Talk Elections

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Author: Morris Fiorina

Some claim the media is liberal, others, that it is conservative, but perhaps both can agree that the media has a tendency for exaggeration: the media establishment, like the popular punditry, can create a story and run with it, puffing up a narrative of variable validity until it seems as if the most exciting thing in the world is going on. As long as they have a story to tell, and as long as it is exciting, it often doesn't matter what that story is, or even whether it is true. And so it is with the myth of the polarized America. Released just as the media crescendo of a "polarized" electorate was reaching unprecedented heights in 2004, political scientist Morris Fiorinia's Culture War: The Myth of a Polarized America uses public opinion research data to coolly demolish the myths surrounding changes in Americans' attitudes over time.

Using data from the most methodlogically credible and longest-running political survey source in political behavior, the University of Michigan's National Election Studies survey, Fiorina demonstrates that the public's positions on various economic and social issues are no more separated today than they were 30 years ago. This works regardless of one's level of aggregation: "red states" are not more polarized compared to "blue states" and those on the right are not more polarized compared to those on the left. It works even for the most "hot-button" issues: 80% of us believe that abortion should be legal under some conditions even if wrong, while 80% equally feel that there should be some restrictions on abortion. Rather, the electorate's left-right preferences on virtually all issues are single peaked: they tend to cluster towards the middle in a bell-shaped curve, with the majority of people lying in between the perceived positions of the two major political parties.

What, then, explains the new theories of political polarization? Fiorina shows that while the electorate has not become more polarized over the past 30 years, elites have become more polarized. That is, party activists, leaders, spokespersons and officials, as well as interest group leaders, have become increasingly divided on sharp "wedge issues". Parties and members of congress have become more ideologically homogenized. Political reforms designed at opening up the system and encouraging the grassroots has tended to push out the old "men in smoke-filled rooms", dispassionate players of the game of politics. Now, political activism is increasingly dominated by those highly motivated on special interests. This tends to polarize the political elites and officeholders, who must then respond to these interests. The polarization of the elites has given an appearance of mass polarization, but this appearance is only an illusion.

So argues Fiorina. It has been a year since I've read this book so I don't remember all the details. Still, if you believed in the idea of a polarized America, this book presents a formidable challenge.

I have never really believed in the idea of a polarized America.  I think people on the far ends of the spectrum, mostly left, are trying to create polarization. 

Certainly there are subtle differences in the way different people see issues, but I don't see the level of polarization that political commentators talk about.  I don't see that the typical family in "blue" America lives that much different from the typical family in "red" America.

I think our differences appear more pronounced than in the past because of a general splintering of the population into specialized groups as the age of mass media and mass marketing dies out in favor of niches.  Rather than watching the same news shows, conservatives can now watch different news channels than liberals.  Products are specifically targeted to small segments of the population rather than mass marketed, with autos being a good example of that.  Rather than only a few brands to choose from as in the past, there is a proliferation, and they target different segments of the market.  Politics has evolved in this direction also.

I hear some arrogant liberals speak condescendingly of "red" states, convinced of their own absolute superiority.  But that is really regional prejudice, which has always existed.

That's an interesting generalization of the fragmentation of politics into interest groups and the fragmentation of the commercial market. For the latter, I would consider it to be an issue of efficiency. A firm that does a better job at targeting, given today's advanced manufacturing technology which can apparently churn out stylized products with little loss of efficiency, can tremendously increase its sales. Then, is the special interests' capture of political parties a manifestation of an increased efficiency in fishing for votes?

I guess I'm suggesting that it could be.  Often, larger trends can affect politics as well as commercial segments of society.  Often, the two go hand in hand, though political junkees don't always see the connection.  People change their thought process, and that change applies across the board.  This is a byproduct of the change in overall market targeting capabilities brought about in part by technological advances.

It was just one of those thoughts I threw out there, and I'd be interested to hear what others whose opinions I respect think of it.

I'm guessing this makes little sense, because I don't see the same economic processes that underlie the change. It seems that parties in the 19th century, for example, would have no problem appealing to specialized groups, and often did, in the form of winning over ethnic blocs, or maintaining a "southern" branch plus an "urban" branch, or a "midwestern" branch plus a "new york" branch. The New Deal coalition is quite an amalgamation. Yet Fiorina seems to argue in favor of the rise of special interests as a result of reforms in the opening up of political parties and the political system in general to greater public participation, and as a more recent phenomenon dating from the 70s, which explains the rise in elite polarization.

