How Issue Consensus Turns to Dust

Partisan polarization has been fingered as the cause of any number of problems in contemporary politics from the rise of divided government and ideological extremism to beliefs in conspiracy theories and the spread of misinformation. A less examined aspect of how partisan sectarianism degrades democracy involves the role of party cues in turning issue agreement among Americans into issue warfare.

This isn’t simply an instance of Democrats and Republicans disagreeing on an issue, and looking for points among base voters, so nothing gets done. Rather, it’s more that Americans themselves often agree on many issues but then this consensus blows apart once political elites on both sides indicate that “it’s not our issue” or that someone they hate likes this issue so our side can’t agree to it anymore. CONTINUED

John Halpin, The Liberal Patriot


The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.