A Deeper Dive

Shifting Sands of American Political Culture

First, I owe you an apology. The past few months have been busy and chaotic, and I have not written as many essays as I had hoped. No excuses…well, except for the PTSD brought on by Trump 2.0.

In all seriousness, Team Trump has flooded the information system with so much stuff that it is beyond daunting to dig through it all. That, of course, is a major piece of their plan. If we all get overwhelmed, we can’t look too closely at the details…and there are so many details.

There is some very interesting, and potentially significant, goings on in our political culture and I think this is a good time for a deeper dive. The plan is for a set of essays that I hope will, a) bring us up to date on some items that are not getting news coverage, and b) refocus our attention away from the daily Trump tsunami and onto some academic info. So, here we go…

For nearly five decades, political scientists used a bell curve to depict both our ideologies and political party preferences. In those analyses, Americans were seen as overwhelmingly moderate and modestly partisan. Jane and Joe American were thought to hold a number of moderate political beliefs and likely to be split ticket voters.

That was a roughly decent surface view of our political beliefs, but it was not a terribly accurate view when we drilled down a bit deeper. We know, for example, that Jane and Joe supported civil rights in the abstract, but sold their homes and moved into the exurbs when more Blacks moved into their communities and schools.

We also know that Jane and Joe were at least as likely to identify as “independent” when asked about party preference, but more likely to vote as if they were loyal partisans. Over those five decades, less than one-third of “independents” voted appreciably differently than Republican or Democratic loyalists.

There were two fundamentally important consequences of the reality of our political beliefs and behaviors. First, our policy preferences were more conservative than our stated beliefs. That was true for civil rights, gender equity, same-sex relationships, decriminalization of marijuana, universal health care and many other issues.

Second, a significant percentage of elections were contested “on the margins.” House elections were largely contested in gerrymandered districts, but Senate elections and governorships were usually decided by 10-15% of the voters who were truly moderate and independent.

There were also far more “swing states” in presidential elections. Twenty-one states flipped from 1972 to 1976, and 17 flipped in 1980. Twenty-two states flipped between 1988 and 1992. Today, we are looking at five to seven swing states maximum. Twenty-two swing states seems like an eon ago.

Over 15 years, the bell curve has been replaced by the two-hump camel curve. That is the visual image of ideological and partisan polarization. On both the political Right and Left, individuals have moved away from the center and toward the extremes. The evidence of polarization is overwhelming and easily found. A new generation of political scholars have thoroughly documented this shift and, as we all have, basked in the glory of demonstrable correctness.

Good for them, but this is America and we are a big, complex, and complicated society. Over the past few months, we have seen signs of change. There has been an erosion of support for both parties, and an uptick in identification as “independent.” Public opinion polling has demonstrated increased support for more moderate views on immigration, tariffs and trade, foreign policy, and public safety net programs.

Over the next few essays, we will examine what is happening in our political culture in more detail. It is always important to remember that trends in our political culture are not exclusive. For example, the shift to more moderate positions does not preclude the rise of more extreme candidates in local or statewide elections. Zohran Mamdani in New York and Ryan Walters in Oklahoma are not indicative of national trends.

It is also important to remember that the loudest voices are not representative of the largest numbers. In the general public and among our elected officials, the more extreme voices tend to be the loudest and get the most attention. The softer voices typically represent the largest numbers.

So, again with my apologies for my delinquency, let’s get ready to look at some news that may be hopeful. We certainly need all of the hope we can get while our democracy is under assault from the grand orange menace.