Two observers of Pennsylvania politics, Terry Madonna and Michael Young, have looked at why the re-election bid of Arlen Specter, the Quaker State’s longest serving senator ever, is drawing such heated opposition. They conclude the moderate Specter has become “the poster child for the accelerating ideological polarization of American politics.” Moderates are an endangered species. Moderation, they say, is “all but dead in American politics.”
The in-depth Pew poll we examined earlier re-enforces Madonna’s and Young’s conclusion. Pew found that the average difference between Republicans and Democrats is up from 11% in 2002 to an all-time high of 16% today.
That means there are two polarized camps battling for independents. And these independents, the Pew survey shows, lean toward Democrats on social and national defense issues, Republicans on the economy and the social safety net.
Yet the Pew poll responses by independents suggest a consistency Pew failed to note in its accompanying narrative. Independents are libertarians. They favor less government in their lives. On social issues, Republicans want an activist government; independents don’t. On national defense, Republicans support more involvement overseas; independents don’t.
But like Republicans and unlike Democrats, independents believe government has too much control over our lives, think government is inefficient and wasteful, feel government regulation of business does more harm than good, reject paying for environmental protection with higher prices, won’t go into debt to help the needy, don’t see society divided between “haves” and “have nots,” and do favor nuclear power. And consistent with their anti-government bias, independents are less likely to vote than either Republicans or Democrats.
The Pew survey's lining up independents with Republicans against government activism seems consistent with Pew’s previously-mentioned finding--one supported by a separate Gallup survey--that voters are twice as likely to be conservative as to be liberal.
Polls showing 1) independents occupy the key middle ground, 2) independents are wary of government control, and 3) voters lean conservative; all are cautionary notes for the Obama administration. Also cautionary: Pew’s discovery of how unsuccessful most presidents since World War II have been at helping their party. Under Reagan (1980-88), party identification shifted a significant 13% in Republicans' favor. Every other president (Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43) except Kennedy (no change during his shortened term) saw his party lose support during the president's tenure.
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The rabidly partisan right and the rabidly partisan left are getting farther apart -- but far more people are getting tired of the partisanship and opting out, some as independents, while many more refusing to participate in the political forums and discussions -- as non- or counterproductive.
That's what is being overlooked as the media tries to herd us into the partisan camps with their evermore inflammatory provocations.
I think this is a very important evolution from politics as usual -- just as the mainstream media is becoming less of the dominant driver in societal exchanges.
Far more happens beyond the political realm than happens in it -- and it seems Republicans are a little further down this path than the Democrats, because the Democrats require more party solidarity and conformity than the rest of society wants to be involved in.
That's not bad -- except for the parties, but most people don't identify as much with the parties as they might have in the past. People have evolved towards their own individualism and independent thinking -- especially the Republicans. So while that may be regarded as an erosion of the power of the Republican Party, it is to the benefit of individual power -- as people no longer see the need to identify and serve a sectarian cause greater than themselves.
The exception are the Democrats, the unionists, the communists, the socialists, and ideologues who believe they are powerless unless they can mass and impose their will on the others, and especially the individualists.
But the future belongs to the new, empowered individuals who don't feel this need to affiliate, identify and conform in order to realize their own power.
That is how the world has changed but the old media (mind), still insists on seeing things in the old partisan divide -- despite the fact the most people have dropped out of that old game.
That's the significance of the Sarah Palins and the new breed of individuals not playing the game in the same way it's always been played before, and of course, controlled by those who think they shape the opinions and thoughts of eveybody else, ie., the old mainstream mass media.
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