There's also the issue of being able to effectively connect with your individual supporters, something that is made a lot easier with things like e-mail.  It's also a lot easier, with computerized mailing lists that can be demographically analyzed, to identify potential supporters and reach out to them.  For example, certain magazines are popular with certain demographic groups, and if that demographic group supports your party, you could purchase that magazine's subscriber list and reach out to those people, rather than simply doing a mass mailing or relying on television advertising.  There are many implications to this type of targeting, and this is a spillover from changed marketing tactics in the commercial spectrum.

I'm not sure I see greater public participation in the political process.  Reforms in the 1970s certainly opened it up more to special interests, as you said, particularly liberal special interests in the Democratic party, but I don't see any higher public participation in general.  In fact, part of the problem is that it seems that everybody is represented except the normal, taxpaying, law-abiding members of the general public.

Right, but you are defining normal as anyone who does not organize around a particular issue. When you look at groups like the Club for Growth, NTU, NRA, AMA, the religious right, large corporations, etc etc and the like it's clear the GOP is equally captured by special interests. I don't think Fiorina makes a party-based distinction, rather you're letting your own partisan views color how you see the issue.

Try tuning into Fox News any night of the week and tell me it's the "left" that are pushing the "culture war" meme. 

I think you're reading a little more into this than what I said, though I have never denied letting my partisan views color how I see issues.

What I say applies to both parties, though I of course am more hostile to the special interests that have come to dominate the Democratic party than I am toward some of the special interests that have come to at least heavily influence the Republican party.

I think the average "mainstream" person is, in general, more comfortable in the Republican party.  The Democratic party has for some time been a refuge for those on the fringes of society in one way or another (minorities, gays, etc).  I don't say that's necessarily a bad thing, just a reality, and I find it much harder to relate to the Democratic base than I do to the Republican base, even though it could probably be argued that I am not, in many ways, really part of the Republican base, being a northerner who is not part of the religious right.

The left has waged a surreptitious culture war for decades without saying so.  One thing the right has to learn is to get their opinions across in a subliminal way as effectively as the left does.  The right has never really learned how to hide behind a false facade of impartiality the way the main media organs of the left have been doing for decades.

The Democratic base is the average working American and those who belive in civil rights and equality for all. The Repulican base is the rich, white American and those who seek to push their warped view of religion on the rest of the country.

And I like your  assertion that minorites (such as blacks) are on the "fringes" of society.

What media organs of the left? The same media that failed to report on the Florida scrub list, or criticize Bush once for a year after 9/11? Quit pushing this "liberal media" BS, and come up with real arguments.

Yes, people like Dazzleman's views are what keeps blacks so Democratic.

If the Democratic party was as biased against straight white males as Dazzleman claims, I wouldn't be in it. What a fool.

Blacks view themselves as being on the fringes of society.  That is not something I celebrate, but it is a reality, at least to some extent.  Blacks live in largely separate neighborhoods, go to separate churches and schools, etc. for the most part.  By any objective definition, they are on the fringes of society.  Again, I am simply acknowledging that reality, not supporting or celebrating it.  I love how liberals like to read racism into a simple statment of fact.

I think you've fallen victim to your own propaganda.  Rich white America as you call it couldn't get enough votes to win enough elections to control the White House and both houses of congress.  And polls indicate that people who are married and raising families lean strongly toward the Republican party.  The Democratic party lost its strong hold on the average working American quite some time ago, though of course many average working Americans, though not a majority, remain Democrats.

Ok, I thought you were trying to say the special interests were only influencing the Democrats.

Exactly, that's why it's called a "base".


Goes to show the effective propaganda of the Republican party where it can get millions of average, middle-class Americans to vote against their own economic interests based on God, guns, gays, and fear of minorities.

Straight white males lean overwhelming Republican in places other than Berzekely.  Maybe that makes you the fool.  It seems you can't make a point without personal insults.  Well, I guess all those other white males are just stupider than you.

