US Politics: Terminal America

[The Anti-Targ]

Just read this about the USDA budget for 2018

Quote

USDA faces 'significant cuts' under Trump administration budget proposal

By Adam Sharpe

Published: 24 May 2017 06:23 PM

A number of key USDA programmes are in line for significant cuts in funding or elimination altogether under a 2018 budget proposal put forward by President Donald Trump’s administration.

The budget proposal, released on Tuesday (May 23) sets the USDA budget at US$137 billion for the 2018 fiscal year, down by around 8% from the current level, and suggests removing, reducing or capping funding for areas such as crop insurance, rural development and environmental conservation.  

The total budget is made up of around $21bn in discretionary funding, down 21% from the current 2016 fiscal year level, which will end on September 30 this year, and $116bn in mandatory funding. The total figure is down 8% from 2016.

The Fiscal 2017 omnibus enacted earlier this month provides USDA and its programs with $20.9 billion in discretionary funding and $132.5 billion in mandatory funds.

US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said on Tuesday there was no reason to “sugarcoat” the proposal and acknowledged his department likely will face significant cuts.

But, he insisted the cuts will help in reducing or eliminating the budget deficit. “I think the people knew what they were doing when they elected President Trump,” Perdue said.

Mandatory programmes

In regard to programs that fall into the ‘mandatory’ funding category, the new proposal place a limit on crop insurance premium subsidies and crop-support payments to farmers making $500,000 or less in adjusted gross income, Agra Europe’s US-based sister title Issue Monitor reports.

The administration has proposed to cap crop insurance premium subsidies at $40,000 per farmer; limit eligibility for payments from commodity crop programs to producers with adjusted gross incomes of $500,000 or less; limit eligibility for the federally subsidized crop insurance program to farmers with adjusted gross incomes of $500,000 or less; and end subsidies for the harvest price option for crop insurance.

Under harvest price, farmers with the option can choose to receive payouts calculated on the higher of two prices, a pre-set contracted price or the crop price at harvest time.

The budget document says ending federal premium subsidies for the harvest price option “maintains crop insurance for low yields and low prices.” The administration argued the $500,000 adjusted gross income cap to qualify for crop insurance, conservation and commodity payments is defensible to taxpayers because it is “hard to justify providing assistance to farmers with incomes over half a million dollars.”

It also sets out new restrictions on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamp, eligibility. The proposal includes eliminating a guaranteed minimum benefit for people who qualify for lower benefits and capping the maximum household benefit at the current level for a household of six

The administration is requesting $73.6bn for SNAP in Fiscal 2018, down from the $78.5bn funding levels of 2017. The SNAP reductions would produce $193bn in deficit savings from 2018 through 2027, it says in the proposal.

Now in general I am opposed to subsidies, but if there are subsidies they need to be equitable. Reading this it gives the impression that smaller farmers are being hit harder. But I admit I don't know much detail about these programmes, so I might be misinterpreting it.

The SNAP thing sounds rather mean too.

 

[Dr. Pepper]

The SNAP part makes my stomach drop.  It really is pro life until born for these fuckers, isn't it.  Even more kids will be facing even higher rates of food insecurity.  I'm sick.

For the rest, I honestly don't know who exactly would be affected.  Aren't farmers part of Trumps and the GOP base?  I'd imagine they'd be hella opposed to any cuts.

[Sivin]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

The SNAP part makes my stomach drop.  It really is pro life until born for these fuckers, isn't it.  Even more kids will be facing even higher rates of food insecurity.  I'm sick.

For the rest, I honestly don't know who exactly would be affected.  Aren't farmers part of Trumps and the GOP base?  I'd imagine they'd be hella opposed to any cuts.

My sister and her husband were on SNAP (not sure if they still are). They both voted for Trump and I have not an ounce of sympathy.

[The Anti-Targ]

29 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Indeed. If a person wholly unacquainted with American politics read these threads, he or she would probably be very confused why Americans don't just vote for Democrats all of the time, but of course the reality is quite different. Democrats are different from Republicans in many ways, but they are similar in that their first loyalty is always to Wall Street and their other big donors. Many of these overlap with those of the Republicans while others are distinct, but this matters little since there is no way to deliver on the hope and optimism without squeezing the whole lot of them.

