The Divided States of America
The Divided States of America
Red and Blue Americans have grown so dangerously far apart, they should be considered different ethnic groups
By Scott Gilmore, Maclean's Magazine, March 10, 2017
Anti-Trump protestors and the supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump battle over an American flag after violence broke out during a free speech rally in Berkeley, United States on March 4, 2017. (Joel Angel Juarez/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
The United States is no longer a melting pot; it has become a nation dominated by two very different and increasingly hostile ethnic groups. Their mutual interests are shrinking, their conflicts growing and the implications for long-term stability are dire.
The polling group FiveThirtyEight shared some important data this week. There were just 303 out of 3,113 counties where the electoral outcome between the Democrats and Republicans was within single digits. In 1992, there were three times as many. During the same time frame, the number of counties that were won by landslides increased tenfold. American voters have begun to clump together, to live in political enclaves where everyone is either a Republican or a Democrat. There are places where the next generation will grow up without being exposed to anyone who supports another political party.
The development of political ghettos is exacerbated by the growth of intellectual bubbles. People are increasingly getting their news from different sources. Up until the 1980s, most Americans relied on Walter Cronkite or the local newspaper. But with the growth of talk radio and the arrival of cable news, people began to segregate themselves. On the left, channels like CNN and MSNBC became popular. On the right, it was Fox and Rush Limbaugh.
The arrival of the internet and social media dramatically accelerated this. People began to isolate themselves into information bubbles where they only read news that reinforced their pre-existing world view. On Facebook, we have learned to mute those who criticized our party, or who rant about a policy we prefer. Our desire for looking into ideological mirrors is abetted by the algorithms that are used to populate our newsfeeds. These are increasingly adept at sending us only the information we like—in other words, whatever echoes what we already believe.
After the election, some scientists at the MIT Media lab mapped connections on Twitter and found that for the most part, Blue and Red America are utterly isolated. A data journalist on that team described the online world as “…one Balkanized by ideology and issue-interest, with little potential for information flow between the online cocoons.” Not surprisingly, the Pew Research Center has found the American public is becoming increasingly polarized along partisan lines, year after year.
Of course, this growing geographic and intellectual segregation also changes the people Americans send to Washington. The Lugar Center at George Washington University publishes a “Bipartisanship Index” that tracks the level of cooperation in the Senate. Not surprisingly, it has plummeted over recent decades and is at an all time low. This reflects other research that has shown party polarization is more severe than at any time in the last 140 years. The stark differences seen between Democratic and Republican politicians merely reflects the differences between the two different groups they represent.
These differences, between Red and Blue America, have become so deep, and so broad, they transcend party politics. Democrats and Republicans have become tribes; in fact, they are different ethnic groups. It is a mistake to think ethnicity is language or skin colour. It is defined by shared cultural and social values. And in this regard, Red and Blue America have very little in common.
In the United States, almost every aspect of life can be predicted based on who you vote for. Democrat? You are much more likely to be divorced. Republican? You are a much stronger believer in the need for a mother to stay home and raise the kids. Democrats have more sex, but Republicans are 50 per cent more likely to do it outdoors. Republicans are more religious. Democrats smoke more weed. Believe in God? Trust the police? You’re likely a Republican. Believe in gay marriage? Drive a Prius? You’re a Democrat. If you are watching SNL, you’re Blue. If it’s a home improvement show, you’re Red. Your partisan affiliation defines almost everything about you.
Not only are these two ethnic groups becoming more different, they are also growing more suspicious of each other. Another Pew poll found the majority of supporters from each party “fears” supporters from the other. Republicans see Democrats as immoral and lazy. And from the Democratic perspective, Republicans are dishonest and closed-minded.
America was once a melting-pot. It didn’t matter your language, your religion, or where you came from, once you stepped foot in the United States, you almost magically became “American”. It was a country where ethnic divides and animosities were left behind, in “the old country”. But now, after decades of increasingly isolating themselves into two partisan camps, Americans have become so polarized even their respective cultures are drifting apart. And what’s worse, these new ethnic groups see each other as hostile threats. America’s future is starting to look like Europe’s past.
