Asymmetrical Information

Radical polarization in American politics is a 20th century invention.

Yeah, right. Now explain the Civil War.

Civil rights and women's rights advocacy and militancy began long before the '60s. Perhaps the defining characteristic of those impressed by the '60s is historical blindness and narcissism. They even think they invented sex. A debilitating consequence of that blindness is a generation of Peter Pans that never mature, never gain wisdom, and so are never able to formulate useful policies and philosophies.

It is worth noting that this didn't happen to all of those who came of age in that period and that is has happened to some portion of subsequent generations.

To be fair, it all started in the 60's in Clinton's mind because that's when Clinton came of age, along with all the asorted Boomers(1/3 of the population), and that's enough people that the legend has a life of its own. Unless someone is especially historically aware, they think that just about everything of importance started in their lifetime - and even historical awareness on't help sometimes, I dare you to find one historian who did *not* categorize their time as a ctritical turning point in history. It's misleading vividness writ large, because subconsciously people think that it didn't really happen if they weren't there to see it.

And if you figure out a way out of that mental trap, tell me ;)

I think a fair thing to keep in mind is that Presidents aren't, for the most part, great writers. The last President to regularly write his own speeches was Ronald Reagan, and he gave it up within weeks of being elected, and even now if you look at his writing it's very lucid but also very simple and straightforward--which was a great strength for him but hardly makes for compelling reading.

Clinton's not a writer. On top of that, he's being given the difficult task of writing both a personal and a political memoir. So what can we expect? A lot of blathering, really.

When you show these quotes, it helps me if I simply imagine him reading them. Of course it's garrolous and rambling--but wasn't that the essence of his speaking style all along anyway? Jump from subject to subject, mention a lot of people, say genial things.... that's Clinton all right.

I saw the original speech that started off the book tour. I have no idea what Clinton's been saying while he's out touring around but in that speech he discussed the fact that the degree of polarization in politics in the US is cyclical. I recall his example of the Adams/Jefferson split in post revolutionary times and how it calmed down after Jefferson's presidency destroyed the Federalists. I can't recall the other examples he cited except that he identified the 60's as the beginning of the most recent highly divisive era after the relative calm of post WWII.

Interestingly, his take on all of this is that polarization occurs when change is fomenting. The divisiveness tends to collapse when some person or event somehow resolves the seeming conflicts and that America always has come out stronger and more coherent for each change.

Bringing up 19th century examples of division ignores the consensus that emerged from the Great Depression and the Second World War. That consensus lasted through the fifties and broke down during the 60's. The fact that there was divisive politics during the 19th century doesn't alter the fact that a real consensus on a range of issues was ended during the Johnson administration.

The original post that started this thread indicated that former President Clinton had asserted that

" . . . the polarization of American
politics began with the civil rights,
women's rights, gay rights and abortion
rights struggles of the 60's and the
assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin
Luther King."

My point - which you seem to have either missed completely or intentionally ignored - was to note that there have been times in the past where US politics were much more highly polarized than now.

The fact that there was a post-World War II consensus on many issues, lasting 15 or 20 years, is true - but it is also irrelevant. As noted above by Inquisit, US politics shows a distinct pattern of periods of relative agreement followed by periods of increasing polarization, then a return to a period of relativel agreement. The post WW-II era of "agreement", ended by the turmoil of the 1960s, is merely an example of this phenomenon.

Picking up on Kenneth's point about political consensus from the Depression through the 50s, a couple of questions occur to me:

1) FDR was reviled by a minority of Americans in ways that somewhat resemble the situation of Clinton and now Bush. Was there really a consensus back then, or is this just the textbooks revising history?

2) If it's accurate to refer to a consensus during the Depression, is it possible that future ages will look back on this time (or perhaps, up until 9/11/2001) as a time of "post-Cold War consensus"?