 

 

You're only half right. Being beholden to special interests is one side of the problem. Being ideologically and partisan based is the other side of the problem, and the more fundamental side of the problem since the structure of the democracy naturally leads to capture by special interests.

[Dr. Pepper]

1 minute ago, WinterFox said:

My sister and her husband were on SNAP (not sure if they still are). They both voted for Trump and I have not an ounce of sympathy.

I'm with you on that.  Most of the white people in my family who voted for Trump also rely heavily on things like welfare or the ACA.  That side of the family are farmers so they get subsidies galore (of course, they'd never call that welfare, even though it is).  A bunch also rely on WIC or SNAP plus Medicaid or Obamacare.  But they're different, for reasons.

[LongRider]

52 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 I always have to go for the cheap joke. It's in my DNA.

I think we share some of that DNA.   

In more important news, how did we miss this?

Quote

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, pressed Sunday on White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s reported attempts to establish secret lines of communication with Russia during the presidential transition, said any such channels of communication are “a good thing.”

While not confirming reports that Kushner discussed with Russian officials how to create back channels of communication that might evade potential U.S. monitoring, Kelly said that any attempts to strengthen dialogue with Russia were a positive.

“I don’t know if it is true or not; I know it’s being reported in the press,” Kelly said on "Fox News Sunday," before being told by anchor Chris Wallace that the network had confirmed that the discussion between Kushner and Russian officials had taken place.

“I think that any channel of communication, back or otherwise, with a country like Russia is a good thing,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me.”

So secret, possibly illegal back channel open by Trump's SIL is good, positive, not a bother.  Trump must hire and have his daughter marry the best people because they sure cover his fat ass.

[The Anti-Targ]

6 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

The SNAP part makes my stomach drop.  It really is pro life until born for these fuckers, isn't it.  Even more kids will be facing even higher rates of food insecurity.  I'm sick.

For the rest, I honestly don't know who exactly would be affected.  Aren't farmers part of Trumps and the GOP base?  I'd imagine they'd be hella opposed to any cuts.

It's possible the smaller farmers aren't quite so solidly Republican. Rural districts don't vote 100% Republican, so there are obviously some rural demographics who vote Democrat, and I suspect it's not the big landowners.

There is the crop insurance premium cap at $40,000, which I imagine affects larger farmers more. But the other cuts are directed at smaller farmers. But I don't know if the cuts are aligning things to make the system more equitable between large and small farmers, or if they are making the system less equitable for the small guys. 

Cuts I tend to agree with are the market access (export) support programmes. These programmes should be industry funded not tax payer funded. Our market access division, which I work in, is almost entirely industry funded, and agricultural exports our the biggest export sector. However, cutting the programmes completely rather than transitioning to full cost recovery from industry seems to be rather short sighted. But maybe the ag export sectors don't see enough value in these programmes to be inclined to want to financially support them.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Altherion said:

To reduce the polarization, one needs to either increase the size of the pie or reapportion it such that the competition for a reasonable slice is not as fierce

Democrats are different from Republicans in many ways, but they are similar in that their first loyalty is always to Wall Street and their other big donors.

Okay a couple of things here:

1. You are not exactly wrong here about donors, in both parties, callin the shots. 

In fact, I'm gonna cite line here from an old paper:

Here is a link.

Here is the quote:

Quote

In reality, however, party platforms are greatly influenced by, say, campaign contributions. Bartels (2002) examines the differential responsiveness of U.S. senators to the preferences of rich and poor constituents, and finds that on average, constituents at the 75th percentile of the income distribution have almost three times as much influence on senators’ general voting patterns as those at the 25th percentile.

2. I'm much of a Bread-N-Butter, FDR Democrat as the next guy. But, I think really, you're missing a big part of the story here:

Quoting again:

Quote

We identify two mechanisms through which racism among American voters decreases the degree of redistribution that would otherwise obtain. Many authors have suggested that voter racism decreases the degree of redistribution due to an anti-solidarity effect: that (some) voters oppose government transfer payments to minorities whom they view as undeserving. We point to a second effect as well: that some voters who desire redistribution nevertheless vote for the anti-redistributive party (the Republicans) because that party’s position on the race issue is more consonant with their own, and this, too, decreases the degree of redistribution. We call this the policy bundle effect. The effect of voter racism on redistribution is the sum of these two effects. We propose a formal model of multidimensional political competition that enables us to estimate the magnitude of these two effects, and estimate the model for the period 1976-1992. We numerically compute that during this period voter racism reduced the income tax rate by 11-18 percentage points; the total effect decomposes about equally into the two sub-effects.

