Political polarization in the USA has been increasing for decades, and has become quite severe. This may have a variety of causes, but it seems highly probable that the internet has played a large role, by facilitating the toxoplasma of rage to an unprecedented degree.
Contra the idea that the internet is to blame, polarization seems historically to be the “natural” state in both the USA and elsewhere. To get less of it you need specific mechanism that have a moderating effect.
For a long time in the US this was a combination of progressive Republicans (Whigs and abolitionists) and regressive Democrats (Dixiecrats) that caused neither major party to be able to form especially polarized policy positions. Once the Civil Rights Act and Roe v. Wade drove Dixiecrats out of the Democratic party and progressives out of the Republican party, respectively, the parties became able to align more on policy.
So extending this observation, rather than a new center, maybe what we need to get less polarization is something to hold the parties together along some line that’s orthogonal to policy preferences such that both parties must tolerate a wide range of opinions. I’m not sure how to do that, as the above situation was created by the Civil War and Reconstruction that made variously the Republican and Democrat parties unacceptable to certain voters (like former slaveholders and abolitionists) and it was only after a hundred years that identification with or against the “Party of Lincoln” melted away enough to allow a shift.
Maybe your new center idea could cause this, but I’m not reading in it a strong enough coordination mechanism to overcome the nature tendency for parties to align in opposite directions.
Contra the idea that the internet is to blame, polarization seems historically to be the “natural” state in both the USA and elsewhere. To get less of it you need specific mechanism that have a moderating effect
The US got steadily more polarized along political lines over the last decades by metrics such as how important it is for people that their spouse shares their party affiliation while getting less polarized along race by those metrics.
Matt Talibbi’s Hate Inc is a book that describes the process over the last decades well.
Contra the idea that the internet is to blame, polarization seems historically to be the “natural” state in both the USA and elsewhere. To get less of it you need specific mechanism that have a moderating effect.
For a long time in the US this was a combination of progressive Republicans (Whigs and abolitionists) and regressive Democrats (Dixiecrats) that caused neither major party to be able to form especially polarized policy positions. Once the Civil Rights Act and Roe v. Wade drove Dixiecrats out of the Democratic party and progressives out of the Republican party, respectively, the parties became able to align more on policy.
So extending this observation, rather than a new center, maybe what we need to get less polarization is something to hold the parties together along some line that’s orthogonal to policy preferences such that both parties must tolerate a wide range of opinions. I’m not sure how to do that, as the above situation was created by the Civil War and Reconstruction that made variously the Republican and Democrat parties unacceptable to certain voters (like former slaveholders and abolitionists) and it was only after a hundred years that identification with or against the “Party of Lincoln” melted away enough to allow a shift.
Maybe your new center idea could cause this, but I’m not reading in it a strong enough coordination mechanism to overcome the nature tendency for parties to align in opposite directions.
The US got steadily more polarized along political lines over the last decades by metrics such as how important it is for people that their spouse shares their party affiliation while getting less polarized along race by those metrics.
Matt Talibbi’s Hate Inc is a book that describes the process over the last decades well.
Interesting model, thanks!