Something that truly confounds me: Far left-wing Sanders, Jacobin, socialist types think Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic party is an empty bag. Meanwhile, moderate observers tend to agree. Who is the constituency of this form of governance? I ask, because I see the state and local politics there and am convinced that Lara Trump will be president in 2028.
This is a really big and successful state, but they are playing with the house account. It's not that I don't think Democrats can be successful, but you have to DO things that improve people's material conditions. Rhode Island has demonstrated competent governance (sure make your small state jokes), and that was after years of satirical mob-like corruption in their politics. It's hard to see how the Democrats can take such a winning hand and bet it on the dog race down the street.
I wonder if there's a lack of electoral discipline? One complaint against gerrymandering is that "Republicans don't have to try to win broad majorities by doing good stuff if the system is rigged so they just have to win a primary by being farther to the right."
That dynamic seems like one that would function in either direction in any state that is massively dominated by one party?
Definitely a factor. Colorado is a state associated with some of the best public policies. It's not surprising that the state is very much in the purple zone (trending Blue, but existing sentiment still resonates from 5-6 years ago).
The embedded scatter-plot led me to the bizarre realization that, in my mind's eye, I've always pictured the "left" to my right, and the "right" to my left. Ahhh!
I will concur with some of the other posters here and argue that immigration skepticism is not a tell-tale sign of racism. Not all Trump supporters are racists, not all Republicans are evil (in fact there were at least 17 Republicans in Washington who stood up for Democracy). I could argue Mitch McConnell is not anti-democracy, and I will say his two pro-democracy speeches (one on 1/6 the other this past Saturday) were quite strong defenses of our institutions. Which is to say: the current liberal attitude of demonizing anyone who may disagree with them is a poor way to expand the tent.
This attitude also creates a self-reinforcing tendency to harden around dogma instead of listening. How can you agree to temper your economic policy when the other side is defending the 'White Supremacist, neo-colonialist, economic model which keeps all People of Color down? There is no room for pro-life voters when their religion is racist, and anti-feminist. Americans genuinely concerned that progressives will tear down their cherished country's origin story are simply ignorant bigots when you view the entire American project (and American heroes like Lincoln, Washington, etc) as suspect.
Since you brought up asymmetrical polarization, it's useful to mention a different kind of asymmetry between the parties: Asymmetric Politics. In their book with that title, Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins argue that "the Republican Party is the vehicle of an ideological movement while the Democratic Party is a coalition of social groups. Republican leaders prize conservatism and attract support by pledging loyalty to broad values. Democratic leaders instead seek concrete government action, appealing to voters' group identities and interests by endorsing specific policies."
Since they've published that book in 2016, the "broad values" that the GOP pledges loyalty to have shifted from fusion conservatism to Trumpism, but the overall status of the party as a movement (some would say a cult) has not changed. This explains why the GOP doesn't really have a policy agenda beyond owning the libs. As Chris Hayes has pointed out, what actual policies would the GOP push if they won a trifecta? Other than entrenching their rule and appointing more judges, it's hard to think of anything.
For the Democrats, the situation is very different. Individual Democratic activists and highly-educated partisans often do want to 'own the cons' but that is not usually the main reason that regular voters identify as Democrats. Rather, we usually belong to a group or organization or have an identity that has thrown its lot in with the Democrats as the best vehicle to achieve our goals. In other words, Democrats don't necessarily have much in common with each other across the board the same way Republicans have a messianic faith in a movement.
For this reason, it's more important for the Dems to provide representation to their diverse constituencies and deliver tangible results to keep the big tent from falling down. As we saw with Latin voters this cycle, a failure to do this can result in eroding electoral support. This doesn't necessarily mean that Matt's argument is wrong. It does mean that it can be hard for Democratic politicians to say no to interest groups, especially when there is not another interest group in the party pushing against them. In this way, the demise of pro-life Democrats is unfortunate, as there is less of a constituency to push back against activists demanding very unpopular things like repealing the Hyde Amendment.
Matt, Good post, nicely nuanced, BUT those of us writing and talking about asymmetric partisan polarization a decade or so ago were emphasizing the radicalization of the Republican Party more on its anti-democratic system values, attitudes and behavior than ideology. You nod to these dimensions by referring briefly to the “crazies” in the GOP but set it quickly aside. Recent events have confirmed the importance of these nonideological dimensions. The differences between the parties could not be more stark. Nominate scores are helpful only as a starting point. I’m happy to see the research community move in this direction. I know your purpose in writing this is different but your appropriation of the term “asymmetric polarization” prompted this comment. By the way, I love your new blog and have learned a lot, especially on policy, by reading it every day. Tom
I support universal healthcare, more tax redistribution, many policies that advance equality for all, and effective affirmative action that can move the needle in some communities. With all that said if Dems continue to spit in my face (as a white male), I may take my vote somewhere else. Maybe that’s my Hillbilly Elegy upbringing?