 

Quote

We conclude that both the policy bundle effect and anti-solidarity effect of racism on fiscal policyare significant and negative in this period. Voter racism pushes both parties in the United States significantly to the right on economic issues. 

 

Quote

Indeed the historical observation that the United States experienced increasing income inequality and significant tax cuts since the 1980s raises one puzzle to the well known claim of unidimensional Downsian models, that the equilibrium tax rate is positively correlated with inequality. If the dimension of income had become more and more important in determining the voting pattern, how could one explain that the equilibrium tax rates have been declining in the period of rising inequality?

The current paper provides an answer to this question: the existence of a non-economic dimension, such as race, changes the alignment of voters in a significantly different way from that predicted by one dimensional models. 

The point here is that if you want less wealth inequality, then you have to fight racism. And, though, the paper didn't address it ditto with sexism too.

Without working on the racism stuff and on the sexism stuff, simply going to the left on economics might actually backfire, which this paper seemingly suggest.

One Pie Growin'

1. Yeah this is kind of what the Republican Party has been pushin for about 40 years now, to wit: let us bust up your unions, refuse to wage mininum wage laws, and cut taxes for the very wealthy, and the growth will be so awesome, you won't even notice we busted up your unions and refused to raise minimum wage laws.

Except, it never frickin happens.

So, that leaves us with doin some re-apportionin'.

The ultimate point here is you won't get more re-apportionin' until you somehow diminish the influence of racism, sexism, and the other bad isms. Of course there are other reasons to fight that stuff too, like just basic human decency.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Dr. Pepper said:

The SNAP part makes my stomach drop.  It really is pro life until born for these fuckers, isn't it.  Even more kids will be facing even higher rates of food insecurity.  I'm sick.

Yeah it really pisses me off too. Also, it seems to me that conservatives think we spend a huge amount on SNAP. The fact is that, at least compared to the entire budget, we don't. It is very mean spirited.

[Rippounet]

9 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There are more educated people than at any time in the history of the country and this is true at all levels of education. Education is valuable in and of itself, but it is not going to solve this problem..

And yet, the numbers do suggest it could. Just the first article from google on this is pretty solid:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/

I could find many articles on this, with cross-country comparisons. It's a well-known fact that educated people do not massively vote for right-wing populists or the far-right. And yet, the US is already an exception in so far as wealthy educated voters are not as liberal as in other Western countries ; the split tends to be relatively even between liberals and conservatives in the US.
Nonetheless, despite winning the votes of many wealthy educated white voters, Trump still under-performed for a Republican:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/

What I gather from these sources is that educated conservative voters were less attracted to Trump than they were to Republican candidates in previous elections. For obvious reasons.

In a nutshell: I do believe educated voters, whether liberal or conservative, are less likely to be "trumpists" than less educated individuals.
I would even suggest that even those who did vote for Trump were actually voting for the conservative principles rather than the candidate himself.

Not that education can do miracles in a given election. In the long-run, a population that has access to quality education will be more demanding of its politicians. If the general state of politics is bad however, this may not be enough. What I mean by that is that bipartism may also lead even educated voters to abstain. To sum up, education helps, but is is only one of many factors.

9 minutes ago, Altherion said:

In fact, the variant being propagated in certain institutions actually makes it worse by using students as easily persuadable protest fodder.

