Why We're Polarized

“The fact that voters ultimately treated Trump as if he were just another Republican speaks to the enormous weight party polarization now exerts on our politics.”

Klein provides statistics to show the similarity in voting patterns between the 2016 election and previous ones. Given the behavior of Trump during the campaign, Klein concludes that it is almost impossible for partisans to go against their party’s nominee. Identity is so strong, he argues, that the safeguards have been removed from US politics.

“That logic, put simply, is this: to appeal to a more polarized public, political institutions and political actors behave in more polarized ways.”

Emphasizing the worsening nature of the crisis, Klein observes that there is a feedback cycle that intensifies the level of polarization. The behavior of political institutions and actors, in turn, further polarizes the public, and onward the cycle goes.

“When a division exists within a party, it gets addressed through suppression or compromise. Parties don’t want to fight among themselves. But when a division exists between the parties, it gets addressed through conflict.”

For much of US history, there was ideological diversity within the political parties. In the 21st century, the parties have sorted ideologically. This change has caused the conflict between them to be more intense and partisan identity to become stronger.