South Carolina Gamecocks. In 1988 we were in the middle of a national scandal about steroids in football. Sports Illustrated came out with an expose by a former SC player who said steroid use was rampant on the team. What was the prevailing attitude of the public here in Columbia? We cheated? We were a part of a nationwide scandal that was endangering the health of football players? If your home team has ever been involved in scandal, you know the answer.
This is what politics has become. Not a collection of like minded people who share the same life philosophy and goals, but a football (or basketball, soccer, curling or whatever) team. No doubt, in the 80's, USC (the real one, not the west coast pretender) fans would have been outraged if one of our rivals, Georgia, Tennessee, or (forfend!) Clemson would have done the same thing. But that's football, not politics. Until now.
Would anyone, older than 30, have ever believed that REPUBLICANS would now be minimizing RUSSIAN interference in our elections?
10
Tribal, unfortunately, wins out with the majority more often than not simply because there is very little thought involved, being an intense visceral reaction to some perceived threat. And perceived is the operative word. Just as in the lead up to the Civil War, the moneyed, propertied, patriarchs of the South convinced poor, uneducated Southerners that it was in their best interest to fight against the North, when in fact it was almost guaranteed that they would lose everything. And they fought regardless of any unifying ideology other than the continuation of slavery and plantation economics. Everything that they were convinced was true by their patriarchs was in fact a lie. To this day Southerners still harbor a resentment to the North, especially to Washington. Tribal stays with you much longer than ideology. We are in a similar, troubling, and dangerous time, led by a man that has no concept of truth and honor, spewing hatred of the other daily, concerned only with his and his fellow billionaires success, at the expense of everyone else.
3
Much of this is spot on; I vote more against the Democrats than in favor of Republicans. As a (secure borders) Libertarian, I despise both parties, but I could never see voting for an agenda of Political Correctness and redistribution of wealth.
2
@RJ - Libertarians are Republicans who are afraid to admit it.
@RJ
Then why are you voting for the party whose entire function and reason for existence is exactly the redistribution of wealth?
Any analysis, including this one, that fails to begin by asking the most important question about our ideological and political divisions, is itself doomed to fail to explain them. That question is:
WHAT ABOUT THE LYING?
It is no exaggeration to say that Trump and the historically unrecognizable Republicans who support him have made truth optional. These attacks vary from the picayune (biggest crowd size) to the enormous (climate change is a hoax). We used to have strong differences about what conclusions to draw from facts, or which facts were more important than others. But we have never had a one-sided, wholesale assault on the truth itself -until now. The term “fake news” itself is a clarion call to defend against attacks on the foundation of our civilization. It is the equivalent of book burning. Do these views make me a tribal ideologue? 40% of the country says they do. But I am not.
4
This divide did not start with Trump. He is the culmination of years of politicians using fear, misogyny and race baiting to win elections. The civil rights movement of the 60's- 70's coincided with strides in science and education as well. The advent of computers and the internet sped up the rate of change. Change is scary and some win and some lose. Obama spoke the truth when he said "...they cling to their guns and religion..." as evidenced by the man in the t-shirt. Trump took that sentiment and turned it into a badge of courage for those who would stop the forward march of time.
2
Negative partisanship is important. That's why Democrats win when they focus on Republican policies like taking away health care. I've never voted pro-Democratic in my life, but I always, always vote anti-Republican. Anything that hurts the Repulican party, I'm for it.
2
It’s amazing an astute democratic strategist can only speak off the record, yet this strategist wasn’t astute enough to carve out a position where one could speak independently about polling.
Life itself is not just a choice between red or blue or left or right. But somehow those are the only choices we have when it comes to choosing our Government. And that fact polarizes.
As long as we have a democratic system that makes it practically impossible to have a multi-party system where people can have more nuanced ideas and policies and where parties are 'forced' to compromise (like we all are in real life), we will always think of the 'other party' as the enemy.
In short, it's time to overhaul our democratic system.
1
Until 2016 politics was a war of ideas. After 2016, with the focus on Identity Politics and the Left convinced they were about to control the Government it became You against Us. Can't really call it Us against Them when I am clearly in the Them camp. And, we who are clearly in the camp have gotten the message loud and clear. It isn't the President who you really hate, its ALL of his supporters. The new normal? Only if democrats win in 2020.
The ongoing pivot by the Republicans in elected office is towards blind faith in Trump-Pence and disregard for rule of law. Beliefs and faith instead of empirical facts and reality by these Republicans demonstrates a dangerous cult following of the leader. In all of history, there has never been a cult that survived and never a cult that dispersed without significant social trauma.
The Trump-Pence GOP is leading our nation down a well trodden path of self-destruction by way of national loyalty to two men versus national loyalty to our nation and its laws.
4
You can gather all of the data that you want and analyze this to death, but the answer is actually fairly simple. As a lifelong moderate Republican I can assure you that I have no great affinity for the Democratic Party or many of its far left proposals. However, today’s Republican Party has sold its soul to a despicable demagogue and worked tirelessly to create an authoritarian oligarchy while destroying our air, water and planet. Given my age, I will probably never live long enough to ever vote for another Republican. The Democrats wish to retain our constitutional republic. I don’t want to, but I will vote for Elizabeth Warren, if I have to. That’s hardly tribalism. It simply comes down to whether or not you wish to preserve our form of government.
11
The GOP hasn't had a leader with ideas at all since Reagan. The current President and his supporters are opposed to ideas. The Democrat leaders have ideas; the Republicans exist mostly to keep those ideas from becoming policy.
That said, most Americans wouldn't recognize an idea if it hit them in the face.
2
A broader view may be useful for understanding the intensity of the partisan divide here in our country and around the world.
Heightened anxiety, even to the point of feeling that one's very existence is threatened, is a natural feature of this era. We are at what would 'normally' be the end of the current relatively beneficent, warm, wet interglacial phase of the earth's 3 million year old climate cycling. A long, dry, extinction-threatening glacial phase should, so far as our deep unconscious knows, be beginning and it's time to get ready for very hard times. And from the deep unconscious comes a call to awaken to the impending difficulties and marshall resources. To energize and promote appropriate action, the call to awaken is accompanied by increased anxiety. For many, especially those unfamiliar with the broader context of this extraordinarily unique era, the increased anxiety fosters intolerance, even hatred, of the 'other.'
Now, human beings have pulled off the greatest feat of geoengineering in history and added enough extra heat to the climate system to prevent our going into the next glacial phase. So, instead of preparing for a 100,000 year long cold phase, we need to respond to the warning from our deep unconscious by working together to prevent the worst effects of manmade global warming. That really is a suitable challenge for a more mature human race.
2
Historian John Lee Eighmy coined the phrase "cultural captivity" to describe the development of Southern culture as shaped by relationship between racial and economic circumstances of many southerners and the evangelical churches they attend.
Could it be that cultural captivity might extend to their politics? Many that earlier voted for Barack Obama have been have been "captivated" by a rough rhetoric that the plays upon race and economic equality, extending their allegiance to current administration.
