Coronavirus exposed a huge gap between the media and the American people – Forward
If youre not part of the political or chattering classes, you might have missed two recent tempests that erupted in tiny teacups on the devils banquet of the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, the President insisted on calling the virus that causes COVID-19 the Chinese virus. And this week, hes insulted a number of reporters at his press conferences. For days, the media couldnt stop talking about the incidents (yours truly was not exempt). But while the media obsessed over the Presidents nomenclature and attacks against themselves, no one else seemed to care. As of this writing, 60% of Americans approve of his handling of the COVID-19 crisis, according to a new Gallup poll. His approval rating is the highest of his entire presidency.
It was a stark reminder of how little the medias concerns reflect those of the nation more widely. Its a gap thats only growing, reflected in the incredulous and disgusted tweets of major media figures when they come across the presidents polling numbers. In fact, the true polarization in American life is not between Republican and Democratic voters, but between the American electorate and its representatives in government and in the media, who exist in a radically polarizing feedback loop that has disconnected them from the American people like two moons orbiting each other that have lost the centripetal pull to the planet they once circled.
Of course, this is hard to see if youre on one of those moons. So its no surprise that media personalities think that the polarization thats happening in their class is representative of how Americans feel. Thus, Ezra Kleins new book Why Were Polarized. The we in the title is presumably America, though the question in Kleins title is not the one he ultimately answers. This is not a book about people, Klein admits in the introduction. Instead, he focuses on braiding together the insights of two other sources of information politicians, activists, government officials and political scientists, sociologists, historians to make the case that politics has become more polarized to appeal to a more polarized public, effectively polarizing the public further in a feedback loop.
The book explores the history of American politics, showing how the two parties used to be a lot more similar to each other, resulting in a large percentage of Americans splitting their votes between Republicans and Democrats. This essentially kept politics from being too polarized because peoples identities werent bound up in it; the parties were just too similar to allow for that kind of investment. Klein argues that as the parties differentiated themselves, different kinds of Americans began sorting themselves into the parties, merging racial, religious, geographic and cultural identities with political ones and making politics more personal, more urgent, and crucially more defined against the other side.
But Kleins argument is undercut by a number of facts, some of which are his own observations. Take the fact Klein mentions that less than half of Republicans or Democrats think the other party is a threat to the nations well-being, a statistic the Pew Research Center found as recently as 2016. Or consider another fact Klein brings up: the era in which Washington was least polarized, when the Dixiecrats reigned across the Jim Crow South, political consensus rested on a foundation of racial bigotry that most would find abhorrent today, a political system far more ideologically extreme than the one we have today, even as it was less polarized. Polarization begets polarization, he writes. But it doesnt beget extremism.
In fact, what Klein is describing is not so much polarization as sorting: He hasnt shown that Americans have migrated to two distant poles on a spectrum, so much as that they have formed two distinct camps, neither of which is at an extreme. When polarization is driven by allegiance to political parties, it can be moderating, Klein admits. In other words, just as the Dixiecrats and the Republicans of pre-Civil Rights America were more or less united in their racism, todays Republicans and Democrats are more or less united in their opposition to it. (I guess Why Were Sorted is a worse book title.)
One wonders: If polarization is correlated with an America moderating itself away from racism into two less-racist camps, what makes it a crisis? And weare getting less racist something that polling shows and that Klein, too, admits throughout the book. Despite arguing that there is a growing sense of white racial solidarity, the logical endgame of a national politics based on identity, researchers have found that most feel this solidarity without an accompanying sense of racial hostility, writes Klein. In fact, Trump himself is a mix of more and less popular versions of white identity politics, and even his ardent base objects to outright racism, writes Klein: The president combines a focus on protecting native-born whites from both immigrant competition and foreign competition popular with the base with unpopular displays of racism and bigotry.
