The Politics of Asymmetry
Social Distance drives partisanship
Why can’t Democrats and Republicans get along? This age old question has rang true for decades, especially in this very heated day of partisanship. In the era of Trump, Americans of all persuasions seem to be at each other’s throats. A Pew Poll stated In 1994, 16% of Democrats had and unfavorable view of Republicans and 17% of Republicans had unfavorable view of Democrats, today those numbers are 38% and 43% respectively. There are also significant portions of both sides that see the other as threats to the nation’s wellbeing. At the heart of this issue is that partisans on the opposite sides do not understand each other.
Chiefly there are two reasons for the disconnect in American politics, Ideological/demographic sorting and asymmetrical coalition building.
Basically, the makeup of the two parties is looking less and less like each other as time goes on. They are having less in common now than they were decades ago. Fifty plus years ago a conservative southern Democrat would have a lot in common with a western conservative Republican. A Liberal coastal Republican would have a lot in common with a liberal midwestern Democrat. That is no longer the reality. After the the 1960’s and the social turbulence of the time, the parties started sorting ideologically toward the directions they are in today.
It is also necessary to mention the phenomenon of demographic and geographic sorting. Republicans more or less the party of rural, heartland America, while Democrats are the Party of urban, coastal America. Simply put, partisans don’t live around each other anymore. Democrats seem to be the party of younger, multicultural America, while Republicans seem to be the party of older, white America. To put simply, partisans don’t look like each other anymore. With each party growing more socially distant from each other ideologically, culturally, geographically, and demographically, there’s less and less common ground that come with it.
The most important fact that separate the parties in how they operate. How they build and maintain their coalitions and how they approach politics is fundamentally different. Operationally they are not mirror images of one another. Essentially Republicans are more committed to a worldview, while Democrats are a coalition of social groups. One interesting point is that 74% of Republican voters identify as conservatives while only 47% of democratic voters identify as liberals. Even more interestingly, around 12% of Democrats have identified as some type of conservative. This difference is also reflected in the preferences of voters ideal governing styles. Republican voters tend to like candidates who “stick to their principles” while Democratic voters tend to like candidates who “make compromises.”
Republicans tend to pull support from groups that are majorities or pluralities such as Whites, protestants, and suburbanites. These groups are often less self-conscious of group identity and are often seen as the mainstream of the mass American public. Meanwhile the Democratic party has functioned as the political vehicle through which social minorities and other interests (Ethnic minorities, Religious minorities, LGBTQ, Feminists, Labor, Environmentalists) have used to advance their interests by making up for the relative lack of numbers by voting for democratic candidates in overwhelming proportions. Whites only lean Republican with 57% of whites voting republican in the last election. While African Americans and Jewish Americans voted 89% and 74% for Democrats respectively.
To understand American partisanship and the dysfunction associated with it, one must understand that the parties are not mirror images of each other and function differently. We have a steadfast ideological party committed to advancing a worldview versus a fractious coalition of social interests bargaining for specific policy concessions. The answer to our partisanship problem is unclear, perhaps would it be liberals moving out to the countryside? Conservatives going to cities? Democrats trying to win back white working class voters while Republicans make inroads with communities of color? Whatever the answer is we have to decrease the social distance that exists between us.