Edsall and many N.Y.C./D.C. commentators assume incrementalist, centrist politics expresses liberal democracy, the Constitution, the post-war international economic and political order. It is actually the narrow world view of the urban professional class and liberal wing of the political oligarchy, with little gut appeal to the multiracial working class or young people.
America’s accelerating racial and class division is driven by historical and economic forces far deeper than the two Parties. The American political spectrum has been pried open to encompass white supremacy and radical socialism. Pushing past the lies, nastiness, and superficiality, you find wide-ranging discussions about existential questions vital to America’s survival as a Republic. Moderate politics, far from being a safe haven, is the morass that stifles the debates America needs to move forward. Which ideology and politics provides the clearest solutions that benefit the vast majority of Americans?
2
Can't we just acknowledge that we are different, that is, red vs. blue? We are not, as President Obama said "a United States of America" but a "Red State and Blue State America."
The red states want guns, are against abortion, against immigration, and hate diversity/political correctness. The blue states want everyone to have health care that's affordable, abortion rights that are the woman's choice, equal rights for women and minorities, and a compassionate solution to immigration problems.
Compromise, to both sides, feels hard and undesirable. But also, compromise can be seen as watered down policy in the areas they are concerned about.
That's why this country is very stuck right now, and the only way is to pit side against side, and let the processes see if some other way of compromise can be found.
We are just different.
2
People feel more antagonistic toward the other party because politicians have played on fear, bigotry and resentment.
That didn't begin with Newt Gingrich, but he inflated it and moved it along. Republicans have been fear-mongering and race-baiting since before Nixon.
and now, we just begin to notice the harm it does to the nation.
People today are with Trump even it it means being against the Constitution.
2
Ask my Congressman, Scott Perry. He repeatedly speaks about "liberals" and "democrats" as if they are less than human. I have repeatedly asked him to stop. We can have disagreements on policy, but treating other people as less than human is not something anyone should be doing.
10
The difference is based on real idealistic differences: white supremacy and racism v. equal rights, tolerance and pluralism; autocracy v. Democracy; concentrated wealth v. A strong middle class; health care for profit and the few v. Affordable health care for all; government controlled rights for the few v. Equal rights; electoral college rules v. Popular vote rules; and on and on. What type of America do you want to live in?
9
It is extremely difficult to say that this is strictly a war of ideas when the bulk of Trump supporters are incapable of understanding, analyzing and discussing various ideas in the first place. In Trumps world, ideas and truth are what you make it, reality is not on the table. The world around them does not exist. Cognitive dissonance prevails to the point it has reached "cult" proportions and several who have been involved in cults have stated that the same de-programming process that has been done to remove cult members from cults would be the same in this case.
The bulk of those that voted for Trump were always there, previously voted Republican and still do even if it is against their self-interest. Very deep divisions will remain and I am not exactly sure how one deals with a group who are more than willing to accept Fascism, the destruction of the rule of law, democracy and its institutions that were designed to protect them in the first place.
7
Hopefully we can move these persuadable folks by pointing out that we want our country to remain free and not turn into a third world hereditary dictatorship. A vote for Trump moves us towards hereditary dictatorship.
4
No one would seriously propose such an argument in 1860. Partisan divide was deeply moral: you were either for slavery or against it. Speaking now of the divide in this way obscures the fact that on one side of the divide are those who say "Black lives Matter" and on the other are those who do not think that they do. If you doubt this just ask them to agree with the slogan, and they will not.
3
One aspect the article does not address that the issue might not be the same for liberals and conservatives. There is a deeper difference between progressively thinking people and the ones on the right spectrum. One indicator is that we see a significant “right-left” spectrum in many societies. On the issue who thinks more value based and who more us vs them there is also a clear distinction along the left/right demographic I think...... guess who is more likely on what side ;)
Well of course it is.
It's a war of our ideas (Progressives) against Them (people driven by fear of ideas and the other).
2
Whether it's an ideological difference or political tribalism is completely immaterial to me. I just know that whatever side the guy with the "God guns and Trump" T-shirt is on, I'm on the opposite side. Maybe it's just our sartorial choises that define us.
5
Some of the divide is anthropological, yes. But there are multiple chains of clashing causality here. Surely much of the antagonism is class-driven. This morning I listened to a BBC commenter on their upcoming Brexit election saying people find politics too complicated to understand, and they're sick of politicians. The zeitgeist is indeed infinitely complicated. Russian hacking and propaganda are at an all-time global high. I don't think anyone alive can understand the global electronic trading markets at any given second.
But yes. Much of this is chthonically primal. I can't understand why people like this bloviating, drunken-uncle garbage fire of a human. I have to say there is a fear and mistrust of the educated, and of education itself. Never forget the American love of anti-intellectualism.
3
I'd agree - most of this isn't about anything. Most people think the current health care system needs improvement, most people don't want to be in wars, most people think we need a better immigration policy, most people want a clean, sustainable environment, most people don't think anyone should be killing fellow humans with automatic weapons, most people want food, clothing and shelter. Most people love their children and want to leave a better planet for their grandchildren. Really, what's all the disagreement about?
Usually, I find Mr. Edsall's insights clarifying, however, today's column is filled with the type of obscurantist academic jabberwocky that sounds like it came out of the latest Modern Language Association conference. All heat -- and even worse academic jargon heat -- little light. I think two minutes of James Carville is worth volumes of this flagellation. Sorry Mr. Edsall.
3
To answer your headline question, it is an intramural fighting between servants of the plutocracy to determine which faction can receive a marginally larger slice of the overclass’ largesse that is on offer. It also helps generate “news” to keep the advertisements from completely overwhelming viewers and readers. It has little to do with the vast majority of us.
The answer is that that we are at an evolutionary inflection point between “pre” and “post” -civilization versions of humanity. Humanity “Version 1” has walked the Earth for 200,000 years and lived rough just like every other species, yet within only the past few thousand years have we established lasting civilizations; Humans Version 2 came about as those living arrangements required very different skill sets. Now Trump is the leader that tribal and superstitious Version 1 hopes will stave off their demise as they’re replaced by scientific and peaceful Version 2. Peace and science are simply more reproductively efficient than tribal violence and superstition, and evolution’s sole focus is propagation. Humans tend to a sole member of the species, and it's hard to propagate a species if your children die from measles or playing with guns. So, the Republicans can’t help but to fight tooth and nail as Version 1 and Version 2 battle to the death. Don’t worry, this will sort itself out over the next 10,000 to 20,000 years.
1
Newt Gingrich upended modern day collegiality in congress by demonizing Democrats through personal attacks that have now become the norm. He wasn't interested in winning through debating policy. He won by cast his opponents as morally bankrupt, if not entirely subhuman entities out to destroy the country. He was (and still is) very good at it and it worked so well for the Republicans that casting Democrats as personally bad, illegitimate and dangerous is now the Republican response to any policy difference they have with Democrats (just look at how Republicans treated Obama). Karl Rove brought Gingrich's scorched earth approach to the campaign trail and Roger Ailes brought it to Republican State TV. It's all awful. And ironically it's the Gingrich, Rove, Ailes legacy that ushered in Trumpism that is now, in fact, destroying the country. Thanks Newt.
