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Political Polarization

5 min read

Part of Elections and politics.

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Every episode (3)

Who argued it

Kevin Vallier · Frank Buckley · Joan Blades · John Gable

Federalism · Economic Growth · Big Tech · Administrative State

Background

The sorting of party coalitions

Richard Epstein traces polarization to a change in how party “baskets” are assembled. Fifty or sixty years earlier, he says, there was serious overlap between the Democratic and Republican parties, with liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans, and bipartisan activity, particularly on foreign affairs; the choice between Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower did not put the country in turmoil. Now, he argues, the items in the basket are no longer randomly assorted: a progressive’s positions align on nearly every issue, and a conservative’s market basket is similarly uniform. The result, on his account, is that candidates diverge on just about every issue, and instead of a bell-shaped curve in which a Democratic win moves policy slightly left and a Republican win slightly right, there is a U-shaped curve in which a Democratic win moves all the way in one direction and a Trump win could move all the way in the other. Because voters think an election will affect everything, they invest more moral energy in it, including denunciation of the other side; Epstein calls global warming a powerful card in this, with one side calling it a hoax and a fraud and the other saying it is bringing the universe to an end Richard Epstein on Climate Change (2017).

Bob Zadek frames the same episode’s opening problem as the politicization of science: candidates align with a party, and by that identifier align with a scientific position, so that voters—whom he calls incompetent to vote on science—make the ultimate decision on a complex scientific issue Richard Epstein on Climate Change (2017).

Polarization as a durable condition

Jonathan Haidt treats polarization as one of several irreversible trends behind campus conflict, alongside social media and rising competitiveness to get children into college. If nothing is done, he predicts, depression rates will rise and campus conflict will increase; nationally, he says the political system is in big trouble and polarization will get worse, so institutions—corporations and universities—must adapt to life in a time of incredible political polarization, fake news, and outrage stories. He locates hope in parents and teachers recognizing that something is going wrong, and in college presidents who say their job has become impossible because they never know what blow-up will greet them. His concrete proposals include the Chicago Principles on freedom of expression, under which a university provides a platform and does not take sides, and OpenMindPlatform.org, a program he developed with Caroline Mehl and others to teach skills for discussing politics and other divisive issues Jonathan Haidt on The Coddling of the American Mind (2018).

Trust, tribes and the doom loop

Kevin Vallier approaches polarization through social trust, noting that trust is remarkably stable across many countries—Sweden has been the most trusting country in the world for forty years, and massive policy changes there had no effect on it. He suggests younger generations have lacked a national unifying event and spend more time alone and less in face-to-face interaction, and that declining religiosity reduces the church-based interactions that produce positive experience across class and race. Political polarization, he says, is part of what reduces social trust: the fall in trust corresponds fairly closely to the increase in polarization, as two cultures—a red tribe and a blue tribe—develop markers in where they live, what they wear, whether they go to church, what they drive, and what they eat. At the elite level, he says, religious fundamentalism is being replaced by political fundamentalism, and politicians who distrust and hate each other filter that pattern into society Mandatory PPE (2020).

Lee Drutman, in an episode description, frames the current “doom loop” of polarization as a modern phenomenon resulting from the nationalization of politics, and proposes structural reforms including proportional representation and multi-member districts Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop (2020). Tom Campbell’s Common Sense Party is described as a third-party movement in California aimed at breaking the Democratic-Republican duopoly, with institutional barriers such as campaign finance laws and ballot access Moving California Forward with the Common Sense Party (2023).

Speech, platforms and personal rupture

Bill Ottman ties polarization to platform policy, arguing that Twitter’s content rules are political because what counts as hate speech to one person is not hate speech to another; he cites the claim that it is against Twitter’s policy to misgender somebody and that people have been banned for saying a man is not a woman, calling this part of the political polarization and identity politics game Social Media Censorship (2019).

Bob Zadek distinguishes disagreement on political solutions, which he calls healthy, from polarization that creeps into the personal—ad hominem attacks, vindictiveness, and the splitting of friendships and family relationships. He says many politicians, pundits and media figures prosper on polarization, and introduces Joan Blades and John Gable as having found a sensible approach through Living Room Conversations and AllSides.com Popping the Filter Bubble (2019).

Across episodes

The episodes show the topic argued in several episodes without a clear development from earlier to later treatment: Epstein’s account of sorted party baskets and the U-shaped curve, Haidt’s irreversible trends and institutional adaptation, Vallier’s trust-and-tribes analysis, Ottman’s platform-policy complaint, Zadek’s framing of Living Room Conversations and AllSides.com, and the structural remedies attributed to Drutman and Campbell each stand largely on their own.

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