The idea that politics is about identities rather than ideas or policies is Kleins central thesis. Its an argument that erases the political sphere altogether, rooting all politics in the body (Hannah Arendt would not approve; she believed that humans natural tendency towards prejudice and hatred and our natural state of inequality were precisely the things the political realm was designed to help us escape). But here, too, the argument doesnt quite stand up to a crucial counterexample. Klein contends that Democrats and Republicans are sorting themselves by religion and race. He cites research by the Pew Research Center from 2002 which found that 50% of Republicans and 52% of Democrats said it wasnt necessary to believe in God to be a moral person. By 2017, it was 47% of Republicans but 64% of Democrats. But Democrats are hardly a collection of atheists; African Americans are actually more likely than the overall public to be Christian, while remaining the Democrats most reliable base of voters. And while 13% of Democrats say they dont believe in God, compared to just 5% of Republicans, that means that 87% of Democrats are in agreement with 95% of Republicans hardly a sign of polarization.
Klein does an excellent job exposing the underbelly of 21st century media operations, and the way Trump worked essentially as a marketer not just for himself, but for the media he loves to hate. And if the book had been titled, How Media and Political Elites Are Polarizing Each Other, it would have been an extremely successful and convincing argument. But the second half of the thesis, which argues that this phenomenon carries over from these elites and the American electorate, simply doesnt stand up.
He cites the work of political scientists Christopher D. Johnston, Howard G. Lavine, and Christopher M. Federico in Open versus Closed: Personality, Identity, and the Politics of Redistribution, to argue that the least-engaged voters tend to look at politics through the lens of material self-interest (what will this policy do for me?) while the most-engaged look at politics through the lens of identity (what does support for this policy position say about me?). Left unsaid is that the majority of American voters are not very engaged politically; 54% hold a roughly equal mix of conservative and liberal positions, or dont follow the news at all.
Klein realizes this. We talk a lot about the left-right polarization in the political news, he writes. We dont talk enough about the divide that precedes it: the chasm separating the interested from the uninterested. But just a few pages later, he cites a study of Twitter users to make the case that Americans are unpersuadable (I could have told you that Twitter users are unpersuadable) when just 22% percent of Americans use Twitter, and they tend to be younger, wealthier and more educated than the nation at large. In fact, the effects predicted by the Twitter study were undercut by another study Klein cites just after it, which found that when you allowed people who didnt want to be watching the news to flip the channel, the polarization effect dissipated entirely. Thats because the uninvested, who dont spend their time raging on Twitter, actually are persuadable, a fact Klein seems close to realizing before he returns to his thesis.
In other words, Klein goes from an obvious observation that political elites and party activists are addicted to cable news and Twitter to a much more contentious claim, that they have polarized the electorate. But he doesnt actually prove this second half. And theres much evidence to suggest its not the case.
Its not just the many, many Americans who are disengaged and thus much less polarized. Nor is it the 8.4 million voters who went from Obama to Trump, unaccounted for in Kleins model (you read that right: 8.4 million), or the Republicans who voted for Joe Biden in Virginia. Its that the poles dont seem to exist at all anymore.
Take the Democratic primary. Kleins argument that the polarization of the media and politicians bleeds out to the electorate would have predicted certain victory for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist with a radical leftist agenda. And yet, Sanders has been all but vanquished by the moderate Joe Biden, despite outspending him by millions of dollars. This is hard to square with Kleins analysis.
And on the other side of the aisle, Klein casts Trump as Sanders mirror image in the Republican Party, proof of the party moving to a rightward extreme. And yet, Trump just doesnt represent the apotheosis of Republican ideology or policy at all. The Republicans have long stood for American exceptionalism, endless war, free market economics and an aversion to Russia. President Trump stands for just the opposite.
Take, for example, the trade agreement with Mexico, the USMCA, that Trump pushed to replace NAFTA and signed into law. By all accounts, its the most pro-labor, environmentally friendly trade agreement the U.S. has ever entered into. In addition to new environmental provisions, 40% of car parts must be made by workers who earn at least $16 an hour, and cars must have 75% of their parts made in North America to qualify for zero tariffs. Yet it was Trump who pushed for the deal aggressively, instructing Republicans to capitulate to the Democrats on all of their conditions, causing Pennsylvania Republican Patrick Toomey to complain that it seemed to be just a one-way direction in the direction of Democrats.
