I have some hope, for the following reasons:
1. The incoming Democrats in Congress include some centrists and some on the left. Mix them in with the ones who are already there, and we can expect divisions on general ideological grounds and on specific issues such as Israel/Palestine, data centers, etc.
2. There have always been congressional Republicans who detest Trump, but they’ve shown close to zero defections from the president’s policies. But now that they’re the minority, the forces keeping them in line will be weaker. Also they are getting the point that general elections as well as primaries are threats to them.
My hope is that there will be some important issues that split within each party, leading to cross-party coalitions. I’m not saying this would be a cure for polarization—back in 1993, the vote on NAFTA split the two parties, and that did nothing to stop the Newt Gingrich-led polarization that took over soon after—but maybe it would be a step forward.
To put it another way, I think of there being two components to partisan polarization. One component is a natural consequence of connections between issues: there’s a logic to the left and right representing different coalitions and being represented by two political parties. The other component is not so good, it’s the lockstep conformity that leads to candidates taking extreme positions to appeal to primary election voters, presidents crafting policies to satisfy moderates just enough to get the threshold of required votes, and party-line votes to confirm unqualified cabinet officials. Maybe some open disputes on high-profile issues will make pure partisan voting less of an expected thing, so that legislators can vote against their party leadership without it being such a big deal, which in turn could motivate moderation among their leaders. Which does not mean that non-centrist policies on the left or right could not be passed, just that they’d require coalition building of some sort..
Political polarization has been steadily increasing for the past thirty-five years, so it seems like it would be a mistake to bet against more of the same. But trends can occasionally reverse; nothing lasts forever. Back when my colleagues and I were starting to do research in political science, the incumbency advantage had been steadily increasing for forty years . . . but then the trend reversed.
Also, partisan polarization is a funny thing: some people are strongly motivated to vote for Republicans because they hate the Democrats and what they stand for; others are strongly motivated to vote for Democrats because they hate the Republicans etc. There aren’t too many voters who actually like either party, at least not on a national level. To borrow a physical analogy, you could say that political polarization is maintained by tension, not compression.
P.S. Somewhat relatedly, NYT columnist offers epically stupid take on 2026 midterm elections.
P.P.S. I think I blew it by not using a clickbait title such as “Polarization is so over.”
We need a turn to what I perceive as addressing real problems. In my circle of friends who are financially comfortable white folks healthcare is a problem. Insurance companies are dropping medicare advantage plans all over the country. I’m currently scrambling to find coverage for 2027 as are many others in my circle. One friend is receiving chemotherapy and has three cycles left. Another is on treatment for a retinal condition. Their providers are not on the panel for next year. My buddies are smart and rich enough to be able to adjust to new providers or follow their current providers with a modest (to a well to do professional) increase in costs. However, the overwhelming majority does not have the money to do so. Rural hospitals are closing or cutting back services, especially maternity. I don’t recall much talk on this from our politicians. Serious addressing of real problems would depolarize us.
I hope nobody is turned off by my comments on a personal issue. I assure you that health insurance is far more relevant to you than the ten or so MtF people playing varsity sports.
@oncodoc:
I find it rather hard to define what is relevant and what is irrelevant in the political arena. You raise an important point: some topics affect many more people and in a much deeper way than others. However, if politicians were to ignore these hyped-up, less relevant topics and focus only on the most important issues, would people still feel understood and taken care of? If a politician pushes for a rather symbolic policy change after a dramatic event that generates a lot of publicity (e.g. terrorism or school shootings), I wonder if the symbols might not be meaningful in the sense of providing voters with the message ‘We hear you and we are doing something’. And I wonder if that in itself might have value.
Let us begin where we may begin by using apposite and appropriate names. If our discourse is carried out in English then let us call doctors “doctors” — or “physicians” if you’d rather. Let us be clear, “provider” is a disingenuous euphemism that plays various roles; it is meant to downgrade the status of the physician … to become the mere functionary in an insurance racket; and at the same time to pump up the status of the replacement for that physician — the “slave doctors”.
Here is Plato on the topic of “slave doctors” by the way:
And have you further observed that there are slaves as well as free men among the patients in our communities. The slaves are generally treated by slave doctors, who pay them a hurried visit or wait for them in the dispensaries. A physician of this kind never speaks to his patient individually or lets him talk about his complaints? He prescribes some empirical injunction; and when he has given his orders, like a tyrant, he rushes off to some other servant who is ill . . .
But the free practitioner, who for the most part attends freemen, treats their diseases by carrying his enquiries far back and goes into the nature of the disorder; taking the patient and his family into his confidence. So he is at once getting information from the sick man, instructing him as far as he is able, and not prescribing for him until he has won his support first and has persuaded him into compliance. Now which is the better way of proceeding in a physician
Its just shrinkflation. Anything the gov pours money into becomes increasingly expensive and worthless due to the cantillion effect (issuing treasuries has replaced the gold mines in the original theory).
I don’t know about epically stupid as opposed to just not all that smart – but here’s the part that caught my attention:
> In his first term, Mr. Trump also largely won his yearslong argument with the establishment over how mass immigration affects the working class. Contrary to the views of pre-Trump policymakers, immigration to the United States is rarely a win-win proposition; it can help businesses, but often it does so by weakening the bargaining position of native workers. Even the Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton was convinced, writing in March 2024 that he no longer agreed with “the near consensus among economists that immigration to the U.S. was a good thing.”
So the debate about how immigration affects the working class has been largely won? And the only support actually offered for that conclusion is one sentence from one Nobel-winning economist?
So many in the “working class” leaving the Trump fold to vote for Democrats, largely seen as based on anger about economic conditions, is categorically separable from the impact of the crackdown on immigration, the deportation of nearly a million people, the struggles of industries like meat packing to find workers, etc.?
So I’m not sure the entire column is epically stupid, but that part certainly was. And it certainly fits right in with the high school debate style of argumentation.
Joshua:
Yeah, the stupid part is not so much in the details, stupid as they are, but rather the bigger picture, which is that he’s approaching this like a high school debate rather than as a discussion of serious political questions.
As of today there is not one WASP governor in the ten largest states.
Sorry, not one male WASP governor.
I was gonna say, What about Gavin Newsom, but then I looked him up and, although he has what I would consider a Waspy image, he’s actually Irish. So, yeah.
If I might ask, what do you think of these comments?
https://substack.com/@nominalnews/note/c-380365123?r=1pf98n&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
https://substack.com/@nominalnews/note/c-379956075?r=1pf98n&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
Are they too extreme? Can this data still be useful if interpreted properly and combined with all of the other data and understanding we have regarding these questions?
Richard:
Yes, I think this person’s statements are too extreme. He seems to be saying that because data are imperfect, people should do nothing. I disagree. I think it’s better to do what we can and be open about our assumptions and our uncertainty.
He is extremely critical of that graph in the second link. Do you think it provides valuable information, even if it might have been the result of some data mining to find the most striking result, or visual, especially when you combine it with all the other information and understanding regarding the question of farther left nominees?
Richard:
I think that the graph he criticizes provides valuable information. If this critic wants to criticize it and do better, fine, but that graph seems like a reasonable start to me.