Common Cents

by Michael Harrington

  The United States is a geographically large country with an ethnically and racially diverse population. It seems wise to force these various constituencies towards common centrist political objectives so that our governing compromises are more efficient and fair. Successful European countries are much smaller and far more homogenous in their populations. These differences of geography and size and diversity are not trivial. In fact, we will discover how geography, along with associated lifestyle choices and ideologies, has been the most significant factor shaping American party politics over our 200+ year history.

  3.2 Federalism

  The United States of America is a federation made up of the “several” states. Note that we did not call our country The Nation of America; we call it the United States of America. Citizens hold a U.S.A passport, but we vote, pay taxes, and claim residency by state. This has important implications for how we govern ourselves. The U.S. is politically divided into geographic constituencies: states, counties, Congressional districts, and municipalities. As you know, we have fifty states and 535 congressional districts, but also approximately 3,143 counties, and an estimated 18,000+ separate municipalities. We administer our government through these various constituent entities. What this offers is a wide diversity of self-determination through the political process. Thus, New Yorkers can choose different policies than Texans, Montanans can choose differently than Californians, and Floridians can choose differently than Washingtonians. Both the U.S. Constitution and fifty state constitutions also mandate how the functions of government are distributed among Federal, state, county, and municipal jurisdictions.

  What this means is that our Federal republic affords democracy many laboratories of different constituencies for politics and policy. As with economics, we have political markets with feedback mechanisms. These different constituencies not only give us a wide choice of where and how we wish to live, they offer a dynamic, diversified market for testing new ideas for policy and self-government. More important, federalism defends individual liberties by denying any one government entity complete jurisdiction over public life. One can appeal to local, state, or Federal governments in order to defend one’s rights. In these many respects, federalism affords our democracy a political fluidity and adaptability that no centralized, hierarchical government could ever match. I doubt very much we would ever choose to give up such governing flexibility.

  Our federal system of representative democracy does not contradict the fact that certain functions of government must be carried out at the federal level. Our constitution enumerates these various powers. We do not have fifty different currencies, but one. We do not have fifty different foreign policies, but one (hopefully). The constitutional debates we have are often over which policy jurisdictions should be assigned to a Federal government in Washington D.C. and which should be reserved for states or counties. These debates inform our discussions over whether national policies should take command over such issues as education, health care, or entitlements.

  3.3 Politics and Policy

  Let's return to our discussion of electoral politics and policymaking. Because elections are won by appealing to a simple majority (50% + 1), or plurality (the most votes), of the voters, successful candidates will be driven toward a centrist position on most issues. This would appear to be the most promising locale for consensus and compromise that would attract the most voting support. Winning the center is the rationale for party organizing, conventions, and election platforms. The idea is to attract a majority of votes in national elections in order to obtain what politicians call a "mandate" for change. This "mandate" is seen as a requirement to overcome the deliberate inertia of the national legislative process.

  Our national legislative process is characterized by checks and balances among three branches of government. Policy ideas are often proposed during campaigns by the executive branch or by legislators, and are then formulated in the legislature, or Houses of Congress, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. To become law, a bill must pass by a simple majority in both the House and the Senate. Different amended versions are reconciled and voted on. (A filibuster is the procedure whereby forty or more Senators can block a vote by preventing cloture on the floor debate of that legislation, effectively killing the bill.) Bills that pass both Houses of Congress must then be signed by the president to become law. A presidential veto can only be overturned by a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Congress.

  The law must then survive any legal challenges that are filed and brought up before the judiciary. In other words, an "unconstitutional" action that becomes law must be struck down by a court action filed by an aggrieved party. If not, it will stand until it is challenged.

  We can easily see how procedural rules in the legislative process are stacked in favor of the status quo. A high level of consensus is needed to achieve anything, and many roadblocks can be erected to derail bills before becoming law. The process is intentionally conservative in order to make change difficult to enact, and infused with checks and balances to protect minority interests. This stems in part from human nature: "Why fix what's not broken? It's worked so far."

  Remember, also, that our survival instinct makes us strongly driven by loss aversion. Existing policies create constituencies, or special interests, which benefit from those policies. Policy changes that threaten to end or reduce those benefits are seen as losses by those special interests, so they are highly motivated to organize and fight against any proposed changes. Unfortunately, the beneficiaries of such reforms are not similarly motivated by unanticipated gains from better policies. We see this dynamic play out in almost every legislative fight; whether it concerns Social Security reform, corporate welfare reform, trade agreements, or union legislation. There is nothing more certain to get people out on the street, or concerned enough to contact their representative, than the possible loss of a treasured benefit.

