Brendan Nyhan has a nice political science-y followup on the bipartisanship issue, complete with charts of partisan polarization in congress. The charts illustrate both that the bipartisanship era was a historical aberration and that it was very specifically driven by the presence of a large number of conservative southerners in congress who were members of a mostly non-conservative Democratic Party because they were also hard-core white supremacists and being Democrats was part of maintaining Jim Crow. The departure of these times and the rise of ideologically coherent parties isn't really something to be sad about.
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Partisanship Charts
21 Aug 2007 03:36 pm
Comments (14)
While there were certainly many right wing Southern Dems for most of this century (whose spiritual desendents are happily practicing Republicans), I think you overlook that here were also plenty of moderate Republicans from the Northeast, Midwest, and Far West, and even a few more or less liberals (i.e., Javits), for several decades following WWII. There are now barely a half dozen Republican senators who could be classified as moderate (and only if use a liberal definition of the term). And their moderation is primarily in their rethoric--they almost always vote in lockstep with the wingnuts.
Ack, I am showing my age in my last post. I should have said there were many right wing Southern Dems for most of the previous century.
I have to ask, doesn't this analysis only make sense if what is considered "conservative" and "liberal" has been static for the past 130 years or so? Which, I believe, it haven't?
"I have to ask, doesn't this analysis only make sense if what is considered "conservative" and "liberal" has been static for the past 130 years or so?"
Nope. You're not understanding what is being graphed.
Although, as noted above, Nyhan badly botches his analysis, he has pointed out some interesting data.
I highly recommend folks click thru to the abstract Nyhan links to. You don't have to read it, just check out the graphs at the bottom of the page. It turns out that the shifts in partisan polarization correlate really well to both income inequality and immigration rates.
A rational observer would conclude that these items are the causes, not the the segregation position of Southern Democrats, especially given that racial segregation in the Democratic South existed during the era of high partisan polarization during the 1880 - 1920 period...
"You don't have to read it, just check out the graphs at the bottom of the page."
Edit: You don't have to read it, just check out the first three graphs on the page.
I think Marlowe makes a good point. To my mind, the current Democratic Party is still pretty ideologically diverse. It runs from, let's say, Senator Nelson of Florida to Dennis Kucinich and embraces the likes of Ken Salazar and Al Sharpton along the way (or let's say Cynthia McKinney if we're only talking elected/formerly elected officials). Pretty recently we even had Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman in our party. Is there anything approaching that kind of diversity of views on the Republican side?
Petey said:
If anything, low partisan polarization is more common over the past 130 years with high partisan polarization being the less frequent condition.
It all depends on how you define high and low. The chart in question does not make this clear--at least not to me. If you decided to draw the line between high and low at 0.7, then you'd have about 55 years of low partisanship and 125 years of high partisanship (though trending slowly downward for a good many of those years).
" think Nyhan interprets oddly here.
Looking at his main chart, we have an era of high partisan polarization from 1879 to around 1912, followed by a long era of low partisan polarization to around 1984, folowed by an era of sharply rising partisan polarization.
There really is nothing in that graph that suggests that low partisan polarization is the aberration and that high partisan polarization is the norm.
If anything, low partisan polarization is more common over the past 130 years with high partisan polarization being the less frequent condition.
Once you get past this weird reading of the data, it really is an interesting graph."
I'm not sure how much of an apples-to-apples comparison this is when you factor in the fact that a substantial portion of Southern voters - black voters - simply couldn't find a way to legally vote locally before LBJ's legislation. When all of a sudden you get a bunch of new voters in the eligible pool who are demographically different, this changes things. Slavery and its after effects, along with the fact that we are a nation of settlers and immigrants, not millenia-long natives, have been perhaps the factors above all others that has shaped American society differently than in other industrial democracies.
"I'm not sure how much of an apples-to-apples comparison this is when you factor in the fact that a substantial portion of Southern voters - black voters - simply couldn't find a way to legally vote locally before LBJ's legislation. When all of a sudden you get a bunch of new voters in the eligible pool who are demographically different, this changes things."
But the increase in partisan polarization takes off in the early 1980's, not in 1965.
Not to mention that there were high levels of partisan polarization in the 1880 - 1920 period, when Southern black voters were already disenfranchised.
Seriously, if you check out the charts, you'll see almost perfect correlation between partisan polarization and the twin factors of income inequality and immigration levels going back 130 years. The 1960's enfranchisement of Southern blacks, and the partisan shift of Southern whites, on the other hand, doesn't really correlate.
"But the increase in partisan polarization takes off in the early 1980's, not in 1965.
Not to mention that there were high levels of partisan polarization in the 1880 - 1920 period, when Southern black voters were already disenfranchised."
Except in many parts of the South, LBJ's legislation wasn't put into practice until the 1970's. There social trends take time to work themselves out. Think how long it took before Zell Miller realized he was more of a crazy conservative than a modern liberal Democrat. 1980 would be around the time that the lag time would start to end. After all, the major thing that caused the realignment of the South to the Republicans was things like the Civil Rights Act. Jimmy Carter took a decent portion of the Southern vote in 1976, in part because he was Southern, Watergate and the fact that Ford was a bit of an empty suit. This helped to delay a process that was already underway from coming to fruition. Just because a group of numbers have a correlation doesn't mean two similar data sets are actually comparable once you get into micro detail.
"Except in many parts of the South, LBJ's legislation wasn't put into practice until the 1970's."
I don't think you have the slightest clue what you're talking about.
Voting rights were put into practice in all 50 states well before 1970.
The departure of ...[bipartisan] times and the rise of ideologically coherent parties isn't really something to be sad about.
There's a difference between bipartisanship - especially as it's (de)evolved lately - and consensus. After all, you can have consensus between two Parties on lots and lots of things (eg basic facts of science, basic empiricism, etc.) and still have sharp differences about the rest. Or can you?
I'd say that 'coherent political ideology' is wildly overrated as a concept. In fact, the more 'developed' and closed ideologies are, the less coherent they tend to be in practice. The LP is always a good example for this, but so is the Republican party at the moment: is the current version of the GOP really ideologically coherent? Hardly. 60s Movement Conservatism *was* very ideologically-coherent until it gained power.
Liberalism isn't ever very 'ideologically coherent', which is both its strength and weakness. It's due for a comeback, however, because the denouement of said Movement is so anti-liberal - in fact, so anti-American. The concept of an ideologically coherent movement is a construct of polisci - useful, but imaginary.
Comments closed September 04, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
I think Nyhan interprets oddly here.
Looking at his main chart, we have an era of high partisan polarization from 1879 to around 1912, followed by a long era of low partisan polarization to around 1984, folowed by an era of sharply rising partisan polarization.
There really is nothing in that graph that suggests that low partisan polarization is the aberration and that high partisan polarization is the norm.
If anything, low partisan polarization is more common over the past 130 years with high partisan polarization being the less frequent condition.
Once you get past this weird reading of the data, it really is an interesting graph.
Posted by Petey | August 21, 2007 4:27 PM