You've said this before, and I strongly disagree. I guess in some academic fields there definitely is a liberal bias being felt. Identity or gender politics would be seen as "liberal propaganda" from a conservative perspective. In most fields however, what is often seen as bias is really academic requirement. I recently read an article somewhere (can't remember where, sorry) by an American academic explaining that the reason why conservatives are under-represented in academia is because they tend to disregard some very basic constraints of academic work, i.e. that they let some of their values cloud their judgment, especially religious ones.
I've read tons of books by American historians and most of the time I am completely unable to say whether the writer is conservative or liberal. Works that are obviously biased tend to be on the fringe. And I know it's a somewhat grand statement, but I've personally found that books with a liberal bias tend to be better researched. In academia, you're supposed to defend your ideas with facts and figures. Conservatives simply aren't so good at that ; quite often they don't even bother with the historiography and thus ignore inconvenient facts. Of course, I'm mostly talking about history, but I believe the same to be true in many other fields. It is also my belief that this is why the alt-right has been spreading fake news and "alternative facts" so much: because conservative research was not good enough for their purposes.

 

[ThinkerX]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

When you are actually doing something politically dubious, it is good policy to destroy evidence of dubious behaviour. At least this shows some smart, rational thinking, as opposed to recording conversations which can be used to impeach you later on.

However, is it not possible to recover supposedly deleted emails? 

[Sivin]

1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, I get that. This would be an escalation of what we've seen in Berkeley, replete with firearms and body armor and the like, I'm sure.

Manhole, I like you. I've internet-known you since you first popped up in the NFL thread like 6 years ago, back when me and trickster and bonesy and Mack stood defiant against the tyranny of Mya, Rockroi, and DG. If I recall correctly you were the first to welcome me back when I got out of basic training.

But the above is exactly what drove Pepps to such anger (if I may speak for her). An elected representative just suggested in all seriousness that he and members of his party are going to formulate gangs armed with guns to keep dissenters away from their public outreaches.

That is a gross perversion of everything the Republic stands for. And you're normalizing it because some kids at a college held trashcan lids and makeshift clubs? Unless a public servant told them to do that and those clubs could shoot bullets, the situation is not the same.

52 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I'm with you on that.  Most of the white people in my family who voted for Trump also rely heavily on things like welfare or the ACA.  That side of the family are farmers so they get subsidies galore (of course, they'd never call that welfare, even though it is).  A bunch also rely on WIC or SNAP plus Medicaid or Obamacare.  But they're different, for reasons.

I struggled internally for some time after the election with the knowledge that possibly the only way to save our democracy would be to see all of Paul Ryan's sick dreams come to pass.

I have healthcare for the rest of my life. I can defend myself. I will always have enough resources to survive. I can even pretend to be a man if needs be.

Therefor the best personal outcome of the 2016 elections would be the republicans ruining the credibility of their party forever with the electorate. Leading to a shifting back to center from where they would perhaps be less dogged in attacking lgbt rights after democrats cleaned up what would be a horrible mess of a country. 

Far from certain, and I'm sure motivated greatly by my desire for the masses that elected them to finally suffer for their actions. But I don't see any way for this dangerous ideology to be defeated other than the people getting just a taste of the horror before a competent demagogue takes control of them. The human suffering involved chills me to the core though.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

28 minutes ago, WinterFox said:

Manhole, I like you. I've internet-known you since you first popped up in the NFL thread like 6 years ago, back when me and trickster and bonesy and Mack stood defiant against the tyranny of Mya, Rockroi, and DG. If I recall correctly you were the first to welcome me back when I got out of basic training.

But the above is exactly what drove Pepps to such anger (if I may speak for her). An elected representative just suggested in all seriousness that he and members of his party are going to formulate gangs armed with guns to keep dissenters away from their public outreaches.

That is a gross perversion of everything the Republic stands for. And you're normalizing it because some kids at a college held trashcan lids and makeshift clubs? Unless a public servant told them to do that and those clubs could shoot bullets, the situation is not the same.

I'm not normalizing it. I'm not advocating it or excusing it. I'm suggesting that it is a natural progression to the extreme polarization that both sides of the fence are projecting. It starts with sticks and rocks, then moves to billy clubs and shields, then it's PRAISE GOD AND PASS THE AMMUNITION. 

 You throw M-80's at a group of people (including senior citizens) and the next time around they show up with guns, and you're surprised? I guess antifa will have to procure some RPG's and hand grenades to balance this out.

And yes, I get that an elected official spouting this bullshit takes this to another level. This idiot should be ran out of town on the rails. If anyone gets killed or even seriously injured on the back of this idiot's pronouncement, he should be held responsible.

