Is There A Way Out?
Tom Schaller explains how the key voting demographic in our polarized times are "Dennis Duffy voters."
Just a quick reminder that I will be hosting a Zoom chat tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. I will be joined by Tom Schaller, whose latest column is below. The chat, however, is for paid subscribers only. So if you’ve been on the fence, here’s your chance to sign up and join a discussion with one of the smartest political thinkers I know.
The Perils of Polarization - Tom Schaller
Not since the late nineteenth century has America been this divided
Every elite indicator confirms it: the widening partisan split in presidential approval ratings; the disappearance of both US Senators and House members in states or districts carried by the other party’s presidential candidate; the rising share of “landslide” counties in presidential elections; the increasing number of one-party state governments; the fact that four in five Republicans and Democrats say people view citizens from the opposite party unfavorably; even the shrinking number of parents who would be happy if their son or daughter married somebody from the other party.
Simply put, we are no longer “one nation, indivisible,” as the original Pledge of Allegiance stated. We are two nations: Blue America and Red America, highly polarized and increasingly alienated from one another. We consume news from separate and very different media universes. Cries for secession, even revolution, are drowning out calls for consensus and compromise. And while outside agitators may be stirring the pot, the destruction is all occurring from within.
The consequences of this growing polarization go well beyond electoral politics. As Michael wrote a few weeks ago, it can be lethal. A dozen red states have refused to adopt the Medicaid provisions of Obamacare, for example, and Republicans are much more resistant to COVID vaccinations. This situation echoes the arguments made by Jonathan Metzl in his book Dying of Whiteness, which chronicles the public health consequences in red-state America of deficient health care and higher gun death rates. Life expectancy among white men in rural states and counties already lags behind that of white men in metropolitan areas. Red America is increasingly losing the partisan wars via self-destruction.
Is There A Solution?
I’ve taught politics for 30 years, and in my Campaigns & Elections course, my students and I puzzle over these issues. I stand at the whiteboard and ask students to spitball ideas for what might end our hyper-polarized politics.
How about a major attack on the country or a major economic crisis, they suggest? They are too young to remember that the country came together briefly after both the September 11 attacks and the 2008 economic collapse but quickly reverted to even higher levels of polarization.
What about the rise of a third party or changes in voting rules and gerrymandering? But the two parties, despite their disagreements on pretty much everything else, happily collude in the electoral duopoly they’ve created that venerates single-member districts and partisan gerrymandering.
The only spitball idea that offers a scintilla of hope is the election of more women—who are more cooperative and credit-sharing public officials—to office. But even that goal offers marginal hope. If you doubt me, watch back-to-back speeches by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and tell me if there’s any chance their shared identity as women will bridge the partisan divide.
What makes the current situation even more intractable is that neither political coalition is big enough to vanquish the other, nor is either succeeding in converting enough partisans from the other side to its cause to forge an enduring majority. Even the massive mobilization of new voters in 2018 and 2020—respectively, the highest midterm and presidential cycle turnouts in 104 years and 120 years—seems to have been a wash, with perhaps a slight net gain for Democrats.
So who will decide elections, politics, and policy in the near future? The short answer: Populists will.
Hello Dummy
Take a look at the chart below of the 2016 election results.
Each dot represents about 8,000 Americans, arrayed based on their ideological positions on economic and social-cultural dimensions. As expected, most Americans reside in two clusters— blue-dot liberals who voted uniformly for Hillary Clinton and presumably almost every down-ballot Democrat, and red-dot conservatives who voted almost exclusively for Trump and other Republicans.
Now, look at the top-left quadrant. These are the socially conservative yet economically liberal populists. They constitute a small but significant chunk of the American electorate. For fans of the sitcom 30 Rock, I call this cohort “Dennis Duffy voters.” Liz Lemon’s ex-boyfriend is a white, non-college-educated everyman from Long Island who loves Howard Stern and expresses a host of low-information yet confident opinions about politics and culture. As he proclaims on the show, he is a “social conservative, fiscal liberal.” He’s a walking-talking Dunning-Kruger mannequin wearing an Islanders hockey sweater. Dennis Duffy is a Trump voter who lives comfortably in the top-left box of that scatterplot. Given that these voters—who split their votes between Trump and Clinton, and presumably Trump and Joe Biden four years later—can decide national elections, how should we expect the two parties to try and win them over?
Democrats will try to appeal to their economic needs and avoid cultural politics. For example, they will continue to tout passage of Obamacare, which lets Americans keep their kids on their health insurance until 26 and covers pre-existing conditions. Notice that Trump came out in favor of these popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act, yet both promised to repeal and replace “Obamacare” and never did much about it. That may seem inconsistent, but it was shrewd—sell cultural anger, but keep the policies that polls show most Republicans like.
Meanwhile, Republicans want Dennis Duffy’s attention focused squarely on cultural politics. That means promoting whatever supposed threat to traditional values (i.e., white, rural, Christian values) right-wing talk radio and TV is peddling. Feigned outrages over Mr. Potato Head, Dr. Suess, critical race theory, and the border situation are merely the latest incarnations of a decades-long pattern of packaging cultural fury and spoon-feeding it to those who fret the loss of “real” America. This tradition dates back to Pat Buchanan and Jerry Falwell two generations ago and further in the past to Robert Welch and Charles Lindbergh generations before that.
Whichever party is more effective at bringing these voters into their coalition will go a long way toward ensuring long-term political dominance and assembling a working governing majority.
All that’s at stake in this Red-v-Blue fight to the death is whether America maintains a functioning, inclusive, participatory democracy or descends into a rump authoritarian state. In the meantime, the divides between the vast majority of Americans who have made up their minds about which party they support will only grow larger.
What’s Going On?
A crazy story in the Washington Post about how paying people more money incentivizes them to work. As I said, it’s a simply insane notion … but it seems to work!
Eric Adams is poised to win the New York mayoral race even though no one can seem to figure out where he lives.
This is a phenomenal photo essay on New York City emerging from the pandemic.
Josh Green looks at the grifters, opportunists, and hangers-on populating Trump World. It’s fantastic!
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: always read Tom Edsall.
Great piece by Anthony Fisher on the dangers of “dumpster diving” into people’s past. Anthony’s columns are so good they are worthy of a subscription to Business Insider, where he writes.
This is an interesting story in the Washington Post on how progressives are faring poorly in primaries this year and voters are choosing more establishment candidates. The piece gets at the main reason why I think this is happening: the party has, in general, moved so far to the left that it’s getting harder for progressive candidates to argue that voters should choose them. Now, in most Democratic primaries, voters can choose a candidate who is fairly progressive but also likely to win against a Republican. For a party that nominated and elected Joe Biden to be president, the latter seems to be a crucial consideration.
Musical Interlude
I love the Old 97s, and I’ve been listening to a bunch of their albums this week. Their album “Too Far Too Care” is a desert island disc for me, and this is my favorite cut from the record.
This one is pretty good too.
This one from their next record is another favorite.
And this highlights Rhett Miller’s wonderful skills as a lyricist.
Jew detected; opinion rejected