bumpidybumpbump On Aug 9, 2:34 pm, plainolamerican <[email protected]> wrote: > What happens when people have more freedom than ever to choose their > associates, their churches, their news sources, their neighborhoods, > and their schools? Do they seek the joys of diversity, or the company > of people like themselves and ideas like their own? The answer from a > racial point of view has been clear for years—Americans are > essentially no less segregated than they were 50 years ago—but > journalist Bill Bishop has found that we increasingly seek homogeneity > that goes well beyond race. He cites convincing evidence for what he > calls “the big sort:” that Americans are dividing themselves up not > only geographically, but also in terms of politics, worldview, and > “lifestyle,” and shutting themselves off from others. This book is yet > another powerful blow against the idea that Americans (or anyone else) > want diversity. > > The political divide > > Mr. Bishop writes that one of the sharpest and most recent divides is > political, and argues that the United States has become much more > partisan since a period of bipartisanship that ran from about 1948 to > the mid 1960s. He writes that during that period there was much less > difference between Republicans and Democrats, and few people had the > ideological fervor that is common today. Only half of adults had a > real understanding of what was meant by the terms “liberal” and > “conservative,” and only one-third of voters could explain how the two > parties differed on the most important issues of the time. Unlike > today, politics had no moral dimension: No one thought his opponents > were evil. Mr. Bishop notes that there was so little difference > between the parties that both Republicans and Democrats tried to > recruit Dwight Eisenhower as their candidate for the 1952 election, > and that even as late as the early 1970s there was not much > disagreement between the parties on abortion, school prayer, or > women’s “rights.” > > Fifty years ago Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn would serve drinks at > the end of the day to the Republican leadership, and there was > friendship and cooperation across the aisle. Now, according to a > congressional barber who has served decades of legislators, “People > don’t like each other; they don’t talk to each other.” > > Mr. Bishop adds that as late as the 1980s as many as a quarter of > voters were genuinely undecided and looked candidates over carefully. > Now, he says, 90 percent make up their minds on the basis of party > affiliation, so campaigns are designed to mobilize supporters rather > than win over doubters or build consensus. Passions run so high that > it is no longer unusual for party fanatics to destroy the opponents’ > campaign yard signs. Younger party activists are more ideological than > old hands, newly elected officials are more extreme than the ones they > replace, and the women in Congress are more partisan than the men. > “Compromise and cross-pollination are now rare,” writes Mr. Bishop. > > Another characteristic of our times is that social clubs such as the > Lions, Masons, Elks, Rotary, Moose, etc. have been losing members > since the 1960s. They are broad-based groups without a political > agenda, where “brothers” are likely to hold a variety of views. Now, > people tend to socialize in groups with sharply defined political goals > —the ACLU, the Federalist Society, the Club for Growth, EMILY’s List— > and to spend hours in Internet discussions with like-minded > associates. > > Fifty years ago, there were not many explicitly political magazines or > newspapers. Now, there is a profusion of sharply partisan print > publications, and countless Internet sites that promote divergent > views. > > Local majorities have already > passed laws that send clear signals to racially conscious whites. > Mr. Bishop writes that this sharpening of ideological boundaries has > come at a time of drastic loss of faith in traditional authorities. In > the late 1950s, 80 percent of Americans said they could trust > government to do the right thing all or most of the time. This faith, > combined with national consensus, explains how the Johnson > administration was able to pass the Great Society legislation that > inaugurated the War on Poverty, Head Start, Medicare, and Medicaid. By > 1976, only 33 percent of Americans trusted government, and the figure > continues to sink. At the same time, Americans lost faith in doctors, > preachers, universities, newspapers, and big business. > > There are no simple explanations for these changes, but Mr. Bishop is > convinced it has something to do with material abundance. When people > are hungry they worry about survival; when survival is assured, they > want self-expression. People with full stomachs question authority and > act on their own political ideas rather than follow leaders. Mr. > Bishop also believes that the turmoil of the 1960s—Vietnam, the > counterculture, race riots, assassinations—helped destroy consensus > and respect for authority, but the entire industrial world was losing > faith in institutions. > > Some of Mr. Bishop’s most eye-opening observations are about a recent > tendency for Americans to move into and form like-minded