[ThinkerX]

Breaking News (so far available only from this CBS clip) - Trump administration identifies three leakers of classified info, who are expected to be fired. (Side note: to me the 'expert' looks like he was run over by a truck.) 

My take: not only will the leaks continue (informal policy by Trump staffers to gain his attention), but the 'leakers' might have very interesting testimony to give before Congress:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politicsvideo/white-house-identifies-three-leakers-of-classified-information/vi-BBBDYmj?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580

 

[Dr. Pepper]

44 minutes ago, WinterFox said:

...what drove Pepps to such anger (if I may speak for her). ...

 

By all means.  You're much more eloquent than I could ever be.  Plus I freely admit that I'm an asshole.  Been called deplorable recently, and I'll accept that, if it makes a certain someone feel better.

 

2 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I think we share some of that DNA.   

In more important news, how did we miss this?

So secret, possibly illegal back channel open by Trump's SIL is good, positive, not a bother.  Trump must hire and have his daughter marry the best people because they sure cover his fat ass.

And we're all still glossing over this one.  I've been casually following it all weekend.  I felt a sense of hopelessness when the story first broke because the public and the GOP have proven to not care about any of this.  Foreign leaders are attacking Americans on our own soil.  There's a long shit list of the things Trump has done.  There's a leader figure of the nazis sitting at his right. Why would they give a fuck about this?  And it seems they haven't.  I'm still watching, waiting to see if anything comes of this.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

You're only half right. Being beholden to special interests is one side of the problem. Being ideologically and partisan based is the other side of the problem, and the more fundamental side of the problem since the structure of the democracy naturally leads to capture by special interests.

We've had partisanship based on ideology since almost the very beginning: George Washington was able to keep it down, but after he left it came out in full force and has been with us ever since. I don't think they're going away, but they have not always led to this degree of capture.

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

The ultimate point here is you won't get more re-apportionin' until you somehow diminish the influence of racism, sexism, and the other bad isms. Of course there are other reasons to fight that stuff too, like just basic human decency.

The 'isms (and their unnamed counterparts which discriminate against groups that are not protected) are a standard divide-and-conquer strategy. Of course if you could get the entirety of the working and middle classes (male and female, black, white and Hispanic, etc.) all on the same page regarding the redistribution of wealth, the options available to the elites to keep their share would greatly diminish. It's not going to happen though.

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

And yet, the numbers do suggest it could. Just the first article from google on this is pretty solid:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/

I could find many articles on this, with cross-country comparisons. It's a well-known fact that educated people do not massively vote for right-wing populists or the far-right. And yet, the US is already an exception in so far as wealthy educated voters are not as liberal as in other Western countries ; the split tends to be relatively even between liberals and conservatives in the US.
Nonetheless, despite winning the votes of many wealthy educated white voters, Trump still under-performed for a Republican:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/

What I gather from these sources is that educated conservative voters were less attracted to Trump than they were to Republican candidates in previous elections. For obvious reasons.

In a nutshell: I do believe educated voters, whether liberal or conservative, are less likely to be "trumpists" than less educated individuals.
I would even suggest that even those who did vote for Trump were actually voting for the conservative principles rather than the candidate himself.

This is specific to Trump though. He deliberately structured his campaign to appeal to people with less education -- just look at his usage of language. Half a century ago, there was another anti-establishment candidate who won the nomination of the Republican party. His name was Barry Goldwater and you may have seen comparisons of the Trump campaign to the 1964 election during the 2016 campaign as well as reuse of dirty tricks (example). These were made mostly by either Republicans fighting against Trump or Democrats preemptively savoring their triumph because Goldwater lost and he lost big: the vote was 61-39 in favor of Lyndon Johnson.

I bring this up for two reasons. First, Goldwater did a lot better among the college educated (48-52) than among those with a high school education (38-62) or those who only went to grade school (34-66). Second, the overall level of education is a lot higher today than half a century ago: we don't even have a "grade school" poll option anymore and instead there is a significant fraction of post-graduates. Despite this, Trump not only did a whole lot better than Goldwater, he won. It's pretty amazing that the most educated cohort of Americans in the history of the country elected President Donald J. Trump.