Its not just the USMCA. In his trade war with China, Trump took up actions that labor unions and other liberals have long demanded. And these policies have paid off as Democrats correctly believed they would. Until the Coronavirus sent the markets into freefall, the US was enjoying the longest period of growth in its history. Speaking of which, the Senates $2 trillion stimulus package includes $1,200 checks to many Americans something Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had already decided on before negotiations with the Democrats.
Trump doesnt represent the apotheosis of extreme Republican views so much as the scrambling of American political categories of right and left.
Klein admits that Trump doesnt have traditional Republican values. But he suggests that it was elites politicians like Cruz endorsing Trump that convinced the Republican electorate to vote for him, when it is certainly the case that it was the opposite: Trumps polling convinced Cruz to endorse him, despite what is an avowedly liberal economic platform.
But the scrambling of the parties priorities goes beyond the economy. President Trumps First Step Act is a criminal justice reform bill has already helped free thousands of prison inmates, 91% of whom were black. And hes not the lone Republican to have taken on the cause; red states like Oklahoma, Georgia and Idaho have been quietly releasing prisoners and reforming their criminal justice systems for the better part of a decade.
The truth is, despite losing at the ballot box, the left has won the culture wars; though the Republicans are helmed by a man who makes a habit of racist and misogynistic invective, conservatives have by and large disavowed racism and sexism, and even homophobia. Support for gay marriage has skyrocketed on the right, from 23% in 2001 to 44% in 2019, just like support for interracial marriage, with 88% of Republicans saying either that interracial marriage is good or, more commonly, that it doesnt make a difference what race the person you marry is. The House just passed a near unanimous bill outlawing lynching, a bill that had bedeviled previous generations.
And on other culture wars issues, our sorting has, as Klein predicted, moderated us. Nearly 90% of Americans favor increased mental health funding to screen and treat people trying to buy a gun. 83% favor background checks, and 72% favor red flag laws. As recently as 2018, Republicans and Democrats were equally likely to say they were satisfied with their healthcare costs (60% vs. 61%). And with the majority of Democrats holding strong to the belief that abortion should only be legal in the first trimester, there just isnt that much that divides us anymore.
The true mystery of American life is not why were polarized but why we arent, despite the fact that our politicians and media so desperately want us to be. Its something we should take deep pride in. If those in the media and the government who purport to represent us actually did so, they would focus less time in a self-radicalizing call and response with the President, and more time focusing on what unites us.
Batya Ungar-Sargon is the opinion editor of the Forward.
Read more from the original source:
Coronavirus exposed a huge gap between the media and the American people - Forward
- Inside the Big Issue: Superheroes vs the culture wars - Big Issue - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- As the culture wars hit Englands schools, we teachers are being thrown into a minefield - The Guardian - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- My Generation Is Sick of Your Culture Wars. Here's What Students Really Need (Opinion) - Education Week - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Rugby has been stuck in the middle of the nation's culture wars - and it is an ugly place full of threats and lies - WarwickshireWorld - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Trump agencies turn up heat on culture wars - Axios - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- A Liberal government uninterested in fighting culture wars? This could be it - MSN - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- Woke but not broke? Superman soars above culture wars to dominate global box office - The Sydney Morning Herald - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- A Liberal government uninterested in fighting culture wars? This could be it - National Post - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- What's killing the media goes all the way back to a famous 100-year-old culture wars trial: critic - Alternet - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Opinion | The culture wars: Trumps takeover of the Kennedy Center - Toronto Star - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Walter Kim: Reaching Every GenerationCuriosity, Connection, & Culture Wars - ChurchLeaders - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- From Cornbread to Culture Wars - iHeart - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- As a visibly Muslim woman, I'm so tired of bearing the brunt of the UK's toxic culture wars - Glamour UK - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Eamon Ryan: We cant afford to let the climate crisis get swallowed up in the culture wars - The Irish Times - June 24th, 2025 [June 24th, 2025]
