The Big Sort
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Among the Nuer, Gluckman discovered, it not only ran against custom to marry within the family—a prohibition common in many cultures—but the tribe's rules "forbid, under penalty of disease, accident, and death, a man to marry any woman of his clan, or any woman to whom relationship can be traced in any line up to six generations." The rules forced marriages to be spread widely, with the result that all portions of the larger nation of Nuer were connected. The various clans had to remain friendly, if for no other reason than to avoid the risk of suffering a depressing decline in the number of available marriage partners. Marriage itself widened the web of friendship, or at least association. It was hard for there to be much internecine warfare, because no matter the configuration of warring parties, a Nuer would have to battle his (or his wife's) present or future in-laws. The saying, therefore, among some African peoples was "They are our enemies; we marry them."26
When political scientist Robert Dahl sought to explain the underlying stability of the American political system, he credited a "pattern of cleavages." America was divided by race, by faith, by geography, and by class, Dahl wrote. As long as those cleavages were mixed up in the country's politics—as long as groups weren't always friends or always foes—the heated conflicts that periodically arose would not boil over. However, Dahl wrote, "if all the cleavages occur along the same lines, if the same people hold opposing positions in one dispute after another, then the severity of conflicts is likely to increase. The man on the other side is not just an opponent; he soon becomes an enemy."27
The Big Sort, ironically, has given contemporary Americans a life simpler in important ways than the existence of Nuer herdsmen. Communities, churches, and volunteer groups are less likely now to be sources of those sometimes abrasive and troublesome cross-cutting relationships. Americans have used wealth and technology to invent and secure places of minimal conflict. They spend more time with people like themselves. Politicians are sharply partisan, mirroring the homogeneity of the electorate. The "men of the earth" are near extinction, and, most definitely, Americans are less likely to marry their enemies.*
Americans have been polarized before, of course, and these divisions have been cured by the eventual (some political scientists say inevitable) rise of cross-cutting issues. Although the two parties emerged from the 2006 midterm elections as polarized as at any time since the end of World War II, this kind of rigid partisanship can't last. Or at least it hasn't lasted in the past. Maybe the struggle to provide everyone with medical care will become one of those cross-cutting issues, urgent enough to put Republicans and Democrats in mixed company again. Already, an unlikely coalition including Wal-Mart, Intel, Kelly Services, and the Service Employees International Union is calling for a new American health care system by 2012.28 Similar combinations of old enemies and new friends can be seen forming in debates surrounding immigration.
But the Big Sort has not been simply a difference of political opinion. The communities of interest—and the growing economic disparities among regions—won't disappear with a change in Congress or a new president. Moreover, it's wishful thinking to predict that a Generation Y LBJ will emerge to become a twenty-first-century "man of the earth," some kind of web-based "deus ex MySpace" politician who could forge a national consensus out of our disparate communities.† Presidential candidates and op-ed writers often lament the lack of leaders, as if entire generations of Americans were born without the skills of a Johnson, a Franklin D. Roosevelt, or a Dwight D. Eisenhower. There are, of course, just as many leaders as there have always been. What the country is missing is old-fashioned followers. The generations that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century lost trust in every vestige of hierarchical authority, from the edicts of Catholic bishops to the degrees of Free Masons to the stature of federal representatives. There haven't been any new LBJs because the whole notion of leadership has changed—and the whole shape of democracy is changing.
Caffeinated Federalism and the End of Consensus
As people gather in like-minded places, their homogeneity will be reflected in the decisive actions of local governments. New Hampshire allowed civil unions in 2007, and New York governor Eliot Spitzer soon after introduced a bill that would legalize gay marriage. Meanwhile, the Texas legislature passed a bill in 2007 to protect religious "speech" in schools. Thanks to the Big Sort, the country will soon be awash in democratic experiments.
Meanwhile, those with the means will take more direct action.* The rich have always bought candidates, but now they will create their own political climates. In April 2007, two of the country's richest men, Bill Gates and Eli Broad, announced that they would spend $60 million to force candidates to address education in the 2008 presidential election. Two months later, U2 frontman Bono announced a $30 million public lobbying campaign to force presidential candidates to address Third World poverty, an effort that included actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, quarterback Tom Brady, and a celebrity bus tour through the early-primary states.29 Tour de France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong organized two forums in Iowa in mid-2007 so that Americans could hear what the presidential candidates intended to do about cancer, and the candidates answered the cyclist's call.30
The continued distrust of government, however, has reduced the size and scope of public life. Democracy has become so balky that the normal processes of representative government are being replaced by systems of issue brokering that are only quasi-representative. In Austin, public policy is often negotiated among interest groups, with government only ratifying decisions made behind the scenes.31 Or decisions once regularly made by government are offloaded entirely to utility districts, homeowners associations, and water or road authorities. Representation of the whole is avoided, replaced by negotiations among tribes. Silicon Valley economist Doug Henton describes the coalition of businesses, government officials, and interest groups that manages his region as a "network governance" model.32 In Austin and Silicon Valley, a democratically elected assembly is simply a single node on a crowded organizational chart.
