Party Polarisation in the United States
Introduction
The United States has seen a rise in the polarisation of its parties with Republicans and Democrats more divided along ideological lines than ever before. Over the last couple of decades, partisan antipathy has been the order of the day with politicians from both sides of the political divide taking advantage of this savage situation to gain more political clout and mileage (Baylis, 2012). Charnock posits that partisan antipathy and ideologues are currently cutting deeper amongst the United States population, and the repercussions may just be detrimental to the economy of the country. The ascension of Donald Trump to power has further expedited the divisions with the president’s constant divisive remarks. Republicans and Democrats have declared themselves foes on many fronts, and not even national calamities would unite them for a common cause. Each party plays its dirty politics whenever it gets the opportunity in a bid to increase its grasp of the country.
An Increase in Negative views of the opposing party
Over the recent years, there has been a rise in contempt between the Republicans and Democrats that cuts beyond ideological differences. Disliking an opposing political party is nothing new in politics, and this can be traced back to the Southern Strategy as Charnock outlines. Prior to the southern strategy, which would later ease and reduce the segregation between Democrats and Republicans, the hate between people from the two opposing sides was at its peak (Charnock, 2018). However, even at this point, when the factors causing the polarisation were very severe, the contempt between people from the opposing sides in terms of negativity was not high. They were merely people sailing on different boats, and the faction that would work well with a good strategy would carry the day. In the Southern strategy, the southern states were fully aligned to the democratic ideologies, and the South would be called the Democratic territory by political scientists. The South was opposed to the reforms that were fronted by the Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, that led to the violation of State rights in the South. This was right after the civil war, and the South would, therefore, declare its unbound loyalty to the Democratic party. However, even with the seriousness of the claims of southern states, the South would later untangle from its acute loyalty to the Democratic party. This is a complete opposite of the current situation where the opposing factions have more negative views of each other. From a survey done, in the year, 1994, about 17% of the republicans had seething negative views of the Democratic party, and about 16% of the Democrats had seething negative views on the Republican party as opposed to the current situation where 43% of Republicans and 39% of democrats have completely negative views of one another. This data shows how deep party polarisation is currently cutting on the American population. Most people from both parties cannot explain why they so hate the opposing parties. It is basically hate built on one’s perception of the opposing parties.
More personalized politics
According to Charnock, party polarisation in the United States has now gone beyond ideological, social, and economic differences as used to be the norm back in the 1970s and ’80s. Research done on the behaviors of many political fanatics reveals that politics has taken center stage in the lives of many people making it more personalized (Charnock, 2018). The personalization of politics has been critical in fuelling party polarisation leading to what political scientist call emotional or affective polarisation where one’s identity is grounded on their political party, just like the football fanatics who would dress in the colors of their favorite teams and even pimp their personal cars to fit the themes of their teams. Lilian Mason, one of the authors that Charnock quotes, says that America is currently being divided into factions of Red and Blue, and the hate between opposing party adherents is going beyond politics (Charnock, 2018). The percentage of Americans who would be disappointed if a member of their family married a member of an opposing party has tremendously grown over the years as compared to the 1960s where a good chunk of the population did not mind if a member of their family married an adherent of an opposing party. In the 1960s, about five percent of Americans had politics attached to their personal lives as compared to fifty percent of the current population. Some legal scholars have registered fears that discrimination of one based on their party may soon be regarded as a social form of discrimination, and laws would have to be passed to cushion Americans from this form of discrimination dubbed partyism (Bolleyer, 2013).
Conclusion
Again, sixty-three percent of Americans say that those close to them, basically their friends, are those that share similar political ideologies as opposed to forty percent who say they don’t mind interacting with anybody from an opposing party. Party polarisation is, therefore, taking shape and cutting deeply amongst Americans, just as Charnock explains in his write up.
References
Charnock, E. (2018). Party Polarisation in the United States. Political Insight, 9(3), 4-7.
Baylis, T. A. (2012). Elite consensus and political polarization: Cases from Central Europe. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 90-106.
Bolleyer, N., & Bytzek, E. (2013). Origins of party formation and new party success in advanced democracies. European Journal of Political Research, 52(6), 773-796.