I am happy to see Biden didn’t pay back his well educated base with the student loan forgiveness. These people( of which I’m one) already have the advantage of being educated. I see this clearly with my own siblings who don’t have college degrees and live in small town Ohio. I have many more opportunities than they do. His take that money would be better spent in community colleges ( I would add tech schools) makes sense to me.
Ohio voted for Obama twice (so did I). What’s changed is anti-racism (anti-whiteness), not an increase in racism. Dems be FOR things not against.
Don't you think that voters would notice if Democrats only pander in totally inconsequential ways? Saying the SF school board is nuts is a fine idea, but its probably not enough. The steps that are really needed are things like Clinton signing welfare reform where he really did sell out some important progressive principles.
I have to launch into a diatribe about gerrymandering. Does it exist? Sure. Is it meaningful? No. Instead, I fear, it's an escape for Democrats to whine about how the system is rigged against us and the American people really want the Democrats to control the House, were it not for those terrible Republican state legislatures.
Let's go to the facts.
In the past 16 House elections (1990-2020), the Democrats have won a majority of the two-party aggregate vote in House elections eight times, and the Republicans have won the popular vote eight times. The Republicans won a majority of the House seats in all eight of their popular vote victories. The Democrats won a majority of House seats in six of the eight. The two times they lost a majority of the seats were in 1996 (when they won 50.03% of the 2-party vote) and 2012 (when they won 50.6% of the 2-party vote). One of those was a coin flip and the other *may* have reflected Republican success in the post-2010 redistricting.
That's a pretty weak basis for complaining about gerrymandering being so unfair. Instead what I take from this is: Democrats have to be popular! Win a majority of people's votes and you're highly likely to take the House. The Republicans didn't cheat their way into a House majority (OK, maybe 2012); they were more popular than the Democrats!
Maybe 2022 will be different, and be more like 2012. But most of 30 years of history is against that. That 30 years says: win the argument among the majority of the voters, either by making their lives better or getting them to believe that the other side is worse, and you're highly likely to win the House.
(Caveat to this: in many of these elections, especially in the 2010s, the Democrats have tended to win a smaller % of seats than % of the popular vote, which *may* reflect gerrymandering. But so what? They still got a minority of the popular vote and therefore lost the House. With "fairer" districts, they still would have been in the minority. You've got to be popular to control the House.)
I think that most discussions of gerrymandering on the internet are facile and simplistic, and your data do a good job of dismissing those discussions. But there are still real concerns about gerrymandering.
Most discussions on the internet focus on the partisan implications of gerrymandering. However, the history of legislation and court cases is much more about the racial implications. Now that courts protect racial minorities from being too diluted by gerrymandering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornburg_v._Gingles), it's become a tool for shaping partisan representation.
The mid-cycle gerrymander of Texas in 2003 was intended to eliminate all white Democrats, and nearly did. Lloyd Doggett hung on against all odds, because the Hispanic Democrat they threw him up against moved to the next district over. Chet Edwards also managed to stick around for three terms, and Beto O'Rourke had a couple terms, and now there's Lizzie Fletcher in George H.W. Bush's old seat in suburban Houston, but otherwise, Doggett has been the only white Democrat in Congress from Texas. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_delegations_from_Texas#2013_to_present:_36_seats)
It may be not terribly common for the House to swing against the nationwide winner of the House vote, so that overall it's less significant for partisan balance than the electoral college is. But it still has the compositional effect that we get a few extra Democrats from Maryland and Illinois, and a few fewer from North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Texas, which does have implications, even if they're not the ones that people on Reddit are mad about.
I think people who crowed about gerrymandering have wisened up to the limitations of the argument which is why they've moved on to filibuster reform and abolishing the Senate.
Interesting, but unstable. With zero Senators remaining, you'd need 3/5 of zero votes to end cloture, but only 1/2 of zero votes in order to change the rules to abolish the filibuster. Clearly you're going to get 1/2 of zero votes much more easily than 3/5 of zero votes.
This is all on the assumption that the Vice President is a zero, too, but history has shown that to be a pretty safe assumption.
Abolishing the Senate would be quite a lift, given the need for substantially amending the Constitution. But I like your idea, with a twist: keep the Senate but give each Senator a vote worth zero. So the House passes a bill. It goes to the Senate, and every vote is tied zero to zero. The Vice President then breaks the tie with his/her (non-zero) vote.