  The downside of this inherent bias toward the status quo is that necessary reforms that could avert crises are shelved until the crisis actually hits. Thus, nobody took a serious look at the rapidly transforming financial system until the whole system crashed. Nobody addressed the problems of government insured mortgages until Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were forced into receivership. Nobody can fix government budgets because spending cuts and tax increases are largely rejected by voters. This even afflicts the private sector; General Motors continued to lose money until the U.S. taxpayer rescued it with a government bailout. Election politics leads to the demagoguery of fear over things like Social Security reform, yet continuing with the status quo threatens the surest disaster of all.

  3.4 The Media

  The media has traditionally been referred to as the Fourth Estate. As such, it is one of the pillars of a democratic society, keeping a watch over the three branches of government by providing information through a free press. This is the rationale behind the idea that freedom of the press is critical to a free society. A free press, however, is not always an unbiased press.

  The American press has often been highly politicized in the past, so the fact that it is so again should not be surprising. Today, however, there are some very different conditions that affect the press, its editorial incentives, and our interaction with it.

  The media can only survive as a business if it has a paying audience. A publisher or television station identifies a target audience and then attracts that audience by offering a product that is useful and entertaining. Thus, it is no surprise that urban newspapers appeal to their city’s residents and rural newspapers likewise appeal to theirs. Subscriptions and advertising have been the primary revenue models for newspapers, magazines, and television media.

  The development of alternative means of delivery, such as cable television and the Internet, has threatened the traditional media’s existing revenue models and squeezed its profits. We now have more media chasing fewer profits and this inescapable financial reality has been influencing editorial content and pol
icy. The pressure to survive has forced primary news media outlets to target their product more narrowly to an audience that is largely concentrated in metropolitan areas. The proliferation of alternative media, along with the declining cost structure of digital delivery, has led others to try and capture the non-metro audience with a differently tailored product. Thus we have talk radio, blogs, and the proliferation of cable news networks. In this competitive struggle to survive, news media have politicized themselves with partisan conflict in order to create controversy to attract readers and revenues. It is impossible to read a major urban newspaper and be unaware of its overt political bias. Editorial opinion soon becomes party propaganda. It's almost as if different media companies have become wholly owned subsidiaries of the two major political parties.

  So, why have different media channels become so clearly defined by political ideology and partisanship? It seems inexplicable that, as the network broadcast industry was shrinking, a major new network was established (FOX) that quickly outpaced all of its long established rivals. Why do people watch either MSNBC or FOX? Why do they either read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or listen to talk radio? The simple answer is: people seek opinions that reflect and confirm their own. But this still begs the question of why the news is so highly politicized.

  3.5 Red vs. Blue?

  I have investigated this puzzle over the past few election cycles. With the infamous 2000 presidential election, we first became aware of a red vs. blue geographic pattern in our national voting results. This pattern was most visibly stark in red-blue maps showing election returns based on county data. Most election data presented in the media are gathered from exit polling samples. However, exit polls focus on voter identity factors, such as sex, race, ethnicity, party affiliation, ideological identification, and former voting preferences. They do not account well for geographical differences and it is to geography that we must turn for an explanation of those red-blue maps. We officially tabulate election results according to counties and congressional districts. We also record census data by county. This allows us to compare all the actual voting data against the census profiles by county to see who is voting how. We have over 3000 different data points (3142 counties), an adequate sample to rule out various explanations, such as race, religion, or ethnicity. The data reveals some truths that contradicts the easy explanations offered by exit polls. In reality, American voters' political preferences are correlated with the population densities of their communities and the lifestyles and ideologies associated with their communities.

  The media has offered many contradictory explanations, but it's difficult to argue with the data. We've been misinformed by a media and by party narratives that reach for simple sub-cultural identities as the causal factors of voting preferences. Supposedly, we’ve been told, we vote Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, based on religious preference, church attendance, gun ownership, country music or rap, pickup trucks or Priuses. This is all nonsense. These sub-cultural identities are merely associated with lifestyle preferences. The primary determinants of voting patterns are population density (whether one lives in an urban or rural/suburban community), marriage and household formation, and lastly, ideological preference (conservative and traditional vs. progressive and liberal). Roughly 40-50% of the voting patterns are explained by population density, 25-30% by marriage status, and 25-30% by ideological preference. All of these factors are positively correlated. Thus, married people who live in the country and who believe in traditional small town values tend to vote consistently to the ideological right of center. Singles who live in the city and advocate for change and reform tend to vote consistently to the ideological left of center. The important point is that partisan preference is the least powerful predictor of these three factors.

  The geographic pattern has probably existed for the entire history of our democracy. Interestingly, the presidential electoral maps for 1896 look remarkably similar to the same maps for 2000 and 2004, albeit with the parties reversed. So, the only things that have really changed are the policies specifically chosen by the parties in order to gain votes and win elections. Remember, the rural South has always been conservative, but it has swung from being a solid Democratic stronghold to a solidly Republican one over the past half century. The parties changed, but the residents did not. Since the 1960s the Democrats have consistently courted young, urban populations while the Republicans have targeted older, rural populations. We can see how the areas of contention, i.e. the swing votes, are found in the suburban and exurban communities. As long as our two parties target these specific constituencies with narrow policies, we can expect these geographically-determined party preferences to persist, no matter who becomes president. We can also expect our media to accentuate these differences in order to appease their primary audiences.

