Ruediger T. answered • 08/15/21
Language expert - German, English, French - 30 years experience
Increased political polarization? I am afraid that polarization has already reached a level where it pushes the US close to a breaking point, a point beyond which government would become entirely dysfunctional. Who is to say what happens then? Until a few years ago I dismissed talk of a new civil war as alarmist and over the top. But more recent violent events make this worry seem less crazy. Some reasonable commentators already speak of a cold civil war. And you probably have heard of the term culture war. What else could you say when people get into fist fights and spit at each other in supermarkets over mask mandates? Over wearing protective masks!
Not too long ago, say 10 or 20 years ago, one used to be able to describe politics in most Western democracies as chiefly a competition between center-left and center-right views represented by two major parties. Because both of those major parties were close to the center, there would be significant overlap between them, a critical mass large enough to define a kind of mainstream. Discourse was mainly civil, a bit boring, a bit slow to implement change (we used to complain about that), but all in all peaceful and above all stable. It's when the two large parties near the center lose ground to more extremist parties (as in Weimar Germany) or when one of the large parties drifts off toward extremism (as is happening now in the US) that the situation becomes instable, with potentially very dangerous consequences.
I am saying that only one US party is shifting toward extremism. It is the party that denounces all journalists it doesn't agree with as liars, calls entire segments of mainstream media fake news and claims that its candidates lose elections only when the elections are rigged. It is the party that denies science and promotes outlandish conspiracy theories.
Perhaps, you don't agree with the previous paragraph. But consider this: Most other Western democracies have parliamentary systems (multiple parties, parliament elects the government) instead of presidential systems with de-facto two-party systems like the US. The tendencies I have described above (conspiracies, claims of voter fraud, wholesale denunciations of the media etc.) exist in those countries, too. But here is the difference, and it is a big and very important difference: the main center-right or conservative parties in those countries largely do not embrace those views. There, it is smaller parties that promote extremist positions. The center remains sane and rejects the parties at the periphery. Here you have one of the main reasons for US polarization: US conservatives embrace those extremist views. Not because they actually believe them but because they rely on the voters who hold such views. And by embracing their voters' views they sanction those views, dignify them, and contribute to their proliferation. It's a tragic self-perpetuating cycle. Consider the argument put forth by a senator from Texas who opposed election certification on January 6th: He said that he voted against certification because his constituents had doubts about election integrity (carefully - and cowardly - implying he himself had no such doubts). What he didn't mention was that his voters' doubts were stoked by politicians like himself in the first place. In a two-party, winner-takes-all system, there is no route to power with out those extremist voters and therefore, a good deal of what reinforces polarization in the US is rooted in the system itself. Whatever the reasons for the culture war (gun rights, right to choose/life, vaccinations, masks, environmental regulations) the system itself reinforces them, and that's not even talking about gerrymandering.
One can also argue that the 2-year term of US representatives contributes to the problem (most other countries have 4-year terms). With campaigns starting earlier and earlier there is less and less time between primaries and general elections. Representatives are in a sort of permanent campaign mode where they feel constantly compelled to polarize rather than tone it down and think about actual governance issues. Reason doesn't seem to pay off. We now have 'celebrity representatives' - not film stars running for office but seemingly regular people gaining huge social media followings (and campaign donations) by competing about who can give off the most outlandish and irresponsible statements, perpetuating dangerous lies about election fraud, spreading misinformation on the Corona virus and promoting hair raising quack remedies. A whole segment of the electorate seems attracted to the loudest and most extremist of them. Voters who used to be able to see through con men and charlatans seem to have lost all their critical faculties. How do you ever repair trust in the integrity of elections once two thirds of one party's base has fallen for shameless voter fraud lies? It is not exaggerated to say that US democracy is being driven toward a cliff. If a dystopian science fiction writer had invented all this 20 years ago, no one would have taken him seriously.
Perhaps I have explained more the causes of increased polarization rather than the consequences. I don't actually know what the consequences might be. January 6th? In case you find yourself thinking that this event might have been a "normal tourist visit" please turn to readily available footage of the events. I can't predict the future but I am not optimistic.
