"Stopping Political Hate" (opens in separate window)
hatred dominates american politics
friday, october 21st, 2020
To anyone following American politics, it’s not exactly news that Democrats and Republicans don’t like each other. Take what happened in the presidential debate last week. President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden did little to conceal their disdain of one another. And although the debate marked a low point in our national discourse, it was a crystallization of a long-developing trend: loathing the opposing party.
[FULL TITLE: "How Hatred Came To Dominate American Politics."]
This is hardly a new trend; in fact, it’s increasingly common among American voters. However, this level of hatred —- which political scientists call “negative partisanship” —- has reached levels that are not just bad for democracy, but are potentially destructive. And extreme partisan animosity is a prelude to democratic collapse. Cancel culture is social death.
It wasn’t always this bad, though. Forty years ago, when asked to rate how “favorable and warm” their opinion of each party was, the average Democrat and Republican said they felt OK-ish about the opposite party. But for four decades now, partisans have increasingly turned against each other in an escalating cycle of dislike and distrust —- views of the other party are currently at an all-time low.
So how did we get to this point?
Broadly speaking, there are three trends that we can point to. The first is the steady nationalization of American politics. The second is the sorting of Democrats and Republicans along urban/rural and culturally liberal/culturally conservative lines, and the third is the increasingly narrow margins in national elections.
The combination of these three trends has turned Washington, D.C., into a high-stakes battle where cross-party compromise is difficult, and both sides are increasingly holding out for complete control.
Sixty years ago, state and local politics loomed larger than they do now, which meant national parties operated more like loose labels whose main function was to come together every four years to argue over who should run for president under that party. As President Eisenhower reportedly quipped as late as 1950, “There is not one Republican Party, there are 48 state Republican parties.” The same was true of the Democratic Party at the time. By the 1970s, in fact, many political observers declared that partisan politics had reached their end, with split-ticket voting hitting record-high levels as candidates successfully ran on local issues and pledges to better serve their constituents.
But beneath the surface, the parties were realigning. The civil rights movement of the 1960s and the culture wars of the 1970s and 1980s not only turned conservative Democrats into Republicans and liberal northeastern Republicans into Democrats, it also shifted the focus of politics such that Washington became the arbiter of national values. National parties began building up major fundraising and campaign consultant-driven operations, helping to standardize their messaging so that it actually meant something to vote for a Democrat or a Republican.
Coupled with the steady decline of local media, this has resulted in a greater emphasis on national politics and less attention paid to local and state politics. Practically speaking, elections are increasingly viewed as referendums on the president and the party that controls the White House, leaving little room for individual members of Congress to distinguish themselves from their national parties.
This brings us to the second trend that has contributed to the rise of negative partisanship: sorting. The ideologies of the party were less hard and fast 40 years ago. The Republican Party had a significant share of moderates and liberals, the inheritors of a tradition of moderate good-government Yankee republicanism that dated back to President Lincoln, and the Democratic Party once had a significant share of conservative populists from the South and the Great Plains.
In this sense, American politics operated more like a four-party system, with jumbled liberal and conservative coalitions within and across the two parties. Senators and representatives’ distinct geographic outlooks mattered more than their parties, with complex coalitions of urban liberals and rural conservatives in both parties. However, as our politics became increasingly nationalized, the political sorting of the parties accelerated. The civil rights movement is the most obvious example of this: Many in political science consider it the most significant issue (though far from the only issue) driving political sorting, as it changed the center of gravity in both parties.
Today, it’s simply harder for voters to hold a viewpoint that doesn’t align with their party. For instance, there are far fewer anti-abortion Democrats or abortion-rights Republicans now than 30 years ago because these kinds of stances are unwelcome in the party. Some voters changed their party to match their beliefs; others changed their beliefs to match their party. But ultimately, both shifts contributed to the parties taking clearer and more distinct stances on a growing number of social issues, which led to more and more voters adjusting their views to match their partisanship.
Political scientists have called this process “conflict extension.” The basic idea is that as more issues have become nationalized, partisan conflicts have broadened to absorb these issues. And as the parties have taken clearer national stances, particularly around cultural and identity-based issues, voters sort more clearly into parties based on these stances.