You've got to be kidding me. The Republican party has been much more effective in manipulating the media over the past 6 or 8 years than the Democrats have. Hell, after 9/11, Bush and every other Republican got a completely free pass for the next 3 or so years from the media.

Oh, where have I heard that line before?   It's actually a biased, arrogant and ignorant way of thinking, but why should I be surprised?

Maybe they just don't want to pay ever higher taxes for out of control spending on ineffective and substandard government services from which they don't benefit, and maybe they don't like Democratic sympathies on issues like crime, etc.

I'm sure that living in New Hampshire, you develop an in-depth understanding on the fear of minorities.  Why don't you wait until you've lived in a racially mixed urban area before passing judgment.

What a stupid conversation.

The current Republican administration/congress is the most out of control spending in the last 40 years, so your accusation holds no water (but I'm sure you'll still try to get people to fall for it).

And maybe they don't understand that Democratic economic policies help everybody and only hear the tired, worn-out lines about evil "government programs" and "higher taxes". And the meme about Democratics being sympathetic to criminals is another largely false one that Republicans love to spew.


I lived in Denver for a year (three blocks from E. Colfax, possibly the worst neighborhood in the city) and also lived just outside Boston for over a year.  So I have lived in racially mixed areas before.

Agreed, but dazzleman seems obsessed with his Sean Hannity/Bill O'Reilly routine lately and has been particularly annoying.

Denver and "just outside of Boston" are not exactly the inner city.

Lately?  I've always been particularly annoying to people who hold the opinions that you do.  Don't sell me short, man. :P

America is polarized by geography but its not red states vs. blue state. It's urban vs. rural, with suburbanites stuck in the middle. Granted, cities in the NE are more Dem than cities in the Sunbelt, but the strongest correlation to voting behavior is whether you live in an urban or suburban or rural area.

The reason that America is polarized on Social issues is that those are almost the only contested issues anymore.

Democrats have moved too far to the center on economics and generally neglected those issues.

I agree 100%.

screw it.  what dazzleman and preston said.  and A18.

What the heck angus, I was going to type a big reply about how it isn't really that surprising but it was surprising to me last year when I first read it. Also I don't watch the talking heads.

But screw it, eh? ;)

Well, I live in a racially mixed area which is very close to majority-minority sections.  My old neighborhood and my grandparents' is primarily African American and Latino.  I can sit here and agree with Scoonie that the GOP plays to racial fears to garner votes from white working class people (see Melissa Brown, Frank Rizzo in the 1980s), especially cops.  I can also sit here and say I'm not clueless about racial relations in urban areas.  Yes, there are times where I have come across blacks who feel the white man oppresses them and give whites a tougher attitude then they give their own, but you know what, I just take the high road because I have black friends and know a good number aren't like Al Sharpton or Cynthia McKinney.  I also know there are some whites, most especially certain cops where I live, who make Archie Bunker look liberal and need to calm the hell down.  Racism is a two way street and I have railed against people of both races plenty of times on here in the past.

Why am I a Democrat?  For many of the reasons Scoonie described for I am looking out for my own money, my own well being, and other working people like me.  I look at the overall picture and knwo full well there is no Democratic-wide bias against heterosexual white males for I am one.  I have been criticized many times in the past for being a "libbo" and "pandering to the blacks" but they are just false misconceptions people have in their heads about the Democratic party.     

As an aside, I hadn't been following any politics for a couple of weeks.  You know, out of town for the holidays most of Thanksgiving week and generally busy with end-of-sememster work, but I watched a speech on Border Security and Immigration Policy last night by President Bush on CSPAN.  I caught most of it I think.  He demonstrated a fair command of the statistics and policies, and explained his goals well enough, but it wasn't exactly a riveting, spellbinding, uplifting speech.  Bear in mind, the audience was mostly Southwestern law enforcement types, so it can't be expected.  And at least he had that prideful, grinning fratboy moment from time to time, which some find perfectly charming and others perfectly repulsive.  But something was missing.  It definitely wasn't "compassionate conservative" rhetoric.  As for the conservative part, well, no one in his right mind any longer expects this administration to be the small government type they campaigned as, and they're bigger spenders than their predecessors for sure.  But this lack of restraint has come to be expected.  So what struck me wasn't  the lack of "conservative" but the complete lack of "compassion"   Oh, sure, he explained "interior repatriation" and talked about some innovative (and somewhat expensive) plans for border security, but there wasn't even a pretense of addressing the underlying causes of illegal immigration.  No discussion of economics.  No subjectivity whatsoever.  It smacked of the elitism of his father, albeit well-disguised with that Westerner's cowboy bravado at times.  Certainly not the sort of speech that's going to take him out of the dumps.  At best, four in ten americans lately approve of the job he's doing.  At it may get worse or it may get better.  I still contend that a president's approval ratings are a decent barometer of the national mood, since everyone blames everything from the price of a loaf of bread to the severity of their latest orgasm on the president.  Fairly or unfairly.  And I like to see my president's numbers higher.  I say that without regard to whether my president is Republican, Democrat, Socialist, Libertarian, or Green.  So I hope it gets better for this President.