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Leading to a kind of civil war - not geographic, but neighbour against neighbour. I guess the biggest danger is that so many have guns.
Bravo Buzz. This article is an excellent representation of my thoughts. I don't want to live or be around today's Republican. As the article reflects, I believe republicans are dishonest and kinda stupid or maybe gullible is a better word. Mostly, I feel they are selfish. It's like having a friend who only takes and refuses to share. A friend who you don't trust to stick by you during bad times. A friend who is always looking out for themselves and will turn their back on you when you're in need.
Who needs friends like that? The country needs to find a way to split. We no longer have the same goals. We are heading into another civil war and I'm okay with that.
You are ok with a civil war where we blow up our economy and dislocate millions, destroy cities and factories and countless thousands die? I'm not ok with that at all.
So, you're not okay with the Republicans healthcare plan. Good to hear. I'm really proud of you X. We're making progress. I'm starting to think we may not have to get divorced after all.
Republicans allowed people they wouldn't normally want anything to do with to hitch their wagon to the Republican Party for votes. We see evidence at times like when John McCain had to interrupt the woman at the town hall who was insisting that Obama is a Muslim. They are stuck with this group of deplorables, because they welcomed their uneducated, welfare receiving, backwards thinking, homophobic, xenophobic votes.
As I look at the chart above - I am saddened but not surprised.
It is easier to hate and demonize than it is to really try and work together.
It is easier to take credit for all that is good and blame all that is bad on your opposition than it is to admit mistakes and to what is necessary to make things better.
It is easier tp "just say no" than it is to make the legislative process work.
Democrats and Republicans have been guilty of the actions I mention above and many more that drive, promote and glamorize division more than unity in our country.
I did not vote for Obama, but I thought he did some things that were good for the country and some things that were not so good, even bad for the country and I respected and accepted the fact that President Obama was POTUS and therefore the president of all citizens of the U.S..
I did not vote for Trump, and I think that some of the ideas he has for the country are good and that some of the ideas that he spouts are "bat shit crazy". I do not Like him as an individual and probably would not invite him to a neighborhood bbq, but I respect and accept him as the POTUS and therefore the president of all citizens of the U.S.
I live in a rural area, with larger cities close by and my circle of friends include republicans, democrats, independents, libertarians and the politically agnostic - we argue about policies, we applaud those elected officials that we agree with and denounce those with whom we disagree, but when the night ends or the luncheon ends and we go our separate ways we are still friends and neighbors that can and do count on each other for support.
So as to the "Divided States of America" - we see it on television every day, but we do not see it in the village square, or at the community center, or at the diner. At those places, we argue and shout about politics with our friends and neighbors without losing respect or affection for them. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. We also see the party in power as the "majority" and the party in the minority as the "opposition" but we do not see the two sides as enemies.
But we are just small town folks - proud of our families, our town and our country.
It used to be a lot easier to agree with your assessment. Trump and his administration is a new animal. It certainly isn't comparable to anything I've ever witnessed in my lifetime.
Hal
Appreciate the feedback
In my view the "division" has more to do with the "witness" than the "spectacle".
I heard a lot of people say the same thing you did about the Obama administration, the W Bush administration and the Clinton administration and yet the union survived and it will yet again and we will be stronger for the struggles we have gone through and will go through.
The key is focus on the issues and not the players - since the current atmosphere is heavily entertainment focused (Colbert, SNL, etc) am analogy - politics is almost more comedy than drama and sometimes (now perhaps) it borders on farce than comedy or drama.
But like I said what do I really know just a voice from a small town.
Again thanks for the feedback.
Robert,
Your above post is spot on.
I am exactly where you are, and I am not a small town girl. My friends are varied and different and voted the full political spectrum and while we might not always agree, we can discuss politics in a civil manner and walk away without anger.