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

You've said this before, and I strongly disagree. I guess in some academic fields there definitely is a liberal bias being felt. Identity or gender politics would be seen as "liberal propaganda" from a conservative perspective. In most fields however, what is often seen as bias is really academic requirement. I recently read an article somewhere (can't remember where, sorry) by an American academic explaining that the reason why conservatives are under-represented in academia is because they tend to disregard some very basic constraints of academic work, i.e. that they let some of their values cloud their judgment, especially religious ones.
I've read tons of books by American historians and most of the time I am completely unable to say whether the writer is conservative or liberal. Works that are obviously biased tend to be on the fringe. And I know it's a somewhat grand statement, but I've personally found that books with a liberal bias tend to be better researched. In academia, you're supposed to defend your ideas with facts and figures. Conservatives simply aren't so good at that ; quite often they don't even bother with the historiography and thus ignore inconvenient facts. Of course, I'm mostly talking about history, but I believe the same to be true in many other fields. It is also my belief that this is why the alt-right has been spreading fake news and "alternative facts" so much: because conservative research was not good enough for their purposes.

To be clear, I do not believe that academia as a whole or entire fields thereof are tainted by this. Most American scholars are reasonably good at what they do, if only because there is tremendous competition for tenured positions. However, the types that I mentioned in my post also exist (e.g. the professor who called for some muscle against a student) and their number appears to be growing (or at least there is more coverage of their actions).

[DMC]

@denstorebog from last thread:

Quote

I honestly don't know what the historical precedent for rolling back polarization like is, but maybe someone can enlighten me. All I hear is that "we need to educate people", but that doesn't seem like it'll happen on a large scale anytime soon.

As a consequence of the civil rights movement, each party began a process of ideological homogenization that crystallized with the 1994 midterms, and has led to levels of partisanship not seen since the post-Reconstruction era in both the House and the Senate.  Those graphs also make it apparent that while Democrats have become gradually more partisan since WWII, the most dramatic shift has been the Republicans since the mid-1990s.  

I am hard pressed to think of any single issue in American politics research in which more ink has been spilled over the last 15 years than polarization.  While first dimension DW-NOMINATE scores demonstrate elite polarization is at near-unprecedented levels - something everyone can agree upon - there are many explanations in the field on the causes of it.  I'm going to briefly summarize these, and then add a proposed solution that reflects the most straightforward and/or commonly stated ways to "roll back" polarization from empirically-driven answers to perhaps the greatest normative question of our time.  NOTE:  I'm not suggesting any of these proposed solutions are likely to come to fruition anytime soon.  On the contrary, almost every one would be closer to highly improbably, or even impossible.

1.)  Institutional:  Over 25 years ago, David Rohde identified the series of House reforms instituted in the mid-1970s led to an increased partisanship (the opposite of their intent).  This altered the "committee system" or "textbook Congress" when the Democratic House wrested control of old - largely southern and conservative - committee chairmen in an attempt to democratize the legislative process.  Instead, more control was seized by the party leadership, which demanded intraparty allegiance - particularly in procedural matters.  As Sean Theriault (2008) concludes, "the lion's share of party polarization in Congress can be accounted for by the changing dynamics of voting on procedures" (168).  Moreover, the subsequent brand of politics that demonizes the opposition was transferred to the Senate by the "Gingrich Senators."  

Proposed solution:  Obviously, a return to the committee system would re-empower chairs (and ranking members) to assert their own preferences rather than the party line on their given specialized policy era.  This could be supplemented by a resurgence in committee staff - which has not-coincidentally dramatically decreased since the 1970s - that increase the capacity for committees to produce quality policy rather than rely upon K-Street to write legislation.

2.)  Social:  Shanto Iyengar popularized the term "affective polarization," which refers to partisanship being increasingly associated with a hive-mentality and hostility towards outgroups.  Marc Hetherington documents how this has led to a precipitous decline in the public's trust in institutions - when the opposition party is in control.  Consequently, the majority party is hampered in constructing winning coalitions on most key agenda items, perpetuating gridlock and exacerbating the public's lack in trust.

