Wrapping Up Polarization in Presidential Politics
As this series has shown, polarization in presidential politics is nothing new. It is an old as Alexander Hamilton vs. Thomas Jefferson. It is not limited to Democrat vs. Republican, and even during the so-called "Era of Good Feelings", polarity within the same political party was something that often occurred. Examples of this are the split in the Federalist ranks between supporters of John Adams and those of Hamilton, the split in the Democratic-Republican Party between supporters of John Quincy Adams and those of Andrew Jackson, the split between the Radical Republicans and moderates in their party, the spit between the "Stalwarts" and the "Half-Breeds", and in more recent times the spit in the Democratic Party between supporters of Bernie Sanders and those candidates more oriented with the political establishment.
Polarization has sometimes existed simultaneously within both political parties, as it did for example in the days of sectionalism within the Whig Party and the Democratic Party over the issue of slavery. Both parties had divisions over the issue of tariffs and over which metal should back US currency in the days when Grover Cleveland and William McKinley backed the gold standard and William Jennings Bryan and William B. Allison.
While polarization is nothing new, its significance has become amplified since the rise of the internet. This point is made n the book Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhitit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, a husband and wife team of economics profs from MIT who won the 2019 Nobel Prize in economics. (I wrote a review of it here). The authors talk about a lot of polarizing subjects including trade and tariffs, global warming, migration and immigration, universal basic income, and the growing gap between rich and poor. Their chapter on racial division and polarization is especially interesting. Some of their stats about how social media has changed us include these:
*In 1960, 5% of both Republicans and Democrats reported that they would feel "displeased" if their son or daughter married outside of their political party. In 2018 that number had risen to 50%.
*In 1960, 33% of both Republicans and Democrats thought that an average member from their party was intelligent, but only 27% thought that an average member of the other party was intelligent. In 2018 those numbers were 62% and 14% respectively.
*As of 2019, Facebook had 2.27 billion monthly active users globally. Twitter had 326 million.
*By September of 2014, more than 71% of the US online population (and 58% of the US adult population) used Facebook.
*There are 4.7 degrees of separation between all Facebook users worldwide.
The authors write (at page 129):
"Facebook and Twitter function as echo chambers. Democrats pass on information produced by Democratic candidates and Republicans do the same for Republicans... Taking into account retweets, liberals get 92% of their messages from liberal sources and conservatives get 93% of their messages from conservative sources. Strikingly, this is not just true of political tweets; for these politically engaged people, the exposure is just as skewed for non-political tweets. Apparently even to chat about fly fishing on Twitter, people prefer to connect with a fellow liberal or conservative. The virtual community that social networks have created is at best a fragmented public space."
The authors go on to say that "political strategies to divide the population and plant fake news were invented long before Facebook". We only need to look at Thomas Jefferson and his newspaper editor Benjamin Bache for an example of this. Political spin is nothing new. What is new is technology's ability to reach people in greater numbers than ever before. Television networks have gotten into the game of echo chamber message delivery. The authors cite one of the most atrocious examples of this during the Rwandan genocide when a television network called for extermination of the Tustis and made the outrageous argument that this was "self-defence".
The authors note how the echo chamber mentality leads to what they refer to as "largely unconscious segregation." They write (at page 126):
"We may not realize that if all of us choose to hang out with friends like us, we end up forming entirely separate islands of similar people. This feeds into the intensification of apparently bizarre preferences and/or extreme political views. One obvious downside of sticking to our own is that we don't get exposed to differing points of view."
For examples, the authors cite statistics that 41% of Americans believe that human activity causes global warming. Another 41% believe either that global warming is due to purely natural causes or that it doesn't exist at all. The echo chamber has also led to different labels used by the polar opposites. (For example, one side will use terms such as "estate taxes, undocumented workers, tax breaks for the wealthy" while the other will say "death taxes, illegal aliens, and tax reform" for the same thing.) The authors also discuss how the delivery of polarized news is killing the delivery of objective news reporting. They cite statistics showing that in 2007 there were 57,000 journalists in the United States and by 2015 that number had dropped to 33,000. They go on to write (at page 132):
"The second concern is that the internet allows for endless repetition. The problem with echo chambers is not just that we are only exposed to ideas we like; we are also exposed to them again and again, endlessly throughout the day. The fake users used to boost stories on Facebook plus the real persons paid to like content accentuate the natural tendency for some messages to be repeated and acquire a life of their own. The endless repetition whips people into a frenzy (much like the way political demonstrations use repeated chants) making it harder for them to stop and check the stories."
