Split class and cultural divides in American politics

Split

Brewer, Mark & Jeffrey Stonecash. Split: Class and Cultural Divides in American Politics. CQ

Press, 2006.

Before the election of Barak Obama to the presidency, discussions of politics primarily were 'colored' in terms of red and blue rather than red, white, and blue. The divisions in American society were emphasized in the media, particularly the divisions between individuals from conservative (red) and liberal (blue) states. These social and political divisions, according to Mark Brewer and Jeffrey Stonecash in their book Split: Class and Cultural Divides in American Politics were caused primarily because of the growing economic chasm of opportunity and wealth between the rich and the poor. "Inequality is increasing and class political divisions are greater than they were thirty years ago," write the authors, as the less affluent increasingly gravitated towards the Democratic Party, the more affluent to the Republican Party (Brewer & Stonecash 163).

The outcomes of elections and partisan affiliations are both affected by class and culture, suggests Split. Class produces culture and vice versa. However, while Brewer and Stonecash consider both culture and class in their analysis of American political choices, particularly of the 2004 election, it is class that they primarily finger as the driving force in the evolution of the so-called culture wars. They suggest that American politics has become more politically partisan. Income and cultural opinions both drive voter choice more than they did thirty years ago (Brewer & Stonecash 183). Polarization has grown on the elite and mass level, and perceiving one party's candidate as positive is more likely to result in the perception that the other candidate is 'negative' in character (Brewer & Stonecash 184). Class polarization has resulted in political polarization to such a degree that even within social classes there is greater fractiousness and dislike of the other side's candidate -- liberal upper-class individuals are more hostile to conservative members of the upper-class, for example.

For Brewer and Stonecash, divisions of opportunity caused by social class are more significant than ever before in politics, because Americans are aware of the fact that there is a growing gap between rich and poor. Far from perceiving itself as a classless society, America is aware that it is ridden with class issues, which span from taxation to education to healthcare. The authors articulate what they see as an almost stubborn refusal of many special interest politicians and the media to truly grapple with class inequalities. Instead, the media frames the issue of class as separate from cultural concerns, as in: "Should the media cover claims about class-specific tax cuts or should they devote attention and resources to culture war conflicts" (Brewer & Stonecash 7). But the culture wars have real, nuts and bolts economic problems behind them as their root. This is not to say that they deny the importance of cultural issues, but quite often these cultural concerns, as portrayed in the media, are divorced from discussions about the class system that produced the cultural divisions in America in the first place.

The importance of class in American politics waned after the New Deal, when class began to seem less significant. Postwar prosperity, the greater affluence of the middle class and the greater importance of racial issues in the wake of the Civil Rights movement began to make class seem less importance, as if race and class could be separated, although this is far from the case, particularly so after the conservative Reagan Revolution of the late 1970s and early 1980s (Brewer & Stonecash 8-9). Of course such a deemphasizing of class was not true of all American intellectuals and media -- leftists have always tended to see conservative's focus on values rather than class as the real, dividing issue of American politics as a diversionary tactic. Conservatives have focused on what they see as an overturning of accepted American institutions like the family by access to abortion, women working outside of the home, and the decline of religion in civic life. Conservative ideologues and media figures suggest that class affiliations are less important to Americans than shared belief systems, like religion (Brewer & Stonecash 15).

But in 2004, class identification seemed to play a clear role in voter choice, more so than specific cultural concerns (Brewer & Stonecash 17). In general, polled voters seemed to believe that the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. They agreed there was a trend of greater inequality in the distribution of income. Voters expressed concerns about issues of class and inequality almost across the board, regardless of affiliation (Brewer & Stonecash 70). And data, rather than supporting a clearly liberal or conservative reading of the American electorate is ridden with contradictions, suggesting that Americans define certain political 'buzzwords' differently than many politicians -- for example, while the number of Americans self-identifying as conservative has increased, Americans who advocate tolerance of gays and support abortion rights has increased (Brewer & Stonecash 165). Class more so than single issues determined voter's decision-making -- lower-income individuals vote Democratic, and more affluent voters (or voters who perceive themselves as more affluent) vote Republican.

This contradicts the idea of a red vs. blue nation where "issues agitating voters now are cultural in nature," pitting "those who are pro-choice, tolerant or supportive of gays, and detached from religion are on one side of the dominant political cleavage, and opposed by those who are pro-life, opposed to homosexuality, and desire a larger place for religion in public life (Brewer & Stonecash 14). In 2004 perceived class affiliation had a larger impact than ever before, far beyond specific single issue-based politics.