Opinion: It’s not ‘polarization.’ We suffer from Republican radicalization.
By Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
November 18, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EST
Listen to political scientists, pollsters and well-meaning elected officials, and you’ll likely hear a lot of chatter about “polarization.” That characterization of our current political environment m…
Opinion: It’s not ‘polarization.’ We suffer from Republican radicalization.
By Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
November 18, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EST
Listen to political scientists, pollsters and well-meaning elected officials, and you’ll likely hear a lot of chatter about “polarization.” That characterization of our current political environment misses the point — and is dangerous.
You know the argument: America is divided into warring camps. The center has collapsed. Compromise is impossible. We have become uncivil and angry.
While it’s true that the country is more deeply divided along partisan lines than it has been in the past, it is wrong to suggest a symmetrical devolution into irrational hatred. The polarization argument too often treats both sides as equally worthy of blame, characterizing the problem as a sort of free-floating affliction (e.g., “lack of trust”). This blurs the distinction between a Democratic Party that is marginally more progressive in policy positions than it was a decade ago, and a Republican Party that routinely lies, courts violence and seeks to define America as a White Christian nation.
The Republican Party’s tolerance of violence is not matched by Democrats. Nor is the Republican Party’s refusal to recognize the sanctity of elections. Democrats did not call the elections they lost in 2020 and 2021 “rigged,” nor are they seeking to replace nonpartisan election officials with partisan lawmakers. Republicans’ determination to change voting laws based on their insistence that Donald Trump won the 2020 election is without historical precedent.
The GOP’s willingness to force a default on the debt is likewise indicative of a party that has fallen into nihilism. And Republicans’ refusal to give a sitting president’s Supreme Court nominee a hearing followed by the effort to push through a nominee of their own party during an election shows the party lacks any modicum of restraint and respect for institutions.
Only one party conducts fake election audits, habitually relies on conspiracy theories and wants to limit access to the ballot. A recent study from the libertarian think tank R Street found: “In Republican states, legislation tended to scale back the availability of mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes and to provide more uniform, if not shorter, early voting windows. Meanwhile, in Democratic states, legislators sought to increase the availability of early voting not only by expanded voting windows but also by instating universal vote-by-mail.”
Terrific article. I’ve been thinking along those lines as Republicans threaten to strip Democrats of their positions in the House in retaliation for what the Democrats have
done to Greene and Gosar. And to use the subpoena to get Democrats in legal trouble as Democrats have done to Bannon. But the thing is, Democrats have not refused to come before Congress to testify (eg: Hillary Clinton’s 11 hours on Benghazi) and they are not adhering to unhinged q-anon theories. So the Republicans are not just an opposition party, they are a threat to sanity and to reality. They are institutionalized haters who will become ruthless oppressors if they come to power.
We still have the means to prevent this - the voting rights bills. THEY MUST PASS! My fantasies this morning were about Lisa Murkowski voting with Dems on revising the filibuster. May it be so!
First those Republicans are going to have to win the House back. The Republicans, urged on by the media, are already claiming victory in 2022. We'll see.
I contend this could be a GWBush kinda midterm where the opposition doesn't take a House of Congress if the Democrats can unify behind the reality that is Infrastructure + Build Back Better.
Yes that's absolutely right, but I can give you two reasons why it's not likely and you know what they are. That's the problem we're facing and the major problem within our party.
It's good to read conservative's articles when they are sincere. You have to be able to accept some blame b/c they do have principled differences of opinions. Living in an echo chamber = certain doom.