3
Let's look at a 1989 quote from Newt Gingrich:
"The left-wing Democrats will represent the party of total hedonism, total exhibitionism, total bizarreness, total weirdness, and the total right to cripple innocent people in the name of letting hooligans loose."
And another quote from him from given to college Republicans in 1978:
"One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty."
He pioneered a type of political speech that was disingenuous, tribal, and, at times, venal. It also seemed to propel him on a quick rise to the speakership while signaling a significant change in tone to the party's ethos.
4
There appears to be a universal need for a scapegoat.
Mussolini invented fascism around this concept. Groups can be blamed for whatever problem the transgressors are experiencing, real or imagined. It also provides a sense of belonging or inclusiveness to the blamers.
Trump and his cronies make use of this concept. Folks will actually vote against their own interests based on some short term psychological relief.
4
The explanation is easy. Two forces have come together in the last decade that has helped the divisiveness grow exponentially.
Social Media and Hate Groups
Now Trump comes along and becomes the bullhorn for the racists and other hater groups. These groups enjoy watching Trump do what they themselves have always wanted to do which is inflict cruelty and pain on the people they despise the most such as blacks, immigrants, and other people that don't look or think like they do.
These hate groups are seeing their surroundings and their old traditional ways of life being changed by the new generation of people. They will simply not change.
1
Just saw Rich Lowry on Morning Joe touting his book on Nationalism and how he's a "restrictionist" on immigration and that English should be the official language of the United States. I had heard his name before and assumed he was at least 70 years old because of his backward views. He's younger than I am (he's 51) and seems like an old-timey whiner about how America used to be great until those pesky immigrants started cooking their weird food and talking in funny languages. That's the division in this country. I noticed he never served his country, just went straight to reporting and mixing with National Review types. But I bet he likes burritos! Or at least tacos! And probably sushi too!
1
During the Spanish Civil War, Franco and the Nationalists declared that their opposition, the Republicans, were not true Spaniards. Hundreds of thousands died. Hope that's not where we're heading.
If the exact same issues span decades without improvement, what is there left to discuss? Is there really anymore to discuss on climate change? We know the answer. Gun violence? We know the answer. Health care? We know the answer. Voter fairness? We know the answer. And so in. No new ground has been revealed on any of these issues. It’s just “can you get the power to have your way.”
When republicans present ideas, it's a war of ideas.
When they have trump calling everyone names, then it's US vs THEM.
Republicans, ditch trump.
Then we can talk.
2
I find it somewhat ironic that Mr. Edsel seeks to cite the origin and impetus for personal political animosity without looking at his own profession and colleagues. Much blame for partisan vitriol is being blamed on the rise of social media and rightly so; however, it is ludicrous to ignore the role of mainstream journalism - and I use that term lightly - in promoting political hatred. The daily ridicule and ranting of his colleagues in this very partisan and widely read, once venerable, newspaper appear to be leading the charge. I am all for a war of principles over personalities - is the NYT?
Amazing - isn’t it.
With all that trump has said and done, he still has his supporters.
If being a liar, a racist, and a misogynist were not enough, we can now add alleged criminal activity.
His supporters are dwindling, but some will not budge from their support of this person.
Perhaps these people don’t want to admit they were mistaken in their support of his candidacy, and now that he is in office they can’t admit that they were wrong.
Perhaps his supporters are just like him - so why not continue supporting his racist, lying, and misogynistic actions.
I saw this with Richard Nixon. Before, during, and after the impeachment threat, people supported him. They just couldn’t believe they were wrong for picking him twice for the White House job. At least he had the decency I resign before the impeachment process started.
Let’s just hope Trump’s supporters are dwindling fast enough that we can get a Democrat in the White House in 2020.
1
Somebody, please, research statistics for listeners and/or watchers of Rush Limbaugh (and his ilk), and of Fox News--comparing hours, days, years watched with where the persons are in hardened, rightward views. My experiences and observations tell me these media sources treat everything at an OMG level fostering, wallowing in dystopia that seeds and nurtures emotional divides, vilifications, lop-sided premises, and loud, self-propelling assertions. Now we are harvesting their GMO crops.
That's how we got here.
1
I force myself to listen to the President's rallies even though I am diametrically opposed to nearly everything he does. I do so because I am trying to understand who is supporters are and why they support someone who so easily lies, distorts facts, and drums up there hate for the opposition. I consider myself fairly independent and like to make choices based on facts and outcomes instead of emotions and beliefs. The President would like his supporters to regard people like me as the "enemy", not simply someone with whom they disagree. This article gives some history which shows us that things are getting worse, but it doesn't provide any suggestions on how to reverse this trend. How can we make choices any more when people don't trust each other? I think that may be Trump's most potent weapon. He has convinced his followers that they cannot trust anything their opponents say.
207
@Independent One
I find that on the partisan and rally level, the narrative shapes the context of the issues. Murdoch and Ailes understood this and cultivated an alternative narrative based on rural cultural prejudices, fear and evangelicism. Still, focusing on issues and on corruption can overcome this so long as avoid the pitfalls of partisan language.
18
Russia and disinformation efforts have worked. Putin is pleased.
34
@Independent One
Every time I have done as you do; listen to the other side with a mind to fairness and understanding it makes me want to pull my hair out. It only reminds me of my Mormon upbringing and also of my maternal family's Southern Baptist thought. I just cannot listen to it any more. I know that they do not listen to me and have no intention of ever doing so. It's a non-joiner as much as I want to believe all people are good and open-minded, a good many just aren't.
49
I think the argument is about DEMOCRACY vs UN-DEMOCRACY.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trump is pushing an undemocratic, post-democracy dictatorship.
With all our wealth and technology, why the need for democracy?
I believe that Democrats must focus on the DEMOCRACY threat.
If Trump wins, he will encourage dictatorship, around the world!
My fear is that Democrats lack a new DEMOCRACY focus, now.
They are too focused on policy details and personality difference.
I suggest the DEMOCRACY song of Leonard Cohen (1992).
"Democracy is coming to the USA"
------------------------------------------
I hope Tom Edsall and the Times would discuss the song.
"Democracy is coming to the USA"
-------------------------------------------
2
Can there be a non-partisan assessment of false equivalence here? As a left of center individual, it is jarring to be considered unpatriotic and treasonous by the president, and by extension, his followers. Aren’t we seeing proof that the president’s authoritarian, nationalist and narcissistic agenda has negative consequences, from ill-advised trade wars, foreign policy that benefits autocrats, increases in hate crimes, assaults on the environment (even though huge numbers of citizens of all stripes favor environmental protections)?
I think it’s wrong to characterize those who do not agree with the president’s far right agenda as some equivalent anti-capitalist, globalist, atheist block on the left.
2
Of course, it's 'identity', as it tends to be in Europe and Asia. America is entering the tribal era of its decline. The entire Republican body is now saying "So what! He asked a country to get dirt on the Bidens! He threatened not to pay them their defense money. I'dda done that myself!"
The "Trump" thing is the end of program politics. Democrats may still be liberal-centrists; Trumpers are fundamentalists, lovers of gun anarchy and violence; and instruments for dirty money and anti-social behavior writ large. They love how dirty and unenlightened Trump is. That's the identity. The conservative' label is a fig leaf.
