Politics is never pretty – particularly in an election year.
It used to feel as if we had a reprieve every two years. Once an election was over we all took a collective breath and got to live without thinking too much about elections, campaigns, or the ugly back and forth of American politics.
That, of course, was not reality. Politics never actually stopped, we just didn’t feel as embroiled in the center of it like we do today.
Blame social media. Blame the 24-hour news cycle. Blame our incessant need to be entertained. Blame a societal shift that is less concerned about reality and more concerned with exposing ourselves only to the things we want to hear.
Blame a combination of it all? Maybe. But it’s clear that politics has ramped up in ways that infiltrate our daily lives differently than it has in the past.
The vitriolic nature of politics hasn’t always been so visible, though. Believe it or not, there was a time, not that long ago, when it was difficult for people to tell a difference between Republicans and Democrats.
The American Political Science Association (APSA) released a paper in 1950 called Towards a More Responsible Two-Party System. Buckle up because you won’t believe what the nation’s top political scientists were asking for – a polarization of American politics.
Say what?
I’m not kidding.
Political scientists in 1950 lamented that the American political party system had such diverse opinions within individual parties and worked so well with the opposing party that, essentially, American voters really had no choice in politics. Ideological differences were impossible to discern. And so government was not actually representing popular sovereignty but instead wasn’t reflective of voters’ consent because there was essentially no difference in the available choices.
In 1960, Clinton Rossiter authored a book called Parties and Politics in America. He wrote, “There is and can be no real difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, because the unwritten laws of American politics demand that the parties overlap substantially in principle, policy, character, appeal and purpose – or cease to be parties with any hope of winning a national election.”
A Stanford University study piggybacked on this idea when it commented that in the Gerald Ford-Jimmy Carter election, 30 percent of registered voters said they could not tell any ideological difference between Republicans and Democrats and only 54 percent of registered voters found Republicans to be more conservative than Democrats.
That is clearly no longer the case.
No one questions where parties stand today. You don’t have to be political, follow politics, or even be remotely interested in governance to know who believes what.
Political scientists in the 1950s and 1960s were right in their warning that American politics needed to have clear division lines around platforms and belief systems. For the two-party system to work, voters need clear choices. Political parties act like shortcuts for the public. We don’t know the ends and outs of every issue or all the rules that go into lawmaking. That’s why representative government works. We elect a representative who more or less lines up with our beliefs about issues and then they take it from there.
Direct democracy would require every voter’s individual expertise on every issue. If you think our politics is messy now, can you imagine the nightmare that would be?
But in order for representatives to represent, there has to be a difference between what two candidates actually think. So a certain level of polarization is not only healthy but is necessary for our government to work.
The difference between the lack of polarization mid-century and the degree to which we are polarized today, though, is a sign of a typical American phenomenon – the pendulum swing from one extreme to another. We have a hard time with middle ground. And that is dangerous.
We’re either not polarized enough or so polarized that we are burying ourselves in disinformation and siloed thinking that will destroy our democracy.
Even if you voted for President Joe Biden, it’s likely that you aren’t thrilled with his performance. He’s hovering at an atrocious approval rating and presiding over an economy that is blinking warning signs all over the place. So for Biden, it’s not looking like a pretty presidential legacy.
But there’s a difference between what presidential policies are actually responsible for and what happens as a result of world events that are actually outside of presidential control.
The fact that we don’t make a distinction is a clear sign that we’ve swung the pendulum too far in the other direction.
I know criticism of Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t popular these days, but Florida’s leader is treading dangerous water in some of his most recent criticisms of the Biden administration. I know he’s probably running for president and using his stage to lambast Biden in an attempt to sway voters. And he isn’t wrong about everything. Biden hasn’t done great. But you can’t just blame people for things they aren’t responsible for.
DeSantis’s comments on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is directly linked to Biden being a “pushover” and his fear mongering that Chinese president Xi Jinping is currently planning something “aggressive and provocative” because “they do not have any fear of the American President” are just patently false claims.
Putin and Xi’s plans have been years in the making.
The 2014 invasion of Ukraine was the beginning of Putin’s plan for Eastern Europe. It didn’t start with Biden and it won’t end with him either. This is about bigger things than who is in the White House – including the expansion of NATO and Europe’s reliance on Russian oil and gas. The American response to what’s happening in Ukraine fits with the overall NATO strategy. It isn’t acting any differently than its NATO allies and that’s how its supposed to be. If the U.S. goes rogue and rejects the alliance’s strategy, then NATO means nothing. It’s simplistic and naive to think that Putin’s timing is strictly dictated by who is in the White House.
China has been quietly gobbling up influence and resources all over the world for a couple of decades now. While the West ignored Africa, China engaged and invested billions of dollars in infrastructure and aid while stealthily taking possession of the most coveted minerals in the world. Xi has a long-term strategy that, as is true of Putin, has little to do with who is in the White House.
It’s fair to criticize political opponent’s policies. It needs to happen. But our leaders need to do a better job of recognizing the difference between correlation and causation. Did Biden cause Putin’s invasion? No. Did he cause China’s aggression? No. Is he responsible for high gas prices? Again, no. Was he president while these things happened? Yes.
There’s correlation but it doesn’t equal causation.
Hold him responsible for bad policies. He’s got some, for sure. But leaders should not be able to make false statements. Period.
Our politics need to be divided. It makes our country run effectively. There’s a difference, however, between healthy division and this outright brutality that both Democrats and Republicans feed on to keep their parties going.
Voters are the catalysts. If we don’t eat it up, they can’t use it as fuel. Let’s swing the pendulum back to the middle where it belongs.
Cortney Stewart is a Lecanto High graduate with political science, international affairs, and intercultural studies degrees who has lived and worked around the world.