Cultural values are much more connected to geography than economic values. Both the rich and poor live in cities, suburbs and exurbs. But those who are socially liberal tend to live in cities, whereas those who are socially conservative tend to inhabit small towns. This partisan sorting on cultural issues has thus generated a significant partisan density divide. And because geography also corresponds to racial and ethnic diversity (basically, cities are multicultural and exurbs are mostly white), this adds another division onto the partisan divide: race.
With all these identities accumulating on top of each other, partisanship has become a kind of “mega-identity,” as political scientist Lilliana Mason argues, with party identification standing for much, much more. In fact, it’s reached the point that when you meet somebody, you can immediately size them up as a “Trump voter” or a “Biden voter.” That kind of easy stereotyping leads us to see the other party as distant and different. And typically, things that are distant and different are also more threatening.
But neither side has come to dominate. Instead, America has experienced an extended period of national parity between the two parties. Elections have swung back and forth in an almost predictable pendulum fashion since 1992 — unified control of one party, divided government, unified control of the other party, and so forth, over and over.
This back and forth has defied predictions of permanent Republican and Democratic majorities, but the closeness of elections has kept such elusive predictions of total domination both tantalizingly within reach (for one side) and dangerously close (for the other side). Simultaneously, the swings in power have imparted the lesson that when you’re down, the best thing to do is demonize the other side, refuse to compromise, wait for public opinion to tack against the party in power and ride the pendulum back to a majority.
These contradictory impulses lead to a few big policy swings (consider the changes on health care and tax policy under the Trump administration) during periods of unified government, and increasingly, in executive branch activities. They also create gridlock elsewhere and lead to a politics of zero-sum messaging, in which the party trying to win back the White House never has any incentive to compromise because it just blurs the message and helps the party in power seem more successful and legitimate. Thus, frustration — and the stakes of elections —- keep rising.
Yet beneath the surface of hyper-partisan politics, the parties themselves actually have a lot of internal division, which means they share a version of the same dilemma: Republicans and Democrats can’t please all the different voters and groups who fall into their party and want their issue to be prioritized. But in a polarized two-party system, they can make it clear why the other party is bad.
Coming into their convention, for instance, Democrats had to repair splits between the progressives and the moderates that were visible during the presidential primary. But the convention focused less on policy and more on the existential risk presented by a second Trump term. The party reminded people that, whatever concerns they have about Biden, a vote for Biden is also a vote against Trump.
Republicans similarly focused on messaging against the Democrats (even if one of the reasons Trump emerged victorious in the 2016 primary was because the party was so divided that it couldn’t decide). Trump has remade the party in his image, but even for the few remaining Trump-skeptic Republicans, nothing unites like a common enemy. And in a two-party system, being anti-anti-Trump counts the same as being pro-Trump.
If all of this seems unsustainable, it should. The current levels of hyper-partisanship are clearly dangerous. It’s bad news for a democracy when 60 to 70 percent of people view fellow citizens of the other party as a serious threat. And the more the parties continue to unify their supporters by casting the other party as the enemy, the higher this number will rise.
There are two possible ways this ends. The first is the one we all fear —- the unwinding of our democracy, because one or both sides hate each other so much that they are willing to support anti-democratic and authoritarian leadership in order to maintain power. (This is the threat Democrats have explicitly raised in recent months.)
The other scenario is a major realignment and/or a collapse of one (or both) of the two major parties, which could reorient American political coalitions and resurrect some of the overlaps of an earlier era. The growing partisan hatreds and the forces driving them have been a long time in the making. It’s possible they are coming to an end. But more than any other time in the last century and a half, they are testing the very foundations of American democracy.
© 10.2.2020 by Lee Drutman, "FiveThirtyEight".
[JS: Yes, it's an "oldie", but a good read to help understand the politics-from-hell we're now going thru.]
A Day In The Life.
Up at 8:30a on Friday, 55° and sunny, after a non-stop rain last evening. I went thru my finger stick to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level 108) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made Kona Hawaiian Volcanic Estate Coffee and breakfast, took a 500mg Tylenol Extra Strength for various pains, fired-up the furnace, garage and office-sunroom heaters, had a couple smokes in the semi-cool garage and checked the leftover errands list. It was forecast to hit 60° today, and 70°+ tomorrow. No, Spring isn't back; just some warm air following last night's stormfront moving thru. We're back in the 50s & 60s, next week.
