Abstract
It would be a great tragedy if we had our two major political parties divide on what we would call a conservative-liberal line . . . we have avoided generally violent swings in Administrations from one extreme to the other. And the reason we have avoided that is in both parties there has been room for a broad spectrum of opinion.
This quote in the first chapter of Ezra Klein’s Why We’re Polarized illustrates the comparatively harmonious political milieu of the mid-20th century and foreshadows the split in the parties and American citizenry that now dominates our discourse. Through meticulous research, historical context and a wealth of practical examples, Klein’s book provides a road map for comprehending the historical, political, and sociological underpinnings of the increased polarization in our country today. While short on solutions, Klein’s book is a must read for journalists and journalism teachers for understanding a divide that has a profound impact on the reporting and reputation of the news industry.
While clearly recognizing the many pitfalls of polarization, the co-founder of Vox Media points out that polarization is not necessarily a bad thing: I don’t consider polarization, on its own, to be a problem. Just as often it’s a solution . . . The alternative to polarization often isn’t consensus but suppression. We don’t argue over the problems we don’t discuss. But we don’t solve them, either.
The unsolved problem when Nixon gave his 1959 speech was civil rights. Klein notes that splits within the parties—the conservative and liberal wings of the Republican Party, and the anti-civil rights Dixiecrats and the rest of the Democratic Party—were as great as the differences between the parties. Consequently, the parties varied ideologically by region and lacked the cohesion, and thus coherent national identity, that they have today. For the Democratic Party, that meant the greatest compromises came within, with FDR and other progressive national leaders making concessions to the conservative Dixiecrats to enact Democratic legislation. That era of concessions came to an end with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act had strong opposition from the Southern Democrats, resulting in the apocryphal Johnson comment, “We have lost the South for a generation.” The Act was a pivotal point in the history of the parties, as over the next decade there was a re-sorting of voters and even politicians (most notably Democrat-turned-Republican Strom Thurmond) into more conservative/Republican and liberal/Democrat camps.
In addition to tracing other historical events leading to our current situation, Klein delves into the psychological and sociological aspects of groups, noting it is in our DNA—and early survival instincts—to join groups, to conform our thinking to that of the group and, importantly, to vilify those outside of our group. Those foundational principles have been compounded as our identities have become politically “stacked,” becoming mega-identities. As an example of stacked mega-identities, Klein, who worked on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, lamented an anti-Dean ad with a husband and wife who remarked that “Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs.”
Because of the strength of group identities, changing our position on an issue is not just an intellectual exercise or maturation or evolution. Changing a position involves a repudiation of our group, something far more difficult (which helps explain the futility in engaging in political debate on the internet). In offering solutions at the end of the book, Klein implores us all to better understand our identities and when and how each one is activated/provoked by both sides in political discourse—an important suggestion especially for journalists.
Klein naturally discusses news media’s role in the increased political polarization, although not in as great as depth as the subject deserves. He elaborates on how cable news (with the advent of the Fox News and MSNBC channels that serve different political audiences) and the internet have contributed to this polarization. The need to gain and retain audiences, while always present in the news media industry, has been transformed by the splintering of the news media, the stress on niche audiences, and the new audience analytical capabilities (e.g., Chartbeat) in the internet age. Add in search and social media algorithms and the cocooning tendencies of readers and you have a recipe for reinforcing the opinions and polarizing attitudes of readers and the politicians who consume and contribute to the news media content (a feedback loop, Klein notes). In one of the more disturbing sections of the book, Klein cites research—he is constantly citing research to back up his points, a key strength of the book—that indicates being exposed to some media messages from the other side often strengthens one’s polarized views instead of moderating them.
The main weakness of the book, as Klein himself admits, is that his excellent explication of the current political climate is not accompanied by very useful recommendations for mitigating the effects of polarization. “I have more confidence in my diagnosis than prescription,” he justly writes in the concluding chapter. He offers a few political solutions, ranging from the possible (getting rid of continuing resolution votes on the budget that have led to shutdowns), to the unlikely (getting rid of the filibuster in the Senate and enough states passing the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would render the Electoral College obsolete) to the nearly impossible (a 15-member Supreme Court with five appointments from each party and five independents selected by those 10 judges). But especially disappointing is his omission of any recommendations for the news media. Coming from a supposed news media expert and player in the news media market who in some ways benefits from identity politics and polarization, his absence of any suggestions for journalists or media companies—or social media/internet companies that determine algorithms and play a huge role in the distribution of media content—was disheartening. Still, Klein’s book, full of both research and historical and timely examples, is essential reading for everyone involved in journalism and journalism education. The book, far better than this all-too-brief review can elucidate, expertly dissects the key feature of the political climate we face and report on today.