A patchwork democracy is emerging: caffeinated federalism, representation by interest groups, decision making by nonelected officials, and, for those who are financially able, philanthropy as direct action to promote a social outcome. Americans are adopting an ad hoc style of governance, a niche democracy that tries to reconcile the demands of citizens today with laws and customs created over two centuries by people with very different ways of life.
Political life may have been emaciated over the past thirty years, but the Big Sort has served other institutions well. An economy built on loose social structures and the proliferation of new ideas has sorted people according to talents and education. Businesses and marketers have learned to segment products and target individual customers. Churches, communities, and volunteer groups cater to "people like us." All these institutions have nimbly shifted and adapted. They've changed, sometimes without even knowing it. For example, it's true that people choose their news based on ideology—conservatives pick Fox, liberals prefer CNN—but the news business may be even more finely altered by increasingly like-minded communities. Two University of Chicago economists measured "slant" in 377 newspapers representing 70 percent of the country's daily circulation. They found that editorial content skewed liberal or conservative based on the political leanings of readers. Newspapers in highly Republican Zip Codes (based on the 2004 vote) had a conservative slant. Newspapers in those communities used Republican catch phrases, such as "death tax," "war on terror," and "tax relief," more often than papers in Democratic Zip Codes. Those living in Democratic neighborhoods, meanwhile, were likely to have received a paper that skewed to the left. Ownership of the paper had little effect on the politics of the news. Without any specific command or strategy, the papers adopted the language preferred by their readers. The economists' explanation was that the newspapers were making subtle adjustments to satisfy "consumer demand."33 That would be the market explanation. Another possibility is that
a like-minded community has the power to mold its source for news so that it reflects readers' preexisting beliefs.
A friend asked the other evening, "Is it possible now to have a national consensus?" Perhaps not. Maybe the logic of the Big Sort is that there's no longer a national narrative to follow, no longer a communal path to unanimity. (Americans have so little in common that even television quiz shows are having a hard time coming up with questions that make sense to contestants and a broad audience.34) Baby Boomers, right and left, have tried to imprint on others their versions of the American story and will apparently battle to their graves to impose their will on the country. Think Peggy Noonan, Al Gore, James Dobson, Newt Gingrich, Cindy Sheehan, Martin Sheen, Al Sharpton, Roger Ailes, and Paul Krugman.
The kids at Bluer and Sojourn are less enticed by struggles over America's grand narrative. They are more interested in means, not ends, and don't believe that such an all-encompassing narrative does, or even should, exist.35 "We don't know it all; it's hard to make judgments," said Dan Lukas, the Bluer musician. "We're in touch with others around the world—different languages and ways of thought. We can respond in two ways: we're right and they're wrong, or we can talk to one another." These young people are busy reshaping their churches now. Democracy may come later. Generational change—which created the Big Sort to begin with—is the force most likely to break down the divisions created over the past forty years. There are cracks already. Applebee's restaurant sales since the 2004 election have followed the same downward trajectory as George W. Bush's approval ratings. Applebee's was overtaken by hipper chains with less well-slathered food (for people who grew up with cooking shows on television) and free Internet connections. The company even considered redesigning its neighborhood wall—and then the chain was purchased by the International House of Pancakes.36
Meanwhile, national institutions have splintered. The idea of community has been "miniaturized," observed Francis Fukuyama. "Rather than seeking authoritative values in the national church that once shaped society's culture, people are picking and choosing their values on an individual basis, in ways that link them with smaller communities of like-minded folk."37 That ability is both liberating and exciting. In this new world, there will be greater differences nationally among communities but fewer differences within the smaller groups—schools, neighborhoods, clubs, college dormitories, churches—where we actually live. There will be both more diversity and more conformity. But missing will be any sense of the whole. "I think we're going to see more isolation at the community or even [the] neighborhood level," Yankelovich Partners' J. Walker Smith told me. "We're going to have a nation of self-focused collectives. And the only universally shared American value is going to be the willingness to let other people live in their collectives in the ways they want to live. I worry that the traditional democratic notion of accommodating differences through compromise in order to sustain a shared way of life is going to fade away."
Beginning nearly thirty years ago, the people of this country unwittingly began a social experiment. Finding cultural comfort in "people like us," we have migrated into ever-narrower communities and churches and political groups. We have created, and are creating, new institutions distinguished by their isolation and single-mindedness. We have replaced a belief in a nation with a trust in ourselves and our carefully chosen surroundings. And we have worked quietly and hard to remove any trace of the "constant clashing of opinions" from daily life. It was a social revolution, one that was both profound and, because it consisted of people simply going about their lives, entirely unnoticed.38 In this time, we have reshaped our economies, transformed our businesses, both created and decimated our cities, and altered institutions of faith and fellowship that have withstood centuries. Now more isolated than ever in our private lives, cocooned with our fellows, we approach public life with the sensibility of customers who are always right. "Tailor-made" has worked so well for industry and social networking sites, for subdivisions and churches, we expect it from our government, too. But democracy doesn't seem to work that way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THERE MAY NOT be an end to the number of people who contributed to the making of this book, but there are two people who were at the beginning: Tom and Pat Gish. Tom and Pat have owned and operated the Mountain Eagle, a weekly newspaper in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, for the past half century. Before bloggers or citizen journalists or the Web 2.0, the Gishes practiced a tough, inclusive, honest, and ultimately democratic style of journalism that has guided me since I arrived on their doorstep in 1975. Tom and Pat have shown a respect for the people of Letcher County that is unusual in journalism and almost entirely missing from public life.