For me it will be 58 yrs ago tomorrow on Nov.22, 1963. My President ,JFK was murdered right in front of us.And way to many followed soon after. After the Warren Commission we were told the findings of his death would be sealed for 50 yrs. We have had a ‘Snippet ‘ over time. But to this day they remain sealed. I soon learned the adage “ Two Wings of The Same Bird “ in Ref. to our two party system.Our Country became silent that day except you heard crying everywhere for about 2 weeks. The day of the funeral you heard soft mourning and the Wheels of the Caisson.When Little John-John saluted his father as it gently passed by him, there wasn’t a dry eye in the world.Evil did that.And to his Brother. And all the others. And they still walk amongst us. The only difference is, Fresh Stock and Deadlier Guns. I hope anyone with a Flag remembers to Fly it tomorrow.I still do.TFG told them they were “ The Forgotten One’s“. The White Privileged Republicans are ‘Victims ‘. And the kid in WI just rubber stamped that. If I or any one of us stands with any person of Color, Culture, Religion, any right of Equality, to Vote. The ‘Victims’ can shoot us because that threatens them.We are all now the hunted. Just like my President was and all those that were Fallen after him.Oh ! But they are all Christians and Abortion is murder ! But by all means shoot me because I believe in Equality for All ! Even them. I hope I’m long gone when they discover their regrets. When Kennedy asked “ What we could do for our Country “ I’m 99.9% sure he didn’t mean to Destroy it.
I was at work at NASA when I heard a co-worker say, well, about time somebody did that. Later learned he was a John Bircher. Was so appalled. He was a self-righteous arse so made me ultra sensitive to his ilk from there on. I doubt he has had one regret. He and Samuel Gompers made me a Dem though…
I remember too. I was watching TV when it happened. And then one after another. Seems from then on it has escalated until we have weekly, daily shootings and killings and somehow we dont hear any more "thoughts & prayers" - pretty much little mention of it at all. Remember how politicians would claim "this isnt the time to do anything - too soon"?
I will never forget that day. I still have many questions. Then there was Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy in the same year, riots from anti war protesters and African Americans in cities protesting what they experienced daily and what we white people are just starting to scratch the surface of learning about their experience in the past few years (see Kerner Commission for analysis of race in America which is still pertinent today).
I don't know if things radically changed after 11-22-63 by design or if "the change" is the actual truth about an aspect of American reality that we either didn't notice or not want to notice.
I have read and heard it said that on that day, 22 November 1963, America lost its innocence and saw the cold, hard, brutal reality in the world. I've always thought it was the beginning of our "education" as a nation. The long, slow process of self-awareness begun that day that--guess what??--showed we were NOT the perfect country we thought we were.
I hope this isn't a duplicate post (my previous one sprang into the Ethers before I hit "Post") but the feelings I had after November 2016 election were similar to the feelings I experienced after 11-22-63 when a succession of rapid fire events occurred quickly leaving little time to "process". I would describe it as an assault on my senses.
Kathleen, that’s a good way to put it. And maybe your “sprung” posts will meet up with some of mine, out there in the ether! Maddening when that happens....
Yeah, the so-called Christians are extremely un-Christianlike. I still find it shocking how evil these people are behaving and refusing to act with civility. Very scary.
I'm watching a L&O SVU rerun in which a doctor who performed abortions is killed (the original L&O had a few plot lines about anti abortion activists). They were showing who they were in the 80's and the 90's but to my recollection the news media did not report their activities except as a sideline reference to the story.
I was in 5th grade in Ft. Worth Tx on that day. My step-dad was an Air Force meteorologist at Carswell AFB where AF1 landed right outside his office before it hopped over to Love Field ih Arlington. We were sent home when it happened and I ran home to find my mom, a life long active Democratic Party volunteer, crying on the couch. It was too close to home and it rocked all our lives to the core.
She speaks for me. Why is the obvious so hard to see. Maybe it's the cult megaphone from Fox. I have seen sanity slip slide away for decades and the right become wrong in ways i could only imagine in a nightmare, and being embraced by a coalition of zygote warriors, Pharisees, gun worshipers, and casual racists as well as the radical white supremacists. A cult that spews propaganda about Democrats that Goebbels would be proud of.
"Casual racists"; how perfect. Those who bleat "I'm not racist" in one moment but counter with some statement/scenario/belief that is, in fact, racist at its core.
