“America, at this moment, is more politically polarized than it has been since the Civil War.” By and large, I agree with that widespread assumption. But as Mark Twain supposedly said of the weather: everyone complains about it, but no one does anything about it. The questions I have regarding polarization are what it really signifies, whether it’s really polarization, and what we can do about it.
The clear short-term answer to the latter question is: not much. But I also have problems with the question itself. As was the case in the Civil War around the issue of slavery, we’re not so much polarized as split. (Think of splitting an apple, or an atom). Polarization is something that defines a spectrum, not a split-screen of two nations at war with one another. We’re divided between those who believe in peaceful, polarized debate and those who do not.
Understand first of all that ideological polarization per se isn’t a bad thing; it’s a natural and necessary feature of a democratic market society. Such polarization (distribution along an axis of political opinion) is an index of our freedom to disagree, and to contest our conflicting values, especially around the basic issue of inequality. Two things drive that polarity.
One is democracy, which is the freedom part: the part that makes it possible for us to debate our political differences. The other is capitalism, which makes it necessary to debate them, and which largely accounts for those differences in the first place. That’s because capitalism virtually guarantees some level of inequality, and most of our democratic debate is about how much inequality to tolerate. Too much violates (some) conceptions of justice, and arguably damages democracy itself. But we come to the political marketplace with different interests based on unequal economic power. (Some might consider these assertions obvious.)
Resolving those differences, and protecting the rights of all citizens, is why we have democracy in the first place, and why it is preferable to anarchy and tyranny. . Any democracy is a perpetual referendum on capitalism, and not on capitalism up or down, but how much and what forms. It’s a referendum on where to draw the boundaries between the private and the public (with the collective private, the nonprofit sector, serving as a buffer zone).
We remain polarized, in the traditional sense, around issues of equality, and those issues matter deeply. But we’ve been polarized around them forever. Managing such polarization – not getting rid of it -- is the ongoing business of a democracy. The question isn’t how to get rid of such ideological polarization, but about how much of it the system can bear – and where the poles are: how much our ideological axis can stretch before it splits. What the system cannot bear is anything that’s fundamentally anti-democratic, including groups, parties, or movements that use force or the threat of force, or that interfere with basic democratic functions such as the rule of law, free speech, assembly, voting, or the peaceful transfer of power.
Most of us would agree that the kind of polarization we are experiencing is qualitatively different, and that it’s bad on all these levels. It’s bad for the economy (the size of the pie), bad for justice (how the pie is divided among us), and bad for our national security (the safety of the pie itself). And it’s beyond a mere “stretching” of the distance from far left to far right. It’s a qualitative splitting into two nations that are already engaged in a cold civil war.
That’s why we have trouble talking to one another. The bad news is this:
Once a sizeable part of the electorate effectively abandons democratic norms and principles, knowingly or not, there’s little left to talk about and little room for persuasion.
I don’t have answers, certainly not short-term ones, for depolarizing America. But those who talk about what a nasty business it is that we feel so alienated from one another, blue America from red America and vice versa, are obscuring the real problem. The hot mess we are in is that we are no longer just debating along the ideological spectrum. We’re not just fighting over economic equality or inequality; we’re fighting over political equality, and who makes the rules. We’re contending over democracy itself. And it’s a terrible place for a great nation to be.
Most Republicans have followed Donald Trump into the territory of insurrection, election denial, contempt for voting rights, contempt for the law, and contempt for truth. They have embraced the worst demagogue that America has ever known. To complain about excess polarization under these circumstances is to bring band-aids to a plane crash.
Trumpists don’t believe they are anti-American, but their words and actions tell a different story; and even if Trump loses again in 2024, their false narrative won’t go away. They will contest the election, very possibly with violence. Trumpism will take decades to overcome. Most people cannot be reconstructed, morally and politically. They can only die off.
That’s why, unlike my wiser friends, I scoff at the notion of “talking” to Trumpists, or trying to “understand” them. Both are obviously worthwhile and necessary on a human and individual level. Both will make us feel better – and change nothing. The anti-democrats in our midst can’t be re-programmed, deported, or criminalized; they must be defeated. It’s about mobilization, not persuasion. And that means getting more pro-democrats to vote.
Or else.