communities. > He notes that greater wealth and easier transport mean people move > much more than they used to: 4 to 5 percent of the population move > every year, or 100 million people in the last decade. Whether they are > conscious of it or not, Americans now tend to move to areas that > reflect their politics. How do we know this? > > Mr. Bishop studied how every county in America voted during the last > dozen or so presidential elections. He defined as “landslide counties” > those in which either the Republican or the Democrat won by a margin > of 20 percent or more. In 1976, 26 percent of Americans lived in such > counties; by 2004, 48 percent did. To some extent, people in a county > may have influenced their neighbors in one direction or another, but > Mr. Bishop writes that the greatest source of increased county-level > polarization is internal migration: Democrats moved out of Republican > counties into Democratic counties, while Republicans did the reverse. > > San Francisco County is a good example of partisan migration. In 1976, > Republican Gerald Ford got 44 percent of the vote; in 2004, George W. > Bush got only 15. Republicans did not all die or convert; they cleared > out. Mr. Bishop offers an amusing example of the result. “How can the > polls say the election is neck and neck?” he quotes a liberal. “I > don’t know a single person who is going to vote for Bush.” > > The same kind of sorting goes on at the state level. In 1976, either > the Republican or the Democrat won by a margin of 10 percent or more > in 19 states. By 2004, it was 31 states. Consistent vote patterns give > rise to the shorthand of “blue” and “red” states. > > How each county voted in the 2004 election. Red is Republican. > Localities take on personalities that go beyond politics. Homosexuals > soon learn where other homosexuals live and join them. Places such as > Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; Raleigh-Durham; and Palo Alto, > California, get reputations as trendy, yuppie, liberal havens, and > attract the sort of people such places attract. An area that puts out > a signal that makes the news—such as kicking out illegal immigrants or > legalizing homosexual marriage—gets a national reputation that > attracts more like-minded people. > > Trendy, liberal places attract college-educated, creative people, and > their economies thrive. Other places decline as they lose these > people. In booming Austin, 45 percent of adults have a college degree. > In declining Cleveland, only 14 percent do. By 2000, there were 62 > metropolitan areas where fewer than 17 percent of adults were college > graduates, and 32 metro areas where more than 34 percent were. That is > a good gauge of an area’s dynamism. > > An even better gauge is the increase (or decrease) in patents. Between > 1975 and 2001, the number of patents granted to people living in > Atlanta doubled. In San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, it was up > 170 percent, 175 percent, and 169 percent, respectively. Cleveland was > down 13 percent and Pittsburgh was down 27 percent. > > People used to move house for economic reasons. They moved to high- > wage areas only if the cost of living was not so great it wiped out > the wage advantage. No longer. In jazzy places such as San Francisco, > New York, or Portland, housing alone is so expensive it wipes out any > wage advantage, but people move anyway for the cachet and “lifestyle.” > To live in certain ZIP codes is now a luxury product. > > Businesses make similar calculations. They hope to recoup the higher > costs of a tony address by getting better employees. This process > leads to both virtuous and vicious cycles, as one place becomes > Silicon Valley and another becomes Detroit. The trendy places tend to > be politically liberal, and not very religious, and attract yet more > people who are liberal and irreligious. Migration is self-selection. > > Builders have cashed in on the desire to club with the like-minded. > Mr. Bishop writes about the Ladera Ranch subdivision in Orange County, > California, which has a section called Covenant Hills for religious > conservatives, and Terramor for liberals. Covenant Hills has a > Christian school and the architecture is traditional. Terramor has a > Montessori school and the houses are trendy. Colleges have theme > dormitories, not only for different races but for students who thrill > to the environment or to “peace and justice.” > > The political tribe > > Mr. Bishop points out that the standard political profiles we take for > granted today are relatively recent. He offers this contemporary > cliché: anyone who drives a Volvo and does yoga is almost certainly a > Democrat; anyone who drives a Cadillac and owns a gun is almost > certainly a Republican. He argues that before the 1970s there were no > such pat stereotypes. Today, Republicans are much more likely than > Democrats to be churchgoers, but this was not so 40 years ago. Today, > women vote reliably Democratic but in the 1970s women were more likely > to vote Republican. > > Covenant Hills. > The 2004 elections offer an amusing vignette about political > profiling. Mr. Bishop notes that early in the voting, exit polls > suggested John Kerry would win. Why were they wrong? The