I found out that I have to get up at 2:am on Monday, to leave by 4:00, and have my Sis at PSU-Hershey Medical Center & Hospital by 5:30, for her 7:30am surgery. (((SIGH))).
I did a couple errands, came home and laid down on the couch at 12noon, to take a nap. I tried, but couldn't sleep. I had some Ensure® Protein Shake, a BBQ Sandwich and a banana for lunch. The Pin Oak (Quercus Phellos) and Maple (Acer palmatum) leaves are really coming down, as well as the Eastern White Pine (Pinus Strobus) needles, and the worst is yet to come. Yes, I used to enjoy Fall; now, with getting buried by all this debris, I don't like it anymore. After lunch, I suddenly got tired, and hit the couch from 1-3:30p. Nice nap.
My neighbor called and asked me to help his ladyfriend's mother operate the hose end, to water some shrubs, but it was a "newfangled" handle thingy, and neither of us could get it to work. Heh. I gave-up, and went back inside. Temp was 67°, but it felt like 45° or colder in the shade. The DJIA was down again 403.89pts, ending the week at 29,634. Pitiful stuff from Shit-For-Brains Joey Bidet&Co.
I had PA Dutch Chicken Pot Pie for dinner, along with a couple Mini-Croissants to sop-up the plentiful juice, watched new episodes of "Gold Rush" and some previous episodes of "Gold Rush: Freddy Dodge's Mine Rescues", until 11:30p, and then bagged it for the night.
Awake at 6:30, it was dark, a cold 44°, so I fired-up the furnace and 2 heaters, did the BSL, made coffee, took 2 50mg Tramadol for various pains, checked the news and weather on my office-sunroom desktop computer, and held-off on breakfast until the Tramadol got into my system. When the sun came up around 7a, it was cloudy, but that cleared-up within an hour. I had breakfast, took my 19 pills and left on Rt 24 South, for DeVono's Cleaners, to p/u & drop-off laundry, and to Staples, to drop-off my 1st 2009 HP DeskJet 1660 Printer, which was stored in the basement's electronic shelves section, and was beyond repair. Traffic was heavy both ways. I worked on my 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee HEMI V8's easy-to-use and better than most other, Global NAV System (Google Satellite Earth Maps) on the dash, and got Monday's trip to the massive Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, programmed into the unit. I got the hang of it within a few minutes, and entered my nearby Rite Aid, just for grins, and my condo into it, as home base, and it works like a charm.
With dark coming around 6p now, I put the Jeep away, had dinner and watched Motor Trend's "Mecum Auto Auctions", to marvel and drool at many of the vehicles going thru the Chicago auction location. I finally unplugged around 1:30a.
I slept-in until8:30a on Sunday, a cloudy, 51° start to the day. I turned-up the heat, made coffee, took a 50mg Tramadol for lower back pain, grabbed my semi-daily shower, started 2 loads of laundry and had breakfast. The F-1 US Grand Prix Race is on at 3-5p, so I had plenty of time to get condo chores done. After those tasks were complete, I had Broiled Salmon (leftover from Wegman's in Lancaster), Steamed Asparagus and some Watermelon slices for lunch, and waited for the F-1 Race at 3p. I set my alarm for 2a, tomorrow morning, laid out clothes ahead -- as I always do -- and mentally prepped myself for a bad day, with little-to-no-sleep, and hopefully, a safe round trip ride from York to Hershey and back.
HOLY SHIT! The F-1 US Grand Prix has been rescheduled to NEXT weekend, Sun 23rd! No reason given. DAMMIT! So I watched part of the NASCAR Cup Series semi-finals race. I don't like NASCAR, except on road races. Those "roundy-round" tracks are boring.
After taking out the garbage and recyclables for tomorrow morning p/u, I had PA Dutch Chicken Pot Pie for dinner, and unplugged at 8p, in order to get up by 2a, for tomorrow's 4a trip to Hershey. Sucks to be me.
