A House Divided: America’s Problem with Polarization
A House Divided
America’s Problem with Polarization
By Luke Hartigan
When Donald Trump declared victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the world was shocked by America’s choice. A perfect storm of right-wing nationalism, political disenfranchisement, and anti-immigrant sentiment combined with a candidate who embraced authoritarianism and racist messages to upend American politics. Trump’s divisive rhetoric exacerbates domestic racial tensions and political strife, while also weakening the U.S.’s reputation abroad. However, his victory was less an anomaly and more the manifestation of a decades-long intensification of political polarization, fueled by the rise of identity politics, an increase in income inequality, an emphasis on racial diversity, and the changing role of the media. This polarization has built a wall between two halves of the American electorate, with each side being shoved towards the outer edges of extremism. However, all hope is not lost. Implementing electoral reforms can help limit the causes and lessen the effects of polarization, ultimately saving democracy from itself.
Identity Politics
Trump’s rise to power was not an isolated event, but rather a reflection of the global wave of nationalism that has been fueled by economic insecurity, immigration, and racial and ethnic tensions. And it wasn’t out of the blue. Britain’s 2016 Brexit vote foreshadowed how deeply isolationist and nationalistic sentiment had taken root, not just in Britain but in Europe as a whole. The rise of the Vox party in Spain’s 2016 national elections, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally’s sustained popularity in France, and the gains made by nationalist parties in Austria and the Netherlands all signaled the global movement away from multiculturalism, globalism and immigration towards populism, nationalism, and isolationism.
While the populist wave has some consistent similarities across countries, its catalysts are unique. Britain, for example, had long resisted the urge to cede economic sovereignty to Europe as other member states had, evidenced by its attachment to the pound over the euro. In 2016, rising economic insecurity and a ‘Britain first’ trade policy with the EU rekindled that nationalist sentiment.[i] In France, the influx of African and Middle Eastern refugees fueled anti-immigrant attitudes in a country with an already troubled history with racism and ethnic based nationalism, while Austria and The Netherlands both saw a rise in nationalistic sentiment for similar reasons.[ii] This too was the case for Spain, which had also suffered terrorist attacks that have heightened anti-immigrant sentiments.
What sets the U.S. aside from these European examples is the U.S.’s two party political system. In Europe’s multi-party systems, voters choose from a wider range of political options that more accurately reflect their political ideology. In the U.S., two parties attempt but fail to cover the full diversity of political opinion. This two-sizes-fit-all model may leave some elements of each party disenchanted, but it ultimately contributes to an irrational loyalty to one’s chosen side. A 2018 online poll found that 61% of Democrats think that Republicans are Racist/Bigoted or Sexist. 31% of Republicans felt the same way about Democrats and a majority considered them to be Spiteful.[iii] A little over 20% of each side views the other as Evil. These results reveal that the chasm between American voters cuts deeper than just politics. The two party system as it currently stands leaves little room in the middle to address the challenges presently facing the country.
Income Inequality
In the U.S., political polarization has been exacerbated by the rapid rise in income inequality, most notably in the distribution of national income over the last half century. In his book, Capital, economist Thomas Piketty details the extent to which income inequality has changed over that time in the U.S.. In the period after World War II and prior to 1970, the top 10% of the nation's population earned 33% of national income. Since 1970, that measure has surged to 50% in the early 2000’s. Perhaps more dramatically, the total wealth of the top 0.1% and the bottom 90% are once again converging, just as they did in the 1930’s, the last era of populism.[iv]
These disparities are driven by stagnant wages for many U.S. workers amid rising prices over the same period. Data on the consumer price index —a measure of inflation—shows prices skyrocketing sixfold over the past fifty years, while wages have seen little growth.[v] As income inequality increases, so too does political polarization, an effect that manifests itself in a shift to the left among Democrats and a rightward shift in state institutions.[vi]
Racial Diversity
The rapid rise in identity politics has emphasized America’s racial and ethnic divisions, further alienating voters while eroding the trust in one another and in democratic institutions. A salient example of the impact of race-based polarization is racially targeted voter suppression. Following President Obama’s election in 2008, many hoped a new era of politics might be ushered in, defined less by race and more by commitments to policies. This “post-racial myth,” as named by Ezra Klein, has been clearly debunked. For example, the racial divide, meaning the difference between the black versus white support, for Obamacare, was 20% wider than for Bill Clinton’s equally controversial health-care plan.[vii] Given its tumultuous racial history, race still plays an outsized role in American politics, both in policy formation and public opinion. With racial biases dominating American politics, polarization is only increased as the focus is drawn away from debates over policy and shifted to negative partisanship.
