IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES: A NATIONAL DIVORCE?
Post 2 -- March 17, 2023
Firebrand “stop the steal” Congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene recently grabbed our attention yet again with her tweet arguing that “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states….” Many commentators lambasted her for the suggestion, some even comparing it to sedition. Nonetheless, a July 2021 poll conducted by The Hill reports support for secession among every partisan group. Some 37 percent of those polled indicated a “willingness to secede,” with 66 percent of Republicans in the South favoring the proposition.
Clearly, Greene does not like the direction of the country. But her comment was not generated out of a concern for the future of democracy; if it were, she would be criticizing the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol and the numerous attacks on our right to vote. What she does recognize, however, is the growing divide in the nation, especially in the political arena. This fissure has now spread beyond the gridlock in Washington, D.C. to statehouses throughout the land. And it continues to create problems for our ability to thrive as a democratic nation.
DIVISION AND POLARIZATION
America is more politically divided between Democrats and Republicans than at any time in recent memory. Just look at historical public opinion. The percentage of those reporting large differences between the parties has risen from 50 percent in 1952 to 62 percent in 1984 to 76 percent in 2004. By 2020, 90 percent embraced that view. Our system now appears to be a competition between “political tribes” that demand full loyalty to the leader of the group, no matter his or her character, qualifications, or positions.
To be sure, significant divisions exist within the parties as well as between them. African-Americans, a critical base of the Democratic party, often express different views on abortion or even school choice from liberal white allies with more education and larger incomes. And the populist strain within the GOP frequently embraces economic philosophies that depart from those of “main street Republicans” and their support of business interests. But when it comes to casting votes, tribal unity seemingly triumphs over internal squabbles.
Several decades ago, for example, it was not unusual for Americans to “split their tickets” when casting their ballots. In 2008, for example, 83 congressional districts selected a presidential candidate from a different party than their elected congressperson. By 2020, however, only 16 of these so-called "crossover districts" remained, the smallest share of ticket-splitting between presidential and congressional nominees in a century.
Similarly, it was not uncommon for voters to switch their party preferences from election to election, whether they resided in red or blue states. Massachusetts and Maryland have been reliably Democratic states at the national level for decades. Yet both elected Republicans as Governors in numerous instances during that time. South Dakota is about as red a state as one can find, but Democrat Tom Daschle was the state’s Senator for 18 years before his narrow defeat in 2004. Virginia’s present Senator, Mark Warner, won the governorship in 2001 at a time when the state had voted for a Republican presidential candidate in every year since 1964.
THE RISE OF TRIFECTAS
At the state level, voters will occasionally reject tribal politics enough to elect candidates from parties different from the state’s presidential preferences. Recent examples include Democratic Governor Laura Kelly, who just won a second term in Kansas, or Republicans Charlie Baker in Massachusetts and Ray Hogan in Maryland. But these have become the exception rather than the rule. At the state level, the decline in ticket splitting and the increasing intensity of party polarization is eroding what was formerly common– state decisionmaking conducted by a divided government, where one party might dominate the legislature while the other controlled the executive–or vice versa. Divided government generated a tendency toward moderation and compromise, as neither party in a state could assert total control.
In the last several decades, what has emerged instead at the state level is a dynamic called the “trifecta”, a governing arrangement where one party controls the governorship and both houses in the legislature at the same time. In 1994, only 20 states had trifectas; Democrats held 16 to the Republicans’ 4. These numbers changed dramatically after President Obama’s election in 2008, as Republicans increased their efforts to gain control of state legislatures. The public remembers the shellacking Democrats in Congress took in the 2010 midterms. But the real damage to the party occurred in state legislatures, as Republicans scored record victories, gaining almost 700 seats nationally just prior to a national redistricting that further solidified GOP power. That election increased the number of trifectas to 32, and Republicans had acquired 21 of them. Today, the number of trifectas stands at 39, with Republican states outnumbering Democratic ones by 22 to 17. Both parties love trifectas, but their presence can lead to political overreach and disrespect of the minority.
THE BIG SORT OF RED AND BLUE
One reason for this increasing polarization rests with the tendency for the American public to sort itself–by geography, education, and politics. Sometimes referred to as “The Big Sort”, it is a dynamic that describes Americans’ tendency to concentrate in areas with like-minded people from similar backgrounds. Not only do these places have a political identity based on their residents, but that identity intensifies as more people with similar views move to an area. In most simplistic terms, Democrats tend to concentrate in urban areas and states with liberal political philosophies, and Republicans embrace rural areas or states with conservative political identities. The growth of population in Virginia’s D.C. suburbs has been linked to the state’s political change from Republican to Democratic over the last two decades. Similarly, Florida is becoming more red as its demographics have changed.
The process seems to have accelerated in recent years. Redfin, the national real estate brokerage company, recently opined that "people will vote with their feet, moving to places that align with their politics." NPR recently reported on a group called Conservatives Moving to Texas, so-named to reflect the political rationale behind participants’ relocation from liberal states like California to Texas, a process accelerated during the pandemic.