Will I be able to find, if I go through all of the comments posted this morning here, any which disagree with Ms. Rubin's Washington Post column? Of course not. They don't follow LFAA nor read columns like hers. Democracy is still challenged by most of the 74 million who voted for the ex-president in 2020, and who constitute a majority in most States, enabling their legislatures to pass laws that restrict voting opportunities. Democrats in both Houses of Congress must use every tactic available to them to preserve democracy, starting with passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, even if this means first fighting the battle to eliminate filibusters.
Actually, as HCR has pointed out, 2020 trump voters comprise a minority in many states that have recently passed redistricting laws for 55-85% representation in their state legislatures. True minority rule over both party and racial identity.
Yes to passing national voting rights legislation.
And pay attention to state and local races. Listen and read David Pepper’s Laboratories of Autocracy:
Here’s more via LFAA reader Joan Garvin: a 4 minute watch on how Ohio Republicans refused to participate in the nonpartisan redistricting commission, thereby sending the task to the Republican legislature, a scary template for states across the country.
In Georgia, which went for Biden like 51% to 49%, our gerrymandered state will probably end up being 60% to 40% representation in the state house in favour of the Republicans. Welcome to democracy Southern style...
Thanks for answering Barbara. But how often do we assume that people understand what we talk or write about when they really don't? Beyond acronyms, an example might be "Reconstruction," which without HCR's historical posts, many might think was something it wasn't.
Barbara, don’t feel left out. Plenty of us painfully attempt to figure arcane acronyms out on our own, rather than just ask. One good thing happens when the words I come up with are really funny, having no relationship to the real meaning. Sometimes I do that on purpose....
We are not that far removed from more civilized times. The drift of the GOP from conservatism to whatever you want to call them now has many causes. A lot of it we brought on ourselves for the way we treated them. Most of it, as Heather has pounded into our brains, goes back to the 19th century mentality that only rich white men are smart enough to vote and government's role should be to maintain that status quo.
My daughter and her daughters (12 and 14) are fully aware of what's going on. Kids today have the ability to be just as informed as we are and many more are engaged that you or I might think.
It will most like require an earth-shaking event to bring us together. It can't come too soon for me.
Opinion: It’s not ‘polarization.’ We suffer from Republican radicalization.
By Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
November 18, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EST
Listen to political scientists, pollsters and well-meaning elected officials, and you’ll likely hear a lot of chatter about “polarization.” That characterization of our current political environment misses the point — and is dangerous.
You know the argument: America is divided into warring camps. The center has collapsed. Compromise is impossible. We have become uncivil and angry.
While it’s true that the country is more deeply divided along partisan lines than it has been in the past, it is wrong to suggest a symmetrical devolution into irrational hatred. The polarization argument too often treats both sides as equally worthy of blame, characterizing the problem as a sort of free-floating affliction (e.g., “lack of trust”). This blurs the distinction between a Democratic Party that is marginally more progressive in policy positions than it was a decade ago, and a Republican Party that routinely lies, courts violence and seeks to define America as a White Christian nation.
The Republican Party’s tolerance of violence is not matched by Democrats. Nor is the Republican Party’s refusal to recognize the sanctity of elections. Democrats did not call the elections they lost in 2020 and 2021 “rigged,” nor are they seeking to replace nonpartisan election officials with partisan lawmakers. Republicans’ determination to change voting laws based on their insistence that Donald Trump won the 2020 election is without historical precedent.
The GOP’s willingness to force a default on the debt is likewise indicative of a party that has fallen into nihilism. And Republicans’ refusal to give a sitting president’s Supreme Court nominee a hearing followed by the effort to push through a nominee of their own party during an election shows the party lacks any modicum of restraint and respect for institutions.
Only one party conducts fake election audits, habitually relies on conspiracy theories and wants to limit access to the ballot. A recent study from the libertarian think tank R Street found: “In Republican states, legislation tended to scale back the availability of mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes and to provide more uniform, if not shorter, early voting windows. Meanwhile, in Democratic states, legislators sought to increase the availability of early voting not only by expanded voting windows but also by instating universal vote-by-mail.”
