Measuring Partisanship
Here's one tiny little isolated and by-itself-almost-meaningless bit of data concerning changes in attitudes about domestic spying by Democrats and Republicans.
If we tracked enough such changes, we could get some idea how partisan Dems and Republicans are.
Perhaps interestingly, the change discussed in the Pew survey is consistent with what I'd have guessed a priori: Democrats about 2/3 as partisan as Republicans.
Here's one tiny little isolated and by-itself-almost-meaningless bit of data concerning changes in attitudes about domestic spying by Democrats and Republicans.
If we tracked enough such changes, we could get some idea how partisan Dems and Republicans are.
Perhaps interestingly, the change discussed in the Pew survey is consistent with what I'd have guessed a priori: Democrats about 2/3 as partisan as Republicans.
posted by Winston Smith at
2:09 PM
14 Comments:
There was another interesting stat on that page: the war is perceived as elitist, and I can't say that is wrong. 59 % of people without college want troops home immediately, as opposed to around 40% for other groups.
WS, is it necessary to see everything as a political football? Could we not say that aside from the kool-aid drinkers on both sides, there's a substantive issue here?
I understand (but do not agree with) absolutism as to the privacy of communications, but only in the abstract, as a slippery slope argument.
I was quite aware during the Clinton administration, of Echelon, and we all should have been aware of his championing of the Clipper chip.
I mention this because I was cool with them then, and after 9/11, which was designed and is seen by many as a clarion call for worldwide jihad, am quite supportive of the NSA program now.
There were some who were opposed to Clinton's Big Brotherism back then, but I think it's fair to say their response was muted. Now that there's a Republican administration, and despite 9/11, that segment of the population that today professes outrage seems to me to be almost entirely partisan.
Tom,
Well, I actually agree that I've become too fixated on the Dems vs. Republicans issue. So thanks for the move to keep me on the straight and narrow.
On the other hand, this seems to be the end result of the massive divisiveness and meanness that Republicans began infusing into the public debate since '94 (beginning, e.g., with their campaign to ruin Clinton).
Seems to me that conservatives have supported a staggering number of things Bush has done--things that would have caused them to clammor for the head of any Democratic president (stealing an election, vacationing after receiving a memo predicting an attack on the U.S., letting OBL escape, invading a country for trumped-up reasons, rationalizing that invasion by pointing to human rights concerns, unwarranted spying, running up the deficit, etc., etc., etc.)
Seems to me also that Dems wouldn't support their man with as much blind devotion as Rep.s have shown toward Bush.
And that seems significant to me.
I'm not turning everything into politics--Bush and co. have already done that. I'm just playing on the field they set up.
Still, I dont' like it.
Furthermore, I'm just suggesting an experiment--a way to measure partisanship. If I'm wrong, there's a way to prove it.
I thought the Lewinsky thing was a better guage---there was no there there.
Winston,
What about what I call *anti-partisanship*? That is, the tendency of the Dems to form a circular firing squad. Seems to me that the fact that so many of us tend to stand up for our issue positions so strongly, that most of us never EVER toe the party line just for the sake of unity. One disagreement on a not-so-important issue sometimes derails unity like I can't believe. (I would also add that it sometimes frustrates me that my 'side' so stubbornly clings to sacred cows, but I digress...)
Just askin'.
LC, I've given this a lot of thought, proffer the results with the full realization that nuthin times infinity still leaves nuthin:
Like most things, after we pare them down, I believe that philosophies yield certain structural strengths and weaknesses. If the left is collectivist (we could call it communitarian in the interest of finding a non-pejorative description), then anything that deviates from unity is by definition the first enemy, since unity is the foundation of the whole enterprise to begin with.
It's my philosophical objection to "unity" (and Socrates', I suppose) that first, before it can do anything, it must eat its own. Certainly the Spanish Inquisition, the Soviet gulag, and the current al-Qaeda project of exploding more Muslims than crusaders offer supporting proof. Not to mention poor Socrates' fate.
(My own appeals for unity behind the current Iraq adventure are not moralistic or philosophical, simply an appeal to self-interest: it is not controversial to suggest that we are better off if it succeeds.)
Tom,
To some extent, I think that this problem is an inevitable result of a two-party winner-take-all system. Such a system is a recipe for acrimony and divisiveness; the tribal mindset becomes more and more entrenched, especially so when you have only one party in power (as in your extreme historical examples), but eventually even in a two party system. We're witnessing now, particularly with the Republican party, a devolution to extreme orthodoxy and dogmatism; dissent is not tolerated.
This is why I think proportional representation and parliamentary democracy is a better idea. It better promotes consensus formation and compromise (mostly by force of rules). Moreover, a more diverse spectrum of views gets to be heard and receives representation. For our nation, it would mean that everyone from Civil Libertarians to Socialists to Libertarians to Conservatives to Greens would have a part of the political establishment which they felt represented their views, and they would have the opportunity for their positions to be taken into account when making policy.
Is it messy? Yes, but sometimes democracy is messy.
Tom,
I heartily agree about inherent strengths and weaknesses in parties/philosophies...but your analysis seems to be at odds with the facts. It's Republicans--at least right now--that are more dogmatic and anti-dissent. Think about all their strutting and crowing about their greater "party discipline."
As LC wrote, it's the Dems who seem to get worried anytime they're all on the same page.
Collectivism is to the left of many (most?) Democrats. I'd say that it's more like they suffer from something like skepticism... A liberal being someone too open-minded to take his own side in an argument...
What you both just wrote seems to conflict with what LC originally wrote about the circular firing squad.
My brain is now officially fried, as invariably happens when trying to make sense of liberals.
;-)
(And no, I don't see the diversity of philosophy in your party.)
I thought that one says that a group has formed a "circular firing squad" when they were in the grip of such dissensus that they were picking each other off...
Actually, I'm not too sure what that means now that I think about it.
Winston,
My impression is that both Ds and Rs attempt to enforce party discipline and that, by and large, Rs comply a more than Ds.
If that's true then Ds obviously don't deserve any credit for it. I was supposing that they're lack of unity was at least partially a matter of principle and not just a matter of being unruly or incontinent.
'Incontinent'? Eeeewwww...
Seriously, I don't really know. I do definitely perceive a much lower tendency to toe the party line.
Causation, as per usual, much harder to determine.
Somewhat true. From January 2004:
"...as a recent numerical analysis by CQ Weekly confirmed -- Congress is at its most partisan level in decades (except, perhaps, for the 1995 session after Republicans took over Capitol Hill). In the Senate, Republicans voted with their party on 94 percent of votes; Democrats voted along party lines 85 percent of the time. In the House, Republicans held ranks on 91 percent of votes; Democrats did the same 87 percent of instances.
For House Democrats, the 87-percent unity figure is the highest since 1960. (In 1998, for example, it was 82 percent.)That's a credit to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who, in her first year as leader, has made it clear to House Democrats that they must toe the party line if they want to have any chance of stopping the Bush agenda."
Not a huge disparity to me. If you see it as significant, one may ask if an unwillingness to compromise with one's own allies is a sign of principle or pigheadness.
Probably the former if you're a Democrat, the latter if you're Bush. ;-)
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