Political Polarization in the United States Is a White Problem
"We’re" not polarized, whites are polarized, and it will stop when the divisions of white identity end
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Ezra Klein recently released a book, “Why We’re Polarized,” and it’s helpful to define the “We” in Klein’s title.
While discussing political psychologies Klein writes, “these psychologies are the dividing line of American politics, at least among white voters…” The “We,” in “We’re Polarized,” whether said by Klein or another pundit, mostly means “White electorate.”
Polarization isn’t colorblind. The late scholar Joel Olson wrote that “polarization has resulted, in part, from the changing nature of white identity, or whiteness, and the strategic response to this change by [white] political elites.”
Whiteness is a polarized identity, and polarization is its manifested destiny. The urban/rural divide, the religious/secular divide, the spread by age, the composition of the parties, Trump pushing whites further left and right—it all comes from whiteness.
Chalk it up to whatever you’d like. The chalk is still white. Asian voters, Black voters, Latino voters, and Native American voters largely vote with Democrats and do not experience political polarization like whites do.
Historically, when whites agree on an Other to oppress, white political polarization declines. But the decline doesn’t justify the means. Moderating white divisions isn’t a solution, and bringing together white divisions isn’t a solution either. Eliminating the functionality of a white division is the start of a solution.
The two sides are double the trouble.
White identity hogs the political landscape, which spreads white political polarization. W. E. B. Du Bois said, "There’s but one evil party with two names.” That one evil party is white, and to begin its end, it must lose a limb. The GOP is the dominant part of the white body politic.
Dear Democrats, do what Mitch McConnell considers a power grab: unleash democracy to gut the GOP. The demise of the GOP must be the goal. Make democracy do the deed because political defeats can lead to progress and peace.
This is useful. Many political scientists say a competitive two-party system is odd and harmful. Paul Frymer, a professor of politics, notes that Reconstruction and the civil rights movement happened under one-party domination.
Theodore Lowi, a political scientist mentioned in Klein's book, believed that “the party system that best fits America’s weird political structure is not a competitive two-party system but a system in which the second party is very weak: that is, a ‘modified one-party system.’ ” Let it be so. The GOP has to go.
Options among political parties and the ability to align with elites—are two of the many white privileges that shouldn’t be. The point isn’t to pick and stick with the lesser of two evils; one less evil is the point. Less of the one evil is the point. Multitasking is hard. Political polarization will end by a process of elimination that forces one-party rule.
Whiteness is duplicitous, it needs two sides, and polarization requires two sides. Even for whiteness—“Two are better than one.” The two sides are double the trouble. By ending one, the struggle with political polarization is halfway won and done.