Voila! A unicameral legislature.
(OK, let the Senate cast real votes for treaties, impeachments, and confirming nominees. Otherwise, its role is strictly advisory and non-binding.)
Amending the Constitution will be much easier, after we abolish States. Then, the amendment can be initiated by half of the zero states at a convention called by 2/3 of the zero state legislatures, and ratified by 3/4 of zero state legislatures.
And with that, changing Article I.3 to abolish the Senate is a done deal.
I wish I could answer that but I don't have the numbers. It seems quite possible to me that gerrymandering is effective for state legislatures, however. But I'd still like to see the numbers.
As a Californian, I was struck by how our very popular former Governor Jerry Brown managed polarization effectively and maintained popularity across the spectrum. He was very committed to Jesuit idea of subsidiarity, which I understand as working to make decisions at the least centralized level so that people feel heard and respected. I have been wondering if it is time for this concept to return a bit on some of the issues that are so polarizing in order to allow for more variety of approaches. I have not read David French's book, but when I have heard him talk about his solution it seems in this vein. Can we agree to allow different communities to make different decisions about what to prioritize? We are very welcoming to immigrants and they make our economy very strong. If Californians aren't clamoring for them to be deported and they live here, why should it be a concern to people in Oklahoma? If police in Oklahoma want to cooperate with ICE then I guess it will be their economy that will suffer.
I think subsidiarity is _particularly_ important in California. California's weirdly huge - I lived in the SF and San Diego, and at no point did Sacramento feel like a state government - it always felt too far away and too removed, like a second federal government.
"More to the point, when liberals freak out about the GOP these days, they’re mostly not talking about policy at all."
That's just peak-gaslighting right there
I "Super Liked" this article.
Surprised u don't mention (ditto commentators): the X-axis dimension, Economic/Redistributive.
(Current congress has a small voting sample so far, but last congress looks v similar.)
This is what raised my eyebrows: 164 Dem representatives are to the left of these four on the Economic/Redistributive scale. (!)
Leftmost Reps on that dimension:
BOWMAN, Jamaal
BUSH, Cori
GARCIA, Sylvia
JAYAPAL, Pramila
LEE, Barbara
Articles like this always make me think of that episode if Babylon 5 with the Green Drazi and the Purple Drazi.
Something that truly confounds me: Far left-wing Sanders, Jacobin, socialist types think Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic party is an empty bag. Meanwhile, moderate observers tend to agree. Who is the constituency of this form of governance? I ask, because I see the state and local politics there and am convinced that Lara Trump will be president in 2028.
This is a really big and successful state, but they are playing with the house account. It's not that I don't think Democrats can be successful, but you have to DO things that improve people's material conditions. Rhode Island has demonstrated competent governance (sure make your small state jokes), and that was after years of satirical mob-like corruption in their politics. It's hard to see how the Democrats can take such a winning hand and bet it on the dog race down the street.
I wonder if there's a lack of electoral discipline? One complaint against gerrymandering is that "Republicans don't have to try to win broad majorities by doing good stuff if the system is rigged so they just have to win a primary by being farther to the right."
That dynamic seems like one that would function in either direction in any state that is massively dominated by one party?
Definitely a factor. Colorado is a state associated with some of the best public policies. It's not surprising that the state is very much in the purple zone (trending Blue, but existing sentiment still resonates from 5-6 years ago).
The embedded scatter-plot led me to the bizarre realization that, in my mind's eye, I've always pictured the "left" to my right, and the "right" to my left. Ahhh!
"By contrast, it’s hard to come up with an issue where the Democrats have moved right since the Bush years."
Freedom of speech. They're much less in favor.
I will concur with some of the other posters here and argue that immigration skepticism is not a tell-tale sign of racism. Not all Trump supporters are racists, not all Republicans are evil (in fact there were at least 17 Republicans in Washington who stood up for Democracy). I could argue Mitch McConnell is not anti-democracy, and I will say his two pro-democracy speeches (one on 1/6 the other this past Saturday) were quite strong defenses of our institutions. Which is to say: the current liberal attitude of demonizing anyone who may disagree with them is a poor way to expand the tent.
This attitude also creates a self-reinforcing tendency to harden around dogma instead of listening. How can you agree to temper your economic policy when the other side is defending the 'White Supremacist, neo-colonialist, economic model which keeps all People of Color down? There is no room for pro-life voters when their religion is racist, and anti-feminist. Americans genuinely concerned that progressives will tear down their cherished country's origin story are simply ignorant bigots when you view the entire American project (and American heroes like Lincoln, Washington, etc) as suspect.
