United States: A Polarized Nation in Recent

United States: A Polarized Nation

In recent decades, the United States had become a far more self-interested nation, that is, a nation in which most people are more concerned with their own interests, or their own small group's interest (e.g., the AARP lobby; the pro-life movement) than with the interests of the nation as a whole. As a result, the United States as a country is now more polarized than ever before, around special interests such as these. In this essay I will discuss polarization within the United States, in terms of political parties as well as other matters.

The extent of America's polarization, along political lines, may be most plainly seen through the results of U.S. Presidential elections within in the past two decades. The last two landslide presidential elections were won by Ronald Reagan in 1980, against Jimmy Carter, and then again by Reagan in 1984, against Walter Mondale. Since then, the winner-loser margins in U.S. Presidential elections have been decreasing. The best example of this is the 2000 Presidential election, in which Republican candidate George W. Bush defeated Democratic candidate Al Gore only within the Electoral College, and in which Gore actually won the popular vote. In the 2004 election, Bush beat challenger John Kerry by more popular votes (and electoral votes), but still received only slightly over half the popular vote -- hardly a national mandate.

Increasingly, many U.S. voters are "one issue" voters, and will support the candidate who supports their own stance on, say, abortion, or the death penalty, or gun control. Since support (or the lack thereof) for these issues tends to cleave along party lines (more so than in the past, in many respects) people nowadays find themselves voting for an issue, which often polarizes voters by party as well. Another aspect of current polarization in American party politics that became apparent during the 2004 presidential election, even though it was won by a slightly wider margin than was the 2000 presidential election, was just how strongly Democrats and Republicans disagreed with one another on issues (e.g., the war in Iraq), and just how defensive, if not downright angry, they became, during the course of the election, about one another's perspectives. Before in American presidential politics, the opposing sides have at least respected, if not liked or agreed with each others' viewpoints. In the 2004 election, however, the Republicans accused the Democrats of being unpatriotic if they did not support the war in Iraq, while the Democrats accused the Republicans of being morons for simple-mindedly supporting it. Unfortunately, such attitudes do not vanish when a presidential election is over; I daresay that there is more personal animosity, based on opposing political viewpoints, between Democrats and Republicans than ever before.

There are, of course, gradations of "Democrat" and "Republican." Everyone has heard of conservative Democrats (John F. Kennedy would, in his time, have been an example of one) and liberal Republicans (Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is one of these). One U.S. Senator, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, even changed political parties altogether while in the U.S. Senate. But in terms of what people actually vote for or against (and talk, argue, and debate about) it is not "centrist" issues, on which one could be either a Democrat or a Republican, but instead more polarizing issues, like, again, the death penalty, abortion, gun control, or other special interests that tend, in general, to split along party lines.

There is also much less of a sense of a shared community or a national identity, of which everyone is a part, than in the past within the United States. People, in general, are less interested in each other, and what they have in common, than they are in themselves and those close to them, and what they want for themselves and their loved ones. Citizens nowadays, as a result, are in general much more self-protective, afraid of others (or at least wary of them) and less likely to reach out to others, out of the goodness of their hearts or in order to forge a bond or share common interests.

One good example of how people have drifted apart and become less interested in each other (personally and politically) can be easily seen within many of today's suburban neighborhoods. Those who grew up in America in the 1950's or 1960's (or even the 1970's in many areas) likely remember living in neighborhoods, whatever their social or economic status, in which one's neighbors knew each other, were interested in each others' lives and families, and even socialized together. Today's neighborhoods are, on the whole, very much different. Most people today do not know their neighbors at all, and do not want to have to bother to get to know them. In many communities, home owners' associations have become a popular feature of home buying, so that people will feel "protected" from their neighbors, and able to complain about them through official channels should they feel that their private space being violated. Such attitudes (like political attitudes and votes) are largely driven by feelings of economic self-interest; one's house is one's investment, and often a retirement nest egg, so one does not want neighbors, who are strangers anyway, doing anything to decrease the value of one's home. In such neighborhoods, there is not such thing as community, except in name only, and this is a microcosm of what has happened within the nation as a whole. One's own self-interests have come to seem, to many, like the only things worth caring about or protecting.

Currently, George W. Bush is discovering just how polarized the nation is, again along Democrat vs. Republican lines, but in a larger sense, again in terms of self-interest, on the issue of whether or not to privatize Social Security. The group most opposed to it is the AARP lobby. The AARP consists mostly of people over 55 (although younger people can join) who would have the most to lose by the privatizing of Social Security. Although there are (in this person's opinion) plenty of good reasons to oppose President Bush's idea of privatizing Social Security, what is most striking, in watching discussions of the issue on television or listing to them on the radio, is the tenor of the discussion, which seldom rises to the level of a philosophical or ideological discussion, but remains focused, for the most part, on what "I" will gain or what "I" will lose. There was a time in American life when such public self-centeredness would have been considered distasteful, childish, boorish, or worse. Now, it is considered naive not to think, act, and talk that way.