Polarization: Driven by Substantive or Structural Issues

[Wakeforest22890]

It's evident that American politics are currently as polarized as they have been in quite some time. This leads to a lot of issues, mainly the "us v. them" mentality that causes a stark black/white divide between parties and individuals. From the outset, if you're a Democrat and you hear someone is a Democrat then they're "with you" and if they're a Republican they're "against you." This makes reasonable discourse, and therefore problem solving, much more difficult as you're not finding shades of gray but rather seeing it either as black or white.

There are lots of theories out there for why there has been an increase in polarization over the last couple of decades, so my question is what do the posters on here perceive to be the biggest causal factors driving political polarization.

There are linguistics and semantics issues in grouping underlying issues, but I think a broad way of grouping these issues are: substantive and structural. Some issues cross into both areas, and some substantive problems are driven by underlying structural issues, but I digress. I would call substantive issues: media consumption, education level (also structural in part), and predominantly just political beliefs in general - religion, views on the economy, social views etc. (how these are formed can be structural as well or maybe they're solely structural and it's all just varying degrees) while structural issues would be: gerrymandering, plurality-rule elections, campaign finance, free speech laws/amendments, etc.

Regardless of how these issues are grouped, and people can come up with their own groups too if mine are too simplistic or just flat out off base, I wanted to see what people thought about what is driving polarization and the lack of meaningful discourse between the two parties.

I personally believe that the structural issues drive the substantive issues and that plurality-rule elections are extremely problematic compared to proportional representation elections. What say ye Tunnels?

 

[ConnorEl]

Interesting question. Found this trying to quickly search for some information: Three reasons political polarization is here to stay

Quote:
----------
The gradual party realignment after 1964, the closeness of elections since 1980, and the growth in income at the top of the distribution are the three deep causes of polarization. Gerrymandering is not the cause; the Senate is as polarized as the House. Primaries are not the cause; primary reforms have had relatively little effect. Changes in the rules of the House and Senate have had some effect, as have the increasing number of hours that legislators now have to spend fundraising and the increasing number of hours they now spend in their home districts with their constituents. But of the three deepest causes, at least party realignment and income inequality are likely to continue. Close elections may well continue, too. So polarization is here to stay — for the indefinite future.
----------

 

[Milhouse]

 

[ImTheCaptain]

lol

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

 

[Deacsfan27]

Yes, Barack Obama is the reason for polarization of American politics. That's the correct answer.

/endthread

 

[ImTheCaptain]

Greatest American alive since the death of Jimmy Carter

 

[Wakeforest22890]

Obama increased the polarization of the median democrat, but the median republican was moving to the right for the better part of Bush's presidency.

Also I didn't realize that Obama was the president forty years ago, the point where the current trend of polarization really begins.

 

[PhDeac]

How did Obama increase the polarization of the "median democrat?" If anything, he delayed polarization within the party.

 

[ImTheCaptain]

 

[Wakeforest22890]

How did Obama increase the polarization of the "median democrat?" If anything, he delayed polarization within the party.

It's based on polling from Pew Research where individuals identified as democrat or republican and then answered where they rated themselves on a scale of "consistently liberal" to "consistently conservative." Presumably on a 10 to -10 scale (or some similar scale). I don't have the methodology in front of me, just the results.

 

[PhDeac]

I think that shows a delay reaction to polarization among Republicans.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

Yeah the better way to phrase my post was "when obama was president" because I don't think the president generally is the root cause of polarization. I was just responding to 2&2's troll job

 

[Deacsfan27]

None of these things happen in a vacuum, which is why the Obama picture fuckstick posted is nothing more than troll material.

 

[ConnorEl]

 

[Deaconblue]

IMO the polarization was a result of the Civil Rights act splitting the FDR coalition that was the Democratic Party. With help from the Republicans, the filibuster against Civil Rights legislations was broken in 1963. A year later, LBJ blew out Goldwater in the presidential election. Dems won a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. In the 68 election, Nixon targeted the conservatives in the south as part of a southern strategy.