Political Polarization And The United States

The changes between the parties have become more distinctive throughout the years. Some of these changes include preferences, behavior, increasing homogeneous districts, and increasing alignment between ideology and partisanship among voters.

" This article contends that the polarization in American political parties stems from the weakness of the parties themselves. Weak party structures might lead to fragmented ideologies, lack of party discipline, and susceptibility to outside influences such as special interest groups. Consequently, without strong leadership and cohesive party platforms, members may resort to

Congressional polarization can easily be tracked unlike the polarization trends in the public which causes the moderates to become ignored. According to scholars, many moderates in the public ‘lean’ toward either the Democratic or Republican camp which complicates the polarization trends (a); they often outnumber partisans of the party towards which they ‘lean’ (Smith). While the public remains consistently moderate, Congress consistently loses its moderates as they retire, and more radical congressmen and women secure their places (Fiorina 5). Fiorina hardly considers independents or moderates in this essay; this mistake overlooks their ‘swing vote’ in many major elections for both Congress and the executive branch (Enns and Schmidt). But,

Polarization in politics is a conflict that both Is Polarization a Myth written by Alan I. Abramowitz as well as Kyle L. Saunders and Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America written by Morris P. Fiorina talk about. On a political scale it has either a republican side or a democrat side and in the articles they discuss whether or not people are in the middle of the scale, or on one side or the other. Alan and Kyle are trying to prove that people are beginning to choose one side or another and stated in Is Polarization a Myth, “Our evidence indicated that since 1970s, ideological polarization has increased dramatically among the mass public in the United States as well as among political elites”( Abramowitz and Saunders 542). Florina stated in chapter two that each election the votes came in 50:50. After reading the articles I came to a conclusion that I agree with Fiorina’s opinion on polarization.

In “Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America” Morris P. Fiorina writes about how Americans may or may not be polarized when it comes to certain issues. In chapter one Fiorina mentions many quotes about what many people think about this topic. In the next chapter he goes onto stating why Americans think that America is polarized. In chapter three Fiorina gives some examples of how of little differences are between the red states versus the blue states.

Abramowitz’s argument that the American electorate have become more polarized and that the moderate center is disappearing is more of a quantitative argument than a qualitative one. Based on election studies and exit polls, Abramowitz’ observations include the correlation between engagement, party identification, religious and social groups, ideological realignment, and education on the idealization and polarization of the public. Contrary to Fiorina, “there is no disconnect between the political elite and the American people. Polarization in Washington reflects polarization within the public, especially within the politically engaged segment of the public” (Abramowitz 2010, x). According to the ANES (American National Election Studies), the

Recently, Party polarization in the US has been gaining more attention. Some claim that it is a recent phenomenon, but in fact polarization has been ongoing ever since the 18th century. Political polarization is when an individual makes a decision on an issue, policy or candidate solely based on the political party they identify with or with their chosen ideology. In the 1790s, the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Federalists were polarized over tariffs, the national bank and federal versus state and citizen power. Between the 1830s and the 1840s, polarization took form between the Whigs and the democrats. In the 1850s polarization was focused on the issue of slavery, agrarian and currency issues. In the 1930s it was welfare and in the 1960s

This creates a paradox for the reader. In a book designed to remove the impression of polarity, why single out specific subjects in this polarizing way? The logical conclusion is that these topics do have a specific effect on refuting the polarization claim. In the opening chapters, Fiorina et al. illustrate the perceived polarization of partisans, the war in Iraq, and a myriad of other factors like gun control (p. 1-75). With partisanship they found the issue to be a problem of “confusing positions with choice” (2011, p. 25) and thus dismissing the polarization of Americans. Analyzing he war in Iraq yielded similar results (p. 51-55). The authors found that when asked to judge broad statements, like Bush’s handling of Iraq, respondents answered in the partisan way, with more republicans supporting and democrats disapproving (p. 54). However, when the same people were asked to rate Bush’s handling of Iraq in terms of individual acts, the polarization faded (p. 52-53). While there were still dissidents and supporters, the divide was not along partisan lines but rather individual lines, evidenced by the near equal support of republicans and democrats for the use of military force overseas. All of this supports the argument that Fiorina et al. make throughout but provides no insight into why some topics are grouped

It is present among the voters as well as our elected representatives, at all levels of government (Jacobson 2000, Aldrich and Battista 2002). We can see it through simple measures like red states and blue states and in more sophisticated ones like party unity. For instance, it may be that elites have become more extreme in recent years and the voters are forced to choose between increasingly divergent candidates. Along with these examples, the article from the Washing Post states that, “This is true in both chambers, although polarization has progressed at a greater rate in the House. Congress is now more polarized than at any time since the end of Reconstruction.”

In this article by Ronald Brownstein he talks about how political polarization has divided Washington. He states that America is the richest and most powerful country in the world, yet we cannot agree on a plan in Washington to provide Americans with health insurance or reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Polarization in American politics has democrats pitted against republicans; if republicans favor a program the democrats oppose it just because they did not create. This is the current station of the American government. Therefore, nothing gets accomplished, the problems we are arguing over today have been the same problems we have been arguing over for decades and very little has been done.

Increased shifts to the political extremes causes voters to vote in lockstep with party leaders. Polarized voters are less informed on energy, healthcare, education, and other key issues4. Polarized voters also ignore fundamental arguments in favor of partisanship. When told that their party endorsed a certain stance, the polarized voters became more supportive, regardless of facts. Because the election process requires

At a basic level, since the 1970s, Republican and Democrat voters have taken a progressively adverse view of the other party’s members. To further measure polarization, the author defines three types of polarization: partisan polarization, opinion radicalization, and issue alignment. Partisan polarization is the sorting of people into the two major parties in the US, which now has all liberals and all conservatives in separate parties. This is unlike the southern Democrats and liberal Republicans in the past. Opinion radicalization is the process in which people gravitate away from the political center to more extreme positions. The author states that this effect

differences between their parties and policies. Although there are similarities between the parties, they tend to be overshadowed by individual party ideologies. With so many fundamental differences between the parties, finding topics or issues upon which constituents agree upon can at times be somewhat difficult. Although there are chasms between the voting practices of the parties, there are also some fundamental similarities as well.

Political polarization can be analyzed by two approaches i.e. elite polarization and mass polarization (Fiorina & Abrams 2008). In its simplest form, what influence politics and what influences the public. Both types can take place over time

Articles read within my 2016 Presidential Election Course gave me some ideas to look for partisanship, party polarization, and floating voters relative to the scope of this assignment. I started this assignment by choosing interviewees, two males, and three females. Both males are age 20; female’s ages are 20, 21, and 48. All of my interviewees were from Northern Virginia, three from suburban regions and 2 from rural one’s. The interviewees come from different racial backgrounds; two participants are African American and the others Caucasian. My selection of