The 2020 election will present further opportunity for polarization. The tragic aspect of this phenomenon is that some people will use political differences to justify mistrust, dislike and even hate for those who have a differing political viewpoint than they do. One need only look to social media, where political discourse is more concerned with personal insult than with the pros and cons of various policies. If someone asks why a particular issue isn't discussed at election time, it is generally because of the media's preoccupation with personalities rather than policy. This is especially evident when a candidate has a previous media presence such as Donald Trump has. According to data from the Tyndall Report, which tracks nightly news content, Trump personally accounted for more than a quarter of all 2016 election coverage on the evening newscasts of NBC, CBS and ABC, more than all the Democratic campaigns combined. This is unlikely to change any time soon.
In modern times, social media, with its ability to reach greater numbers than ever before, and its echo chamber effect may serve to make polarization more intense than ever before. In regions and communities where the strength of one faction or another is intense, those with a contrary opinion are often fearful of expressing that opinion. Doing so often makes them the target of contempt, ridicule or hate. Diversity of thought is healthy for a society. Contempt for someone because of difference of opinion or thought can be harmful both to the society or to the individual.
Perhaps one of the reasons why James Madison is considered to be a great thinker is because he was known to change his mind on further consideration of the opposing point of view. Once a staunch Jeffersonian defender of states' rights, he came to change his point of view when the wisdom of the need for a strong central government for national defense and a strong economy became apparent to him. John Quincy Adams changed from his allegiance to the Democratic-Republicans when he found notions of slavery and other Jacksonian principles to be incompatible with his conscience. There is a lesson in this for all of us.
Whether you are a supporter of the incumbent president, or of his detractors, it is my sincere hope that you will find the wisdom to separate principles from personalities, and not equate rejection of policy or philosophy with hatred of the individual who holds that belief. As Dr. Martin Luther King once wrote:
"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
It is my sincere hope that each of you will refuse to be a part of the echo chamber and refuse to hate those who think differently from you.
Polarization has sometimes existed simultaneously within both political parties, as it did for example in the days of sectionalism within the Whig Party and the Democratic Party over the issue of slavery. Both parties had divisions over the issue of tariffs and over which metal should back US currency in the days when Grover Cleveland and William McKinley backed the gold standard and William Jennings Bryan and William B. Allison.
While polarization is nothing new, its significance has become amplified since the rise of the internet. This point is made n the book Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhitit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, a husband and wife team of economics profs from MIT who won the 2019 Nobel Prize in economics. (I wrote a review of it here). The authors talk about a lot of polarizing subjects including trade and tariffs, global warming, migration and immigration, universal basic income, and the growing gap between rich and poor. Their chapter on racial division and polarization is especially interesting. Some of their stats about how social media has changed us include these:
*In 1960, 5% of both Republicans and Democrats reported that they would feel "displeased" if their son or daughter married outside of their political party. In 2018 that number had risen to 50%.
*In 1960, 33% of both Republicans and Democrats thought that an average member from their party was intelligent, but only 27% thought that an average member of the other party was intelligent. In 2018 those numbers were 62% and 14% respectively.
*As of 2019, Facebook had 2.27 billion monthly active users globally. Twitter had 326 million.
*By September of 2014, more than 71% of the US online population (and 58% of the US adult population) used Facebook.
*There are 4.7 degrees of separation between all Facebook users worldwide.
The authors write (at page 129):
"Facebook and Twitter function as echo chambers. Democrats pass on information produced by Democratic candidates and Republicans do the same for Republicans... Taking into account retweets, liberals get 92% of their messages from liberal sources and conservatives get 93% of their messages from conservative sources. Strikingly, this is not just true of political tweets; for these politically engaged people, the exposure is just as skewed for non-political tweets. Apparently even to chat about fly fishing on Twitter, people prefer to connect with a fellow liberal or conservative. The virtual community that social networks have created is at best a fragmented public space."