poll-takers > were young, collegiate-looking types who gave off a liberal aroma. > They tried to stop and ask everyone how he had voted, but Republicans > sized them up as Democrats and kept walking. Democrats saw them as > fellow liberals and stopped to talk. Self-selection skewed the polls. > > What people think about the Bible now predicts a host of other views. > Fundamentalists naturally oppose homosexual marriage and abortion, but > they are also likely to be for low taxes, a strong military, the death > penalty, balanced budgets, and small government. They don’t like > redistribution of wealth, and think jobs are more important than the > environment. People who think the Bible was not divinely inspired are > likely to be on the opposite side of all those issues. This does not > hold for blacks, who are overwhelmingly Democrats, whether they go to > church or not. > > Mr. Bishop notes that there has been an association between religion > and conservatism in all industrial countries but that, in most of the > Western world, religion has faded. The still-strong tie in America > between religion and conservatism is unusual. > > The profiles of Mr. Bishop’s “landslide” counties are now no surprise > to anyone, though they reflect a divide that did not exist 40 years > ago. In Republican counties, 86 percent of the people are white, 57 > percent are married, and half have guns in the house. In Democratic > landslide counties, only 47 percent are married, only 70 percent are > white, and only 19 percent have guns. The women in the different > counties vary in whether they have children, how many, and how late in > life they had them. > > Probably not Obama supporters. > Not surprisingly, the farther people live from neighbors, the more > likely they are to vote Republican. There has always been a city/ > country gap, but people always assumed television and the Internet > would narrow it. Instead, the gap has grown wider. At the same time, > with every 10 percent decline in population density, there is a 10 > percent increase in the likelihood that people talk to neighbors. City > people rarely do; country people almost always. The political > correlation means Republicans are more likely than Democrats to talk > to their neighbors. This city/country spectrum also predicts who > fights our wars. In 2007, the Iraq casualty rate in Bismarck, South > Dakota, was ten times that in San Francisco. > > Even child-rearing is now political. Parents who require obedience and > good manners tend to vote Republican, whereas indulgent parents vote > Democratic. Mr. Bishop says this was not so 30 or 40 years ago, and > that today, parents with the most education tend to be the most > indulgent. > > The Christian tribe > > For three centuries, sages have been predicting the end of religion. > Voltaire said it might last another 50 years. Freud, Marx, Weber, and > Herbert Spencer all predicted an early death. They may have been right > about most of the West, but not about America. Here, churches have > survived, in part by changing to accommodate the inclination of the > like-minded to herd together. > > There have always been two types of Christian in America: those who > thought religion was mainly a matter of personal morality, and those > who thought it was an instrument for transforming society. The former— > the conservatives—want to save the world by bringing more people to > Christianity, whereas the latter—the liberal, “social-gospel” > Christians—want to reform the world without necessarily making it more > Christian. > > During the 1960s and 1970s, the “social-gospel” Christians took over > virtually all the mainstream Christian institutions, and used them to > advance every pet liberal project from integration to homosexuality to > Communism. The organized “Christian Right” emerged as a response. > > Since that time, both movements have been eclipsed by a new kind of > Christianity that has largely dispensed with theology, denomination, > and the traditional geographic limitations on congregation size. > Today, religious entrepreneurs decide where to found a church by using > the same marketing and demographic techniques that determine where to > put the next Wal-Mart or Home Depot. The idea is to find, within easy > driving distance, a lot of people who fit a certain profile and then > reach as many as possible. If the marketing is right and the preacher > has flash, the result is a mega-church with a multimillion dollar > budget and a TV audience. Such churches give people what they want: > undemanding, feel-good Christianity, served up and consumed by people > who are all the same race, social class, and political orientation. > > The Crystal Cathedral in Anaheim, California. > This is far from the traditional pattern. Denominations mattered 40 > years ago because Methodists and Presbyterians did not believe the > same things. Also, churches served a neighborhood of people who > varied, if not in race, then in many other ways. Before the “social > gospel” divided churches into left and right, church members held > varying political views, even if they agreed on doctrine. > > Today’s nondenominational, new-breed preachers care about market > share, not doctrine, and know that pushing predestination or