I think that there is an agenda among some to push for two separate countries. I think that it's the fringe elements from each party that drive at this, and the media of each, keeps a constant dose of it fed to their audiences.
I think that this article is exact proof that there is an agenda to divide the country. It makes the following claims:
In the United States, almost every aspect of life can be predicted based on who you vote for. Democrat? You are much more likely to be divorced. Republican? You are a much stronger believer in the need for a mother to stay home and raise the kids. Democrats have more sex, but Republicans are 50 per cent more likely to do it outdoors. Republicans are more religious. Democrats smoke more weed. Believe in God? Trust the police? You’re likely a Republican. Believe in gay marriage? Drive a Prius? You’re a Democrat. If you are watching SNL, you’re Blue. If it’s a home improvement show, you’re Red. Your partisan affiliation defines almost everything about you.
Where did the above stats come from? No citations, but written as facts. While in fact, I can find plenty of resources to disprove the much of the above, but then again, the level of difference depends on where I get my facts.
And this is the problem
Hyper partisans trying to convince the rest of us that we are so different as to reconcile as a nation. I truly doubt that this is true. To truly make 'America Great" again, the resolve should be, yes we are different, but how do we meet a middle ground? Yet again, they hyper partisans don't want this. The enjoy the idea of living in their own private country, where everyone agrees. But we have never been that nation. We have always disagreed. This period of time doesn't hit me any different than the 1900's, the 1930's, the 1960's... it's just that people have either forgotten or don't know their history.
Footnote to Buzz,
I read last night a discussion you had with Kavika about drugs and was kind of shocked that you tried to make it partisan, when clearly that was not Kavika's intent. I am unclear why. As a Canadian living in China, you seem to have a partisan slant and I as an independent am curious why.
Perrie, you live in a milieu of Americans of every belief and opinion. I only see it on NT. There is such extremes in both directions on this site, but without naming names, only a few who seem to have a relatively impartial sensible attitude towards politics. I have made comments that hint towards a more centrist feeling, such as when I wrote that although I much preferred the late Pierre Elliot Trudeau as a Prime Minister to his son Justin, who is championing policies I don't agree with and wish Harper had beaten him, I'm not so stupid as to say Justin is not MY Prime Minister.
I wrote that although I much preferred the late Pierre Elliot Trudeau as a Prime Minister to his son Justin, who is championing policies I don't agree with and wish Harper had beaten him, I'm not so stupid as to say Justin is not MY Prime Minister.
Buzz, although I don't say that Trump is not my president, I don't see a huge difference between saying that and 8 years of people trying discredit Obama as being the rightful president (like the birther movement), other than a different M.O. I disagreed with both. I am not picking sides either. The Buzz I know, is a lot more like that.
For some reason I was not as aware of the "birther" garbage as you, and if I did notice it, I thought of it as ridiculous anyway and not worth my time to think about it. When I was younger, and the news was not so biased and people were not so polarized, and as Editor of my university newspaper I respected the non-biased reporting of The Christian Science Monitor (which had won multiple awards for its neutrality back then, but unfortunately has swung left since) it was what is described in this paragraph from the article that I would be able to read and listen to back then:
"Up until the 1980s, most Americans relied on Walter Cronkite or the local newspaper. But with the growth of talk radio and the arrival of cable news, people began to segregate themselves. On the left, channels like CNN and MSNBC became popular. On the right, it was Fox and Rush Limbaugh."
It's a sad day when I think the expression so often stated "God bless the United States of America" should be changed to "God help the United States of America".
I wish it was like that everywhere, but I wouldn't suggest that it would happen in certain areas of East Texas, Alabama, or Louisiana.
My experience is somewhat different than yours or Perrie's, depending upon where I have lived. There are those parts of America where you are "in" if you are Republican or Democrat. When I was in college, at least it was different in the Student Union building, we had conversations about both sides, but it seems the people I grew up with are becoming more partisan with age.
