Two different parties, two different worlds?
Not exactly, but sort of:
…[T]he American electorate has separated into two increasingly homogenous political tribes. As Lilliana Mason points out in Uncivil Agreement, “partisanship can now be thought of as a mega-identity.” The Republican mega-identity is religious, middle-class, rural, and white. The Democrat mega-identity is secular, working class, urban, non-white, and gay. But perceptions about group homogeneity can clash with reality.
I’m living proof of that. By sex, religion, education, appearance, general background, probably every demographic marker you can name, I should be a liberal Democrat. And indeed, once upon a time (in the increasingly distant past) I was a liberal Democrat. But when I turned into a conservative (which did not happen overnight), nothing else about me changed.
I do have a quarrel with the list of stereotypic attributes for perceptions of “the Democrat mega-identity” (otherwise known as “stereotype”). Urban, yes. Non-white? To a certain extent—that is, including a much higher percentage of non-whites than the Republican Party does (you can see the actual statistics for 2016 here; both parties are majority white, however, although the percentage for Republicans is much higher than for the Democrats). But “working-class”? Those days ended quite a while ago, not just with Trump. Reagan made the first inroads since the Depression, although I’m having trouble finding some statistics, and I think the political affiliation of this group has been rather fluid over the years. But “working class” does not automatically mean “Democrat” any more.
And “gay”? I would assume that the majority of gay people are indeed Democrats (although of course there are plenty of exceptions, such as this guy—and I also remember going to a Tea Party rally right at the start of that movement, and chatting for a long time with a woman who said she was a Hispanic lesbian who’s a Republican, and could I imagine what that was like for her?). But gay people are very much a minority in terms of percentages of overall numbers, even in the Democratic Party.
I think this is a fascinating statistic:
…Americans are convinced that they are locked in a political grudge match against a homogeneous tribe of outsiders.
As a result, Republicans and Democrats are increasingly unwilling to get married, be friends, or live beside one another. In 1960, only 5% of Republicans and 4% of Democrats disapproved of their child marrying outside their party. In 2014, 30% of Republicans and 23% of Democrats disapproved of inter-party marriage. Compare this to interracial marriage, a former taboo. According to Gallup, 87% of Americans now favor interracial marriage, up from 4% in 1958.
This next statistic surprised me (it’s from 2014):
Along the same lines, 63% of Republicans and 49% of Democrats report being friends primarily with those sharing their political views.
In my experience (and I’ve looked at life from both sides of the political fence) it’s more common for Democrats to shun Republicans as friends than vice versa. Maybe what’s not so common is for them to admit it. Or maybe the question was poorly worded; maybe when a lot of Democrats were answering, they were interpreting lack of sharing of political views as being, for example, a Democrat but not quite as far to the left as they are. Here’s the link to the survey question, which was asked in 2014 during the Obama years (and by the way, the summary results as I read them are actually 42% for Republicans and 33% for Democrats):
I would guess that things have gotten considerably more polarized these days rather than less.
And then there’s this:
Another nationally representative study found that 20% of Democrats and 15% of Republicans believe that their country would be better off if large numbers of people in the other party died.
Whoa! Are those the folks who’d be more than willing to start another Civil War? In this case, it was more Democrats who feel that way.
I once had some guy who I was having dinner with say to me in surprise, “I don’t understand it; you’re so smart, and yet you’re a Republican!” He was being sincere. This was at least ten years ago, and the polarization was already bad enough.
The WalkAway movement has quite a few gays, blacks and Hispanics. In fact, it was founded by a gay man, Brandon Straka.
Glad to hear about the WalkAway Movement. It’s always puzzled me why the groups who have suffered the most from statism (Gays, Jews, Blacks, women) are always lockstep in the van when it comes to supporting and expanding statism.
In my experience, conservatives are very likely to keep relationships with friends, neighbors, and relatives who are leftists. Leftists are far more likely to cut connections with political opponents. I am grateful that this divide has not changed my relationship with my Left Coast family members.
Also, conservatives are far more likely to know what liberals think and what they’re hearing from their information sources. Liberals often have no idea what conservatives really think, and are much more likely to believe the negative stereotypes.
Also, the liberal tendency to shun opponents is a big factor in why conservatives are more likely to be quiet about their political opinions.
American conservative: classical liberal tempered by religious/moral/axiomatic principles of individual dignity, intrinsic value, and perhaps inordinate worth.
Principles matter.
And yet, and yet…
In spite of everything, not everyone jettisons their critical faculties. Or loses their ability to reason….
There is hope:
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/271221/left-behind-3
I agree with Kate.
Most of my best friends are similarly conservative – also similarly religious, though that has some quirky bits. The liberal friends I used to have frequently made insulting comments about conservatives in general, expecting me to take no offense. I was always careful about generalisations and tried to be as personally inoffensive as possible. If my experience is common, that might explain why Democrats keep more Republican friends – they don’t get attacked by them.
On the other hand, when I had just had too much and pushed back, I am pretty good with tones of voice, vocabulary, and intensity. Family trait. So perhaps that chased them away.
Missed demographics in the stereotypes above are married, and with children. That is powerful across races and ethnicities. Never-married parents of all groups are overwhelmingly Democrat. Married parents solidly Republican. Divorced parents, mixed. Years ago there was data that showed increasing conservatism as one’s children aged, and then a trend back to the center after the children had children of their own. It was Reader’s Digest around 1980, so I have no idea if it was actually any good.
