Are Conservatives More Pragmatic Than Liberals?
Canadian humanism, Machiavellian duplicity, and the evolutionary assessment of political systems
Many Canadians seem to view American politics as entertainment. The political polarization in the US is dramatic in just the sense that would be relevant to producing a reality TV show. In other words, American politics can be consumed as just such a show, and it’s as though the conflicts between Democrats and Republicans since at least the 1990s have been stage-managed to promote that level of engagement.
But it’s unlikely there’s any such conspiracy afoot. Instead, there’s a lot more private sector money flowing through the US government than through Canada’s, and that long arm of capitalism evidently exacerbates the natural tendencies of any democracy to become tribal, demagogic, and populist. At least for several decades, American politics is more about business than statesmanlike government, which is to say that the two main American parties are run as businesses.
In the late industrial era, the unbridgeable ideological divide between Democrats and Republicans arises as a conflict between brands. These parties compete for voters in gerrymandered districts, bringing in immigrants to swell the numbers or suppressing unwanted votes.