baptism > by immersion drives away customers. There are still churches with > doctrine, but they count their members in the dozens or hundreds, not > thousands. > > Even for most mainstream churches, denomination has become so watered > down it means almost nothing. As Mr. Bishop points out, whether or not > a church flies the homosexual rainbow flag is a much better indication > of what it is like than whether it is Baptist or Church of Christ. > These days, everyone wants a tribe, and people will not cross lines of > race, politics, erotic orientation, or class to go to church. > > What does it mean? > > “Americans,” writes Mr. Bishop, “segregate themselves into their own > political worlds, blocking out discordant voices and surrounding > themselves with reassuring news and companions.” He doesn’t like this > tendency, because it makes Americans incomprehensible to each other. > He cites often-replicated research showing that when people with off- > center views spend time with each other they tend to go further off- > center; lefties become more lefty and conservatives more conservative. > Once a group has a distinctive tone, people gain respect and take the > lead by trying to pull it even further from the middle. > > Because of the self-sorting that is now common, it is possible to > avoid ever having to talk to a political opponent. Many versions of > the same research show that people who never meet the other side have > exaggerated notions of its depravity or fanaticism. With enough > reinforcement from colleagues, partisan publications, and Internet > sources people can become so fixed in their thinking that they simply > disbelieve anything—no matter how solidly demonstrated—that conflicts > with their views. > > Partisans cannot see what should be objective, common realities. For > example, just before the 2006 mid-term elections, 70 percent of > Republicans said the economy was doing fine, while 75 percent of > Democrats said it was in deep trouble. Even if they have different > news sources, Democrats and Republicans must see the same economic > statistics. > > This tendency to let party loyalties warp their vision is consistent > with another finding by political scientists: Many people choose a > party more for psychological than political reasons. Mr. Bishop quotes > sociologist Paul Lazarfeld: “It appears that a sense of fitness is a > more striking feature of political preference than reason and > calculation.” People pick parties if they fit in socially; policy is > secondary. > > Mr. Bishop adds that people sometimes switch parties when their > politics change, but that it is more common to change opinions to > match the party consensus. Being a Democrat or Republican means > joining a family or adopting a way of life as much as it reflects > political choice. > > Shrewd political operators have always understood the importance of > conformity and belonging. They try to choose canvassers or precinct > walkers so that when someone comes to your door he is not only your > race and social class, but your neighbor. Emotion and loyalty drive > politics more effectively than calculation. > > What are the political consequences of “the big sort”? Mr. Bishop > argues that Congress is often deadlocked because hard-liners refuse to > compromise. When Congress won’t act, the President and the courts take > over, but so do local governments. Local autonomy is seeing a > resurgence as states and cities deal unilaterally with illegal > immigration, homosexual marriage, race preferences, abortion, smoking > bans, stem-cell research, etc. Heightened partisanship paralyzes > Congress while, at the same time, building homogenous local majorities > that can pass laws that would be unthinkable in another state or > county. Local majorities, both liberal and conservative, are > rehabilitating states’ rights. > > Possibilities > > Not usually a good sign. > Local majorities have already passed laws that send clear signals to > racially conscious whites. “Sanctuary cities” are not attractive while > cities that require police to enforce immigration law are. For the > time being, these signals are not explicitly racial, but if the > country really is drifting toward increased polarization, eventually > there will be localities that consistently pass laws that have the > effect of protecting white majorities and white institutions. > > Today, laws cannot be explicitly racial, but they don’t have to be. A > city or town that affirms a policy of hiring on merit alone or a > school district that mentions crime rates during Black History Month > will attract certain people and repel others. Measures do not need to > be dramatic to reverse current demographic flows; reputation alone can > set virtuous cycles in motion. > > Within the two-party system, it is very difficult to make progress at > the national level. Local politics, especially in a time of increased > sorting, has much more potential. Once a town or county were secured, > it could both lead by example and provide a base for state-level > action. Voluntary sorting works in our favor. It is up to us to > channel and use it for larger, long-term purposes. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
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