Since you brought up asymmetrical polarization, it's useful to mention a different kind of asymmetry between the parties: Asymmetric Politics. In their book with that title, Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins argue that "the Republican Party is the vehicle of an ideological movement while the Democratic Party is a coalition of social groups. Republican leaders prize conservatism and attract support by pledging loyalty to broad values. Democratic leaders instead seek concrete government action, appealing to voters' group identities and interests by endorsing specific policies."
Since they've published that book in 2016, the "broad values" that the GOP pledges loyalty to have shifted from fusion conservatism to Trumpism, but the overall status of the party as a movement (some would say a cult) has not changed. This explains why the GOP doesn't really have a policy agenda beyond owning the libs. As Chris Hayes has pointed out, what actual policies would the GOP push if they won a trifecta? Other than entrenching their rule and appointing more judges, it's hard to think of anything.
For the Democrats, the situation is very different. Individual Democratic activists and highly-educated partisans often do want to 'own the cons' but that is not usually the main reason that regular voters identify as Democrats. Rather, we usually belong to a group or organization or have an identity that has thrown its lot in with the Democrats as the best vehicle to achieve our goals. In other words, Democrats don't necessarily have much in common with each other across the board the same way Republicans have a messianic faith in a movement.
For this reason, it's more important for the Dems to provide representation to their diverse constituencies and deliver tangible results to keep the big tent from falling down. As we saw with Latin voters this cycle, a failure to do this can result in eroding electoral support. This doesn't necessarily mean that Matt's argument is wrong. It does mean that it can be hard for Democratic politicians to say no to interest groups, especially when there is not another interest group in the party pushing against them. In this way, the demise of pro-life Democrats is unfortunate, as there is less of a constituency to push back against activists demanding very unpopular things like repealing the Hyde Amendment.
Matt, Good post, nicely nuanced, BUT those of us writing and talking about asymmetric partisan polarization a decade or so ago were emphasizing the radicalization of the Republican Party more on its anti-democratic system values, attitudes and behavior than ideology. You nod to these dimensions by referring briefly to the “crazies” in the GOP but set it quickly aside. Recent events have confirmed the importance of these nonideological dimensions. The differences between the parties could not be more stark. Nominate scores are helpful only as a starting point. I’m happy to see the research community move in this direction. I know your purpose in writing this is different but your appropriation of the term “asymmetric polarization” prompted this comment. By the way, I love your new blog and have learned a lot, especially on policy, by reading it every day. Tom
I found this paper to have a good characterization of 9 different things that might count as polarization: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/688938
I support universal healthcare, more tax redistribution, many policies that advance equality for all, and effective affirmative action that can move the needle in some communities. With all that said if Dems continue to spit in my face (as a white male), I may take my vote somewhere else. Maybe that’s my Hillbilly Elegy upbringing?
I am happy to see Biden didn’t pay back his well educated base with the student loan forgiveness. These people( of which I’m one) already have the advantage of being educated. I see this clearly with my own siblings who don’t have college degrees and live in small town Ohio. I have many more opportunities than they do. His take that money would be better spent in community colleges ( I would add tech schools) makes sense to me.
Ohio voted for Obama twice (so did I). What’s changed is anti-racism (anti-whiteness), not an increase in racism. Dems be FOR things not against.
Don't you think that voters would notice if Democrats only pander in totally inconsequential ways? Saying the SF school board is nuts is a fine idea, but its probably not enough. The steps that are really needed are things like Clinton signing welfare reform where he really did sell out some important progressive principles.
I think not doing the inconsequential things has a cost. So doing them might be necessary but not sufficient?
I have to launch into a diatribe about gerrymandering. Does it exist? Sure. Is it meaningful? No. Instead, I fear, it's an escape for Democrats to whine about how the system is rigged against us and the American people really want the Democrats to control the House, were it not for those terrible Republican state legislatures.
Let's go to the facts.
In the past 16 House elections (1990-2020), the Democrats have won a majority of the two-party aggregate vote in House elections eight times, and the Republicans have won the popular vote eight times. The Republicans won a majority of the House seats in all eight of their popular vote victories. The Democrats won a majority of House seats in six of the eight. The two times they lost a majority of the seats were in 1996 (when they won 50.03% of the 2-party vote) and 2012 (when they won 50.6% of the 2-party vote). One of those was a coin flip and the other *may* have reflected Republican success in the post-2010 redistricting.
That's a pretty weak basis for complaining about gerrymandering being so unfair. Instead what I take from this is: Democrats have to be popular! Win a majority of people's votes and you're highly likely to take the House. The Republicans didn't cheat their way into a House majority (OK, maybe 2012); they were more popular than the Democrats!