This “sorting” is reflected in the voting patterns of recent elections. A recent report of UVA’s Center for Politics is illustrative. It focused on America's "super landslide" jurisdictions, counties or cities where one party or the other gained 80 percent or more of the popular vote in presidential elections. In the presidential election of 2004, for example, when incumbent George W. Bush defeated John Kerry to win a second term, one or the other candidate won 80% or more of the vote in less than 200 of the nation’s 3,143 voting jurisdictions (about 6 percent). By 2020, the number of super-landslide jurisdictions had risen to 22 percent. Virginia ranked in the middle of all states with the largest super-landslide jurisdictions and Trump won the 18 states with the highest number of super-majority jurisdictions. (Of the top 30 super majority democratic jurisdictions in 2020, Charlottesville is tied with San Francisco at number 6, with Democrat Joe Biden winning 87 percent of the vote in each place).
Evidence also suggests an increase in polarization among those seeking seats in the state legislatures. A study by Handan-Nader, Myers, and Hall, for example, argues that candidates seeking state legislative office are more ideologically extreme than in decades past. This is exacerbated by the party primary system, which generates winners generally viewed as more extreme. This dynamic is less salient in off-year elections, like those held in Virginia, where delegate races occur in years where the presidency is not at stake.
All of these developments suggest to academics such as McCarty and Shor that state legislatures are even more polarized than Congress, a troubling view if only because about 50 percent of national representatives previously served in state bodies.
OPPOSING PARTIES AS THREATS TO THE NATION?
About 80% of registered voters — Democrats and Republicans alike — said in October 2020 that their differences with the other side were about core American values, not just differences of opinion. Partisans have even taken to branding their political opponents as dangerous–even evil. A 2020 poll from the American Enterprise Institute reported that 64% of Democrats see Republican policies as a serious threat to the country. Republicans were even more concerned, with 75% of them viewing Democratic policies as putting the nation at risk. A 2022 Pew research opinion poll found that 72 percent of Republicans believe Democrats are both more immoral and more dishonest than other Americans. Smaller majorities of Democrats characterize Republicans in the same way; nonetheless, 63 percent view Republicans as more immoral and 64 percent as more dishonest. For both party members, the numbers are much larger than those reported in 2016.
Explaining these divisions is complex. Social media, negative campaigning, and the nationalization of politics play key roles. And when partisanship becomes further linked to cultural identity, the polarization can become even more virulent.
Democrats typically argue that Republicans are more responsible for our polarization because their approaches–especially when it comes to voting rights and redistricting–appear more partisan. In this view, Democrats are more concerned with the democratic underpinnings of the nation(i.e. Jan 6 and “stop the steal” almost brought autocratic rule) while Republicans are more troubled by the so-called collapse in our cultural and social institutions (government schools are usurping parents’ rights to control their children’s education). Republicans frequently counter that the Democrats are attempting to weaponize the government to marginalize those who would “make America great again.”
RESENTMENT AND IDENTITY BREEDS CONTEMPT
In recent years, urban and rural communities have drifted further apart, with the former enjoying greater diversity and economic activity and the later becoming poorer, sicker, and older. In some rural areas, the basic social supports such as religious institutions, voluntary associations, and locally controlled medical care have either collapsed or are encountering challenges not experienced since the 1930s. For many long-time residents of these communities, their entire world seemingly has been turned upside down. They may have lost their job, and wonder about the future chances for their children. This has bred what researchers Jacobs and Munis call “place-based resentment”. While also found in cities and suburbs, it is strongest in rural areas, where many people distrust a “mainstreet media” generated from cities and a cultural revolution that they neither understand nor like. This resentment, the political scientists argue, is consistently “predictive of vote choice for rural voters.”
But this feeling is not simply about place; racial and cultural identity are also factors. For some, partisanship is heightened when your politics is reinforced by your identity. When a voter’s “partisan social identity” merges with his or her racial, religious, sexual and cultural identities, argues Lilliana Mason, it creates an emotional type of polarization that cannot be explained by parties or issues alone.” This is one reason why the Democratic push to expand medicaid, which data showed would help large numbers in the more rural areas of the nation, never really affected results at the polls. There were much deeper forces at play, arising as much from the cultural identity in those areas than the economic and health benefits that could be derived from better health care.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
These data are sobering and could lead many to despair. But there is some good news; while Americans live in the middle of this maelstrom, we don’t like it. A 2022 Public Agenda and USA TODAY poll found almost three-quarters of Americans believe that partisan hostility and divisiveness harm the country. And polarization and extremism ranked the third highest concern among a list of 20 issues explored in a 2022 FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll, just behind crime and inflation. Groups are popping up all over this nation in hopes of building common ground among Americans. Some of these are focusing on individuals and small groups. But other creative efforts hope to make institutional change. This is where states will be significant; as laboratories of democracy, they can experiment with approaches such as nonpartisan redistricting, open primaries, and ranked-voice voting. At present, institutional incentives are aligned to build polarization. Politicians who seem most extreme garner the greatest attention and win elections. They then act in ways that just exacerbate the problem. Our challenge is significant; reducing other divisions will require change in the individual and the institutions.
In the posts that follow, this newsletter will examine a number of these individual and institutional approaches that address polarization and partisan divides.
NEXT UP?
SOME STATES ARE EXPLORING NEW TYPES OF ELECTION.
AND HOW SOME STATE LEADERS ARE ATTACKING PROSECUTORS–AND WHAT THIS MEANS FOR JUSTICE.
David J. Toscano is a Charlottesville attorney and author of Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives, University of Virginia Press, 2021, and Bellwether: Virginia’s Political Transformation, 2006-2020, Hamilton Books, 2022. You can see his other writings at www.davidtoscano.com.