3
Such a great comment!
1
Trump runs the administration like a mafia boss. No one disagrees with him because they are afraid of his vicious repercussions. They have become a cult of Trump. This means the rule of law is a joke to them. Long established norms and civilized behaviour are also a joke. The end justifies the means. They are certainly outnumbered so they gerrymand and rig elections, stack the courts, undermine what they call the deep state, which is actually countless patriotic individuals doing real work under often hard circumstances, not to mention also using draconian tactics like incarcerating children for years. This creates unbelievable stress within the public. And it should, they are not brain dead.
We want a sane, normally functioningn individual for President who will work within the rule of law and follow the Constitution. It is NOT too much to ask.
2
I can't be civil or try to agree to disagree with the deplorable Trump supporters whose rationale for approving of him ranges from the ill-informed to the grossly bigoted. These people are the main reason the R party is now the warped Trumpist party and our democratic system has been trashed so that the basic checks and balances are largely ineffective against the assault of a crude demagogue, indicating the frailty of such corrective methods established by the founders. The fact that these people deny reality and accept Trumputin's Big Lie every time he spouts the latest falsehood is a sickening indictment of the low level of intelligence and critical thinking among millions in our electorate. If that sounds cynical and harsh, I'm actually understating the case.
2
Another fantastic comment!
Not entirely. It’s more a war of reason with the left arguing for demonstrably better policies vs the right arguing from feelings, appealing to people’s base prejudices and biases fuelled with billionaire oligarch campaign support. On the left we argue from evidence in favour of universal healthcare, gun reform, addressing climate change etc. On the right they appeal to people’s fears about Mexicans stealing their jobs, about spooky “death panels”, about “total and complete shutdown of Muslims coming into the United States”...
While all the researchers sited make valid points, not one of them delves into what has ignited today's intense polarization: we currently have a president who gleefuly spews hatred towards the other party.
We have never had a president who calls the other party "evil" and the "enemy of the people". His verbal vomit has nothing to do with policy, just manipulation of that base to vehemently hate anyone who disagrees with them. Riling them up with sick group think has nothing to do with policy.
For the political scientists sited to ignore the hatred vs policy by one man, by one party, is disingenuous.
3
Increasingly the divide among rank-and-file is one of education, comprehension, and reason. One side exhibits the behavior of a rational and well-informed populace, while the other behaves as a mob of easily manipulated simpletons and dim-wits.
A harsh observation? Perhaps. But when the base of a party cheers at the dismantling of a free and open press in a democracy, it's obvious they have little understanding of what and how this republic lives.
If the mob had its way, there would only be one Amendment. If progressives had there way, there would be one less.
1
so many policy positions boil down to race; taxes, guns, role of government, immigration
we're seeing 2 main partisan groups emerge; one diverse, one white
it is the loss of white power which is driving this. it's no coincidence that the most partisan leader invoked a racist trope en route to the white house.
1
Are we arguing that both sides are equally to blame for the divide and need to compromise because no. Who is this article written for? This part: "based on surveys conducted by American National Election Studies. Tracking a measure of white views of black Americans, he found...." is making an argument that this "partisanship" is based on whether White people are ok with Black people??? That we are really talking about measuring one party's RACISM against anothers. I'm Black. Those people we are talking about are expressing being ok with me and my kids. That is what this "partisan divide" you all write of is about. It's not "partisan" and it's not "both sides..." The divide comes from the Republican party abandoning everything they claimed to believe in from the teachings of Jesus to Russia to fighting corruption, and deciding to sell their collective souls and put all of their chips on the table defending a shameless, reckless man who lies with abandon daily. And the other side that I am on simply refuses to put up with it, as they should. Standing up for social justice isn't a tribal reflex, it is the right thing to do. All the words used here to make all of these academic claims would have been better used to make the argument that what the Republicans have allowed this man to do is repugnant and they should be ashamed. That is why we are divided. The Republican party has completely let us down.
2
I witnessed this tribalism when Bin Laden was captured. An acquaintance who is a staunch Republican refused to give Obama any credit, insisting that only “our brave soldiers” deserved praise. But last week when the ISIS leader was killed, she bestowed all the glory upon Trump himself. Go figure that one out.
1
At the heart of many Trump supporters allegiance to him is the natural hesitancy in all of us to admit we made a big mistake. Feeding this impulse is the seeking out of a justification for the poor decision by banning together with like minded people who reinforce the appropriateness of the decision and adopt a defensive posture against anyone who threatens that initial decision. Simply put, they don't want to look stupid and they don't want to take blame. Who does? It's a story as old as time and that's why some people are slowly coaxed into supporting destructive leaders.
Really?! This is a question? Intelligent, informed professionals are thinking this situation might NOT be existential? Jeez!
Missing here is the weaponization of "information" on a scale never seen before here, first via Fox "news" launched in 1996, now via sophisticated data analytics that target key voters like lasers, using completely untethered-to-fact "news" sources like FB to whip people into a frenzy of fear and rage that turns them into MAGAs and gets them to vote against their own economic interests. Follow the how and why of this weaponization... and that leads us direct to Putin, the Mercers, Kochs, and other domestic and int'l plutocrats. Our democracy has been hacked...and is under attack...
2
As you’re calling it „war“ of ideas rather than „competition“ the answers is already „them against us“...
This is the civil war of the 21st century, no doubt. Very sad.
1
“Anton was writing from the right, but the same apocalyptic fear of the consequences of defeat applies to the left.”
This incorrect and unsupported statement is worrisome. The division in America is fostered primarily by a propaganda machine, an age-old methodology of division and vilification of the other. It is a brainwashing apparatus financed by a cabal of crazy but crafty billionaires that includes Fox, Bible thumpers, Hannity, Limbaugh, robot Facebook and Twitter accounts, etc.
The utility of such putrid propaganda is well documented. Its most infamous success was the Haulocaust. Today’s approach uses modern media, but its objective again is mob rule and dismemberment of democracy.
4
It’s always been about ideas. Unfortunately, GOP has only one idea - race politics.
So, in other words, both sides are equally deluded.
1
It is a war over reality. Factual truth vs. lies and propaganda. Of hope and decency vs. selfishness and paranoia. It's that simple.
1
White + male + christian is what these Trump supporting Republicans want to maintain - both men and women
1
I think a quote from Mark Twain sums up the problem facing America: “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
Why sugar coat things? Anyone who still supports Trump at this point is ignorant and there is no hope of convincing them they are wrong, no matter the facts or evidence. My entire family, save my brother and I, are ardent Trump supporters and are incapable of being swayed. It's like a cult.
I think the only way we can get ourselves out of this predicament is, as others have said, if the Republican party loses so incredibly bad at all levels that it is forced to reevaluate itself and come back to the table of reason, reality, and civility. Until then, I don't see the level of partisan rancor changing any time soon. Even if Trump is impeached, the Republican party is ripe for another demagogue to step in and take his place, like Don Jr.
If you love your country, vote out Republicans at all levels. Send them a message that they are no longer fit to govern.