I agree that it tends to be more about where you are. I grew up in rural Michigan, but in many ways I never felt like I fit in. Sure there is a LOT to love about the small town life, but there is also the sexism and racism and other forms of bigotry. Of course I never really knew about them until I moved to a city (Battle Creek) and then joined the Air Force. Once I did that I never really could go home again. I lived back in the small town for a number of years, but I cringed at the racist, sexist and gay jokes, even though many of them were pretty much the same one I had heard before, they were suddenly offensive like that hadn't been before.
What I came to realize was that I needed to move to a place where there were more people like me. That's why I live in Southern California. I lived in L.A. for 12 years and even though I couldn't afford to retire there, but I felt like I was born to live in L.A. and miss it a lot! I felt at home there more then any other place in my entire life. My son, who is gay, came to the same conclusion, that he could not live as himself in rural Michigan or really even in Michigan at all. There is just not a large gay community there like there is out here, so he moved here also and even got married to a great guy. Luckily for me The Coachella Valley is becoming more blue all of the time. We even have a Democratic Congressman for the first time now. L.A. is moving out to be with me and it makes me feel better.
Steve and Randy,
Couldn't part of your experience have to do with the year you experienced this in. And honestly, I remember people going on about hippies and yippies and draft dodging, and how the youth was out of control, etc. I remember being the only kid whose dad voted for Humphrey (mom voted for Nixon) and none of my classmates mocked me.
It not that I don't believe that there are small towns where there is a singularity of mind, but I think that has always been the case. I also know that there are plenty of places where people have very diverse views about lots of thing, and they get along because fundamentally, they are good people.
Well I suppose it could have in someways. I mean I moved to Battle Creek and started at an integrated Jr High School in the late 1960's. Believe it or not it was really the first time since I was a small child that I had even been around a Black person and it opened up a whole new world to me (especially in music). I was sort of straddling a line in a very racially tense time there and in high school. I was a White kid who had fallen in love with Motown music and I smoked Kool cigarettes, which at Battle Creek Central was actually considered a "Blacks only" cigarette. So the Black kids didn't know what to make of me and neither did the White kids. I was glad to drop out after 10th grade and go into the Air Force. In the Air Force it was a minor difference of my music tastes. And no one really cared what I smoked as long as when it was pot that I was willing to pass the joint.
However in the late 1970's when I went back to Hopkins people used to ask my wife what was wrong with me because of the music I liked (though it helped that I liked classic rock too) instead of Country music like I was "supposed" to to fit in. I was considered to be some kind of oddball and I felt it. Hopkins was the reason I got my first divorce. My wife wanted the whole small town life right down to going to the high school football game on Friday nights and I just couldn't bring myself to go for it. I had been exposed to the "outside" life too much and that's where I felt most at home. Of course the fact that I was just about the only openly liberal person in town didn't help.
Perrie,
Unfortunately, for some places, time has made no difference. Other places, it has. Up until 1989, I was a rabid Republican, after some certain interactions with a Texas US Senator, I came to realize that the two dominant parties were out for the same thing, my money and power over my life. I often wonder if in certain places, I wouldn't be referred to as a "commie, pinko, fag" as certain groups were in the 1960's, because of my sea change in thinking.
Partisanship has always been around, while at the same time, there have always been those enclaves where you could have a decent conversation between both sides. I see much more emphatic partisanship online than I do in real life as it were.
Unlike Randy, I have no desire to move to where everyone thinks like me. I don't care for that as it gets to be too boring. I love the diversity of places like London and New York City. But I still want to live someplace around 9,000 feet.
Unlike Randy, I have no desire to move to where everyone thinks like me.
