The latest polling data was just released on how polarized and scary the public has become. There’s some important and alarming findings in the mix, but overall, I see this as just another iteration of a self-serving and perennial exercise on the part of centrist and faintly left-of-center journalists and yuppie readers, whereby they implicitly congratulate themselves on their eminent objectivity, open-mindedness, and equanimity in the face of the ever-intemperate hordes. Regardless, here are some additional thoughts:
(1) Historically speaking, popular consensus usually emerges when (a) things are going darn well or (b) the political, social, and ideological climate is being notably manufactured or imposed from above. I’d argue that the nineties marked a strange and rare combination of both A and B. On the one hand, Clinton did manage to keep most people employed with decent enough wages, and growth pressed on. On the other hand, a lot of shady shit was still happening, a lot of Americans (especially poor and working folk) were still getting screwed, but unprecedented media consolidation and money in politics ensured that the range of opinion remained relatively narrow and complacent. It wasn’t until all hell broke loose in the naughts that we saw the re-introduction of “polarization.” In other words, collective pain grew to such a screeching pitch that even America’s well-oiled media and corporate machine, responsible for the manufacturing of consent, couldn’t suppress the backlash.
(2) Pollsters, like most journalists, are historically illiterate. This polling data, while wonderful when it comes to identifying the “synchronic” ideological layout, is simultaneously God-awful when it comes to portraying its “diachronic” relevance. The fact of the matter is, when it comes to the bulk of policy (i.e. the socio-economic), what counts as “liberal” today is far more conservative than what counted as “liberal” four decades ago. And what counts as “conservative” today is also far more conservative than what counted as “conservative” four decades ago.
(3) The pollsters are also seemingly clueless when it comes to the divide between our politicians’ policy preferences and our own. In the aggregate, even though we’re more conservative than we were four decades ago, we’re still more liberal than our politicians. This isn’t evident when Americans are merely asked to self-identify as “liberal,” “conservative,” or otherwise. In that case, the answers are always skewed to the right. But when Americans are polled on specific policies, they regularly prove more liberal (even more left) than the politicians who supposedly represent them. There are political economic reasons for this disparity, of course.
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