2
I see the idea of party loyalty somewhat in regard to the concept of the term liberal and the Dems. The two are associated in my area and for high school students, “lib” is a slur and thus the Dems are evil. At the same time, I see many older voters who don’t approve of Trump’s rhetoric but will never vote Dem due to the abortion issue. Trump’s campaign commercial highlighted that concept during the World Series. The Dems have a big hill to climb.
A headline phrased as a searing question that's being asked a quarter-century too late?
Watch out, David Brooks, the competition is heating up.
1
So people who can't make up their minds are the ones deciding our fate.
God and Guns? The ability of a human to mix ideas completely has always fascinated me but this current tend to justify ANYTHING, is just weird. Is the God on the tee shirt Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds?
It’s easier on the psyche to wear a T-shirt that says “God Guns Trump” than one that says “I’m severely underprepared to compete in the 21st century economy and I’m looking for someone to blame.”
2
"Is American political conflict relatively content-free — emotionally motivated electoral competition — or is it primarily a war of ideas".........
If it were a war of ideas, then facts would matter and liars would be punished instead of rewarded with votes and adulation.
1
Democratic leaders better be reading the last four paragraphs very carefully. Especially the last sentence of the quotation.
There are those Americans who prefer an authoritarian system there are those Americans who prefer a democratic system.
There are those Americans who prefer all-white Americans only; there are those Americans who prefer just Americans.
There are those Americans who prefer alternative facts; there are those Americans who prefer just the facts.
There are those Americans who prefer unfettered, crony Capitalism; there are those Americans who prefer Capitalism with a capital S (yes – a little social control – New Deal style)
There are those Americans who believe in (and dangerously identify with) a “great leader”; there are those Americans who prefer a nation of laws for ALL, no matter how rich or powerful their station.
And so on …..
But it is very evident which system is preferred by Putin and the other “great leaders” of the world, including our own would-be dictator – President Trump.
Time to choose, Americans.
2
The battle of ideas happens primarily within the Democratic Party. The Republicans are dominated by quasi religious fundamentalists for whom there is only one “truth”.
3
Trump supporters at least tacitly agree with his overt racism, xenophobia and white supremacy. It’s not really complicated at all.
1
On certain issues, it seems like it's selfish versus unselfish. Do we care about any principle beyond our own wallets?
I'd rather see a downturn in the economy than the destruction of our environment, the killing of refugees, the loss of the joy of peaceable assembly, and general disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law. The GOP is a bunch of thugs at this point, and I do not care for their tactics or their greed.
1
‘Us vs. them” - them vs. us - they ARE us - we ARE them. We’re all in this together. When will the “us-es” and the “thems” ever figure that out? Walls, guns, abortions, machismo t-shirts - are these the central concerns of our lives? Or, are we all just trying to keep our heads above water, our families happy and healthy, and a roof over their heads and some food in their bellys? I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I usually support whatever candidate ( be he/she Red, Blue, Purple, Green, Orange - sorry, couldn’t resist ) or chartreuse, that will help me accomplish the above mentioned goals and to be able to face my god when the time comes. Really, people, is that so hard to do? Simplify.
1
Strategists for politicians? Aren’t they like economists for global conglomerates? They have used far too many foolish explanations. Is there nothing left other than to choose the truth. The Truth? What’s that!?
Long before Trump, liberal progressives began chipping away at the constitution and traditional values that have made this country great. Those running for president won't even admit that last fact, that this a great country. Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong business man, when asked by Fareed Zakaria why he was risking everything in protest, incredulously answered....freedom. Dems dislike freedom because it gets in the way of their ubiquitous agenda. Responders to this piece will say Trump and his supporters are bullies and racists but the truth is that it's about political power and control.
1
@JAC
Sheesh. We just want some reliable health care, affordable education so our kids can, among other things, help combat climate change by crafting policy that preserves our wonderful planet, and a secure retirement so we don't have to starve in the streets after our useful days are over.
I really wish you people would just go to that deserted island Peter Thiel keeps talking about and leave the rest of us alone to create a civilization that works for people.
Click-Whirr...The goal of every politician or priest is to move their audience into the Click-Whirr mode. We live in the information age and when our brains are overloaded with too many conflicting ideas it resorts to the Click-Whirr response. When someone is lied to thousands of times the brain says, "believe everything" or" believe nothing." That is where America is today!!!
Trumpism is a sick zeitgeist. Like many serious illnesses, it will pass unless it kills the patient, America, first.
1
The topic has been framed wrongly, in my humble opinion.
By cowardly accepting that lies are just another form of truth (or being confronted with loosing advertisers) the media has enabled a form of politics that will only be reigned in after a massive collapse. The horse is out of the barn. The damage done.
I'm unwilling to slink away from expressing disgust with the braindead folks seen in the photo from Tupelo, Nov 1. When three years ago I may have seen something redeeming in these people, I now see zombies following a cult.
1
America is having a schizoid period. It is a bit like an individual coming to terms with shame. One part of you is in denial, defensive. The other part has come to terms with the past, owned it and wants to move on with life. The 'again' in Trumps slogan is a last ditch attempt to feel blameless through a false sense of sanctimony and superiority. I honestly believe it is a losing proposition and hopefully the swing voters will have seen the empty promise of wanting a nation to continue to be its lesser self.
For the sane majority, politics is a debate of ideas. But with respect to the partisan pro-Trump right, it is ABSOLUTELY a war between us and them. They are illogical, hopelessly tribal, ignorant, and beyond logical persuasion or compromise. Our only thoughts of them should be how to out-vote them. Sometime in the future many of them will ultimately feel shame for their foolishness and I am sure they will engage in elaborate justifications and denials, but that's on them; it's not my concern.
John Stewart had a great line at a comedy show in NY the other evening while trying to understand the 10% of voters who went from Obama to Trump. "I broke up with my girlfriend and now I'm dating a toaster oven". Baffling!
Power is the liquor of the politician.
Power at all costs makes a corrupt politician.
The Democrat party is fighting for their corrupt lives.
Trump is a man that has interrupted the plans of the folks in charge.
The lengths to which they have gone to remove the threat of exposure does not speak well for American democracy.
The media has lost all sense of fairness and simply is no longer embarrassed by publishing completely fake narratives as directed by their political masters.
It is coming to a head.
The epic battle.
Barr/Durham vs pencil neck Larry Schiff.
Sad to see a major political party devolve into such a cesspool.
I recently voted for a Republican candidate, because the Democratic option was too corrupt for my liking, and I knew that behind all of the ridiculous hyper-partisan garbage on the Republican candidate's website, this was a good person who actually tried to help their constituents. And yet voting GOP this one time took a lot of soul searching and it hurt. Go figure!
@far left liberal
We don’t vote for a candidate. We vote for a party. Really, do you actually not understand this?
Read the book, "Dying of Whiteness" by Jonathan Metzl. From gun control to healthcare, Metzl finds that some white Americans would rather die than betray the politics of their identity.
1
There are those Americans who prefer an authoritarian system; there are those Americans who prefer a democratic system.
