On the Origin of
American Partisanship
By Means of Socio-environmental Factors
As
2011 came to a close, the Congressional approval rating reached the historic
low of 11 percent, translating in 86 percent of Americans disapproving of the way the 111th Congress conducted its
business in Washington (Newport, 2011). The polling numbers reinforce the
growing frustration many Americans feel towards Congress, but where is the
animosity stemming from? The most popular answer seems to be partisanship. Politicians and pundits
throw the word frequently when discussing Congress and the current state of
American politics as a whole, but what does partisanship
mean, what are the causes of partisanship, and why is it apparently so
pervasive in the present American political scene? If partisanship began
permeating American politics after
1980, then the socio-environmental factors influencing the development of
future politicians began in their youth; therefore, their political attitudes
evolved into ones more polarized, which has had a cascading effect since 1980
on the whole of political culture in the United States.
The politicians of
the 1980s were the first generation to bring partisanship to the levels of
government, as their generation, the generation that came of age during the early
days of the Cold War, matured. The members of the 97th Congress
averaged an age of approximately 51 years (Alex Lowe, Kurt
Wilberding, Ana Rivas, 2011). Using that information, the average year
of birth would be 1929, and then the average year of adulthood would be 1947. With
1947 as the beginning of the period for when these individuals would be most
likely have been influenced by external forces, one can predict how the
post-war world would have impacted the future members of the 97th Congress.
The emergence of the United States as a
superpower, the beginning of the Cold War, Korea, the threat of Communism,
McCarthyism, the inception of the modern Civil Rights Movement, it all began in
the 1950’s. When these eventual members of Congress were leaving for college
and making their life their own, the external pressures of the reality of the
world began to bear down upon them.
“It may metaphorically be said
that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world,
the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding
up all that are good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever
opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its
organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes
in progress, until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages” (Charles
Darwin, Origin of Species, 80, 1870)
Darwin
provides a compelling explanation for why partisanship appears to have begun after 1980; it is because the
socio-environmental factors that were born out of the post-war 20th
Century took root within the malleable minds of the youth of the 1950’s. Their
parents’ generation had survived the Great War only to see another looming on
the horizon. Reluctant to face the challenges posed by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini,
their parents’ generation hoped that by appeasement and isolation, the prospect
of another worldwide confrontation would simply fade away.
In
contrast, the generation that came to age during the 1950’s and 1960’s
experienced a new world, one fraught with new challenges and opportunities in
the wake of the devastation of World War II. The war had transmitted to the
sons and daughters of the era the need to be resolute and bold; the seriousness
of the enemies the United States faced created divergent approaches to
combating the problem. The environment of the post-war era gave rise to
political attitudes that grew progressively less compromising as the generation
matured; the evolution was slow but steady, until “ages” had passed before
partisanship came to American politics.
If
this assumption is correct, that socio-environmental factors are responsible for
the increase in partisanship over the past thirty years, then those who
participate in politics (vote) should also have been affected. There appears to
be some support between the political polarization of elected officials and their
constituency. Voters who were parented by the generation born in the 1930’s
(baby boomers) would have been influenced by their parents’ political views,
which themselves had grown more intense. Turnout for voters between 45 and 64
years of age has swayed congressional elections in favor of partisan candidate.
Although voter turnout for this age group has actually decreased from 62.2% in 1982 to 51.1% in 2010, the combined turnout
for 45-64 years old and 65 and older age groups out votes all other age groups
combined (United States Census Bureau, 2011). These voters express more
partisan views because they were raised under parents and in a society that had
already begun to become more partisan. As they continue to age and as the older
population tends to vote in a higher respective percentage, they will further
skew the politicians’ own political attitudes.
Many
voters tend to think of themselves as being moderate,
regardless of how they affiliate with either the Democratic or Republican
parties, and if voters are in fact moderates, and there is only a correlation,
not causation between voter age group turnout and the partisanship of the
elected candidates, then there must be another factor at work. The assumption
is that the majority of American voters are moderates. For this to be the case,
the influence of socio-environmental factors of history and parenting would
have been minimal. In a 1992 Gallup Poll survey, 43% of Americans polled
identified with moderate as their
political ideology. Over the past nineteen years, that number has changed to
36%, falling short of the number of Americans who identify as conservative by five points. The number
of Americans identifying as liberal
has too, increased, albeit only from 17% to 21%. Americans regardless of their
political ideology are beginning to openly associate themselves with a
definitive ideology; Americans are moving away from the center and towards
either the left or right ends of the political spectrum.
But, what could be responsible for the shift
away from the center? Why are Americans becoming more comfortable with the
notion of political identification with liberal or conservative priorities? One
potential source of partisanship that has been identified is the
socio-environmental factors of heightened political and social pressure after
World War II and throughout the Cold War. The other is one that has worked in
accordance with the catalyst to intensify partisanship: The Congressional practice
of redistricting whereby districts have been solidified into Democrat and
Republican safe zones.