Awake at 1:45a on Monday, at 0-Dark-Thirty, again, I got ready for the trip with Sis to Hershey, and we left at 4:15. Virtually zero traffic. It was a cool 41° and darker than I remember, with no moon. I had the Jeep's NAV System -- which I've fondly named "Clarice" (Jody Foster in "Silence of The Lambs") -- guiding us the whole way. She has a very pleasant voice, unlike the Garmin and WAZE phone apps. I can't use either. It was a 30 min trip with zero traffic, 78.2 miles. I dropped Sis off at the Main Hospital Admissions Office, and left for home. I missed a turn, and "Clarice" re-calculated my route to get me back on track. I made it home, with building traffic in both north/south directions, at 5:25a. Still pitch-black outside with no moon. I made another carafe of Kona Coffee, recorded the mileage for taxes, and tuned into the "Chris Stigall Show", on 6-9a, from Philly.
It started to get light around 7:10a, and somehow I wasn't tired. I'm sure that I will be by/before 2p, and I will grab a nap on the LR 96" couch. By 8, the garbage was gone, and the other recyclables truck came thru, so I retrieved the green recycle bin back into my garage. Tonite's forecast is for 25-32°, and my condo is fully Winter-prepped, as of 2 weeks ago. I listened to my usual morning talk radio show, from DC, the "Chris Plante Show", on WMAL.
The average American is losing $34K+ in their 401(k)s, and everything else on Shit-For-Brains Joey Biden’s watch. Have you taken a peek at the balance in your 401(k) retirement accounts lately? Here’s my advice: Don’t bother. It will ruin your whole day, week and month. We’ve now had seven straight months of 8%+ inflation. A year ago we all were assured by the White House that these rapid price increases in everything from groceries, to rental cars, to gasoline at the pump, to health insurance were merely “transitory”. Whoops. The most immediate sticker shock from Bidenflation has been to shrink real take-home
After lunch, I crashed hard on the LR sofa, and slept for 5hrs. Tired didn't come close to describing it. I had a light dinner, and planned to get some sleep, early. Sis' Dr/surgeon called from PSU-Hershey Medical Center and gave me a good report. They'll decide soon when she can be discharged. Sis called later, and had an O2 tube up her nose, and we talked for a few minutes. My cleaning lady, JoAnne, comes in tomorrow at 8:30a, and I'll be getting up early, so I decided to get to sleep early tonite, and bagged it at 10p. I was dead-tired from this morning.
I hate to say this, but I don't think November 8th will be a "GOP Red Blowout", as so many pundits predict. We'll win some seats, but the brain dead leftists, socialists, communists, Marxists, anarchists, liberals on the demonKKKrat party, aren't flocking to the GOP, for any reason. Independents are, to a degree. Most blacks aren't; they're still slaves to the demonKKKrats, as they've been since the 1700s. Just pray that we can take a votable majority of the US House and US Senate, by a decent margin. If we don't, America is irreparably doomed over the next 2+ years. Light a candle.
Up at 6am to the alarm, it was a cold 37° -- no frost yet, but it's forecast for tonite, down to 28° -- so I fired-up the furnace, office-sunroom and garage heaters, made coffee, and checked the weather and news. Still very tired from yesterday, I had a Mini-Croissant for breakfast and plenty of Kona Coffee. That didn't help; I was still seriously dragging. JoAnne arrived early, I tuned into the "CP Show" and laid down on the LR couch for a nap. The vacuum cleaner noise woke me up, so I drank more coffee to keep me up and going, until I had to run some errands, get lunch and meet Sherry at the massive York Galleria at 1p. We did a mile, went thru part of the Boscov's store twice, and came back to my place to rest and talk; a very good time with her, as usual, since it'll be a while until we get together again.
I got a call from my Sis to pick her up at PSU-Hershey Medical Center on Thursday, had a LARGE bowl of Butternut Squash Bisque for dinner, watched Fox News and hit the sack around 10:30p. Lights out.
Up at 8:30a on Wednesday, I turned-up the heat, but at 43° outside -- so much for last night's *FROST ADVISORY* -- and fired-up the garage and office-sunroom heaters. I made coffee, checked the weather and news, and tuned-into the "CP Show" for the morning. I have to go food shopping after lunch -- never go on an empty stomach -- to get the 'fridge filled back up, since Sis comes home tomorrow. I had breakfast and was planning to go food shopping and get some other errands done, when she called and said she was coming back today, so I had to reschedule a pile of things to tomorrow and Friday, tried to call her back and couldn't get thru to her damned phone. Just garbled noise on the other end. Either her phone's battery is low, or they've moved her to another room where there's no WIFI reception. DAMMIT!