There are those Americans who prefer all-white Americans only; there are those Americans who prefer just Americans.
There are those Americans who prefer alternative facts; there are those Americans who prefer just the facts.
There are those Americans who prefer unfettered, crony Capitalism; there are those Americans who prefer Capitalism with a capital S (yes – a little social control – New Deal style)
There are those Americans who believe in (and dangerously identify with) a “great leader”; there are those Americans who prefer a nation of laws for ALL, no matter how rich or powerful their station.
And so on …..
But it is very evident which system is preferred by Putin and the other “great leaders” of the world, including our own would-be dictator – President Trump.
Time to choose, Americans.
God Guns and Trump
Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.
Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
A parallel to be noted is the massive support Senator Joseph R. McCarthy received after launching his “witch hunt” in 1950 and the swiftness with which it evaporated after McCarthy’s attack on the Army and censure by the Senate in 1955.
False piety and false promises by Republicans have kept disenfranchised white, blue collar voters coming back for more lies each year. They’re lack of understanding about how Wall Street and politics work is a testament to the success of Republican propaganda that immigrants and foreigners are taking their jobs and ruining the nation. Corporate America and corrupt politicians are the only reason the blue collar class has lost jobs. Once these voters understand that, they’ll let go of their Republican puppet masters.
Policies or Beliefs. You get 280 characters to a Twit. You get 20 seconds TV time. You need a FaceBook page. Electioneering in the 21st century is fast and furious. People don’t want an explanation. They want to be captured by sight or sound or spectacle.
Serious discussions about policies put the public to sleep. They don’t want an economic, history, or science lesson. To capture their interest, you must appeal to emotional issues. Abortion. Gun control. Climate change. Immigrants. Fear of terrorism, Russia, Muslims, Gays, non-Christians, etc.
Facts are no longer relevant. A law banning all abortions will not stop abortions—until Roe v Wade abortions occurred in spite of illegality.
Sea levels will rise, lands will become deserts, humanity will be at risk whether or not you accept the science or not.
Sensible gun restrictions will not result in AFT agents breaking into your home to remove the 20 plus guns you own.
Fear, there is no cure for, telling someone that they have a better chance of ISIS blowing them up in NYC is less than being attacked by a shark doesn’t register.
Appealing to your base is not about health care, but about core value issues—don’t pull the plug, abortion is a sin, 2nd Amendment rights, climate change is a sham, and the list goes on.
You are not defined by Keynesian economics or monetarist economics nor does it get the blood boiling. Perceived threats to your core values do.
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
Stephen Stills 1967
it's us against them. trump voters do not have any reliable positions on policy..... other than whatever trump tells them. the hate and victimhood are the things that drives them..... you absolutely cannot reason with them.
The Republican party has no ideas, zero, zip, nada. They have lies, distortions, attacks on democracy itself (Citizen's United), corrupt judges (Paul Manafort judge), and now they have the sleaziest, most classless individual ever to disgrace the office of president of the United States as their "renowned" leader. Thomas Edsall,be honest for a change. A War of Ideas? Ludicrous
1
yes its war!
either you stand for science, human rights and dignity, education, the environment, the rule of law. voting rights, equality for ALL people, reasonable regulation, healthcare, food, shelter for all....
or you stand with the GOP and Trump
could it be any clearer?
enough pearl clutching, pick a side
it's really good vs evil at this point
the future vs the past
It is best to seek the wisdom of great men in trying times such as these.
“Divide and rule, weaken and conquer, love and enslave, these are three tenets of politics”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, The Great Pearl of Wisdom
“Divide and rule, the politician cries;
Unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gedichte
“Division can't bring peace and security, only assimilation can.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Fabric of Humanity
The same organizations had the formula down pat: they indirectly started civil wars in mineral-rich regions by providing arms to opposing local factions, and sometimes even helped to create famines, in order to destabilize African countries. This made the targeted countries highly vulnerable to international control. Once the outside organizations had divided and conquered, they were then able to plunder the country’s resources.”
― James Morcan, The Ninth Orphan
2
Trump unleashed the us against "them", with the "us" able to ignore his lies, deceit and corruption, frustrating any common belief in Democracy.
This election is turning into a Civil War by other means.
Here in Lynchburg, Virginia we have a very bi-polar population of hard core,rabid Trump supporters who also wear Jesus on their sleeve. They are socially conservative. They know the regressive agenda they want can not be won by playing fair so they went all in for Trump. They are beyond reach. They would jump off a cliff if Trump tells them it's a swimming pool.
2
I must admit that "God, Guns & Trump" has a certain ring to it. Mic drop, followed by victory lap.
"Medicare-For-All, Equality and Warren" isn't a slogan I see that guy in the photo wearing anytime soon.
I wish simplistic slogans didn't matter.
Us Against Them
And it started sixty years ago.
Nixon Southern strategy.
Reagan kicking off his campaign from the ugliest location of Civil Rights movement: Philadelphia , MISS.
George Bush 1st running the Willie Horton ads
Now we have MAGA spew out by unabashed openly racist White man.
Two points worth referencing:
1) It was recently revealed that Reagan called Nixon in 1973 to console him "not to worry about Black Monkeys shouting at UN". He was referring to African Reps at UN.
2) Trump proudly called himself a Nationalist before his White audience after he spent last 10 years peddling a birther conspiracy about Barack Obama.
1
20-plus years of FOX News Whites R Us flag-waving and Hate Radio have so enlarged and inflamed the amygdala of 40% of Americans that it has created a neo-Confederate Renaissance with poor and middle-class whites championing modern Grand Old Plantation owners and their comprehensive gutting of wages, healthcare, regulation, democracy, the environment, science, infrastructure and just about any common good you can think of.
Only America is an unregulated national shooting gallery among rich countries as 393 million guns make the basic idea of public safety a cruel joke where police officers are scared to death of doing their jobs.
Only America has the most expensive, most obscene, immoral healthcare rip-off system in the world built on an extra $1 trillion mattress of excess annual corporate profits.
Only America among rich countries has a major political party dedicated full-time to widespread voter suppression, voter-file purges, gerrymandering, legalized 0.1% campaign finance corruption and rigged elections.
Only America among rich countries is the income tax code routinely rigged as a 0.1% Welfare Queen program.
Only Americans among rich country citizens deny manmade global warming, evolution, female body sovereignty and the basic building blocks of modernity.
Only in America among rich countries is the radical right-wing so successful at inflaming irrational fear and loathing in the masses that the common good is reduced to Republican rubble.
Heckuva' job, GOP.
4
No matter how you try to throw smoke and mirrors into the discussion, it is simple, do you believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, or are your partisan beliefs so entangled with personal life style that they cannot be separated and you would accept any style of government that supported your life style? Republicans have thrown the baby out with the bath water. Anything to uphold guns, immigration bans and racism, and generally hold the line on life style and conservative consolidation.
If you trust the fairness of the founding fathers and the Constitution, and if you seperate church and state, that should be all that is needed for a decision.
If you do not trust in Democracy to hold on to your life style, either you embrace authoritarianism, or you uphold anarchy. Either way it is a rupture in society.That is what we are seeing now.