If one district has at least 50
percent of its constituents from an antecedent district, the two districts are
“linked.” If a district does not have at least 50 percent of its constituents
from an antecedent district, they call it a “new” district. They find that
members from these new districts have more polarized roll call voting records
than members from linked districts. In the 1992 round of redistricting, for
example, they find that the 63 members from new districts were almost 25
percent more ideological than the members who were elected in old districts.
(Sean M. Theriault, 2005).
Once
polarized candidates came to power, they and their increasingly polarized party
leaders used redistricting to create these havens for their respective future
candidates. In such districts, candidates would have to further reinforce their
political views to win an election, particularly any election where their seat was being challenged. Theriault
quotes Bryan Jones’ from the Seattle
Times in summarizing redistricting in practice, “Lawmakers elected from
solidly safe districts have less incentive to compromise…Homogenous districts
add to the polarization of political parties.” Districts that have become
dominated by one political ideology over the other do not demand that their
representatives look to compromise in Congress because their representative
embodies their political desires. Redistricting has also resulted in the rise
of political segregation, increasingly escaping the political arena.
Partisan
politicians used the powers of their office to recreate the districts so as to
favor their party in elections over the other. The effect has been to
consolidate liberals and conservatives into districts that are typically
populated by one political ideology. This was an intentional purposefully perpetrated
by both parties over the last three decades. An unintended side effect has been
to foster a new form of self-identification that has spread beyond the
political arena. Shankar Vedantam argues that partisanship has become the
newest form of discrimination in American, effectively, he says, it has
replaced racism as a means by which people perceive others during first
encounters.
Consider this thought
experiment: I have two neighbors, Jack and Jill. Jill is an African-American
woman and a yoga instructor. Jack is a white man and an evangelical Christian.
I've told you nothing about Jack and Jill's views about abortion, government,
guns, taxes, or foreign policy. Yet most of us would have no trouble guessing
that Jill is a Democrat and Jack is a Republican. How do we know this? Because
social identity—race, gender, religious affiliation, geographical location—play
an outsize (and largely hidden) role in determining our partisan affiliations.
(2011).
As political affiliations have evolved to encompass one’s
social identity, they have come to determine, or largely influence, behavior.
People with more liberal leaning political attitudes are increasingly likely to
migrate to “blue states” or liberal-friendly regions of a city or state, and
the same is true for those of conservative attitudes. The discrimination aspect
of political-social identity was examined in a study that Shankar Vedantam
cites in his article, “Partisanship Is the New Racism,” where he summarizes the
following: Average voters of either party, when reviewing GPAs, SAT test
scores, and recommendation letters, were less likely (from 79% to 44%) to
choose to accept into a university a student if they were aware their political
affiliation differed from their own, even if they had the lower test scores.
Just as in the scenario with Jack and Jill, the race, gender, occupation of a
person has come to reflect their likely
political attitudes. Similarly to racism, it is effecting how one American
interacts with another, going so far as a doctor in Mount Dora, Florida posted
a sign warning supporters of President Obama to “seek care elsewhere” and
“changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years” (Stephen Hudak,
2010).
Not everyone, however is comfortable with the placing the
blame squarely on redistricting or even on the politicians themselves. Anthony
Horvath, a blogger on the website “St. Jonny.com,” believes that the source of
partisanship has sprouted from the voters, specifically moderates, whom he
feels are unable or unwilling to identify with either liberals or
conservatives.
Consider then what
has happened in the span of just THREE YEARS. A bunch of people roundly
rejected the ‘failed policies of George W. Bush,’ voting in uber-liberals
across the country. Then, disgusted with the horrific government intrusion
and massive overspending carried out by Obama and his ilk, just TWO YEARS
LATER, they swept out Dem after dem and replaced them with Republicans, many of
whom were staunch Tea Party types. Then, these Republicans implemented their
policies to the extent that they could, and in outrage the populace lashed out,
going so far in places like Wisconsin to have recall elections of several state
senators (2 GOP senators fell) and arranging for a recall election of Gov. Walker.
(Anthony Horvath, 2012).
In
the following paragraph, Horvath continues in stating that the true liberals
and the true conservatives do not possess the numbers to elect these
increasingly partisan candidates. Candidates work to solidify the support of
their base, those who have openly identified themselves as either liberal or
conservative, and then use much of the campaign season to garner a sufficient
number of moderate supporters to win the election. In American politics, a
narrow victory, even in a contested district, can appear to a candidate as a
mandate from the people to implement his or her partisan policies. That is the
pattern in which American politics has been cycling; candidates campaigning on
sweeping changes are elected, then find their attempts to implement the policies
they campaigned on as a liability in their next election. The moderate voters
hold a tremendous amount of power in American politics; this has been admitted
by every candidate for president for the last thirty years, but the moderates’
attitudes on the direction government seem to change from one election to the
next.