Proposed solution:  Hetherington and Rudolph's (2015) own offering is that proponents of a policy should emphasize that action in terms of the particular agency involved (e.g. EPA for environmental policy) rather than in more generalized terms on government action.  Their findings show respondents of both parties hold more trust in specific agencies than items that refer to simply "government" or larger institutions.  

This suggests an emphasis on "good government" - and the invaluable work careerist bureaucrats conduct - may be a way to counteract the GOP assault on government since Reagan.  Rather than Clinton's "the era of big government is over," Dems in particular should emphasize governmental successes - and take a page from Trump's book IRT spiking the football.

3.)  Geographical:  Geographic sorting, i.e. the trend for urban eras to be increasingly Democrat and rural areas to be increasingly Republican - is a non-controversial source of mass polarization.  This corresponds to the intraparty ideological homogenization mentioned above.  What's interesting is findings like this, that suggest the preference to live near like-minded neighbors may have as much to do with personality traits as political or demographic factors.

Proposed solution:  Howard Dean's 50-state strategy during his tenure as DNC chair was oft-criticized at the time.  There is natural tendency (even by myself as an arm-chair electoral advisor) to ignore areas in which one's party is not going to be competitive.  However, Dean presided over the most successful period for Democrats throughout the country in a generation.  Committing resources to such areas should be a priority for each national party organization.  Further, the insistence on ideological purity among candidates needs to stop.  This is a very relevant concern - as seen in the uproar over the recent Omaha mayoral candidate having the gall to hold some pro-life views as a Nebraskan politician.

4.) Economic:  McCarty et al. (2006) highlight how polarization trends over the past hundred years correspond with income inequality.  Further, they couple this with the rise of immigration since the 1970s to posit that since a larger share of the poor either cannot vote or is increasingly disengaged, there is less political pressure for politicians to advocate redistributive policies.  While importantly this affects both parties, their story largely explains the GOPs marked shift to the right over the past 40 years mentioned above.

Proposed solution:  More than most, the authors paint this as a vicious cycle.  The most obvious remedy would be true immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship.  More generally, efforts to increase voter turnout are the obvious way in which to re-enfranchise the poor.

5.)  Media:  Mark Prior's "polarization without persuasion" shows that it's not the American public at-large that have become more polarized, but rather the electorate.  This is due to the advent of cable television (NOT cable news).  When there were only three channels, even those politically disinclined were virtually forced to watch the nightly news - and they would subsequently participate in politics.  Cable enabled these individuals to "opt-out" of the political system.  Since those that remained tend to be highly interested and knowledgable about politics, they also tend to be more partisan.  Then selective exposure emerged with cable news and the internet, exacerbating polarization among the politically interested - as low-information individuals that tend to be moderate become more disengaged in politics.

Proposed solution:  The nominal intent of the 1996 Telecommunications Act was to encourage competition through deregulation.  This had the exact opposite effect, as we have seen the rise of media conglomerates with news outfits that now solely rely on the profit motive.  The FCC rediscovering its role in ensuring standards of political news as a public good would be nice.  Further, as most European states show, a greater emphasis on public news leads to a more (well) informed citizenry.  Finally, increased turnout efforts to appeal to the disengaged moderates would help here as well.

 

I do not see how "education" is an elixir to polarization, and I say this in my role as an educator.  Indeed, causes 4 and 5 above suggest just the opposite.  The highly educated tend to be more partisan, not less.  One reason for this is part of Zaller's (1992) RAS model, in which more informed individuals have the capacity to reject information that conflict with their predispositions.  The bleeding-heart in me would say that education can help curb polarization, but that would the right type of education.  Basically, there needs to be a greater emphasis, and requirement, on basic civics in every undergraduate program (they're not getting it in high school).  

For every course I've taught, the learning goals of my preps focus on teaching students three things:  (1) That gridlock is not necessarily a bad thing, and in fact is a bedrock in the constitutional design of our political system; (2) that while it is human nature to reject dissonant information, it is also important to be cognizant of this when evaluating or exposing oneself to conflicting viewpoints; and (3) that interaction with the other side is the only way to rebuild civility and foster understanding, empathy, and even common ground.  One of my favorite teaching anecdotes is telling the kids that when I was their age living in DC, almost all of my friends were diametrically opposed to me politically.  One of our favorite pastimes was getting drunk and yelling at each other about politics.