Polarization in the Media
Democracies rely on an informed and rational public, yet in the age of 24-hour media cycles, some Americans are substituting accurate information for clickbait confirmation of their preconceived political ideologies. The spread of online media content has not only dominated the news landscape in recent years, but has also led to further polarization in the consumption of news. Moreover, the rapid increase in accessibility of online and cable media has given the average consumer the opportunity to see only the perspectives that appeal to them, solidifying their preexisting beliefs and confining them to echo chambers of like-minded ideas. This explains why the rise in media accessibility hasn’t been met with a rise in voter engagement.[viii] Surveys show that the accessibility boom has not necessarily contributed to a more politically informed population, but rather allowed for a greater selection of choice for those who already chose to stay informed.[ix] Online media sources are not subject to the same journalistic and editorial standards that traditional print sources are: anyone with access to a platform can post stories that are at best misleading, and at worst, intentionally false. These media sources can polarize their audiences by stoking the same fear and anger that fuels populist nationalism. Infowars, Breitbart, and the Epoch Times are all examples of self validating yet grossly misleading sites that present its readers with only one very warped side of the whole story. Despite these sites’ abysmal reputations, Trump has embraced their agenda of misinformation by elevating them and granting them press credentials at the White House.
Electoral Reforms
Fortunately, this divide is not insurmountable. Although this polarization may seem dire in the short term, electoral reforms can still remedy the causes of political polarization and stem its effects.
The extremism encouraged by polarization is compounded by a political system that gives disproportionate power to several states in the electoral process, and can be remedied by reforming how votes are allocated in presidential elections. The primary difference between the U.S. and other countries is the electoral college system. While the Framers of the Constitution created the electoral college to prevent ill-informed voters nationwide from affecting mob-rule, the Constitution remains silent on how these electoral college votes are to be employed. It was only in the early 1900s that states implemented laws requiring the entirety of its electoral college votes be allocated to whoever won the majority in that state, thereby enabling the loser of the national popular vote to win the election. Rather than campaigning to a nationwide voter base, candidates are encouraged to tailor their platform to voters in specific states. Swing states are more likely to benefit from heightened attention and be allocated greater resources by parties in efforts to seduce the voting public. In non-swing states, the lack of opportunity to gain power dampens the voter turnout supporting the minority party. Unfortunately, this only contributes to the polarization of the electorate as minority party voters feel helpless to change a state's designation of being labelled red or blue, further compounding voter disengagement.
Currently only two states have attempted to fix these issues by allocating their electoral college votes based on the proportion of votes won by each candidate, but more states are starting to follow. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a number of states to award their electoral college votes to the candidate that wins the popular vote nationally, rather than the winner of the state. Counting the votes beyond state borders has the effect of making every vote count by eliminating the polarizing effect of the swing state phenomenon. Washington D.C. and fifteen states have passed legislation adopting the compact, with Colorado passing its referendum on the subject during the 2020 election cycle. However, the compact still has a long way to go. It only comes into effect if it is adopted by states representing at least 270 electoral votes, the threshold needed to win the election. Today, the members account for 196. Eliminating the arbitrary state borders that define the power of a vote in the U.S. presidential election process and extending them instead to a national boundary can help eliminate the polarization plaguing the nation, ensuring a more robust and engaging democracy where all votes matter.[x]
A second remedy to the electoral college system is the implementation of ranked choice voting (RCV), which ensures election winners receive the majority of the nation’s support. In most U.S. elections, the winner is determined by less than a majority of the vote, meaning that more than half the electorate supported the other candidate. In an RCV system, voters are asked to rank candidates in order of preference. If no one candidate garners 50% of the votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and ballots cast for the eliminated candidate are then recounted based on voters’ secondary preferences. This process continues until one candidate achieves an electoral majority.[xi] Maine became the first U.S. state to implement RCV during the 2018 senate elections, and although incumbent Susan Collins kept her seat in 2020, RCV is believed to have made the race much tighter.[xii] RCV also discourages negative campaigning because candidates are appealing to voters who have a different first choice in case a majority is not established in the first round. Therefore, it is against their interest to attack other candidates as voters will naturally be hesitant to cast their second vote for candidates who criticized their first choice. The absence of negative campaigning also helps build the foundations for potential bipartisanship after the election is over.