It's not really that everyone thinks like me politically or thinks exactly like I do. It's more like a place where I could be me. L.A. is a truly international city with incredible diversity. It's just that I loved that diversity and the fact that, for the most part, we all accepted each other. My wife and I could go to a real Russian bakery in the morning, have lunch at a Pan Asian Restaurant and then pick up Soul or Ethiopian food to take home for dinner, all within a few miles from where we lived. The people were all like us because we all blended in together in a wonderful way. Though most of them were liberal. At least once a month we had breakfast at the same Hollywood French cafe. We always sat outside and always sat in Ron's section, even if we had to wait for a table. He was our only waiter there for more then ten years. We bought him a Christmas Present every year. There was neighborhood after neighborhood of different people and as long as you were respectful, all of them accepted you. That's what I mean when I say they all thought like me.
Ah. I've always been me, wherever I was. Perhaps the difference is that I didn't realize I wasn't being accepted for that, or perhaps I was accepted despite my me-ness. I have a redneck raising, but I still like to wear my hair long and play classical guitar. I was a damn good athlete, but I listened to jazz-rock fusion. In the end, I decided that it didn't make any difference if I was accepted or not accepted, the only thing I could be was me.
When I was young I was strictly a country boy and all that went along with that. I suppose if I hadn't moved in with my mother and stepfather or joined the Air Force and stayed in Hopkins I still would be. I would have a factory job working about 50 hours a week and be part of the bowling league at the local 4 lane bowling alley we had in town. However having left I realized that I couldn't really go back. It was like a woke up.
I think I miss-stated myself when I said that I wanted to be where everyone thought like me. I should have added that that I meant they loved diversity too and in Hopkins everyone seems to have been run off on an assembly line. The population is 600 and I swear it never changes. The same 48 kids graduate from high school every year. The football team has the same win/loss record every year with the exact same players who never change. The same people sit on the same stools or chairs in one of the two bars. It's sort of like a Stephan King novel.
Sounds like Odessa to me. I remember walking through a mall in the 80's when the book "Friday Night Lights" came out. I picked it up and thumbed through it and thought, "Hell, that has been going since the 40"s, everyone knows that." I just don't see the fascination with it.
Didn't make any difference whether I was living in Texas, Florida or New Mexico, I could only be me and didn't understand WHY I was supposed to be something else.
I understand that. In Hopkins there was subtle and sometimes not so subtle pressures to conform. And when I went back it seemed like I was always pushing it away.
I mean it wasn't all bad. I remember on a very bad snowy night when I was with several people in on of the bars and someone ran in and said the the roof to Lynn Schwartz's barn had collapsed and many of his cows were trapped. There wasn't even a discussion. Everyone ran for the door and I jumped in one of the trucks (I had walked to the bar) and we were part of a line of trucks, tractors and other equipment pulling into Lynn's place in a few minutes. Someone set up spotlights and all you could hear was the sound of chainsaws and shouted instructions as we worked to tear the barn apart. There were dozens and dozens of people from town and from farms all around. I mean Lynn was a friend of mine, but it wasn't about that. He was a dairy farmer and his cows were his business and life. The upshot is that by morning we had manged to save nearly all of them and Lynn had insurance on his barn and we were freezing and sweating and bone aching tired. I don't know if I ever felt so good in my life.
So small towns do have their moments. I miss feelings like that, but not enough to have to conform to everything else.
I'm just glad that there are still quite a few small town places in California that are out of the reach of its large coastal urban areas as far as our day to day lives are concerned.
And they're going to STAY in California.
I intend to sign the Calexit petitions when they come out. And if it makes the ballot vote for it. Then when the state leaves the union, we won't and will pull a West Virginia and Jefferson and much of the Central Valley and Sierra foothills will remain in the union as the 50th state. Then not only will I not have to be in the same state as you, I won't have to be in the same country as you either.
I love the diversity of places like London and New York City.
LOL.. funny that you say that.. those are the only two places I have ever lived... well Long Island... mostly.. I call myself an Island Girl, since I have only lived on an island... with short stints down south.
