Arkansas Tech University The Culture Wars & Political Polarization in Perspective

Table of Equations

Figure 1.1A: 2000 Election Map

Figure 1.1B: 2004 Election Map

Figure 1.1C: 2008 Election Map

Scholars and observers of politics have long talked about divisions and divisiveness in the American body politic. Recently, however, the consensus among some scholars, journalists, activists, and elite observers of politics has coalesced around a particular vision of political competition in the United States. Beginning with Hunter’s exposition on the coming culture war in America, scholars have suggested there is a growing schism in the American body politic (Hunter, 1991, 1995; Wilcox, 1996). It is characterized by an increasingly polarized and yet evenly divided public with social and cultural issues at the fore. While Hunter did not invent the idea of a “culture war” in America, he is responsible for the first serious scholarly treatment of the subject in its current form. Hunter argues that cultural “issues” (abortion, gay rights, funding for the arts, women’s rights, etc) are the surface indicators of a divide that is “really about something deeper and more significant” (Hunter 1991). Hunter suggests that the “new lines of conflict” in America are reflected in an electorate polarized between the “orthodox” and the “progressive” (for a contra argument see Wolfe, 2006).

Hunter’s departure from previous works is in arguing that the culture wars of the present are of a fundamentally different character than those of the past which were characterized by sectarian battles, with some religious denominations taking on one partisan affiliation and other denominations taking on the other. Hence religion or religiosity was not a factor in and of itself in informing the political divide. Not the case today, according to Hunter. The outward indicators of the culture war are the policy battles waged over hot-button political issues such as abortion, homosexual rights, public values in education, funding for the arts, affirmative action, child care and the other cultural or social issues. In Hunter’s vision of the near-future, the traditionalists square off on one side with the secular humanists on the other. This ensures a political landscape marked by intransigent and wholly incompatible viewpoints. But why is this conflict more intractable than previous incarnations of polarized politics? Hunter posits that the issue positions of traditionalists differ by being deeply rooted in their moral sense. Cultural conflict is “political and social hostility rooted in different systems of moral understanding…They are not merely attitudes that can change on a whim, but basic commitments and beliefs that provide a source of identity, purpose, and togetherness for people who live by them” (Hunter 1991). It is an uncompromising politics that brooks little dissent because it hinges on moral authority rather than the stuff of political compromise (Hunter, 1991, 1995).

Hunter’s warning of an increasingly divisive and uncompromising conflict over cultural issues resonated with the political classes attempting to understand increasingly close elections. Political polarization has become a hot topic of discussion and a primary explanatory model for political behavior and electoral outcomes. Hunter’s thesis has had a profound effect on American political discourse. As can be seen in Figure 1.3, there has been a marked increase in the mention of social issues in the news media (using the NY Times as a proxy) since the 1990’s…climbing from under 20 mentions in a year in 1991 to over 160 mentions in 2005. Furthermore, whether the culture wars are reality or myth, political polarization itself is an increasingly important and discussed topic in American politics. The number of mentions of ‘political polarization’ in the paper of record (NY Times) has gone from nearly zero in 1980, to a steady increase coincident to Hunter’s “Culture Wars,” to eventually peaking at 158 mentions in 2004 (see Figure 1.4). With the conflict rooted in completely different worldviews, ‘war’ seems an apt descriptor for the competition over policy between these distinct and sharply divided groups within the American electorate (Wilcox, 1996). And indeed, Hunter does not merely contemplate the possibility of the culture “war” precipitating an all too real and bloody cultural conflict

Figure 1.2: Frequency of Social Issue Mentions in the New York Times – 1969-2008

*Search Terms: same-sex marriage OR gay marriage OR abortion OR school prayer OR prayer in school

Figure 1.3: Frequency of Political Polarization Mentions in the New York Times – 1980-2007

*Search Terms: political polarization OR culture war OR religious war OR deep partisan divide

within America; he predicts it in the absence of some effort to change the environment of public discourse, an outcome he views as unrealistic. Hunter suggests we are on the path towards violence and, if our stars remain unchanged, violence is the ultimate end. Though acknowledging that the United States is not Beirut and unlikely to become so in the near future, Hunter warns, “…some escalation in the violence is possible, particularly if the aims of particular political actors seem to them to be interminably frustrated” (Hunter 1991). Evans strikes a more optimistic note in his work suggesting moral politics in the U.S. isn’t qualitatively different than other more traditional dimensions of political conflict, while Wolfe argues that Americans are a mix of traditionalistic instincts and modern lifestyles that defy a simplistic dichotomy (Evans 1996, 1997; Wolfe and Kohut 2006). However, both scholars concur with the basic fundamentals set out by Hunter: there is a growing cultural conflict that increasingly underlies political divisions in the United States. The American people appear to agree with Hunter. In a poll taken in 2004, 72 percent of Americans assessed the country’s division along

