Andrew Server

Polarization in American Politics

Dr. Garner
December 18th, 2015

How to get back to an Ideal Democracy

In this class it was discussed how polarization has become so potent in

United States politics and how that has caused American democracy to become
perverted from the way we in the class thought American democracy ought to work.
With political gridlock to the extent that such polarization is causing frequent
government shutdowns and bitter isolation between those high information
individuals, it is easy to see that the current state of polarization in the United States
is exorbitant and hindering to democratic processes. As high information individuals
burrow further into their echo chambers on the Internet and Congress continues to
utilize rules and perverse incentives to become more polarized, it becomes more so
apparent that a breaking point has been breached and action must be taken in order
to ease that polarization and allow the facets of American democracy to work in the
most efficient manner possible. It can be argued that our government was not meant
to have its survival reside in the promise of omnibus upon omnibus bull.
The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income,
growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of
the pruning-knife1 Thomas Jefferson. This quote aptly opens my argument for
what an ideal American democracy ought to look like in my eyes. More succinctly
put, I believe that the government that governs less governs best. The current state
of American democracy is one where a combination of minority party rights and
sharply divided political parties and high information individuals have led to a near
standstill in getting policy passed. This has severely hindered the democracys
operational capabilities and while I do prefer less legislation and government
actions being passed, it is inarguable that this is too dysfunctional. In class, we
devised a set of axis to visualize the two variables of polarization and
minority/majority party rights. The graph where we are as a democracy currently
and where we as individuals in the class thought we ought to be. Figure 1.1 depicts a
recreation of the graph, below.

1 Jefferson, Thomas, and H. A. Washington. "To Judge Roane." In The Writings of Thomas Jefferson:
Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official
and Private. Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the
Original Manuscripts, Dep. Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1853.
Figure 1.1 depicts a set of axis indicating where we are as a democracy regarding polarity and minority/majority party rights.
Where we are currently as a country is marked by the red x while where I believe we ought to be as a country is demarcated
by the blue x.

A government that passes and implements legislation rapidly and fecklessly is

bound to succumb to the feeling of absolute control and fall victim to becoming
tyrannical, regardless of whether it is ushered in by republicans or democrats. The
tools of separation of powers and minority party rights were put in place in order to
discourage such a state of democracy. For this reason, I still believe that the minority
party in Congress ought to be able to hold out in order to get some consideration on
legislation and the workings of government.
Regarding polarity, just as individuals as early on in American History as
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had their ideological differences, we will not be
able to do away with polarization completely. In fact, polarization can be a healthy
occurrence in instigating discussion over issues and yes, even making legislation
passing a vigorous process. If parties are too similar, it not only confuses the
electorate, but it also leads the importance of policy decisions to be dwindled to the
point where its akin to having one party in control with two slightly different
factions. An example of this may be seen in the 1960s where President John F.
Kennedy, a democrat, was a proponent of tax cuts. With this in mind, polarization
gives voters more of clear and diverse choices in who they elect to office. Obviously,
as stated before, we are currently looking at a state of polarization among the elites
in Congress that has become overbearing. This is why I do think in an ideal
democracy the degree of polarization would be greatly scaled back, but it would be
present nevertheless.
What has been described thus far is how I would think an ideal democracy
ought to work at the elite polarization level, but the following is how an ideal
democracy ought to work at the mass polarization level. Mass media and the
Internet has played a huge role in the mass polarization of high information
individuals and consequentially, those who are most likely to make up the voting
electorate. As read in Markus Priors work Post Broadcast Democracy, the ability for
high information voters to be able to entrench themselves in hearing and blogging
about their ideology without need for the opposing opinion allows for polarization
among the activist class.2 I feel that in essence, this is how freedom of information
ought to work. Should someone feel comfortable in retreating to the echo chamber
in their favorite online chatroom or blog site, they should have the freedom to do so.
Similarly, an individual who seeks to become well rounded regarding political issues
has that same freedom to do so. Freedom of speech secures that right for those blind
ideologues just as much as it does for the critical thinker. While this condition has
led to divisive polarization among high information and activist-type individuals, I
feel it is
In order to reach the likely more functioning and less polarized democracy
described above, there will no doubt need to be institutional and social measures
taken. Regarding elite polarization, there are functional and procedural changes that