LOL. I forgot you had mentioned living in London. I always thinks of you as an Island girl. My introduction to London was through a 14 day tour of art galleries/museums. My introduction to New York was through the Nadels, more art and literature. My times in both cities showed me, if nothing else, that different doesn't mean bad.
We're still suffering from the effects of the last greatest bid for independence. I truly hope this doesn't happen...
Well, being the Independent I am. I even took Jefferson's test 3 times trying to get over to the right side and still ended up on the left, but I just use individual policies that I believe in and that's all.
For example, I believe the President of the United States should be elected by the Electoral College. Now does that make me Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, Marxist, Socialist, Libertarian, or something else?
Who else believes in electing the President of the United States with the Electoral College and who believes in electing the President of the United States by Popular vote?
Off the top of my head I would think popular vote is more democratic, but I understand that there are valid reasons why the electoral college system is retained.
And you would be correct Buzz. But there was a reason the Electoral College was formed and that was to prevent the country from becoming a Democracy.
Here is the reason for the college:
CONSTITUTIONAL ORIGINS
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered several methods of electing the President, including selection by Congress, by the governors of the states, by the state legislatures, by a special group of Members of Congress chosen by lot, and by direct popular election. Late in the convention, the matter was referred to the Committee of Eleven on Postponed Matters, which devised the electoral college system in its original form. This plan, which met with widespread approval by the delegates, was incorporated into the final document with only minor changes. It sought to reconcile differing state and federal interests, provide a degree of popular participation in the election, give the less populous states some additional leverage in the process by providing “senatorial” electors, preserve the presidency as independent of Congress, and generally insulate the election process from political manipulation.
The Constitution gave each state a number of electors equal to the combined total of its membership in the Senate (two to each state, the “senatorial” electors) and its delegation in the House of Representatives (currently ranging from one to 52 Members). The electors are chosen by the states “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct “(U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 1).
Qualifications for the office are broad: the only persons prohibited from serving as electors are Senators, Representatives, and persons “holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States.”
In order to forestall partisan intrigue and manipulation, the electors assemble in their respective states and cast their ballots as state units, rather than meet at a central location. At least one of the candidates for whom the electors vote must be an inhabitant of another state. A majority of electoral votes is necessary to elect, a requirement intended to insure broad acceptance of a winning candidate, while election by the House was provided as a default method in the event of electoral college deadlock. Finally, Congress was empowered to set nationwide dates for choice and meeting of electors.
All the foregoing structural elements of the electoral college system remain in effect currently. The original method of electing the President and Vice President, however, proved unworkable, and was replaced by the 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804. Under the original system, each elector cast two votes for President (for different candidates), and no vote for Vice President. The votes were counted; the candidate receiving the most, provided it was a majority of the number of electors, was elected President, and the runner-up became Vice President. The 12th Amendment replaced this system with separate ballots for President and Vice President, with electors casting a single vote for each office.
I was gonna say dat.
Ya beat me to it Girl!
Unfortunately, it's the understanding it part that both sides want to run so far away from....
Where does it say that they Electors are required to vote for the person who gets the most votes in their state? Can't an Elector choose, if they wish, to vote for someone else?
Yes they can. That is the beauty of the system.
As long as they are willing to take the consequences the state lays out for them for doing it......
It's in the constitution.....
An elector isn't tied to anything except the manner in which the state decides how they are to vote.
When I take that test I come out fairly far to the right on economic and defense issues on the right left axis and right in the middle on the authoritarian vs libertarian axis. I come out close on their list of famous people to where Milton Friedman was.
As far as gays marrying, I don't care who they marry. Do they care who I marry?
Very open minded of you Six. Though I do seem to remember you saying that before. That was pretty much how I felt when I found out that my son was gay. Who do I care who he sleeps with? He's a grown man and so am I and he certainly can't tell me who I can sleep with or fall in love with or marry, so I have to show him the same respect.
I don't care who they create a union with either as long as they don't compel or coerce others into participating in said ceremony in any way whatsoever.