Pew isn’t the worst of the pollsters, but I wouldn’t be confident of their numbers.
My wife & I live in blue zip-code California and have been polled a number of times. I’ve given up on them recently, since all of the ones I’ve dealt with were propagandistic, push-polling operations that fail to properly identify themselves.
Just last night my wife answered one.
Do you approve or disapprove of Trump’s policies? Approve. Silence … What? Let me ask the question again. No, I heard you, I approve.
And so on.
In some circumstances a solid anecdote is better than questionable polls. My thoughts go to an Asian female Hillary staffer that decided to attend the conservative CPAC conference, by the name of Annafi Wahed. TownHall has some comments on her experience. The original WSJ piece is here. The tag line to the latter is,
My point is conservative partisans are just more level headed and open minded than left wing partisans, statistically by a lot I suspect.
I too agree with Kate regarding conservatives being open to varied information sources vs liberals laser-focused on their tightly closed echo chamber.
There is also a new polar divide: the obsession with “whiteness” and skin color generally (heard NPR lately?) among liberals vs indifference to race among conservatives. The funny thing there is how certain libs are of conservatives being racially motivated. Their source for this certainty? Themselves and each other, of course.
Regarding the obsession with “whiteness” on the left, here is a case in point: An article in Politico titled “Do Democrats Need a White Man to Beat Trump in 2020?” contains the words white and nonwhite 27 times.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/05/2020-election-democrats-trump-222217
Mantras used in meditation are sounds devoid of meaning that fade to nothing, allowing meditators to experience pure awareness.
Repeating the word “white” over and over, on the other hand, locks leftists into an evolution-stultifying fixation. They appear dug in and determined to take this nutty obsession to the grave. The good news is that it only lasts a lifetime. Although karma may give them an experience of race from a very different perspective in future lifetime(s), they will be released from their current form of craziness at the end of this one.
The next time you hear lefties chanting their favorite word, be thankful that you evaded their malady, for they have committed themselves to a slow, slow path. Expanded awareness and forgiveness be upon them.
Along the same lines, 63% of Republicans and 49% of Democrats report being friends primarily with those sharing their political views.
That SOUNDS like the Republicans are pushing out the Dems, but it’s generally not going to be the case. I have been unfriended by Demolibs, but I’ve never unfriended one. I know plenty of others like that — people who won’t be your friend if you don’t agree with them wholly and constantly. Just happened this last week, in fact. I was never rude. I just expressed as rational and sensible opposition to his arguments as I could.
A lot of the Dems probably have no clue about the politics of their friends, too. They just ASSUME, since they agree, that they are friends with someone “in the GOP” who happens to occasionally think as they do, which is probably more of switch voter than an actual conservative who thinks of themselves as GOP. They just hear them make a pro-GOP comment and assume they’re cons.
I went out once with a trust fund liberal who ran an AIDS charity. Upon learning I was Republican she had two comments: “I only meet Republicans when I fund raise” and “I want someone I can introduce to my friends.”
A big difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives would be willing to live in a country where liberals have their entities e.g. cities or some states and conservatives have theirs. Liberals, on the other hand, demand total conformity everywhere.
While I was still a young college student (about 2000-2001), a friend interrupted a discussion we were having about politics and current events to say, “You’re so intelligent, and caring, and informed – how can you possibly hold the awful beliefs you do?”
As though my character was separate from my personal beliefs.
I have never ended a friendship due to differences of belief – whether religion, politics, social views… I’ve had a number of friends in the past 15+ years cut me out of their lives because of my beliefs. It’s like they can’t reconcile their personal experience with me with their prejudices about my beliefs, and the prejudice wins out.
I have ended a few friendships based on how the people treated me *while* they disagreed. Vicious personal attacks, slander, character assassination: I don’t tolerate such abuse. And it always seems to surprise them when I tell them (briefly) why I’m cutting off the relationship. The response tends to be surprise that I would take offense at what they said and how they said it, with a confidence that we’ll go back to things as they were before.
———
Somewhat on a tangent: I’m thinking of a type of racist conversation that was common in the decades around the Civil Rights Movement. Where some whites would say insulting, dismissive, or prejudiced things to or about black people, and then be utterly mystified why any black person would take offense at the terms used or the assumptions made. “I’m just saying what everyone knows is true,” tends to be their self-defense.
It occurs to me that the personal obliviousness of many of my left-leaning associates tends to resemble that. Like conservatives don’t have any feelings or humanity that leftists are bound to respect.
Bit of a rant; sorry about that.
Another nationally representative study found that 20% of Democrats and 15% of Republicans believe that their country would be better off if large numbers of people in the other party died.
Those numbers are waaay low. I would guess those numbers are really 90% of Democrats, and 40% of Republicans.
OKBecky on November 8, 2018 at 2:23 am at 2:23 am said:
“It occurs to me that the personal obliviousness of many of my left-leaning associates tends to resemble that. Like conservatives don’t have any feelings or humanity that leftists are bound to respect.”
* * *
I have also noticed the disconnect you observed.
And that they are totally oblivious to it — which is a personality trait that extends outside politics, by the way. I have MiL and DiL afflicted by the inability to extend to other people the freedom of expression they demand for themselves.
It may not be a coincidence that both lean left.
FWIW, the whites in the Civil Rights Era you speak of were, historically for the most part, also Democrats