It means... (4.00 / 6)

It means that the two political parties have become more ideologically cohesive. It does not mean that the country has become more ideologically polarized.

Earlier this century, the Republican Party was big enough for Rockefeller and Goldwater, and the Democratic Party was big enough for Kennedy and Thurmond. This is no longer the case.

I bet that if you were to look at polling data that compares liberal and conservative approval of the President, you'd find that the difference between the two has been steady.

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by: Kal @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 14:42:36 PM UTC

Err... (0.00 / 0)

Last century, that is. We're not in the 90s anymore, right?

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by: Kal @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 15:24:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

this doesn't quite work (0.00 / 0)

If it were steady over time then we wouldn't see a trend in overall support. Follow the first link in the post and you'll see that support for new Presidents has steadily eroded from maybe 75% of the country in the 1940s-1950s down to the mid-50s lately (a bit higher for Obama).  

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by: tremayne @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 15:49:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Sample size? (0.00 / 0)

I don't think we have a big enough sample to make any kind of conclusions. It could be that Eisenhower really was more appealing than Clinton.

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by: Kal @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 16:48:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

look at the numbers above (0.00 / 0)

it's almost a perfect linear trend. I don't think it's a sample size issue or that we happened to get, successively, Presidents with less cross-over appeal, one after the other, until we get to Obama who is loved by Democrats and loathed by Republicans.  

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by: tremayne @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 17:01:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This Is Part Of The Reason, But It's More Complicated (4.00 / 2)

As tremayne notes below, this by itself can't account for the declining overall approval.  But I think it's really crucial, nonetheless.  As the parties become more ideologically homogeneous, the divide between parties becomes deeper, and thus the willingness to approve of the other guy goes down.  But it's also more likely that the liberal/conservative divide deepens as well.

One thing it's crucial to remember is that the Cold War is over, and so the "common enemy" mentality that tended to give higher level of support to presidents has gone away.  Look what happened after 9/11 when the "common enemy" mentality suddenly returned.  90% approval for the dufus who let it happen.  And that meant very high levels of support from liberals and Democrats.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 17:12:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Anomaly (4.00 / 1)

As you pointed out convincingly, Paul, the period from 1968 through 2008 was a unique period of divided government.  The degree of unity during the Cold War was limited and overstated.

Yes, Republican Senator Vandenberg helped pass the Marshall Plan and Everett McKinley Dirksen helped pass civil rights.  In between, we had McCarthyism and pretty vicious and personal Republican attacks on Harry Truman during an actual "hot" war (Korea).  I remember Republican Senator Keating attacking JFK during the Cuban Missile crisis.  He had his own version of Adlai's photographs through the Republican rumor mill.  Fittingly, Bobby wiped the floor with him in 1964.

What has changed is the personal deference and respect to the office of the President.  Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, and even Nixon started with it.  Ford and Carter didn't.  Clinton was instantly attacked in far more than Nixon level.  It was unreal.  People that didn't like him blamed everything on him.  Including NY City traffic.  Unreal.
(Btw, the Bible teaches respect for authority.  Some RW churches taught disrespect for Clinton.  From the start.)

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by: David Kowalski @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 19:36:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

A golden age lost? Not exactly. (4.00 / 4)

My take is that this is a record of the country slowly reverting to its normal state. The post-war consensus was real enough, but it papered over rather than resolved the fundamental conflicts which have divided the country since its founding. From the Federalist/Democratic-Republican wrestling match, the Jacksonian revival and the Civil War to Reagan's counter-revolution and Clinton's blowjob, America has never been short of rabid partisans.

What does it all mean? Lordy, don't ask me ;-)

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by: William Timberman @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 15:01:27 PM UTC

Realignment and Race (4.00 / 3)

The big change in politics since the 1960s is that the Democratic party has moved from being split on race to embracing the African-American vote, while the GOP now dominates mostly in the South, and appeals to the white vote, sometimes in an openly racist language, sometimes in veiled or coded language.

The Obama presidency and the election of 2008 is a culmination of trends that are rooted in the voting rights battle of the early 1960s, the voting rights act of 1965,  Nixon's Southern strategy, and white southern backlash vs. the Democratic party.

The current battle over voting registration, voter ID, etc. is a continuation of that long struggle.

A real breakthrough is the failure of reactionary forces to use race to win enough of the white vote to prevail in places like PA, VA and other swing states in this election.

I keep thinking of all the sacrifices, the ruined lives, the deaths, the tears, the suffering that went into making this moment possible.

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by: coral @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 17:32:05 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Bingo (4.00 / 1)

I was just about to call this a "reversion to the norm". American politics were traditionally very polarized and quite partisan.

The only reason that wasn't the case in the 1950s and 1960s was what historians call the "liberal consensus" that dominated politics at the time. With massive economic growth and shared prosperity, there was less to differentiate the two parties. They both agreed on the Cold War, both agreed on preserving the New Deal. But yes, those agreements did indeed paper over fundamental conflicts, as the 1960s and 1970s eventually proved.

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by: Robert in Monterey @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 21:16:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It means that this is a chance to chip away at (0.00 / 0)

what the 'perceived middle' is; think of it as a tug of war game and the middle of the rope is being pulled  to one side or the other.

Progressives should redouble the efforts on the Democratic side to get the message away from the Republican/moderate message, which ultimately translates into policies with consequences...in fact, it would be interesting to pose this visualization to the 'conservadems' and ask them why they are pulling on the Republican side of the rope.....there is no strand of the rope to pick up 'in the middle'...they had to make a choice for one side or the other and it seems they like the status quo and when they reaffirm the 'status qou' in this political climate that means validating the dominant idealogy of the past 30 years.

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by: Susan H @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 15:57:53 PM UTC

When substantive differences disappear, partisan sniping increases (4.00 / 2)

Look at the 1870s--you had two essentially corporatist parties fighting over who to send their patronage toward.  Teh party politics grew bitter and acrimonious just as their substantive differences diminished.  

Since Carter, there has been more and more consensus amongs our leaders as to what the proper policy should be, with only a few areas for real disagreement, and otherwise, marginal fights (i.e., whether the top tax rate should be 36% or 39%).  Yet, voters and candidates need to distinguish themselves.

So they ratchet up the rhetoric, and turn up their messaging machines to create brand distinctions where there is less of a substantive distinction to make.

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by: Valatan @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 16:12:03 PM UTC

A caveat (4.00 / 1)

The disappearance of substantive differences is an illusion, except among the managerial classes. For the moment, they may appear to control our political discourse, but that, too, is an illusion. In fact they control hardly anything in the historical sense, despite their pretensions to omnipotence.

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by: William Timberman @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 16:59:36 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Four parties becoming two (0.00 / 0)

We used to have four parties in this country, Northern Democrats, Northern Republicans, Southern Democrats and Southern Republicans.  This made two party unity very difficult.

Today is simply a more natural state for two parties to be in.

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by: Mark Matson @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 17:40:27 PM UTC

I'm not so optimistic (0.00 / 0)

While there should be some differences between the parties, we're getting to the point where the gap is getting scary.  That doesn't mean we, as Democrats, should back down from our positions.  If anything, Obama's policies are a return the policies of FDR, and the Republican criticisms of his policies mirror those used against FDR.

So, I don't think this is an issue of ideology.  Its an issue where the conservative media is advocating violence, and a few of these nutjobs are actually killing people.

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by: jim_treglio @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 19:55:51 PM UTC