  I have briefly outlined above the three main factors shaping our political landscape: media, geographical differences, and party agendas. The geographical differences will remain, but the policy differences will always revolve around issues such as taxes vs. social spending, education funding, transportation and infrastructure spending, and individual liberty vs. communal priorities. The good news is that most differences on these issues are amenable to compromise. We can target taxes and spending and adjust each at the margins. We can reconcile education funding with the particular needs of the community while also maintaining quality standards. We can find solutions that meet communal priorities without sacrificing individual liberties. The issues that are not open to compromise are political positions that have hardened along biological identities, such as race, ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation. Identity politics emphasizes our differences rather than our commonalities. How does one compromise one's biological or sexual identity? It cannot be done, and no one need have to.

  I would argue that ideology is not really a problem for our politics. The majority of Americans are not ideologically rigid and I believe the ideologically charged labels of conservative and liberal have only led us down a cul-de-sac of inaccurate recriminations. I have written elsewhere that I believe the dominant ideology in American political culture is not best described as either conservative or liberal, but as what I would call tolerant traditionalism. On many issues, average Americans may be more conservative, but on many others we are open to change and tolerant of differences. The United States is one of the most religiously tolerant and religiously diverse societies in the world today. It is also one of the most racially tolerant and ethnically diverse. These characteristics make for a progressive and stable society. These are measures of our tolerant traditionalism.

  It is doubtful that our media or political parties will change tactics without major pressures from their primary audiences. Political polarization works for these institutions. It helps them be successful. This will continue to be the case until viewers and voters force changes.

  An interesting recent development in American politics is the rise of the Tea Party (TP). It's difficult to get an accurate handle on the Tea Party movement because it has become a political football that gets distorted by the media and by both parties. As a curious political analyst, I have observed Tea Party rallies and interviewed some of their participants. My sense is that this began as an amorphous movement of disaffected voters and ordinary citizens who were dissatisfied with recent trends in American politics. They spontaneously galvanized around the traditional American cultural values of individual liberty, self-reliance, and accountability. I fail to see the origins of the TP as rooted in partisanship, though political opportunists have clamored to associate themselves with this powerful political movement in order to claim its mission as their own. Conservatives have been most successful in this respect, as the small government principles espoused by the TP resonate more strongly with their ideological agenda. On the other side, we've seen liberal politicians decry the movement with attempts to promote themselves as the anti-Tea Party candidates. For certain politicians these tactics
will be successful, but the voting public should not be fooled. The Tea Party is a voter rebellion generated by our dysfunctional politics. It is a grassroots, populist, anti-party movement. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess.

  Since I first wrote this book, a new grassroots voter protest has arisen called OWS, for Occupy Wall Street. This movement seems less focused, but is primarily incensed over the dominance of financial and banking interests in our democracy. In that respect, I’m not sure they differ much from the Tea Party – both are protesting the political status quo.

  3.6 Elites, Oligarchies, and Plutocracies

  The last political issue that bears significantly on our political economy is the rise of powerful interest blocs that influence our political, financial, and media choices. I'm sure many readers will claim these have always controlled our politics. The Tea Party revolt may be a reaction to this (though I'm sure the Marxists among us will merely attribute its popularity to false consciousness).

  The concentration of economic wealth has long been seen as a threat to democracy because of the power of money to control politics. I decline to describe this concentration as a conspiracy of rich and powerful elites. The rise of inequality in recent years has been less a deliberate action engineered by these elites than it is an inevitable byproduct of the communication, information, and financial revolutions. The capitalist revolution in the developing world has also brought the competition of roughly three billion more workers and middle class aspirants into the mix with globalization, helping to depress wage incomes.

  The plunging costs of communication and information have transformed many of our production and distribution processes and yielded what has been called a winner-take-all society (WTA).[37] We no longer depend on and value local artists, craftspeople, products, professionals, celebrities, etc. Instead we have achieved immediate worldwide access to the proclaimed "best" of everything. The flip side of this accessibility and familiarity is that the proclaimed "best" in each and every industry or profession garners all the media attention and the wealth that is capitalized off their fame. One can hardly fault the celebrity chefs, talk show hosts, sports stars, movie stars, musicians, writers, politicians, CEOs, etc., but is this really how we want our culture to be shaped? And what can we do about it? I'm not sure. Nor am I sure it is necessary if we are careful to keep the WTA phenomenon in political perspective.