Table 1.1: Assessing the Problems for Future Presidents: “The country divided into two Americas where people hold fundamentally different values about gay marriage, abortion and guns” ²

To you, it's sushi. To me, it's bait.

– President George W. Bush

Political Polarization: Trends in the Body Politic versus Regional and Reference Group Trends

In Fox’s hit medical drama House, the main character—not coincidentally named House—asks, “You think it's remotely possible they [two colleagues of House] had sex?” His friend and colleague on the show, Wilson, responds, “They're both single. It's still legal in the Blue states” (Glatter 2007). The story of an American electorate deeply and sharply divided along geographic boundaries where homogenous communities share similar views on social issues and partisan affiliations has become an indelible part of the popular and journalistic accounts of electoral politics. As the above anecdote indicates, it is now such an ingrained part of the political lexicon that it has become a ubiquitous cultural reference. The increasing frequency with which the Red vs. Blue dichotomy has become a part of our political lexicon is apparent. Furthermore, it not only demonstrates that the terms of the culture wars have become commonplace in our casual discussions of politics, but that the culture wars thesis itself—that we are divided on social issues such as sex outside of marriage—is accepted as a rock-solid characteristic of American politics in the general public. And that’s an important development. As the originator of the culture wars thesis, James Hunter, notes, “the power of culture is first and foremost symbolic. It's the power to name things; it's to define reality, to frame debate“ (Hunter 1991). Popular treatments of the culture war can be as influential on the perceptions of citizens as much as the reality of the political conflict itself. The language that characterizes our public discourse and how it does or does not foster consensus on morality is subject to the conventional wisdom of cultural and political elites. The belief in the Culture War can affect politics independent of whether a true cultural divide exists. Furthermore, these popular references are indicative of intrinsic knowledge. So ingrained in the meta-conversation of society that they need merely be referenced, not explained. Thus they are evidence of how deeply this concept has penetrated in to the average American’s understanding of politics and thus shaping their own perspectives on politics and political beliefs irrespective of the reality behind the phenomenon. The “Red vs. Blue” dichotomy is a political conventional wisdom.

Though the “Culture Wars” thesis was popularized at least a decade before, the geographic component to the cultural conflict in the American electorate was born in the presidential election of 2000, where states that went for George W. Bush were depicted in the color red on national broadcasts while the states that went for Al Gore, Jr. were colored blue. The “Red State” and “Blue State” terms are believed to have been coined by Tim Russert in analysis shortly following the election (Zeller 2004). This construction of the culture war has become an integral part of the popular explanations of political conflict, as is evident from the trend in Figure 2.1. Geographic polarization is relevant both as a phenomena and a potential cause of polarization. Sociologists have long argued that the composition of a person’s reference group(s) can have an impact on the extremism of their views on issues as well as their perception of opposing groups (Tajfel and Turner 1979; Taylor and Moghaddam 1994). As Tip O’Neil famously observed, all politics is local. If localities have become insular and homogenous, then our local politics is all of one flavor. To the extent that cities, states, and other geographically bounded communities have become stratified politically, then the implication on polarization and cultural conflict is clear. Just as a homogeneous social circle contributed to Pauline Kael’s infamous reaction to Richard Nixon’s landslide electoral victory in 1972, "How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon!" …an electorate that consists of each half of the ideological spectrum only living and interacting with people “like them” could lead to increasing political polarization on the issues (as the center of ‘reasonable’ politics shifts in either direction) and to a more negative and distorted view of the opposition.

