2016 abramowitz time for change polarization

Others think that the government should not concern itself with reducing this income difference between the rich and the poor. Question: “Some people think that the government in Washington ought to reduce the income differences between the rich and the poor, perhaps by raising the taxes of wealthy families or by giving income assistance to the poor. Views on whether government should reduce income differences between the rich and the poor Our political orientations haven’t spread apart to any appreciable degree. The distribution of political views in 2018, the most recent GSS year, is very similar to the distribution in 1974, with most Americans in the middle. But as figure 4 shows, that hasn’t happened. The polarization hypothesis predicts a movement over time toward figure 3’s upper chart. Which of these two scenarios is closer to the actual distribution of Americans’ views? The General Social Survey (GSS) regularly asks a representative sample of American adults to place themselves on “a seven-point scale on which the political views that people might hold are arranged from extremely liberal to extremely conservative.” In the first year of the survey, 1974, the distribution of views looked like the lower chart in figure 3. Pope, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, Pearson Longman, 2005, p. The vertical axis indicates the share of voters who hold those views. The horizontal axis of each chart represents political views on a left-to-right scale, from liberal on the left to conservative on the right. Two close election scenarios - one due to polarization, the other not In the lower chart we also get a close election. Because the liberal share is about the same as the conservative share, the election will be close. In the top chart, most people are either liberal or conservative relatively few are in the center. Figure 3, from Morris Fiorina, illustrates why. Second, the occurrence of close elections with dependably Democratic and Republican states (or counties) doesn’t necessarily imply that political views have spread apart. Source: Mark Newman, “Maps of the 2016 US Presidential Election Results.” The counties are sized in proportion to their population. Colors represent the share of presidential votes for the candidate getting the most votes in the county. It suggests a nation sharply divided between liberals and conservatives, with each side dominating broad swaths.Ĭartogram depicting 2016 presidential election vote results by county. Since 2000, the map has tended to look more or less like figure 1, which shows the 2016 results. The most striking evidence of polarization, in the minds of many, is the red and blue map describing the results of recent presidential elections. And across the political spectrum the rhetoric seems more oppositional and confrontational.

There are more straight party-line votes in congress. In national elections the country is split into reliably “red” Republican states and consistently “blue” Democratic states.

To many Americans it feels like we’re more polarized now than in the past.

Elected representatives in the two parties have sorted and moved away from the centerĪMERICANS HAVEN’T MOVED AWAY FROM THE CENTER IN THEIR POLITICAL VIEWS.

Americans haven’t moved away from the center in their political views.

How has this happened? What impact has it had? The parties themselves, as judged by their elected representatives, have both sorted into distinct groups and moved away from the center. But they’ve sorted themselves more cleanly into the country’s two political parties. Americans haven’t moved away from the center in their opinions on policy questions or in their overall political orientations. Polarization has two dimensions: movement away from the center toward the extremes and sorting into distinct groups.

2016 abramowitz time for change polarization