As it turns out, the American people themselves have not become more polarized. Lane Kenworthy shows data that over the past 35 years, Americans’ political views fall along a normal distribution with the mean at the center and that the majority of the so-called red and blue states are really “purple states.” [1] Polarization is actually a phenomenon happening in American Politics, where the two parties have drifted far apart with no middle ground. So if the average American is centrist, why isn’t our government?
Well it turns out the political party system is actually structured in a fashion that favors the vocal minorities over the less vocal majorities. Fareed Zakaria of CNN cites several reasons that allow minority interests to dominate the two parties: [2]
1. Gerrymandering has created safe seats, where the incumbent only has to worry about a primary candidate running against them that is more, not less extreme.
2. Small groups of activists can petition to take even a popular candidate off a primary ballot. For example, in Utah, 3,500 conservative activists managed to get the highly regarded Senator Robert Bennett removed from the ballot. This forces incumbents to take even more radical stands to stave off such assaults.
3. “Sunshine Rules,” which have forced openness in Congress, have made it more difficult to enact large compromise legislation. Politician’s actions are transparent to everyone, which may affect their reelection, so they take the easy way out and vote the party line.
4 A new media contributes to the polarization through “narrowcasting,” or disseminating information to a narrow audience.
Mickey Edwards, a former Oklahoma congressman, writes “Party activists control access to the ballot through closed party primaries and conventions; partisan leaders design congressional districts. Once elected to Congress, our representatives are divided into warring camps. Partisans decide what bills to take up, what witnesses to hear, what amendments to allow.” [3] And there is no meeting in the middle in order to solve problems: “Ours is a system focused not on collective problem-solving but on a struggle for power between two private organizations.” [4] Finally, the current political climate punishes those who try to bridge the gap. Zakaria shares a story where California Representative Darrell Issa gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal suggesting that the conservative agenda would be furthered through occasional compromise. Rush Limbaugh lambasted him on his show, which created a flood of angry responses to Issa’s office. It forced Issa to apologize to Limbaugh and promise “only opposition to Obama.”
So compromising to the center is a dangerous stand for politicians, especially those who intend on making a career of it. Reports the Toronto Globe and Mail, which discusses how the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements have further polarized the two parties: “More and more, it looks like the centre will be an orphan in 2012.” [5] As the parties continue to drift apart and fortify their trenches for 2012, what about the majority of Americans in the middle of the political spectrum?
The polarization of the parties has forced the moderate majority to choose between the parties, and according to Kenworthy, “sort themselves more accurately against the party platforms.” [6] The problem with this choice is that moderates have to make substantial compromises to their own views when they step into the voting booth. Ideally, a third party representing the moderates would provide a check and balance against the current two-party system, but historically it has been very difficult for a third party to launch and, even if an independent candidate manages to get elected, they are precluded from the current partisan structure from having any power or say behind the scenes.
So what are us moderates to do? Foremost, we in the center are the bridge builders, the ones who will potentially see the best aspects of both conservative and liberals, the ones that can bring the warring factions together for a greater common good. Even at the extremes, there are fundamental ideas that are in common with both sides. Quoting a friend: “A mutual idea is a common ground, a universal principle is a foundation, and, most importantly, a receptive and unbiased dialogue is an understanding…Find connections…Create bonds that will generate harmony and advance humanity.” [7] We must vote, even if the choices are suboptimal! Failure to vote is failure to represent ourselves. We need to filter out the polarized babble coming from the media and do our own due diligence in choosing candidates when we vote. When the two parties do not pose acceptable candidates, fearlessly vote for an alternative candidate! Even if it is viewed as “throwing away one’s vote,” it is in essence a vote for “none of the above.” And perhaps an attractive centrist third party may gather enough votes to attain at least local legitimacy, which is where all national movements start. All great things start from humble beginnings.
The alienated moderates need not give up hope. We are the hope for the future of this country, the ones that will ultimately bring everyone including the political parties closer together in the hopes of solving the serious problems that currently face this country and our planet. The future of our children as well as the very future of humanity depends on us.
References:
1. Lane Kenworthy, “Polarized America,” http://www.u.arizona.edu/~lkenwor/indv102polarizedamerica.pdf
2. Fareed Zakaria, http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/24/why-political-polarization-has-gone-wild/
3. Mickey Edwards, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/how-to-turn-republicans-and-democrats-into-americans/8521/
4. Ibid.
5. Konrad Yakabuski, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/konrad-yakabuski/occupy-wall-street-v-tea-party-the-further-polarization-of-us-voters/article2196912/
6. See [1].