Figure 1.4: Red & Blue State Mentions in the New York Times – 2000-2007

*Search Terms: Red State OR Blue State AND Politics

Why would we expect our neighbors and friends to shape and influence our political views? A long-line of research on human interaction suggest that in-group bias leads people to become intolerant towards views incongruent with the group consensus (Taylor and Moghaddam 1994; Tajfel and Turner 1979). Experiments in group settings have shown that people will ‘reward’ one another with higher payoffs even when the characteristics they share are trivial, such as the same birth date (Tajfel 1970, 1982; Brewer 1979; Maass, Corvino, and Arcuri 1994; Lord, Ross, and Lepper 1979). Studies on the psychological and sociological effects on conflict and consensus among groups of likeminded individuals versus those with diverse viewpoints show that likeminded groups trend towards the polar extremes rather than the center or more moderate positions (Lord, Ross, and Lepper 1979; Sunstein, Schkade, and Ellman 2006). The group think of politically relevant homogenous groups tends towards polarization on issue dimensions. Cass Sunstein finds that even among judges—expert professionals tasked with a job that, in its ideal, requires neutral and objective application of standards rather than personal belief-systems—the tendency to move towards extreme positions when grouped with likeminded individuals (e.g. a court of appeals with mostly conservative Republican appointees tends towards even more extreme conservatism than would be expected given their individual viewpoints) is real and pronounced (Sunstein, Schkade, and Ellman 2006).

Polarized Elections & National Issue Trends: Local Landslides versus the Continental Consensus

Given the limitations of the medium, most reporters have addressed the polarization question from a relatively superficial level. Yet there have been some significant efforts by journalists to get to the bottom of the political polarization puzzle. These focus primarily on illustrating the increasing homogeneity within communities juxtaposed with increasing heterogeneity between communities (See Figure 1. 5). Brousk, suggests, in analyzing electoral returns for the battleground state of Wisconsin, “[t]o put it simply, we are so divided” (Borusk 2004). Though Wisconsin was seen as a “battleground” state and the 2004 presidential election was closely decided, at the county level it was not close. He notes that while the overall election was decided by just 5,708 votes (0.02%), 52 out of the 72 counties were decided by 5 percentage points or more (Borusk 2004). Ben Bishop of the American-Statesman (in concert with a statistician) conducted a series of journalistic investigations into the polarization of American politics (Bishop 2004). They concluded that American elections are increasingly characterized by nationally close results that hide the fact that locally these elections reflect landsides, or what they call the Big Sort. “For almost half of all voters, the close 2004 presidential election wasn't close at all. It was actually a series of local landslides, as Americans continued a decades-long process of sorting themselves geographically into like-minded communities… voters on average are less likely to live among neighbors who supported a different candidate for president. Communities are more homogenous, more single-minded” (Bishop 2004).

Figure 1.5 Red vs. Blue Communities: 2008 Presidential Election Results by County

http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2008/11/15/64322.asp

“I never said all Democrats are saloon-keepers. What I said is that all saloon-keepers are Democrats.” – Horace Greely, 1860.

The New Deal realignment produced an issue dimension which cleaved the parties on welfare issues (Petrocik 1981). Economic issues have long been viewed as one of the dominant factors in the political calculus. Social and cultural issues, and their minimal impact on electoral politics, bring up the rear (Edsall 1986; Kinder and Kiewiet 1984; Kiewiet 1983; Geer 1992). The importance of the economy, one’s own financial situation, and interrelated issues condition both vote choice and the perception of parties (Tufte 1975; Fiorina 1978; Nixon 1962). The major works in political behavior of the 1950’s and 1960’s naturally focused on the influence that attitudes on economic issues has on voting behavior (Eldersveld 1952; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1948; Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954; Campbell et al. 1960; Campbell and Cooper 1956; Campbell, Gurin, and Miller 1954; Campbell and Stokes 1959; Key 1955; Schlesinger 1958; McClosky, Hoffmann, and O'Hara 1960; Wilson 1962; Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Lipset 1960). Some scholars believe that the dominance of economic and welfare issues in American politics reflects a class division in political behavior. Lipset in particular argued the existence of class voting in a series of case studies on democratic countries with capitalist systems conducted in the 1960’s. The United States was no exception, with the Republican and Democratic parties representing “the interests of different classes” (Lipset 1960). However, while economic issues are predominant on the public agenda, the relatively small income differences between Republicans and Democrats (when controlling for region of the country) suggests that class hasn’t been essential in explaining partisan differences, or at least, other social demographic factors are just as relevant.