That politics has descended into a team sport is true. More than once in a political argument I've pointed out that its not like we are going to get a no-harm, do-over, "hit the reset button", next season. Real life isn't football. Elections have consequences. And the people elected will pass laws that will effect our lives, now and for years to come. As we have seen from interviews from voters, many people are more than willing to vote against themselves if it means that their "team" wins. This behavior is a textbook example of stupid.
1
Isn't it a fact though, that the "under educated" (ie. "dumb"), vote for trump by wide margins? And look at that photo: that's a whole lotta' white.
A person (and a party) who wants to take health care away from 20 million people, of which about 15 thousand will then die unnecessarily annually , so that they can have a tax cut, such a person (or a party) I don't want to have ANYTHING to do with. Because in MY book, those are unscrupulous killers. Killers who favor a tax cut over the well being of our population. Killers who want to punish the lower class just because they are poor. So, for a moment, forget about ALL the other issues on the disgusting republican agenda. Because THIS issue, the killing of poor Americans, is for me the NUMBER ONE reason why I will NEVER vote for a republican any more. And why I disgust anyone who does. No matter how long I will live. And that has nothing to do with tribalism. It has to do with policy (or the lack thereof), nothing more, nothing less.
1
Well, we know who is the party of “fiscal responsibility”.
I can never make it through Edsall’s columns without losing patience. Does it ever occur to these academic researchers that by posing such preposterous questions as, ‘how would you rate black people or white people on a scale of 1-100?’ they are actually encouraging reductive, uncritical, downright stupid thinking? What a ridiculous concept, rating a massive, heterogeneous group of people on a scale like that. I’m sure if someone posed their questions to them, they ramble and dissemble their way through a non-answer, as they should! No one should ask or answer a question like that. I’d say an ability to formulate a quick answer to a question like that is itself a problem.
Sorry, but only one of our parties has gone off the deep end. Please don’t paint this as a case of “both siderism. “
3
In 1945,when the Third Army's 6th Armored Division burst through the gates of Buchenwald death camp, there stood a billboard with the following proclamation.
"Recht oder Unrecht, mein Vaterland." Right or wrong my Fatherland. People were willing to stand by their country even when it was committing mass murder.
People today are standing by their party and narrow beliefs despite the destructive effects of staying the course to darkness.
Folks step back and take a deep breath. Avoid angry voices and find what we have in common not what makes us different. Folks take the time to learn as much as you can about the issues and don't be mislead by sound bites.
Good luck to all of us.
1
No one at all expected Trump to win in 2016. And he wouldn't have won if Bernie or Martin O'Malley had been the opponent. At that time, the fever was still in check. But by attaining such a visible position, Trump was able to propagate and disseminate this visceral ill feeling among people who previously had been only lukewarm or amused by him.
Joe Biden demonstrates remarkable depth and prescience when he asserts that the country will be irrevocably changed if Trump is elected to another term. He's not saying that a terrible irrevocable change will come as a result of Trump's actions in a second term. He means the terrible change will be what precipitates the second term. He's saying that people themselves are in danger of a terrible radicalization. And he's imploring people to take a step back from the edge.
People don't have to go down this road. Economic and historical forces are not dictating it. Germany didn't radicalize at the point of a gun. People are being encouraged to make changes to their thinking and behavior that bodes very badly.
2
What I didn't see in the article was any blind studies. IOW, asking questions of people on policy only, and in depth. Recording those answers then asking if a Republican or i.e. a Democrat politician's stance were those views would you still not vote in your economic condition. Or would you and your family be willing to suffer economically just to vote your party.
To drive by the crumbling or recycled (lofts, museums) factories of the Midwest and then drive through the Trekkie theme park where San Francisco used to be, provides some insights about this issue.
Red state America was mutilated by globalization.
Blue state America has grown fat (well, buffed-up) on globalization.
Red state America is angry, or better, enraged. For good reason.
Blue state America is smug, and seeks to force its woke culture on everybody else, starting with the Red states. For bad reason.
Is it all in our heads?
Maybe it's just me, but doesn't it seem like there might be a fundamental cleavage in the real world between the two Americas?
66
@alyosha
Perhaps, West Virginia ought have voted differently over the last several decades, which would have done much to lift the state from poverty, drug addiction and toxic coal-related health issues plaguing that state for most of the last century.
78
@alyosha We can see this in Massachusetts, too -- just drive out beyond 495 and get off the highway. Charming villages and strapped former mill towns trying their best to adapt.
So much untapped talent and infrastructure outside our urban ring, waiting for us to figure this out.
13
@alyosha Yes, but nothing about the Trump administration is helping "Red state America." His policies just exacerbate or are neutral for them. What's one thing he's done that's been good for Red state America?
88
The right wingers projection of what THEY plan to do (persecution of dissent) if they win onto the left (which doesn’t DO that), is revealing in that it reveals the major difference between ideology.
It is about something.
An ideology of vindictive punishment on one side, and an embrace of tolerance and forgiveness on the other.
Enough false equivalence!
1
If moderate-to-conservative Democrats are unhappy with the left leaning policies of the leading primary candidate and moderate-to-liberal Republicans are horrified at He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named then why has a viable third party not arisen? Or for that matter why is Bill Weld polling at 3%?
What role is played by headlines that continually display the us vs. them theme? If people claim Fox news brainwashes, then the steady drumbeat of angst ridden liberal thumb typing has to be a factor as well. Echo chambers are echo chambers no matter what their ideology. Too many read only the headlines or the snippet of type (sorry I don't know the character limit as I don't use social media) rather than dig into information deeply. Humans who repeatedly hear a bit if information will eventually begin to believe it. This is why con artists succeed - they believe their own lies because they have repeated them so often.
I'm surprised that only 13 percent of voters show a willingness to deviate from party based on policy. Having never voted a straight ticket in my life, I know there are many voters who feel abandoned by their chosen party. We have learned to simply not talk about the thoughtful middle of the road process we use to choose a candidate lest stones start flying from both directions.
Anyone interested forming the CommonSense Party?
2
As divided as We The People now appear, I believe this may be the nature of a large and diverse republic. Think of the bitter disputes between Jefferson and Madison against Hamilton, the regional strive of the early nineteenth century (sadly culminating in the Civil War), isolationist sentiment before each World War, the Civil rights clashes, Vietnam, the environmental movement and climate change. Somehow, thanks to the insight and hard work of the Founding Fathers, we have governance mechanisms in place to to help us weather the crisis of the day: the ship of the USA state sails on, continuing to be the hope of the world. We may have a willfully ignorant captain at the helm, and be sailing some very rough seas, but the architects and builders of the ship got it right. We’ll continue our voyage without foundering.
1
At least as far as race goes, some if not much of the change has to do with changing demographics of the parties. Democrats are now younger and more diverse, Republicans older and whiter. The parties are evolving, not so much the members. The comparisons over time are thus potentially fallacious.
