This is a re-posting of an article from nearly five years ago. I still believe that most of us still uphold the ideals of inclusion and advancement of Humanity. However, the rift is wider now and the extremists at both ends of the spectrum are more vocal...and influential now. I will be exploring the forces at play here in more depth going forward. I ask everyone out there to think deeply and carefully about the decisions we are about to make as we may be deciding on the very existence of our amazing but sadly self-destructive species...
Is
America Really Polarized?
If
you believe the current media, the American people are irreversibly polarized
into two vastly different camps. One
camp consists of conservative Americans who embrace the Republicans and the Tea
Party. The second camp consists of
liberals who embrace the Democrats and the Occupy Wall Street movement. We hear contention on the streets, at work,
at home, and in the social media where the two views are debated in the hopes
that one person will gain a personal victory and convert the other person over
to their view. In observing this, I have
to question what has happened to the Center, the moderates who tend the middle ground
and attempt to keep the extremes from fracturing our country and even our
society.
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].