- Bikinis and burgers: How the culture wars are remaking advertising - AFR - June 20th, 2025 [June 20th, 2025]
- Conservatives lose culture wars because they don't show up - Washington Examiner - June 20th, 2025 [June 20th, 2025]
- Revolutionary Ideas || Marxism and Culture Wars: How We Fight Oppression - International Socialist Alternative - June 20th, 2025 [June 20th, 2025]
- The dangers of imported American culture wars on Scottish women's rights - TheNational.scot - June 20th, 2025 [June 20th, 2025]
- Paul Elie on Culture Wars in Music and Art - Christianity Today - June 18th, 2025 [June 18th, 2025]
- Co-Learning Intersectionality and Social Justice during Culture Wars - E-International Relations - June 12th, 2025 [June 12th, 2025]
- How the word womyn dragged the National Spelling Bee into the US culture wars - The Guardian - May 28th, 2025 [May 28th, 2025]
- EDITORIAL | Student Speech: Schools that wade into culture wars should expect pushback - Texarkana Gazette - May 28th, 2025 [May 28th, 2025]
- Jerry Falwell and the Chistian Culture Wars - CounterPunch.org - May 28th, 2025 [May 28th, 2025]
- Kudlow: President Trump Is Gradually Winning The Culture Wars - Real Clear Politics - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Larry Kudlow: Trump is gradually winning the culture wars, but much more must be done - Fox Business - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Here come the culture wars: can Queenslands LNP resist wading into the ideological mire? - The Guardian - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Trump Is Gradually Winning the Culture Wars but Much More Must Be Done - The New York Sun - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- From Barbiecore to the Culture Wars: Alex Clarks Podcast Pivot Exposes the Right-Wing Media Machine - CEO Today - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- John Rustad: It's time for B.C. NDP to end culture wars and wedge politics - Vancouver Sun - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Gary Lineker, the culture wars and why his BBC exit became a sad inevitability - The Athletic - The New York Times - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Why culture wars and anti-wokeness is really nothing new - NZ Herald - May 15th, 2025 [May 15th, 2025]
- In the way it addresses culture wars, Labor is acting more like a truly liberal party - ABC Religion & Ethics - Australian Broadcasting... - May 15th, 2025 [May 15th, 2025]
- Religious freedom laws: Albanese has shied from culture wars. This one waits for him when parliament resumes - The Sydney Morning Herald - May 15th, 2025 [May 15th, 2025]
- Trumps firing of Hayden brings culture wars to the Library of Congress - Baltimore Sun - May 15th, 2025 [May 15th, 2025]
- Culture comes first in cybersecurity. That puts cybersecurity on the front line in the culture wars - theregister.com - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- While His Admin Delights In The Culture Wars, Trump Tiptoes Around Abortion. At Least For Now. - Talking Points Memo - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- Australians have soundly rejected Trump-style culture wars. Now Albanese must act with courage and vision - The Guardian - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- Culture wars, political polarization and deepening inequality: the roots of Trumpism - The Conversation - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- THE OCEANSIDER: An Aside About the School Board Elections Culture Wars Trickle Down to Tillamook - Tillamook County Pioneer - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- OPINION: Book bans draw libraries into damaging culture wars that undermine their purpose - The Hechinger Report - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- PG Tips enters the tea culture wars with NCA - More About Advertising - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- Debate over partisanship, culture wars in Mansfield ISD at center of school board race - Fort Worth Report - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- Oklahoma Watch: The Supreme Court had classroom culture wars on top of mind in oral arguments - Duncan Banner - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- The Supreme Court Had Classroom Culture Wars on Top of Mind in Oral Arguments - notus.org - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- Culture wars and costings: election special podcast with Michelle Grattan and Amanda Dunn - The Conversation - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- Online pile-ons and culture wars: how did we get