View From Down Under

Politics and political discourse in the US has polarized over the last 30 years, with both politicians and voters moving further from the center.  The cause may be geographic self selection, or changes to the legal framework.  Or it may be more complicated.

Other forces that have been accused of complicity in this polarisation include income inequality, increasing immigration (particularly illegal immigration), growth of fundamentalist religion, imbecilic left wing radicals, fascist right wing radicals, increasingly effective protest strategies, and etc.

Whatever the causes, the result is not disputed.  Analysis of voting patterns in Congress shows quite a clear move away from consensus and towards increasing divergence.  Polls such as those on health care reform show an increasing split among American voters.

So, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Polarization has the effect of stifling reform.  If the members of Congress are polarized in opinion and politically unable to compromise (by compromising they risk losing their seat), meaningful reform grinds to something close to a halt.  Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on whether you support the particular reform in question.  Polarization limited the cuts on capital gains and death taxes proposed by the Bush administration, and is now limiting the ability of the Obama administration to implement health care reform.

Being a fan of progress, I think this is a bad thing.

Polarization has certainly made politics more interesting.  Elections tend to mean more than they used to, candidates are more clearly different from each other, and television and radio coverage of politics is far more entertaining.  Rush Limbaugh would not be worth listening to if he had moderate views, and would certainly be a far less wealthy man today.

However, entertainment always comes at a cost.  Trying to filter out what actually happened from what the talking heads are saying is becoming more and more difficult.  And I find the continuous search for outrage by the political commentators to be tiresome and, frankly, childish.

To me the worst thing about this trend is the lack of sense it makes.  Taking extreme left or right wing views almost always involves ignoring facts and letting ideology or emotion govern reaction.  Wouldn’t it be a better place if we looked at proposals on their merits, instead of the knee jerk reaction of labelling things socialist or racist because they came from the other side of the aisle?

Of course, that is a pipe dream in the US today.