Is There a Silver Lining to Polarization?
Partisan division is slowly destroying American democracy ... it's also making progressive reform possible.
Eric Levitz has a typically smart piece at New York magazine on the seismic shift taking place within the Democratic Party.
He writes that "progressives have been begging their party … for more than a decade to ignore the Beltway's fetish for bipartisanship and deliver big, clear gains to the American people. The Democratic leadership has now affirmed that counsel in both word and deed."
The obvious example of this is the party's differing approaches toward fiscal relief in 2009 and today. Twelve years ago, Democrats held 58 seats in the US Senate (it would eventually increase to 60). They held a 78 seat advantage in the House, and there was a Democrat in the White House. The country was in the throes of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Yet, Democrats were only able to muster $787 billion in stimulus spending, with more than a third dedicated to tax cuts rather than direct spending.
This month, Democrats have 50 seats in the Senate and a mere 10 seat advantage in the House, yet they were able to pass a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package that directed almost all of its resources toward the poor and middle class. It is, arguably, the most progressive piece of legislation to pass Congress since the Great Society.
Levitz argues that the reason for this sea change in Democratic ambitions is a result of the party learning the lessons of 2009 and listening to progressives who have long demanded the party go widen its ambitions. He's not wrong. But there is another factor at play here - partisan polarization, which has fractured American democracy and done enduring damage to our politics, has also made all this possible.
To explain how let's look at some numbers. In 2009, there were 13 Senate Democrats in states that John McCain won in the 2008 election. There were several other Democrats in states like North Carolina, Iowa, Florida, Indiana, and Ohio that Obama had won but would over time trend toward the GOP.
Today, there are three Democrats in states that Donald Trump won in 2020 - Ohio's Sherrod Brown, Montana's Jon Tester, and West Virginia's Joe Manchin.
It's much the same in the House. Today, 16 members represent districts won by the party's other presidential nominee. In 2009, that number was 83.
In the interim, Democrats in red or purple states were wiped out. Some like Nebraska's Ben Nelson, West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller, Indiana's Evan Bayh, and North Dakota's Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad, retired. Republicans replaced most. Some like Arkanasa's Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, North Carolina's Kay Hagan, and Alaska's Mark Begich were defeated in 2010 or 2014. Some Democrats were able to find ways to win in red states. Missouri's Claire McCaskill and Indiana's Joe Donnelly prevailed in races against heavily flawed GOP opponents. Heidi Heitkamp won the unlikeliest of victories in North Dakota in 2012. But in 2018, a year in which Democrats won the popular vote in House elections by the largest margin in more than four decades, all these red state Democratic incumbents were wiped out, along with Bill Nelson in Florida. In 2020, at the same time that Joe Biden won a smashing victory in the presidential election, well-funded Democratic candidates in Iowa, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Montana were defeated by huge margins. This is a by-product of polarization and a precipitous decline in ticket-splitting among voters.
From a raw electoral perspective, this has been very bad for Democrats. They went from 60 seats a decade ago to 50 today and, because of even greater political polarization, will find it extremely difficult to compete in states won by Trump in 2020. Since small, often rural states have outsized power in the Senate, Democrats are even more at a disadvantage - as those are the states where Republicans are largely untouchable. In 2009, 36 out of 50 states had a Democratic senator. Today the number is 28 (that includes Angus King, who is an independent but caucuses with the Democrats).
But there is a silver lining to all this. The Democrats who have lost reelection or retired since 2009 were, by and large, the most moderate and centrist members of the party caucus. No longer is the Democratic caucus made up of members who need to win over Republican voters. The vast majority of Senate Democrats and even most House Democrats are in safe Democratic states and have much more to fear from their own party than Republicans.
Look at the 2022 Senate map. There are 14 Democrats up for reelection. According to the Cook Political Report, 12 are in "Solid" or "Likely" Democratic seats. Only two are in "Lean" Democratic seats - Arizona's Mark Kelly and Georgia's Raphael Warnock. Even after a spate of GOP retirements, only two seats are today considered toss-ups (Pennsylvania and North Carolina), and there is one "Lean" Republican state, Wisconsin. As recently as 2012, a Democrat could win in a red state. Already by 2014, it was a rarity. By 2020, only one Senate candidate held a seat in a state that the other party’s presidential candidate won (Susan Collins in Maine).
The result is that today the GOP Senate caucus is largely sustained by Republican voters, which has made it more conservative, and the Senate Democratic caucus is sustained by Democratic voters, making it arguably the most liberal in American history. In 2009, there were maybe a dozen Joe Manchin's in the Senate. Today, there is just one.
As Republicans have become more partisan and obstructionist in their ways, it's brought unity to Democrats. Take, for example, the 2009 Senate Democrats. For months they tried to work with Republicans on a bipartisan compromise to pass health care reform. After it became clear that the GOP had no interest in making a deal, 60 Senate Democrats united in passing Obamacare. To do otherwise would not only reward Republican obstructionism but would have given the GOP a massive political victory. What had not been possible in the Spring and Summer of 2009 became possible by the Fall and Winter of that year and largely because of Republican opposition.
The same is true now with 50 votes for Democrats. Indeed, because the Democratic advantage in the Senate is so narrow (relying on Vice President Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote), it breeds greater unity. The more partisan Republicans act, the more likely it is that Democrats will remain united. Indeed, one could argue that Democrats having 50 votes is the best possible number for the party. All it takes is one Democrat to kill a progressive agenda item - and that's the problem for any Democrat inclined to do so. If Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, or any other Democrat opposes a piece of legislation, their vote is decisive, making it that much more difficult to oppose legislation that the rest of the caucus supports. Joe Manchin is nominally considered the acting Majority Leader in the Senate, but the reality is that if Democrats had 51 seats in the Senate, it would be much easier for him to be a renegade. He could vote no on progressive legislation, and it would still pass. That's not the case today.
Don't get me wrong: there's been a sea change in the Democratic Party and a much greater willingness to take political chances. But what's made that possible is the shedding of the party's more moderate wing and the narrowing of it’s political coalition. It’s unlikely that any of this would have happened if not for polarization.
Don't sleep on Wisconsin's Senate race for Ron Johnson's seat. I'm almost hoping he decides to run for re-election.