Red and Blue

Barack Obama became famous for saying, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America". But the partisan divide has only hardened in the years since.

The latest World Happiness Report has America dropping four places to eighteenth.

Data suggest it’s no coincidence that relative unhappiness in the U.S. coincides with the election .... A June 2017 Gallup poll found that 25 percent of Americans listed the government as the most important problem facing the country, up from only 8 percent in October 2016.

Anand Giridharadas hopes that "Woke America" and "Great America" can somehow learn from each other.

Everyone is offended all the time, on both sides of the political divide. Taking offense is, in fact, one of the few things that brings us together. A Hollywood award show, a thermoplastic restroom sign, a visiting lecturer in a cardigan, a question about where one is from, a claim that black or blue or white or all lives matter — anything is fodder for the great American war of offense.

Woke America and Great America have lost the habit of genuinely arguing with each other. It takes a certain curiosity about, and hope for, other people to argue with them, and we seem to have fallen out of both those things.

There is a fine line between saying “this is why you’ll never understand me” and “here is what you’d see if you were me.” The intellectual underpinning is the same; the mission differs.

And Melanie McFarland points out how a handful of TV shows have tried to create dialog across this divide.

But Conor Lynch argues that a neoliberal consensus does broadly exist and that itself is a problem.

Though bipartisan politics is often hailed as responsible and respectable, there is nothing inherently good about compromise, especially when it ends up serving the economic elite and going against what the majority of Americans want, as is often the case in Washington today when Republicans and Democrats come together.

Lynch notes the widespread support for the economic agenda of Bernie Sanders and writes, "while the red-state/blue-state divide is real and deeply entrenched in American politics, the divide between economic elites and everyone else may be even more consequential in our populist age." Lynch reports that at a recent rally in Texas Sanders "rejected the hyper-partisan politics that have come to dominate our current era" and quotes him:

I've never believed in this blue-state, red-state nonsense. Yes, Lubbock voted overwhelmingly [Republican]. But any county in this country, which has people who are struggling, can and must become a progressive county.

Update:  A voter study finds that "[t]he number of voters who cast a ballot for Obama in 2012 and did not vote in 2016, or voted for a third-party candidate, outnumbered those Obama voters who pulled the lever for [the Republican]". They are generally non-white, younger, and lower income but not necessarily the most liberal.

Update (March 19):  Paul Rosenberg discusses the concept of "asymmetric polarization". He refers to the paper “Asymmetric Constitutional Hardball,” by Joseph Fishkin and David Pozen.

[K]ey conservative political actors — from the Federalist Society to the Koch brothers' network — have long been intensely focused on just this sort of political struggle. Progressives cannot be expected to win battles in which they do not even show up, or at best bring a yogurt spoon to a nuclear war. And well-meaning “good government” types repeatedly do more harm than good as they reinforce a situation of one-sided disarmament.

Update (March 26):  In an interview with Chauncey DeVega, authors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt discuss the future of U.S. democracy. Ziblatt:

The Republican Party is desperate. It fears that it is not going to be able to win elections, so bending and breaking rules to cheat their way into electoral victories becomes a preferred strategy. The rules that 30-plus state legislatures in the United States have adopted over the last decade have made it harder for people who are, by and large, lower-income nonwhite voters to register and to vote. That is deeply undemocratic. As long as the Republican Party is an overwhelmingly white and Christian party in a society as diverse as the United States, it is going to be prone to this kind of white-nationalist extremism. The Republicans must become a more diverse party.

Levitsky:

If in the fall of 2018 or in 2020 there is a shift to the Democrats, this, in principle, could prompt a reevaluation on the side of the Republicans to "refound" the party. Looking at cases around the world, in countries like Germany after World War II or Chile after Pinochet there have been efforts, after major catastrophes, for groups to reorganize themselves. It is difficult, but we don't really have any other options. It's probably naïve to think about going back to the norms that we had before. Probably we'll evolve in some forward direction, but it certainly did not have to be this sort of no-holds-barred partisan warfare that we've seen in the last couple of decades. If our democracy is going to remain even minimally healthy we need to develop a set of norms that allow our political parties to work through institutions.

