American politics has gotten steadily more partisan over the last several decades, mostly as a result of desegregation. While the south was under an apartheid regime many Republicans (“Rockefeller Republicans”) were to the left of Democrats (“Dixiecrats.”) This is no longer the case; every Democratic senator is to the left of every Republican senator—if you have strong politics yourself, the absolute distance looks small, but the lack of mixture is an undeniable fact. The decreased importance of regional party machines plays into this as well. Parties now function much more like coherent policy packages, so legislators have less allies outside of their own party.
While the south was under an apartheid regime many Republicans (“Rockefeller Republicans”) were to the left of Democrats (“Dixiecrats.”) This is no longer the case; every Democratic senator is to the left of every Republican senator
Desegregation isn’t irrelevant to what has happened to American politics- but this doesn’t have anything to do with where senators are on an arbitrary political spectrum. The particular manifestation of the left-right political spectrum you have in mind here is the invention of the post-segregation political climate. Pre-desegregation issues didn’t break down into positions corresponding to our current political spectrum.
Pre-desegregation issues didn’t break down into positions corresponding to our current political spectrum.
That’s probably a better way of phrasing it. Perhaps I should have said that great majority of variance in political opinion today can be explained with one eigenvector while pre-segregation it would have taken two. Either way, the greater level of ideological coherence is responsible, I think.
American politics has gotten steadily more partisan over the last several decades, mostly as a result of desegregation. While the south was under an apartheid regime many Republicans (“Rockefeller Republicans”) were to the left of Democrats (“Dixiecrats.”) This is no longer the case; every Democratic senator is to the left of every Republican senator—if you have strong politics yourself, the absolute distance looks small, but the lack of mixture is an undeniable fact. The decreased importance of regional party machines plays into this as well. Parties now function much more like coherent policy packages, so legislators have less allies outside of their own party.
Desegregation isn’t irrelevant to what has happened to American politics- but this doesn’t have anything to do with where senators are on an arbitrary political spectrum. The particular manifestation of the left-right political spectrum you have in mind here is the invention of the post-segregation political climate. Pre-desegregation issues didn’t break down into positions corresponding to our current political spectrum.
That’s probably a better way of phrasing it. Perhaps I should have said that great majority of variance in political opinion today can be explained with one eigenvector while pre-segregation it would have taken two. Either way, the greater level of ideological coherence is responsible, I think.