A Note on Gerrymandering:  It is common for pundits that don't know what the fuck they're talking about to attribute polarization to gerrymandering.  This has been widely discredited among those that study polarization for a living - even those that used to cite this as a factor, namely Theriault, do not anymore.  Here is a fairly accessible article explaining why.  In a nutshell, gerrymandering as a cause lacks face validity because of two simple words:  The Senate.  Theoretically, the logic for gerrymandering as a causal mechanism is untenable - it has remained relatively constant since our Founding while polarization varies considerably.  Finally, one of the basic reasonings for gerrymandering is that it leads to more "safe seats."  This actually isn't the case - the party in control of the redistricting process wants to maximize their amount of seats.  Thus gerrymandering leads to an increased incentive to create more competitive districts by spreading out your voters.

[Toth]

8 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

They did that, in 2008. 8 years later...Trump. The problem with campaigning on hope and optimism is it leads to disillusionment when they fail to deliver. And the system as it is, is sets up those promises for failure. Are people going to swallow another line of hope and optimism so soon after the last progressive person to promise it largely left people wanting? 

I'm better not asking what your alternative would be. Instead I'm just going ask you to reflect why exactly your best president of the past few decades had most of his proposed changes smothered in the crib (and who did the smothering) and why he should be held accountable for the failure of Hillary's campaign that instead of change focused mostly on preserving the status quo and that she's at least not a cartoon villain. Seriously, this election the roles were reversed. Trump advocated change just as Obama did, just not an optimistic change for the sake of a glorious future but a mean-spirited 'torch the government'-change that managed to address lingering resentment. Hillary was just the worst possible counter to that that I can think of and this had barely anything to do with Obama's failure to deliver.

Regarding Obama himself... I may also ask you to reflect on why exactly the Republicans were so hostile to him as to deny him any cooperation whatsoever. It can't be just because he is a black dude. It's because he is a black dude with a message. Imagine the horror if he had succeeded in bettering lives of their uneducated voter base! The democrats would have risen on a wave of optimism in the knowledge that change is really possible and that it can be achieved through politicians with dreams and a clear message. They couldn't let that happen. After all their final goal is a similar situation as in North Korea: Where people are so miserable that they don't have the energy to defy their overlord. This is why the Republicans keep punishing their voter-base while maintaining their constant blaming of others. So far it has worked to a terrifying degree. Which is the main reason that the democrats need to counter with clear messages and no room to compromise. You guys need to primary all the corporate shills of Hillary's party that want to protect the status quo while sacrificing the future of their party. You guys need more people like Sanders (but maybe with more charisma), who can counter the Republicans' hate and self-pity with clear, easily understandable goals of structural change. This is the only way to reawaken the voter-base of Obama that Hillary had lost through her uninspired campaign.

[Altherion]

26 minutes ago, Toth said:

Regarding Obama himself... I may also ask you to reflect on why exactly the Republicans were so hostile to him as to deny him any cooperation whatsoever.

Because after the first few months, it was completely obvious that he wasn't going to do anything to rein in the elites and therefore opposition to him was politically profitable. In 2008, the Democrats were given not just unified control over the federal government, but Congressional majorities not seen for over a decade. They promptly used this to continue the direct and indirect bailout of Wall Street, redistribute resources within the 99% (most notably via ACA) and hide behind the filibuster to avoid offending their donors (even though everyone knows that they only needed a simply majority to remove the filibuster).

In these circumstances, it would have been politically insane for the Republicans to do anything but what they did and the voters rewarded them for their actions. In 2010, the Democrats lost 63 seats in the House and thus also control of it. The Senate elections are structured to avoid this kind of fluctuation, but of the 19 Democrat seats up for reelection, the Democrats lost 6 and they failed to win even a single Republican-held seat in return.

[Isalie]

I still don't get how seeking economical equality and combatting racism aren't basically the same thing. I'm sure there's lots of racism throughout the entire west (and world), but I'm also sure it affects the poor much more than the middle class. The same goes for sexism, though there education seems to be paying dividends and if not already so, in the near decades, the average man will be worse off than the average woman.