The Big Sort would have remained undiscovered without Bob Cushing. We met by chance, and it was due to his skill as a statistician and his curiosity as a scholar that we found the relationship between the economy, the culture, politics, and geography. Bob is a good scientist, and so, from the start, he let the facts, not ideological preference, lead his inquiry. (It also helped that Frances Cushing supported in all ways this very time-consuming project.) When I proposed to my editors at the Austin American-Statesman that Bob and I embark on an entirely speculative course of inquiry, they didn't blink. Rich Oppel and Fred Zipp decided that a midsize daily could conduct complicated social science research, and they sponsored this unusual project over three years. Maria Henson was a great editor on these stories in Austin, and she's been a better friend since we first met in Kentucky years ago. David Pasztor picked up editing chores when Maria moved on to California and quickly caught on to the spirit of the project.
Our research into city economies was helped immeasurably by an ad hoc research consortium. We found a group of scholars all studying the dynamics of city growth, and every few weeks throughout most of 2002, Bob and I would get on the phone with Richard Florida, Gary Gates, Terry Nichols Clark, Kevin Stolarick, and, at times, Joe Cortright. Florida, Stolarick, and Gates were busy with the research that would appear in Florida's book The Rise of the Creative Class. (Gates, then at the Urban Institute, was also in the middle of his work on the demography of gay America.) Clark, at the University of Chicago, was investigating how and why certain cities were attracting skilled workers. Cortright, a Portland, Oregon, economist, was deep into his own research on the connection between culture, demography, and economic growth. We shared information, thoughts, and problems in the most collaborative of relationships.
We sought help over the years from a number of people, and everyone we asked gave generously of their time and experience. Political scientists Jim Gimpel, Nate Persily, Mark Brewer, and Eric Schickler all advised us on the proper way to count and compare votes. Alan Abramowitz, Diana Mutz, and Peter Francia shared their research and their time. Social psychologist Dave Myers helped me understand the dynamics of group polarization. John Musick at Bluer and Mike Cosper at Sojourn were thoughtful guides into the emerging church. Joe Cortright and Ethan Seltzer showed me the Portland, Oregon, economy, and Anina Bennett introduced me to the wonderful artists in that town's comic book community. The Reverend Marvin Horan welcomed a complete stranger and honestly and eloquently explained the 1974 textbook battle in Kanawha County, West Virginia. Robert Gipe and Joan Robinett showed me how deeply the OxyContin plague had tortured Harlan County, Kentucky. Paul Stekler was a supportive, knowledgeable, and constructive reader.
That The Big Sort has been published at all is largely a matter of dumb luck. Tom Ashbrook of WBUR radio's On Point was kind enough to have me on his show in 2004. Anton Mueller, a Houghton Mifflin editor, was listening, and the next week he called with the suggestion that we turn our newspaper research into a book. Without his curiosity and willingness to take a chance, our explorations would have ended years ago. Thanks also to crack copy editors Barbara Jatkola and Beth Fuller.
We have benefited from
the generosity of strangers throughout. I met Yankelovich Partners' Walker Smith in 2003 and have been peppering him with questions since. He's always answered with the knowledge of a marketing expert and the soul of a democratic citizen. Mickey Edwards was an eager reader of our stories in the Austin American-Statesman and organized a conference at Princeton University on political polarization after reading our series. (We've received advice since that conference from Princeton's Fred Greenstein and Larry Bartels.) Similarly, Robert Wright took an interest in our research and introduced me to his agent, Rafe Sagalyn, who not only navigated the business end of this endeavor but also helped shape an idea into a book.
Closer to home, this book is a celebration of a thirty-year adventure I've shared with Julie Ardery. We've done a lot together, but fundamental to my understanding of the Big Sort was our decision twenty-five years ago to buy a little newspaper in Smithville, Texas. Over several years of publishing the weekly in that wonderful town, the people there taught us how a decidedly unhomogeneous unit could exist as a community. We left Smithville a long time ago, but what we learned together there is a big part of this book. So, too, is Julie. She contributed her knowledge of social theory and her considerable skills as a writer. If this book is honest—and if you can understand what we are saying—it's due largely to her.
NOTES
Introduction
1. Unless otherwise noted, quotations in this book come from interviews conducted by the author.