If
the majority of American voters are in fact “middle of the road” moderates, if
they were not as greatly influenced by the events of the world during the
second half of the 20th Century as their elected officials have been
since 1980, and if there has not been a snowball effect of partisanship from
one generation to the next, then the cause for partisanship in America must be
explained through the voting habits of moderates. Redistricting produced
Democratic and Republican safe seats in Congressional elections, and has also
had the effect of consolidating more politically ideological voters. Moderates
would appear then to be caught in the crossfire of the political battle; giving
their support to the opposing sides, perhaps in an effort to bring politics
back to the center, but which has apparently had the opposite effect. But, the
cause for partisanship cannot be leveled at moderates, the perpetuating of
partisanship, conceivably, but not the cause.
The
cause is rooted in the history of both the world and the evolution of the
United States since 1945. The rise of the United States as one of the world’s
two most powerful nations, the growth of prosperity in America, the racial
tension and demand for civil liberties, the rampant fear of nuclear war and
Communist subversives, political scandals and assassinations, the waging of
unpopular war, all of these socio-environmental factors influenced the
generations that lived through them. Hardline stances had to be taken more than
once during the last fifty years of the 20th Century by American
presidents and politicians for the sake and survival of their principles. These
attitudes that followed the deadliest conflict in human history were transmitted
to the youth of America that witnessed the changing mechanics of politics, and
could not help but be imparted with similar perspectives that eventually were
no longer aimed at America’s enemies, but fellow Americans.
The
United States has become more polarized and partisan in its politics. There is
no one single cause for the increase partisanship: The fault can be placed upon
human nature in a changing society—and responding to potential nuclear
proliferation—the redistricting that party leaders used to strengthen the power
of their party, and development of political identification, and the balancing
act in which moderates seem to play. It is a living organism that will grow and
evolve as the attitudes governing politics and human interaction change with
each generation, but although I have identified the post-war era as the
catalyst for the rise of partisanship in which we experience today, it has
always existed. There is not a single civilization that has not been plagued by
it; some, such as various European systems thrive from diverse political
parties with partisan agendas. There has been an evolutionary jump in the
American political system with regards to partisanship and polarization, but
eventually, the American people, politicians, and political system will adapt.
Bibliography
Anders,
Gary. “Partisanship Is Here to Stay.” The
Weekly Standard. The Weekly Standard LLC. 26 Aug. 2010. Web. 7 April 2012. http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/partisanship-here-stay
Furman,
Jonah. “The Senate Since 1980.” The Awl.
The Awl. 5 Nov. 2010. Web. 4 April 2012. http://www.theawl.com/2010/11/the-senate-since-1980
Hudah,
Stephen. “Mount dora doctor tells Obama supporters: Go elsewhere.” Orlando Sentinel. Tribune Newspaper. 1
April 2010. Print. 4 April 2012. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-04-01/news/os-mount-dora-doctor-tells-patients-go-aw20100401_1_health-care-obama-supporters-doctor
Horvath,
Anthony. “Contrarian View: The Real Cause of Hyper-Partisanship: Moderates et.
al.” St. Jonny.com. Athanatos
Christian Apologetic Ministry. 1 Feb. 2012. Web. 2 April. 2012. http://sntjohnny.com/front/contrarian-view-the-real-cause-of-the-partisan-divide-in-the-united-states-moderates-et-al/1850.html
Lowe,
Alex and Kurt Wilberding and Ana Rivas. “The Capitol’s Age Pyramid: A Graying
Congress.” The Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal. Web. 11 April. 2012. http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-CONGRESS_AGES_1009.html
Newport,
Frank. “Congress Ends 2011 With Record-Low 11% Approval.” Gallup Politics. Gallup. 11 April. 2012. Web. 11 April. 2012. http://www.gallup.com/poll/151628/congress-ends-2011-record-low-approval.aspx
Saad,
Lydia. “U.S. Ideology Stable With Conservatives Leading.” Gallup Politics. Gallup. 1 Aug. 2011. Web. 11 April 2012. http://www.gallup.com/poll/148745/political-ideology-stable-conservatives-leading.aspx
Theriault,
Sean M. “Party Polarization in Congress.” 14 Oct. 2005. Print. 8 April. 2012. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lmartin/Speakers/Theriault.pdf
United
States Censor Bureau. “Elections: Voting-Age Population and Voter
Participation.” The National Data Book.
United States Censor Bureau. 2010. Web. 12 April. 2012. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/elections/voting-age_population_and_voter_participation.html
Vedantam,
Shankar. “Partisanship Is the New Racism.” Slate.
Slate Magazine. 24 Jan. 2011. Print. 6 April 2011. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_hidden_brain/2011/01/partisanship_is_the_new_racism.html
No comments:
Post a Comment