To the extent that other cleavages have become politically salient and resulted in significant changes in the political coalitions of the parties, economics suffers as a dividing line for the parties (Manza, Hout, and Brooks 1995). The emergence of new cleavages, such as the racial or civil rights cleavage identified in the post-New Deal realignment, is one hypothesis explaining the decline of the relevance of class (Petrocik 1981). Huckfeldt and Kohfeld argue that the Democratic coalition was splintered due to racial hostility. “The politics of race disrupts class politics because…the social and political isolation of blacks benefits advantaged groups…by fracturing the political vehicle of lower-class interests: party competition structured along class lines” (Huckfeldt and Kohfeld 1989). This argument is consistent with Petrocik’s finding that the realignment of the 1970’s was determined by racial conflict (Petrocik 1981).

According to the Culture Wars thesis, the social/cultural dimension figures into the cross-cutting cleavages that have supposedly knocked the government welfare issue dimension off of its politically-aligning pedestal. Hunter suggests that the new cleavage upon which the post-New Deal realignment hinges is the secular versus religious divide. The 2000 election gave this thesis a geographic component, depicting a cultural conflict between Red States and Blue States. Some observers of politics, while implicitly endorsing the reality of the emergent “Culture Wars,” object to it on normative rather than empirical grounds. Thomas Frank takes umbrage at the hijacking of the political agenda in favor of social issues in his widely read What’s the Matter with Kansas? (Frank 2004). He quotes favorably a plaintive query, “’How can anyone who has ever worked for someone else vote Republican?,’ she asked. How could so many people get it wrong? Her question is…the preeminent question of our times. People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about. This species of derangement is the bedrock of our civic order; it is the foundation on which it all rests” (Frank 2004). Frank’s view is that the only relevant partisan and behavioral-determining factor for the rational voter is class.

Frank, a journalist, uses his home state of Kansas as the prototypical example of a state that should be a Democratic state, given its cornucopia of blue-collar workers (despite the fact it has been Republican since the 1950’s and well before the ‘culture wars’ supposedly began). Kansans, according to Frank, are duped by the opiate of abortion, gay marriage, Hollywood and gun control. “This puzzled me when I first read about it, as it puzzles many of the people I know. For us it is the Democrats that are the party of the workers, of the poor of the weak and the victimized” (Frank 2004). Setting aside Frank’s presumptuous imposition of his view on the ‘proper’ preference ordering for working class Americans and his conspiracy theory that the Blue/Red narrative is an invention of clever conservatives duping poor, white America into voting against “latte” liberals, Frank clearly asserts that a sharp decline in class-based voting in the American electorate is an empirical reality. Indeed, Frank is convinced that these social issues have dragged traditional left-wing economic voters over the ideological dividing line and converted them into low-regulation, lower taxes, economic conservatives. “The [working class] dad would listen to the son spout off about Milton Friedman and the godliness of free-market capitalism, and he would just shake his head. Someday, kid, you’ll know what a jerk you are. It was the dad, though, who was eventually converted. These days he votes for the farthest-right Republicans he can find on the ballot” (Frank 2004). The working class has gone Right despite the fact that Republicans fail to deliver on culture war issues and their economic policies are counter to the working class interest. As Nick Kristof plaintively recounts shortly before the 2004 election, Kerry voters “should be feeling wretched about the millions of farmers, factory workers, and waitresses who ended up voting—utterly against their own interests—for Republican candidates” (Kristof 2004). Frank is not alone in his view that cultural political conflict increasingly informs the political decisions of voters and politics in America.

Hunter may or may not have been the first scholar to warn of a growing culture war in America, but he has certainly not been alone in his assessment that the American public is increasingly divided, that neither side of the divide will brook compromise or negotiation with the enemy, and that the prime mover in the divide is between religious and secular citizens. With close elections producing bitter partisan battles, social issues becoming more salient for voters and elites, and an apparent increase in local community homogeneity paired with increasing heterogeneity between counties, states, and regions, the evidence suggests the great cultural divide in America is getting deeper and more difficult to bridge through normal American political institutions. Political compromise and centrist politics is one of the first casualties of the culture war. The media and elites have increasingly given attention to and generated memes on the Red vs. Blue state cultural divide as well as the social issues that are believed to underlie this cultural war. The American public has responded, identifying the culture war as a significant problem in American politics, perhaps requiring future presidential intervention. According to the conventional wisdom, the culture war is real, it is scary, and it is here.