After re-arranging I left at 12:45p to get to PSU-Hershey Medical Center & Hospital, by 2p. Traffic was a horror show on northbound I83; it took me almost 2hrs to get thru it all -- back-up for 10+ miles -- just one way. A 50-axle (!) 200ft long+ trailer was transporting a MASSIVE/HUGE/MEGA-LARGE piece of structural equipment -- I couldn't tell what it was exactly -- with many PA State Police SUVs and PennDot escorts, easily taking-up 2 lanes. I picked her up carefully, and the drive home was moderate-to-heavy traffic, even at 2:30p, in many areas. My NAV System & "Clarice" were helpful and annoying, at the same time. Back home by 3:30p, I helped her get situated, and onto my beloved nap couch, which I'd made into her bed, for the 3-4 weeks. I also did a load of dishes and readied 2 loads of laundry, for tomorrow. (((SIGH)))
*** FREEZE WARNING ***
From
02:00am EDT, Oct 19 2022
until
09:00am EDT, Oct 20 2022
•Issued By State College (Penn State) -- PA, US, National Weather Service.
• WHAT: Sub-freezing temperatures as low as around 30° expected..
• WHERE: Portions of south-central Pennsylvania.
• WHEN: From 2 AM to 9 AM EDT Thursday.
• IMPACTS: Frost and freeze conditions will kill crops and other sensitive vegetation.
• ADDITIONAL DETAILS: Valley locations and sheltered areas will probably experience the coldest temperatures. This will likely bring an end to the growing season.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS:
• Take protective measures now as freezing temperatures could damage or kill tender plants and vegetation. Potted plants should be brought inside.
After a short nap in my office-sunroom chair, I had a Proscuitto on Rye, w/ Mayo and Bai Socorro Super Sweet Tea, and closed-up the condo, as temps were falling into the low-40s and getting dark. Frost tonite? Likely. I watched some usual Fox shows -- "Jesse Watters, "Tucker" -- and switched over to Discovery+ for an episode of "Gold Rush", and unplugged at 10:30. One of my office-sunroom's 4' x 9' electric blinds is being replaced at 8a, tomorrow, so I need to be awake and alert. Good night, Irene.
Up at 6a with the dreaded alarm, at 0-Dark-Thirty again, Ed The Installer was coming at 8a to install my new office-sunroom blind/shade, but it was a different one than the other two, which have been repaired 3x, over the past 4yrs. It was unacceptable, but I had him install it anyway, to get the taped newspaper down and had 3 working blinds. The company's owner, Tammi, will be by tomorrow, to "reconcile" the 2 vs 1 different blinds/shades on the 3 4' x 9' office-sunroom windows. I turned-up the heat, made coffee, had the last of the Croissants, took my 19 pills, did the BSL, and checked my food shopping list for Weis Market, later this morning.
It was a bright, sunny, cold 37° morning, but no frost that I could see. I tuned into the "CP Show" after Ed left, and decided to wait until around 12noon, to go to Weis Market. I was frustrated about the awkward shades/blinds, but not stressed; no use in going to that point. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper on Rt 24, both north and south. I hit the Rite Aid Pharmacy first, then to Weis Market to spend $155 for 6 bags of groceries, and then to Sis' condo to get her mail, packages and inspect the work. What a shock it was so gutted. I got back home 2½hrs later, still in heavy traffic, due to the Market St/I83 bridge replacement. After unpacking, I relaxed for a couple hours, and then drove south, in even heavier traffic, to Dallastown, for an errand, and back home by 6:15p. Enough for the day, so I pulled the Jeep into the garage, opened the hood to heat the garage to a toasty 83° for the evening.
Tomorrow, I have to go to the New Eastern Farmers' Market, to p/u and to go order from Pasta Plus, meet with our friend Tammi, who did all my/Becky's/dad's blinds and shades, to get a resolution on my screwed-up office-sunroom situation. I watched Fox News until 9, and then changed to "American Pickers" and "Homestead Rescue, until "Gutfeld!" at 11p. Lights out at midnight.
Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and it'll be a busy day tomorrow. Next week is mostly clear, but various Drs' app'ts are coming hot and heavy in November, as the medical establishment gets their last licks in before year-end.
Vladimir Putin Joke of The Day.
Vladimir Putin was being briefed by one of his top generals.
"I've good news and bad news for you this morning, sir."
"Let's hear the good news," Putin replied.
"Intelligence reports indicate that the latest additions to the Ukrainian arsenal are damaged and outdated, and many won't pose any threat to us at all."
"That's excellent! Finally, things might be starting to turn our way! What's the bad the news?"
The general shifted in his seat and looked down at the table. "A large amount of our best weapons and munitions have just been captured, sir."
"Brainwashed" Lyrics.
Yes, it's a White rapper's "song", and yes, I also hate rap-crap noise, but -- a younger, Conservative neighbor pointed the lyrics out to me -- the lyrics are prescient; so try to get past that crap, and read on and relate it to our present situation here in America...
"Brainwashed"
Half the country fell asleep but they scream woke
We're distracted by vaccines and TV shows
Politics, celebrity, gossip, popular neat quotes
Black lives, white lives, which lives mean most?
We only dedicate one day to remember our fallen soldiers
The men and women who died young
But if you come out the closet as Caitlyn Jenner
You're a hero and you get a whole pride month
The most dangerous pandemic's propaganda from these clowns
Only mask that's gonna save us is duct tape on they mouths
Don't speak, we don't need to defund police
Need to defund the media who lies through they teeth, like
Big pharma doesn't cure you, dog
'Cause every patient that gets cured is a customer lost
And big oil runs the world, the only wars that get fought
Are with the countries who have natural resources they want
Heard 'em claiming if a white man braids his hair
And likes rap, he's appropriating culture
But if a white man acts too white he's white trash
He's a racist, he's a bigot, he's a monster
Let's just have the conversation
Not every liberal is dumb, not all Republicans are racist
The government wants everybody fighting with their neighbors
'Cause they know that if we get along, we'll probably go against 'em
They can't stop us 'cause we're ready to fight
Try to brainwash us but we won't let freedom die
The whole world's brainwashed
Everybody pick a team, start a riot in the streets
The whole world's brainwashed
It's us against them, it ain't you against me
How did monkeys become people and people turned into sheep?
They put fluoride in the water that's keeping us all asleep
Claim they want what's best for us, I find that hard to believe
'Cause they been selling us cigarettes since we was eighteen
Fake news, fake woke, distract, and divide
You're either right or you're left or you're black or you're white
Big tech don't need a microchip to hack in your life
'Cause the phone inside your pocket is a tracking device
And I don't know what I'm more sick of, rappers or Joe Biden
Looking like he ate a hundred Xanax for dinner
'Cause censoring the president and kicking him off Twitter
Is a bigger threat to freedom than foreign ballistic missiles
You don't trust the police or the government but you want
People giving up their right to own a firearm
Why would you be comfortable if police and the government
The only people on the planet with the right to buy a gun
White privilege getting amplified to reinforce division
It convinces white people that they're favored by their skin
And black people getting angry 'cause they're told they're treated different
So the conflict is between us and never with the system
Let's just have the conversation
Not every liberal is dumb, not all Republicans are racist
The government wants everybody fighting with their neighbors
'Cause they know that if we get along, we'll probably go against 'em
They can't stop us 'cause we're ready to fight
Try to brainwash us but we won't let freedom die
The whole world's brainwashed
Everybody pick a team, start a riot in the streets
The whole world's brainwashed
It's us against them, it ain't you against me
Step one, train the people only to consume
Step two, infiltrate adults with the news
Step three, indoctrinate the children through the schools
And the music and the apps on the phones that they use
Step four, separate the right from the left
Step five, separate the white from the black
Step six, separate the rich from the poor
Use religion and equality to separate 'em more
Step seven, fabricate a problem made of lies
Step eight, put it on the news every night
Step nine, when people start to fight and divide
Take control, this is called situational design
They can't stop us 'cause we're ready to fight
Try to brainwash us but we won't let freedom die
The whole world's brainwashed
Everybody pick a team, start a riot in the streets
The whole world's brainwashed
It's us against them, it ain't you against me