1
Yet another interesting, timely article from Mr. Edsall. All of this is on my mind daily. It amazes me how we descended from FDR and President Carter's civilizing efforts to the plutocracy desired by Justice Lewis Powell and ALEC. I don't know how to prevent some Americans from swallowing right-wing Fox propaganda, but it seems as if they want to. I feel as if I am a Social Democrat living in Weimar Germany in 1932, and am wishing I could talk with Robert Scholl and Otto Wels. They would probably advise, 'fight on'.
2
Voters propensities are defined by the political rhetoric they’re subject to. As that becomes ever more desperate, pervasive and toxic - not as a result of ideology, but of an unchecked thirst for money and power - so do the voters become so themselves.
This closed loop has always existed but has been amplified past a social breaking point by the internet. Despite the Dems tendency towards restraint (Obama’s “high road”), this will continue to dangerously polarize the culture until we choose a leader capable of unification. Or, until Klaatu and the robot show up.
1
I constantly fantasize about splitting up the USA. Why shouldn't the republicans be able to have a country they can be happy with -- without all of us liberals standing in their way? Because I sure would be happy if I could form a country without them standing in the way of a brighter future of progress, peace, justice, equality, sustainability, education... I could go on. Sometimes divorce isn't tragic, it's necessary.
6
Although Trump isn't the seed of division based on "identity politics", he has brought this divisiveness out into the open and is brazenly exploiting the ultimate self-defeating passions of those who are moved by his rhetoric. These divisions are toxic to the nation's health and serve the short term benefit of the Trump, his family, and what's leftover for the political will that enables such decadence.
1
There is also the degree to which the media fosters such tribalism. Ratings drive ads and revenue and keeping readers/viewers outraged works for both the right and the left. Reasoned discourse doesn’t sell as well, and so they “gin us up” on both sides. The howling mobs they’ve nurtured now tune out anything that isn’t rage-driven.
3
Donald Trump ran to the left of Hillary Clinton on many issues. He promised the best health care that would take care of everybody, and to pull back from military interventions around the world, in addition to his big beautiful and impenetrable border wall. Never mind that he never had the commitment or organizational skill to pull any of this off, it was the feeling that he would 'maga' that mattered. Since he became president, Trump has mostly invoked the decades-old tropes of the Republican party, without the patina of civil concern and with his own vicious secret sauce added. Mostly it's about stirring up the soup of resentment and fear of changing the status quo and weaponizing it into tribal hatred. It didn't begin with Trump.
3
I believe there are moderate AMERICAN solutions to most policy issues that a majority (say, 60%) of Americans can support. This article gives more credence than is merited to the far left & the far right. I believe we can return to effective governance via moderate, broadly supported legislation regarding immigration, gun, abortion, LBGQT rights, & climate change.
Churchill's book, History of the English-Speaking Peoples, makes evident the answer to Mr Edsall's opening question. There has always been an us versus a them. Only the issues shift over time. Reading Churchill's work, the divide 1000 years ago is almost unintelligible to the modern mind. Undoubtedly, to the minds of those 1000 years in the past, the divisions today would be equally so.
Unity is always ephemeral: the two divisions will set aside their differences, only when the nation is faced with an existential threat demanding unity. But unity is only quasi-stable, while division seems the norm.
Is this some human doom, written in DNA? Or are our divisions rooted in how we teach each other?
@Albert K Henning
Agree with your history lesson. The issue in America is scale and it's been building like as pressure cooker since the U.S. began doubling its population in the 1960s, mostly via 3rd world immigration. At 330 million, set to be 440 million in 30 years, we are too many.
That's exacerbated poverty, especially among poor working class whites who, finally, after 200 years were beginning to do better in some states in the late 1960s.
The Democratic Party - esp. the fringe left "woke" - need to revisit Bobby Kennedy's heartbreaking 1967 Hunger in America tour. RFK encountered 3rd world poverty among black Mississippians and white Appalachians. Many had no running water or indoor plumbing, decent shelter, food beyond rice and beans. It is not just poor blacks who in 2019 matter, but poor whites - whom this nation has always, always since the 1600s used for its labor, denigrated and considered expendable if not invisible.
The election of Trump, a man they know to be immoral and vile, was those Americans forcing the nation to see them. They had/have no expectations rich whites and the affirmative action Democrats would ever see them and respect them. THAT is still the core problem. Poor whites latched onto the GOP in 1980 because, like poor blacks latched onto the Democratic Party, they got nowhere else to go and no one to even admit they exist as human beings.
The Democrats must find a way to reach out and talk with that segment of America, one by one.
1
It's how we teach each other. Education is key.
@Maggie Well, now they have Donald,so their problems are over, right?
We all want to believe we live in a special time but is any of this really new? Is partisanship worse than the 60s, the McCarthy era, 1800-1860, and so on? This is perhaps one reason Hamilton touches such a chord -- Hamilton's time doesn't feel that different from our own. Perhaps Mr. Edsall should include some historians in his analysis.
Angry partisanship has always been a part of our culture but ultimately, as the saying goes, gravity always wins. We have Medicare, Social Security, civil rights for African Americans, gay marriage, and so on, because these things just make too much sense.
For the same reason we will ultimately have some form of universal health insurance, sensible gun laws, a serious fight against climate change (hopefully not too late) because these things just make too much sense. We must keep on fighting the fight.
2
Seems like the two sides have reached incompatible beliefs. Devil take the hindmost or we rise and sink together. How do you bridge that?
The GOP used to pay lip service to the latter, but there was an untapped market for the former which the GOP has chosen to serve.
This didn’t start with Trump. As was observed at the time by Lyndon Johnson, an acute political observer, the passage of the Voting Rights Act and other legislation moved what had been Southern Democrats quickly and firmly into the camp of the Republicans. The South was lost to Democrats, who became less diverse from a policy perspective even as they became and continue to be increasingly diverse from an ethic, racial and gender perspective. I don’t recall hearing that there was a similar watershed moment for what were once moderate Republicans to leave the party, but clearly issues like gun rights and abortion have, over time, reshaped the GOP.
While I suppose it is important for academic political scientists to argue the points discussed in this article, for me the answer is both sides are right. Yes, there are pronounced policy differences between the partisans on each side. And yes, the partisans in both parties are intensely tribal. And on third point made in the article, the partisans generally like their own fellow believers, they intensely dislike and fear their political opponents. But that is largely because they intensely dislike and fear the ideas and attitudes of their opponents.
So no, this didn’t start with Trump. But unlike any president that I can remember, he has amplified and exaggerated the tribal differences, first because he thinks that way himself, but also because he perceives a political advantage. And his opponents fear and loath him in return.
1
Differences between Democrats and Republicans used to be focused on ideas. Thanks to Trump, that is no longer the case. In Trumpworld, if you don't agree with him and follow him slavishly no matter where he leads, it makes you a bad person. In such an environment, keeping things on any higher plain is impossible.
Sociological studies form a consensus: agreeing with a viewpoint depends to a very high degree on whether one is told that that viewpoint is held by others of (or a leader of) one's own group.
This might be about wrenching us all into the next century. All great changes have been accompanied by wrenching discourse and changing ideas and norms. In this sense all the uproar is gradually causing shifts in thinking and a new vision of the future. All this conflict is a generator for change. Strife will gradually resolve one way or another. Hang on for the ride.