Maybe 2022 will be different, and be more like 2012. But most of 30 years of history is against that. That 30 years says: win the argument among the majority of the voters, either by making their lives better or getting them to believe that the other side is worse, and you're highly likely to win the House.
(Caveat to this: in many of these elections, especially in the 2010s, the Democrats have tended to win a smaller % of seats than % of the popular vote, which *may* reflect gerrymandering. But so what? They still got a minority of the popular vote and therefore lost the House. With "fairer" districts, they still would have been in the minority. You've got to be popular to control the House.)
I think that most discussions of gerrymandering on the internet are facile and simplistic, and your data do a good job of dismissing those discussions. But there are still real concerns about gerrymandering.
Most discussions on the internet focus on the partisan implications of gerrymandering. However, the history of legislation and court cases is much more about the racial implications. Now that courts protect racial minorities from being too diluted by gerrymandering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornburg_v._Gingles), it's become a tool for shaping partisan representation.
The mid-cycle gerrymander of Texas in 2003 was intended to eliminate all white Democrats, and nearly did. Lloyd Doggett hung on against all odds, because the Hispanic Democrat they threw him up against moved to the next district over. Chet Edwards also managed to stick around for three terms, and Beto O'Rourke had a couple terms, and now there's Lizzie Fletcher in George H.W. Bush's old seat in suburban Houston, but otherwise, Doggett has been the only white Democrat in Congress from Texas. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_delegations_from_Texas#2013_to_present:_36_seats)
It may be not terribly common for the House to swing against the nationwide winner of the House vote, so that overall it's less significant for partisan balance than the electoral college is. But it still has the compositional effect that we get a few extra Democrats from Maryland and Illinois, and a few fewer from North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Texas, which does have implications, even if they're not the ones that people on Reddit are mad about.
(Also, if you want to find elections where the winner of the majority didn't win a majority of house districts, the 2012 presidential election would have gone that way, had it been the House vote: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/republican-vote-rigging-electoral-college_n_2546010 )
I think people who crowed about gerrymandering have wisened up to the limitations of the argument which is why they've moved on to filibuster reform and abolishing the Senate.
Well, I'm in favor of abolishing the Senate but keeping the filibuster.
:-)
Interesting, but unstable. With zero Senators remaining, you'd need 3/5 of zero votes to end cloture, but only 1/2 of zero votes in order to change the rules to abolish the filibuster. Clearly you're going to get 1/2 of zero votes much more easily than 3/5 of zero votes.
This is all on the assumption that the Vice President is a zero, too, but history has shown that to be a pretty safe assumption.
Abolishing the Senate would be quite a lift, given the need for substantially amending the Constitution. But I like your idea, with a twist: keep the Senate but give each Senator a vote worth zero. So the House passes a bill. It goes to the Senate, and every vote is tied zero to zero. The Vice President then breaks the tie with his/her (non-zero) vote.
Voila! A unicameral legislature.
(OK, let the Senate cast real votes for treaties, impeachments, and confirming nominees. Otherwise, its role is strictly advisory and non-binding.)
You're making this harder than it has to be.
Amending the Constitution will be much easier, after we abolish States. Then, the amendment can be initiated by half of the zero states at a convention called by 2/3 of the zero state legislatures, and ratified by 3/4 of zero state legislatures.
And with that, changing Article I.3 to abolish the Senate is a done deal.
Would you say this about the gerrymandering at the state level as well? E.g. Wisconsin legislature?
I wish I could answer that but I don't have the numbers. It seems quite possible to me that gerrymandering is effective for state legislatures, however. But I'd still like to see the numbers.
As a Californian, I was struck by how our very popular former Governor Jerry Brown managed polarization effectively and maintained popularity across the spectrum. He was very committed to Jesuit idea of subsidiarity, which I understand as working to make decisions at the least centralized level so that people feel heard and respected. I have been wondering if it is time for this concept to return a bit on some of the issues that are so polarizing in order to allow for more variety of approaches. I have not read David French's book, but when I have heard him talk about his solution it seems in this vein. Can we agree to allow different communities to make different decisions about what to prioritize? We are very welcoming to immigrants and they make our economy very strong. If Californians aren't clamoring for them to be deported and they live here, why should it be a concern to people in Oklahoma? If police in Oklahoma want to cooperate with ICE then I guess it will be their economy that will suffer.
I think subsidiarity is _particularly_ important in California. California's weirdly huge - I lived in the SF and San Diego, and at no point did Sacramento feel like a state government - it always felt too far away and too removed, like a second federal government.
This is an excellent response to Scott Siskind's review of "Why We're Polarized"