Tomorrow, he has a chance to try to rally the people.  He will give a famous speech.  Well, it's not famous yet.  But it can be.  He will speak at some length about Iraq.  He needn't admit to any wrongdoing or deceit (as much as some would like to see that) since everyone basically understands that the war is about that country's vast natural resources anyway.  But he might address "faulty" intelligence, and lack of planning to assuage the People a bit.  I'm hopeful, though not too hopeful, that such issues will be addressed in tomorrow's speech.  On the other hand, he may go a different route and look for a catchy phrase such as "spark of liberation" and use it over and over.  His speechwriters seem to fancy such rhetorical flairs (e.g., "axis of evil" and "Mission Accomplished!") but those soundbites haven't been much use in rallying a nation.  In fact--if I may dare use the word--they seem to polarize the nation even more.  It is often said Bush's strong suit is delegation of authority to the best people.  If true, then by now he should have fired many a speechwriter.  I guess we'll find out tomorrow night.

I happen to disagree that these things are misconceptions.  I think they're accurate perceptions, shared by many people.  You have a right to your opinion, just as I have to mine.  What I do find difficult to take is some white people who don't live within miles of a non-white person going around called everybody else "racist" when they have no clue of things.

I have heard the rants of countless Archie Bunker-like Reagan Democrats saying the Democrats are the party of "the blacks, gays, and women's rights and not the working man with a family" and "I was once a Democrat until the n-ers, womens lib, etc. infested our party."  I know better!  True there are a lot of whites that have no clue of things and live in their suburban cocoons while watching MTV and BET and thinking it's all "cool".  Hey, I have been called both a "racist" by some of these rich white clowns in college and a "white libbo" by a truly racist cop kid who was once one of my better friends growing up.  I try to be as pragmatic as possible with this stuff.  I kinda got involved in politics so I can better understand this stuff. 

With some of the sort of people you talk about, the issue is the way they say things, not necessarily what they are saying.  The Democratic party has taken what are, in my opinion, a number of hideous positions on major issues in order to pander to certain interest groups in their party.  Some people are capable of making logical arguments against these policies, while others just lash out at ni--ers and the like.  Still, the root is the same.

Dazzleman obviously has a point in that the largest groups in most divisions is the most Republican group (Whites, Protestants, Suburbians, etc). I don't think he's saying that that group is superior to others, and I wouldn't say that they are.

And it's a well known fact that parties are ALWAYS more polarized than electorates and always exaggerate differences. People in general are always fairly moderate.

Exactly.

But the level of discussion here precisely mirrors the quality of the arguments presented in most political books being reviewed.

Most political books published nowadays are little better than Danielle Steele paperbacked harlequin trash -- appealing to the least common denominator of whichever ideology that happens to be held by the (ghost)writer. Arguments amount to repetition of cliches: if I hear the phrase "Red State" one more frigging time...

As for the current one, it is an academic book, so I will need to study if a bit more to see if the arguments are grounded or not.

If you want to study contemporary American politics, without the sleaze, then rent Larry Sabato's American government textbook, which he revises every year. Then, read all of the references Sabato cites.

The reason democrats lost us working class and middle class folks is because of arrogant tripe like this.

The democrats abandoned working class America to lick the boots of rich leftists like George Soros and Hollywood $$$$$$. It was Bill Clinton that signed NAFTA and GATT. We all know that.

And this is why I joined the Democratic party. . .

And this is why Democrats have lost America.