3) If the 1950s were a time of consensus, why was the election of 1960 (JFK vs Nixon) so close and so acrimonious? (I do think the period 1941 thru most of the 50s reflected a consensus; perhaps the last 10 years of that was a sort of political momentum leftover from WWII.) Did the election foreshadow changes later in the decade, or indicate that the political consensus was only skin deep, or what?

I wonder how much of this political consensus is created by a homogenous Congress. My impression is that the Dems controlled both houses from the 1930s right thru to the 1990s, with very occasional Rebpulican Senates. I can see how a one-party Congress would be caused by a political consensus, but would also extend it (at least superficially) by using incumbent advantage to hang on longer than otherwise. If that makes sense, then the presidential elections would be the proper place to look for shifts in the tide, and the election of 1960 was an indication of things to come.

3a) In light of this, what does the close and acrimonious election of 2000 say about the first decade of the 21st century?

If you think politics is "shrill" today, try to remember the last time when a sitting Vice President shot his leading political enemy dead and then returned to the Senate to preside.

Considering how Cheney's honor has been besmudged by all the Halliburton stories, perhaps he should challenge Krugman to a meeting at dawn in Weehawken...

Jo Ma,
[The Boomers] even think they invented sex.

To be fair to them, the reason they think this is because their elders were always telling them, "Well! We never did that in my day!"

Meanwhile, Hondo says:
The fact that there was a post-World War II consensus on many issues, lasting 15 or 20 years, is true - but it is also irrelevant.

I don't think it is. Every generation suffers a certain amount of historical myopia. I suspect that by the time of the early Sixties the Greatest Generation had forgotten the polarization of their early years, and was under the impression that the national unity of their prime years was the norm. Or, at least, ought to be the norm.

By the time the Sixties really got into full swing, the GGs were running the country, and often commented at length on the "unprecedented" amount of discord and civil unrest. That's what the average Boomer remembers -- how very shocked his elders were. He's hardly to be blamed, then, for thinking those days were unique.

Those with a little more education in history will know better. But textbooks tend to suck the blood from history, leaving an impression of a sort of "punctuated equilibrium": previous discord as minor blips in the straight line progression from then to now. (Or perhaps that's not the books' fault, but the students'.)

Anyone who has been alive for awhile, as I have, and has observed more than one presidential election, has seen and heard all this "polarization" stuff before.

The 60's? Sure, saw and heard a lot of that (I was kinda busy being young-ish at the time). Busing? Oh yeah, saw and heard that first hand. The Carter malaise years? Yup, got those too. Reagan and Pershing II's. Ooooo, that was a doozy. Not to mention all the "polarizing" fights and massacres from history.

Every election cycle has it. Sure, there is an ebbing and flowing of the intensity; Clinton was attacked rather tirelessly - as is Bush today. The partisans want you to believe the world will end if you don't do as they say.

So, if Bush are elected:

1. The economy will continue to deteriorate.
2. The environment will be damaged beyond repair.
3. Abortion will be made illegal.
4. All our civil liberties will be rescinded.
5. We will be in a constant state of war.
6. The Terrorists will have won.
7. The balance of opinion of the Supreme Court will no longer be "fair".
8. The rich will get richer.
9. The poor will get poorer.
10. Our public schools will cease to exist.
11. The elderly will be left to die for lack of adequate medication.

There is a similar armageddon list for Kerry.

Yet another reason for the inflamed political discussion. Democrats are fighting like hell to maintain a coalition that shows signs of falling apart. The coalition of women, blacks and gays is wearing thin and those groups are developing conflicts with each other. So, the inflamed political rhetoric is an attempt to keep these groups within the fold.

For instance, the large scale involvement of women in business does not just lead to an expansion of feminism. Most women are traditional, religious and conservative. Put more of them out there in the public sphere and you've empowered, God forbid, Republicans! The constant attachment to gay politics is already beginning to alienate many blacks who are traditionally religious. This is an issue that threatens to undermine the most reliable base of the Democratic party.

The heat of the rhetoric is party based on this. The "you're either one of us or you are an enemy" rhetoric is design to discourage defections.

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