The Partisan Dilemma

The United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of user Phil Roeder, Flickr.

Andrew Sullivan recently wrote for New York Magazine, “This is what our culture is driving us toward, and it’s a culture where each moment of conflict galvanized and tribalizes us still further, in what seems like an endlessly repeating loop of resentment, righteousness, and revenge.” Sullivan’s words ring true, especially given the partisan political circus surrounding Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Our tribal political instincts are largely a byproduct of an ongoing process, in which political control and power are the ultimate goals. The central question is thus: from where does this political partisanship stem, and where might it lead us?

Modern media has the tendency to reinforce this notion that partisanship is widespread. Are media commentators correct? Pew Research reveals that the “share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades.” 35 percent of the public says that most of their close friends share their political views, whereas 63 percent of consistent conservatives and 49 percent of consistent liberals say the same. In The Righteous Mind, Dr. Jonathan Haidt wrote, “In 1976, only 27 percent of Americans lived in ‘landslide counties’-counties that voted either Democratic or Republican by a margin of 20 percent or more. But that number has risen steadily; in 2008, 48 percent of Americans lived in a landslide county.” What then, explains this shift in our politics?

This phenomenon may, in part, be explained by geographical sorting, as Charles Murray wrote in Coming Apart: The State of White America. Geographical sorting was suggested by Bill Bishop in The Big Sort. James A. Thomson at The Washington Post writes, “Bishop believed that beginning in the 1970s, Americans began clustering into communities with similar values and lifestyle preferences.” This sorting becomes problematic for politics as individuals with similar values and lifestyle preferences often share political views. Thomson and Sussell examined the presidential vote in congressional districts over the past 60 years to find that the degree to which many districts differed from “average” districts has grown. For example, they found a relationship between polarization and clustering with respect to marriage. In fact, “districts that have the highest percentages of married people have generally tended to elect Republican candidates” Remarkably, this tendency grew from less than 60 percent of districts with the highest rates of marriage to 91 percent of districts from 1972 to today.

Partisan gerrymandering, in conjunction with geographical sorting, can further amplify polarization. Gerrymandering is the drawing of “political boundaries to give your party a numeric advantage of over an opposing party.” The term originated from the combination of “salamander” and the last name of Elbridge Gerry, and it “was put into print for the first time by the Federalist-leaning Boston Gazette on March 26, 1812.” The Supreme Court, as recently as 2018, visited the issue of gerrymandering in both Gill et al. v. Whitford et al. and O. John Benisek, et al., Appellants v. Linda H. Lamone, et al., but the Court failed to deliver a landmark decision.

According to No Labels, gerrymandering occurs in two forms, packing and cracking. Packing is a legislature’s choice to concentrate a group’s members into one district. Cracking is breaking up the opposing party’s group to make that party the minority in numerous districts, thus unable to win elections. Gerrymandering becomes problematic, as it is alleged: “to generate artificially safe districts for liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.” Representatives of balanced districts must consider the needs of all represented constituents, whereas representatives of partisan districts “can safely be partisan with no repercussions.”

No Labels cites Pennsylvania’s United States House elections as an example. During the 2012 election cycle, 51 percent of Pennsylvania voters cast ballots for Democrats; however, Democrats only won 5 of the 18 U.S. House seats. Despite the partisan implications of gerrymandering, a Princeton study notes, gerrymandering can account for at most 10-15 percent of the increase in polarization since the 1970s. Gerrymandering, on its own, does not create partisanship, but it is not conducive to a system of cooperation and compromise.

The so-called Democratic “Blue Wave” may face numerous obstacles in the 2018 Midterm Elections. MIT political science professor Charles Stewart notes, “the odds have always been roughly 50-50 for Democrats to retake the House-and even slimmer for them to flip the Senate. He doesn’t think this has changed much since the 2016 election.” Professor Stewart continues, “the case that the wave was never as big as the Democrats hoped is based on two things. First, to capture the House, Democrats would have to see the biggest election swing [from presidential election to the next midterm election] in their favor in the entire post-election World War II era. And, even then, they would only have a 50-50 chance of taking the House.”

Additionally, Democrats hold seats that are harder to defend, more so in the Senate. At Vox, University of Houston political science professor Elizabeth Simas argues, “we’re seeing a collision of two big factors-a historical trend of the president’s party losing seats versus an electoral map that highly favors the Republicans. In these races, the quality of the candidates and their campaigns are going to be very important.” Republican Roy Moore’s failed campaign for Alabama Senator is one glaring example. Roy Moore lost to Doug Jones 48.3% to 50.0% in Alabama’s 2017 Senate Special Election, despite President Trump winning the state 62.9% to 34.6% in 2016. The 2018 Midterm Election results will be the most indicative of the polarized nature of American politics.

The political landscape appears grim, but there are reasons to be optimistic. Senator Ben Sasse is an outspoken critic of the major parties. In May 2016, Senator Ben Sasse posted on Facebook, “Neither political party works. They bicker like children about tiny things… These two national political parties are enough of a mess that I believe they will come apart…When people’s needs aren’t being met, they ultimately find other solutions.’” Additionally, Andy Smarick at RealClearPolicy writes, “recent public opinion surveys reveal that Americans have more trust in their local and state governments than in the federal government and are much more satisfied with the way things are going in their communities than in the country.” It will take a well-coordinated push from grassroots activists to minimize the effects of polarization at both the federal and state levels. In the meantime, reformers must work diligently to make the federal government work for all, regardless of political ideology.

-Mitchell Nemeth holds a Master in the Study of Law from the University of Georgia. His work has been featured at Merion West, the Foundation for Economic Education, The Arch Conservative, and The Red & Black.