Outside of Maine, RCV has been successfully implemented in Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.[xiii] An Australian survey found that voters supported RCV as it removed guilt for wanting to support a third-party candidate. In the past, third party votes may have been seen as simply hurting an ideologically similar candidate, but with RCV, voters could express their more accurate political beliefs while ensuring that their vote would not be wasted or counterproductive. Additionally, RCV has proved to be a “prophylactic against extremism,” strengthening the political center at the expense of more radical parties.[xiv] In the 2016 Republican primary elections, Trump amassed a total of 13 million votes, while his three main challengers, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Marco Rubio, received more than 15 million combined.[xv] With ranked choice voting, the potential for voters to support numerous candidates through several rounds of voting mitigates the risks posed by an extremist candidate like Trump, who accepted the Republican nomination with less than half of the voter base behind him.
Conclusion
The effects of political polarization are socially damaging and deeply divisive. While other countries have seen recent surges in right wing nationalistic sentiment, their political systems help to thwart these advances. Unfortunately, the political system in the U.S. lacks those same protections, trapping America in a downward cycle of extreme division. Spurred by income inequality, economic instability, identity politics, racial divisions, and the accessibility boom of news media, political partisanship has created a border between everyday Americans. This cycle is extremely destructive, but it can be reversed. Addressing the electoral college system using proportional allocation and ranked choice voting to promote majority support in elections while discouraging negative campaigning and providing more viable choices for voters will help lessen America’s current divisions. There is a defining wall driving voters to the extremes and in turn preventing any progress on urgent issues. This obstacle needs to be removed because America needs its leaders’ help in, as Reagan a former Democrat turned prominent Republican put it, tearing down the wall.
Illustration by Ainav Rabinowitz.
[i]Halikiopoulou, D., and T. Vlandas. “Voting to Leave: Economic Insecurity and the Brexit Vote,” 2018.
[ii]Swain, Ashok. “Increasing Migration Pressure and Rising Nationalism: Implications for Multilateralism and SDG Implementation,” 2019.
[iii]Hart, Kim. “Poll: Majority of Democrats Think Republicans Are ‘Racist," ‘Bigoted’ or ‘Sexist.’” Axios, November 12, 2018.
[iv]Piketty, Thomas, and Arthur Goldhammer. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017.
[v]McMahon, Tim. “What Is Quantitative Tightening?” Historical Consumer Price Index (CPI), October 13, 2020.
[vi]Voorheis, John, Nolan McCarty, and Boris Shor. “Unequal Incomes, Ideology and Gridlock: How Rising Inequality Increases Political Polarization.” SSRN, August 23, 2015.
[vii] Klein, Ezra. Why We're Polarized. S.l.: Avid Reader PR, 2021.
[viii]Ibid.
[ix]Ibid.
[x] “Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote.” National Popular Vote, March 8, 2020.
[xi] “Benefits of Ranked Choice Voting.” FairVote. Accessed November 8, 2020.
[xii] https://www.npr.org/2020/10/07/921287288/how-maines-ranked-choice-voting-system-works
[xiii] https://www.fairvote.org/rcvbenefits
[xiv] https://time.com/5718941/ranked-choice-voting/
[xv] https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/republican_vote_count.html