2 Prior, Markus. Post-broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political
Involvement and Polarizes Elections. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
ought to be implemented. In regards to mass polarization, rather, the polarization of
the politically minded and high information individuals, there ought to be changes
made to the way we share news information to reduce the severity and militancy of
polarization seen within those groups. It is important to be mindful of the degree of
change that is sought in this case. Where the ideal democracy described falls on the
axis of Figure 1.1 is not radically far from where we are currently. The goal in
shifting to this ideal democracy is to snap most of the gridlock and make the
government slightly more efficient.
In Thomas Mann and Norman Ornsteins work Its Even Worse Than It Looks,
the hyper partisan nature of Congress as well as suggested solutions to that
partisanship are discussed. One such solution was to make primary candidates
selected by the party leadership, rather than allow the particularly polarized
primary electorate choose the most polarized candidates. 3 Doing this would do a
significant service in bringing parties closer to the middle yet still somewhat
partisan. As a result, potential candidates would have to stop the race to the farthest
right or left and become a little more moderate to appeal to party leadership.
Another change that ought to be considered is the ending of adding unrelated
amendments to bills and preventing mass legislation via omnibus bills. Currently an
easy way to induce bipartisanship agreement is through such omnibus bills where
both parties lose some and win some provisions. This increases polarization at the
parties bases, as the more polarized sects of the parties think that the party
leadership gave in. Without ability to notch on republican or democrat supported
amendments to republican or democrat supported bills, legislation not only
becomes more transparent to the voter, but it also helps clarify which policies are
failing and which policies are succeeding. This would relieve the minority party the
ability to tack on amendments to the majority partys bill, thus reducing minority
power in Congress. Staunchly polarized activists might not take heed to whether or
not their partys policies are succeeding, but those moderately informed voters are
likely to notice when bills become single issue and single sided legislation that is
destined to either succeed or fail. When it comes to reelecting members of Congress
and Senators, they would have a clearer choice.
Finally, in regards to mass polarization of the informed activists, it is
impossible to force people to not pursue their own ideology when it is so easily
accessible via major broadcast news and the Internet. We discussed in class that it is
the talking heads and more polarized party leaders whose dogma trickles down to
those receiving it from polarized sources, yielding them to use such language
militantly and in a more partisan manner. There is nothing we can do to forcibly
reduce this polarization without muting those individuals or inhibiting their right to
information. That being said, if each Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or other social media
post was required to have three fact checker reports accompanying them, at least
medium informed individuals would be able to sort through radicalized diction and
what is correct. I suggest three fact checker reports as bias sometimes slips into
some of those fact checker sites. If those more polarized individuals realize that the

3 Mann, Thomas E., and Norman J. Ornstein. It's Even Worse than It Looks: How the American
Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism. New York: Basic Books, 2012.
fact checker sites would be accompanying their posts with the possibility of said
sites pointing out how incorrect they are, they might be less inclined to spread
misinformation for the sake of being another voice in their echo chamber of
followers. Again, this would only slightly move for less polarization as since we
discussed regarding Priors work, only moderately informed and high information
individuals would take notice, leaving low information individuals out of the
process.
Americas democracy was born into partisanship, as politicians and high
information individuals took to newspapers to rally their bases. That being said, the
degree of polarization among Congress and activists then was paltry compared to
how divisive it has become now. It can be argued that the Founding Fathers
anticipated polarization among the American people as seen in the Federalist Papers
and other political documents of the time. That being said, with mass
communication and rules of Congress being used to instill further polarization, it is
apparent that American democracy has become too mired in polarized politics.
Through institutional and procedural changes as well as some possible changes in
how social media works, we might be able to resort back to a democracy where
polarization is still apparent, but not as divisive and where things still get done.