It's very hard, really it's impossible, for me to think of a democracy in the world that survived an ethnic majority making a transition to minority status. There really has not been a successful experiment with multiethnic democracy in the world, and that's why the growing diversification of Western democracies is a real challenge. Looking at the reaction of the Republican Party over the last 10 or 20 years to these trends scares me a lot.

What gives me some room for optimism, and what makes me think that the United States has a shot to be the first successful multiethnic democracy, is that our democratic institutions are in fact quite strong. I think we did -- helped a lot by World War II -- a pretty decent job as a society of integrating immigrant groups that arrived in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was pretty nasty, it was hardly a model, but we did it. So as a society, we have much more experience with dealing with diversity and with integration than do other Western societies. That's how I put myself to sleep at night.

Update (April 1):  A Pew Research Center study finds a growing education attainment gap between Democrats and Republicans. And, an on-line survey finds that supporters share a number of traits with Dear Leader: selfishness, a desire for power over others, preoccupation with money, and a preference for social traditions.

Also, a paper by lead author Andrew Whitehead shows that "greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for" von Clownstick. Paul Rosenberg explains.

When push comes to shove, the more vicious the leader, the better. The moral restraints of the deeply pious are the last thing you want for the job. Hence, [Fuckface's] impious leadership makes perfect sense, once you realize what’s at stake. It’s a feature, not a bug. And evangelical voters, Whitehead argues, know it.

Update (April 2):  Elizabeth Mika in an interview with Chauncey DeVega.

Having no conscience, [von Clownstick] does not experience guilt or shame or remorse, so he can say whatever pleases him at the moment to get people to do whatever he wants or needs of them.

People fell for this because they want what he has to offer. Ultimately, [Fuckface] embodies values that people do not necessarily want to admit to.

Update (April 8):  In an interview with David Letterman, Jay Z had an interesting thought about the current administration.

I think it’s actually a great thing, and here's why.

What he’s forcing people to do is have a conversation ... and work together. Like, you can't really address something that’s not revealed.

He's bringing out an ugly side of America that we wanted to believe was gone .... And we still gotta deal with it. We have to have tough conversations. We have to talk about the N-word, and we have to talk about why white men are so privileged in this country.

Update (April 15):  Conor Lynch argues that populism needn't be a threat to democracy.

Over the past several years, it has become clear that young people are embracing political and economic alternatives to the status quo, but this hardly means they are rejecting democracy. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that they are rejecting capitalism. ... [I]t seems likely that we are headed into a populist age. The task for the left, then, is to shape this populist age by offering a credible and convincing alternative to the defeated and ineffective neoliberal agenda.

Update (April 29):  Paul Rosenberg explains a state level legislative initiative called "Project Blitz".

The agenda underlying these bills is not merely about Christian nationalism, a term that describes an Old Testament-based worldview fusing Christian and American identities, and meant to sharpen the divide between those who belong to those groups and those who are excluded. It’s also ultimately "dominionist," meaning that it doubles down on the historically false notion of America as a “Christian nation” to insist that a particular sectarian view of God should control every aspect of life, through all manner of human institutions.

Update (May 6):  This is how far apart Americans are.

According to [an] NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll, 76 percent of Republicans believe [Dear Leader] tells the truth “most of the time.”

[But] 94 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaners—and 76 percent of independents polled—[said] they believe [Fuckface] tells the truth “only some of the time or even less frequently.”

Update (May 12):  Conor Lynch discusses how "aggrieved entitlement" leads angry, young white men to reactionary politics.

Ultimately the same thing that has driven left-wing populism has driven this politics of reaction: a legitimate feeling of discontent with the status quo. There are plenty of valid reasons to be disillusioned with the modern world, of course, but this dissatisfaction can lead one to embrace either a reactionary politics that fetishizes the past, or a progressive politics that aims to create a better future.

Update (May 13):  When Sam Haselby says it's time to question American patriotism, I think he's referring to what is called nationalism in other countries.

The sacred status of American patriotism in the US indicates only an ideological strength, not moral or intellectual soundness.

Sarah Silverman made a distinction between "we're number one" versus "we are one".

Update (December 17):  Paul Rosenberg follows up on Project Blitz strategy and progressive efforts to fight back.