The authors go on to say that "political strategies to divide the population and plant fake news were invented long before Facebook". We only need to look at Thomas Jefferson and his newspaper editor Benjamin Bache for an example of this. Political spin is nothing new. What is new is technology's ability to reach people in greater numbers than ever before. Television networks have gotten into the game of echo chamber message delivery. The authors cite one of the most atrocious examples of this during the Rwandan genocide when a television network called for extermination of the Tustis and made the outrageous argument that this was "self-defence".
The authors note how the echo chamber mentality leads to what they refer to as "largely unconscious segregation." They write (at page 126):
"We may not realize that if all of us choose to hang out with friends like us, we end up forming entirely separate islands of similar people. This feeds into the intensification of apparently bizarre preferences and/or extreme political views. One obvious downside of sticking to our own is that we don't get exposed to differing points of view."
For examples, the authors cite statistics that 41% of Americans believe that human activity causes global warming. Another 41% believe either that global warming is due to purely natural causes or that it doesn't exist at all. The echo chamber has also led to different labels used by the polar opposites. (For example, one side will use terms such as "estate taxes, undocumented workers, tax breaks for the wealthy" while the other will say "death taxes, illegal aliens, and tax reform" for the same thing.) The authors also discuss how the delivery of polarized news is killing the delivery of objective news reporting. They cite statistics showing that in 2007 there were 57,000 journalists in the United States and by 2015 that number had dropped to 33,000. They go on to write (at page 132):
"The second concern is that the internet allows for endless repetition. The problem with echo chambers is not just that we are only exposed to ideas we like; we are also exposed to them again and again, endlessly throughout the day. The fake users used to boost stories on Facebook plus the real persons paid to like content accentuate the natural tendency for some messages to be repeated and acquire a life of their own. The endless repetition whips people into a frenzy (much like the way political demonstrations use repeated chants) making it harder for them to stop and check the stories."
The 2020 election will present further opportunity for polarization. The tragic aspect of this phenomenon is that some people will use political differences to justify mistrust, dislike and even hate for those who have a differing political viewpoint than they do. One need only look to social media, where political discourse is more concerned with personal insult than with the pros and cons of various policies. If someone asks why a particular issue isn't discussed at election time, it is generally because of the media's preoccupation with personalities rather than policy. This is especially evident when a candidate has a previous media presence such as Donald Trump has. According to data from the Tyndall Report, which tracks nightly news content, Trump personally accounted for more than a quarter of all 2016 election coverage on the evening newscasts of NBC, CBS and ABC, more than all the Democratic campaigns combined. This is unlikely to change any time soon.
In modern times, social media, with its ability to reach greater numbers than ever before, and its echo chamber effect may serve to make polarization more intense than ever before. In regions and communities where the strength of one faction or another is intense, those with a contrary opinion are often fearful of expressing that opinion. Doing so often makes them the target of contempt, ridicule or hate. Diversity of thought is healthy for a society. Contempt for someone because of difference of opinion or thought can be harmful both to the society or to the individual.
Perhaps one of the reasons why James Madison is considered to be a great thinker is because he was known to change his mind on further consideration of the opposing point of view. Once a staunch Jeffersonian defender of states' rights, he came to change his point of view when the wisdom of the need for a strong central government for national defense and a strong economy became apparent to him. John Quincy Adams changed from his allegiance to the Democratic-Republicans when he found notions of slavery and other Jacksonian principles to be incompatible with his conscience. There is a lesson in this for all of us.
Whether you are a supporter of the incumbent president, or of his detractors, it is my sincere hope that you will find the wisdom to separate principles from personalities, and not equate rejection of policy or philosophy with hatred of the individual who holds that belief. As Dr. Martin Luther King once wrote:
"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
It is my sincere hope that each of you will refuse to be a part of the echo chamber and refuse to hate those who think differently from you.