here? - The Sydney Morning Herald - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- Opinion | Can the Catholic Church Quit the Culture Wars? - The New York Times - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Morning Mail: Dutton switches to culture wars in last debate; Canada heartbroken after car ramming; Liverpool win league - The Guardian - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- How your showerhead and fridge got roped into the culture wars - Grist.org - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Libraries have been in the crosshairs of culture wars throughout history - Houston Public Media - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Symbol of Injustice and the culture wars: Volleyball trans athlete and her teammates are caught in the middle - Genetic Literacy Project - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Fundamentalists in the Public Square: Evolution, Alcohol, and Culture Wars after the Scopes Trial - The Gospel Coalition - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Culture Wars talk New Single Typical Ways, And New Upcoming Album - Soundsphere magazine - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Can culture wars win elections? - Australian Broadcasting Corporation - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Peter Dutton flicks switch to culture wars as cost of living proves tough egg to crack - The Guardian - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- VIDEO: Costings and culture wars as last week begins - Australian Broadcasting Corporation - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Justices Consider the Culture Wars During LGTBQ Storybook Hearing - Law.com - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Laura Tingle's Election: polls and culture wars in the final week - Australian Broadcasting Corporation - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Capitol Update: Rep. Brandon Woodard says GOP put culture wars over real solutions this session - Johnson County Post - April 21st, 2025 [April 21st, 2025]
- How Emerging Adults Have Historically Responded To Culture Wars - Forbes - April 21st, 2025 [April 21st, 2025]
- Campfire and culture wars: the history of the American summer camp - MSN - April 21st, 2025 [April 21st, 2025]
- The charts that show youngsters are rejecting the Lefts culture wars - The Telegraph - April 3rd, 2025 [April 3rd, 2025]
- Beyond the culture wars: How mysticism can get us beyond polarisation - Catholic Outlook - April 3rd, 2025 [April 3rd, 2025]
- Work and money worry young people more than culture wars or climate, UK poll finds - The Guardian - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- Ag Secretary Uses Purse Strings to Press Culture Wars in States - DTN Progressive Farmer - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- Lionel Shriver: Trump has ended US culture wars but UK is lagging - The Times - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- No 10 happy to dip its toe into culture wars in row with Sentencing Council - The Guardian - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- Canada ditches divisive culture wars for focused hyper-nationalism thanks to Donald Trump - Daily Maverick - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- Disneys New Snow White Film Fights Culture Wars and Wins - Bloomberg - March 22nd, 2025 [March 22nd, 2025]
- Culture wars reach the classroom: What is the best way to teach children about gender and identity? - The Irish Times - March 22nd, 2025 [March 22nd, 2025]
- 'I thought we were done with the culture wars': Democrats push back on measure clarifying what makes school books 'harmful to minors' - Creative... - March 22nd, 2025 [March 22nd, 2025]
- Letter: Culture wars drove me away from the GOP - Bangor Daily News - March 9th, 2025 [March 9th, 2025]
- Beth Ann Rosica: Pennsylvania culture wars to be waged in the courtroom - Broad + Liberty - March 9th, 2025 [March 9th, 2025]
- I have a pathological need to be right: Ash Sarkar on culture wars, controversy and Corbyns lost legacy - The Guardian - March 7th, 2025 [March 7th, 2025]
- Alex Gibney to Exec Produce Doc About College Culture Wars and Freedom of Speech (EXCLUSIVE) - Variety - March 7th, 2025 [March 7th, 2025]
- Embrace of authoritarianism in US fueled by culture wars more than economy, study finds - The University of Kansas - March 7th, 2025 [March 7th, 2025]
- Memo to Hollywood: Theres No Running or Hiding From the Culture Wars - TheWrap - March 7th, 2025 [March 7th, 2025]
- Culture wars reach warfighters as area military bases ordered to scrub online content - Fredericksburg Free Press - March 7th, 2025 [March 7th, 2025]
- The WA election campaign has been about big promises, but culture wars are inescapable in contemporary politics - The Conversation Indonesia - March 7th, 2025 [March 7th, 2025]
- How the Right Hijacked the Working Class for Culture Wars - Social Europe - March 1st, 2025 [March 1st, 2025]