The Polarization Frame
Is the P-word a useful way to understand our politics?
Consider this the equivalent of scribbling incomplete thoughts on a notepad.
This Tweet, from Jeff Jarvis, a professor in CUNY’s Newmark School of Journalism, has been making the rounds, as you can see.
Some thoughts….
Obviously, I’ve had some professional and, therefore, personal investment in the significance of the polarization frame. The books I’ve co-written on the subject document how the nature of America’s political divisions has changed over time, and argue that the changing nature of those divisions is highly consequential. One key facet of the argument is that a politics primarily anchored in deep-seated psychological and personality differences is a recipe for sustained, irreconcilable conflict. These deep-seated differences aren’t politically consequential in and of themselves, at least not according to our understanding. They become consequential when they map onto partisan conflict. That is, when people with basically different worldviews start sorting themselves out into two distinct partisan political camps, those different worldviews become the basic fault line of our politics. Once that happens, the stage is set for especially acrimonious and potentially violent politics. Others have built on that framework to argue such conditions have made the emergence of a Trump-like figure more likely, which reinforces and deepens the dangers of the politics we tried to map.
So, with all that said, I find myself of two minds about Jarvis’ tweet. On the one hand, I strongly agree with the thrust of it. For example, a couple of weeks back, The Washington Post ran a story about Adam Graham, recently elected as the first openly gay mayor of The Village, a municipality in Oklahoma. Graham stopped his car one night because he thought he saw two police officers from the next town over harassing a Black motorist in The Village. Long story short, what followed was apparently a torrent of abuse and violent threats that prompted Graham to resign his position. This is part and parcel of a larger a wave of violent threats being directed at public officials and, of great significance, volunteer election officials, all over the country. Yes, there are examples of harassment and violence directed at public figures from the left. But this wave of threats and violence is not just dramatically numerically one-sided. It’s also structurally so, insofar as no prominent national Democratic politician is goading her or his supporters the way Trump or his many political progeny are. Indeed, it annoys me even to have to write that, since it’s so obviously true. But the Post article on Graham dropped this into the middle of its account:
At a time of deepening polarization in the United States, the fallout in The Village points to troubling consequences on the cul-de-sac level: Not even old friends are immune to the forces pitting us against each other.
Polls reveal perceptions of major events — the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, the protests ignited by the death of George Floyd — vary widely along partisan lines. Less explored is the impact in our own backyards, the strains on bonds that are supposed to trump politics.
This is the kind of frame Jarvis is talking about. Much of the American right is becoming increasingly extreme, violent and enamored of political leaders who aren’t even making a pretense anymore of respecting such bedrocks of democracy as election outcomes that they don’t like. In the Graham story, it’s hard to fathom what context or insight readers gain from what feels almost like a polarization disclaimer. One of our two major parties is traveling far down the road of authoritarianism and is inspiring, all over the country, the kind of atmosphere that led to Graham’s resignation. Polarization, in the basic sense of describing a phenomenon in which two objects increasingly gravitate toward poles, is not what is at play here. Instead, one object, the Republican Party, is becoming increasingly and dangerously extreme in a way that simply does not characterize the other party.
I can’t believe I am about to do this, but here’s Bill Kristol (!!!!)1, explaining the differences in a Tweet this weekend:
In sum, I’m not here to argue with Jarvis.
On the other hand, I still believe there is utility in trying to understand how ordinary people come to identify with the political parties they do (as I’ve said before, elites are another matter). Further, I think it’s important to think carefully about how the circumstances we currently find ourselves in motivate behaviors that, in other times and places, fewer people would be likely to engage in. I’ll repeat - understanding doesn’t necessarily mean excuse-making. I personally have some sympathy for *some* of the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6, including Stephen Ayres, who testified before the January 6 committee. They should still face legal consequences. Adults are responsible for their actions. Indeed, it’s become increasingly challenging for me to feel sympathy for those who support politicians and movements that are monstrous. But if we’re going to take the rise of authoritarianism in the GOP seriously, we should try to understand how ordinary people become susceptible to its appeal. Many of us know, or even love, at least some folks who believe pretty much everything FOX News is telling them and are still good people. That’s not a brief for absolution. It’s just a reminder, to myself as much as anybody else, that we shouldn’t lose all capacity for compassion. And, of course, we could all stand to be more humble and self-reflective. None of us is perfect or beyond reproach. I know these are basic, even anodyne reminders. But it’s precisely because of the political maelstrom that we’re now in that it’s so easy to forget even banal and trivial truths about our own limitations.
There’s a line to walk between retaining a sense of humanity and humility on the one hand and, on the other, having a capacity to name clearly the real dangers today’s GOP poses without devolving into false equivalency. When the polarization frame incorporates the former, it’s salvageable. When it loses sight of the latter, it’s worse than useless.
See my post on Dick Cheney for what I think of Kristol’s generally execrable public career, since Kristol was a key intellectual force behind Cheneyism. He also, in fairness, woke up to the dangers of Trumpism years before the Cheneys did.
Such a spot-on post. I had read that about the mayor and, at the time, just overlooked that ridiculous "both sides/polarization" claptrap because I'm just so used to this *lazy* "polarization!" journalism. But, of course, it is very much a real thing. But the even more important thing is summed up in Kristol's tweet.