The term ‘polarization’ has dominated criticism of American politics for more than a decade. Republicans and Democrats now find themselves far apart on policy, distinct in their values and cultures, and even differing in their lifestyle and consumer habits. Commentators talk about the ‘disappearing centre’ and the difficulty of locating a ‘middle ground’ on policy issues.
In this context, polarization is portrayed as a blight on civic life and an obstacle to passing important bills in Congress. Journalists reporting the 2024 US presidential election race liberally deploy the term, treating polarization as one of the defining characteristics of the contest and as a problem to be dissected, understood and ultimately solved.
But what does it mean? In her path-breaking 2018 book, Uncivil Agreement, political scientist Lilliana Mason noted the growing social separation and hostility between Democrats and Republicans, including a decreased interest in socializing across party lines and increased negative stereotypes of the other side. The separation of the country into ‘two teams’, Mason argues, has arisen in response to a partisan politics that is increasingly tied to racial, religious and other social identities. Many now fear the long-term damage this social polarization might wreak on American politics, from gridlock to incivility even to civil war.
Recent scholarship calls some of this into question. Certainly, the psychological effects and governing paralysis are measurable. Polarization, however, draws on a metaphor that implies movement to the extremes. And there isn’t an agreed definition of what counts as ideologically ‘extreme’.
An asymmetric problem
Thinking about what it means for the parties to ‘polarize’ reveals a new set of problems. It is not difficult to see some of the recent developments on the right as extreme even in comparison to the Republican Party’s policy history: embracing hardline stances on abortion, calling for serious curtailment of legal immigration and challenging basic democratic principles including the peaceful transfer of power.
On the left, the dynamics feel different. Yes, the Democratic Party has embraced some more culturally left-leaning positions over time, and features a new progressive flank represented by legislators such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But is today’s Democratic Party to the left of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Democrats or those who brought Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society into being?
Democrats have debated, but largely sought to distance themselves from positions such as ‘defund the police’. As a group, however, they do not mirror the recent extremes of certain policy positions taken by the Republican Party.
The cost of progress
This asymmetry points to deeper problems with the polarization idea. Historian Thomas Zimmer has explained how polarization is the cost of democratization. Many accounts of polarization identify the civil rights era as the key moment on the path to our current polarized state – when party politics became oriented around where you stood on civil and voting rights for African Americans, as well as the push for equal rights for women and other marginalized groups. Some treat the 1965 Voting Rights Act as the moment the United States became a full, multi-racial democracy.
The decades leading up to this are often highlighted as a golden age of party productivity and cooperation. Although the Democratic Party was deeply divided internally on the race and civil rights question, the strategy for most Democratic and Republican politicians was to skirt the issue and keep it off the agenda. Roosevelt – a Democratic and liberal hero – avoided putting political capital into the federal anti-lynching bill. There may therefore be something to be said for polarization if it means the country addresses these difficult issues.
The civil rights movement of the 1960s is often recognized as a moment of great democratic progress, but it also signalled the beginning of America’s deep divisions over questions of racial equality. Photo: Library of Congress/Interim Archives/Getty Images.
Hidden consensus?
Despite the charged political mood in the run up to the election, there are also questions about how divided Americans are on the issues. Polling data shows some evidence that on major issues there is quite a bit of agreement among Americans across party lines. Majorities favour stricter gun laws while generally supporting gun rights.
Most Americans oppose book bans and support honest and straightforward teaching of our nation’s difficult history on race. Support for same-sex marriage, another once-divisive issue, also transcends party lines. And, while abortion has been treated as a hot-button partisan issue, a majority favours some form of abortion rights.
Since the Supreme Court decision striking down the right to abortion in 2022, this relative consensus has been evident at the ballot box. Conservative states, such as Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan and Montana, have voted directly in favour of abortion rights measures. This suggests that for some policy action – particularly at the state level – the bigger problem is minority rule, rather than polarization.
Three of the nine most recent Supreme Court justices were appointed by a president who did not win the popular vote. And when Republicans controlled the Senate between 2019 and 2021, they represented 20 million fewer Americans than their Democratic counterparts. The surprising overlap on key issues at a national level also indicates that polarization may be largely an elite phenomenon, with differences distorted by warring members of Congress, a conflict-driven news media and the constant shouting on social media.
But there is another dimension: the popularity of liberal positions transcends the Democratic Party. For example, in 2016, a number of states voted to raise the minimum wage – a position championed more by Democrats than Republicans – while casting their presidential votes for Donald Trump. And this explanation potentially goes back to the definition of polarization as a contest between identities – one in which voters see one party as their ‘team’, and when it wins, so do they.
These psychological forces are strong, suggesting why ‘polarization’ remains strong even when it is not matched by deep disagreement on issues. A high-stakes presidential election entrenches this division, and the cycle of negativity and competition that many presume ‘polarization’ is driving. With Kamala Harris now the Democratic nominee, some Republicans have taken the low road, referring to her as the ‘DEI’ – diversity, equity and inclusion – candidate.
For her part, Harris has sought to highlight both character and policy differences between herself and her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. Calls to ‘lower the temperature’ after the assassination attempt against Trump have proved short-lived as both parties have sought to paint their opponents as existential threats to the Republic.