Rest at: https://wapo.st/32n9ak7
Terrific article. I’ve been thinking along those lines as Republicans threaten to strip Democrats of their positions in the House in retaliation for what the Democrats have
done to Greene and Gosar. And to use the subpoena to get Democrats in legal trouble as Democrats have done to Bannon. But the thing is, Democrats have not refused to come before Congress to testify (eg: Hillary Clinton’s 11 hours on Benghazi) and they are not adhering to unhinged q-anon theories. So the Republicans are not just an opposition party, they are a threat to sanity and to reality. They are institutionalized haters who will become ruthless oppressors if they come to power.
We still have the means to prevent this - the voting rights bills. THEY MUST PASS! My fantasies this morning were about Lisa Murkowski voting with Dems on revising the filibuster. May it be so!
"From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step" - Denis Diderot, French philosopher and writer.
First those Republicans are going to have to win the House back. The Republicans, urged on by the media, are already claiming victory in 2022. We'll see.
I contend this could be a GWBush kinda midterm where the opposition doesn't take a House of Congress if the Democrats can unify behind the reality that is Infrastructure + Build Back Better.
And the right to vote, and have it counted....
Stalin knew that who counted was more important than who voted, we are learning that it seems…
Yes, it would be nice, but we need the Voting Rights Act, or there's no way we stop them from cheating and rigging the results.
Yes that's absolutely right, but I can give you two reasons why it's not likely and you know what they are. That's the problem we're facing and the major problem within our party.
Whole lotta propaganda went into that election, Rove’s finest if memory serves…
It's good to read conservative's articles when they are sincere. You have to be able to accept some blame b/c they do have principled differences of opinions. Living in an echo chamber = certain doom.
I used to in the 80’s. It has gotten so bizarre that I won’t bother. G. Will is still sane most of the time.
For me it will be 58 yrs ago tomorrow on Nov.22, 1963. My President ,JFK was murdered right in front of us.And way to many followed soon after. After the Warren Commission we were told the findings of his death would be sealed for 50 yrs. We have had a ‘Snippet ‘ over time. But to this day they remain sealed. I soon learned the adage “ Two Wings of The Same Bird “ in Ref. to our two party system.Our Country became silent that day except you heard crying everywhere for about 2 weeks. The day of the funeral you heard soft mourning and the Wheels of the Caisson.When Little John-John saluted his father as it gently passed by him, there wasn’t a dry eye in the world.Evil did that.And to his Brother. And all the others. And they still walk amongst us. The only difference is, Fresh Stock and Deadlier Guns. I hope anyone with a Flag remembers to Fly it tomorrow.I still do.TFG told them they were “ The Forgotten One’s“. The White Privileged Republicans are ‘Victims ‘. And the kid in WI just rubber stamped that. If I or any one of us stands with any person of Color, Culture, Religion, any right of Equality, to Vote. The ‘Victims’ can shoot us because that threatens them.We are all now the hunted. Just like my President was and all those that were Fallen after him.Oh ! But they are all Christians and Abortion is murder ! But by all means shoot me because I believe in Equality for All ! Even them. I hope I’m long gone when they discover their regrets. When Kennedy asked “ What we could do for our Country “ I’m 99.9% sure he didn’t mean to Destroy it.
I was at work at NASA when I heard a co-worker say, well, about time somebody did that. Later learned he was a John Bircher. Was so appalled. He was a self-righteous arse so made me ultra sensitive to his ilk from there on. I doubt he has had one regret. He and Samuel Gompers made me a Dem though…
A friend of mine was at a faculty dinner and one her her colleagues made a similar statement. And this was in early 2000's.
Cult seems to have been in the making for a long time, Roger Stone is proof. See Netflix “Get Me Roger Stone.” Hard to be shocked anymore…
I remember too. I was watching TV when it happened. And then one after another. Seems from then on it has escalated until we have weekly, daily shootings and killings and somehow we dont hear any more "thoughts & prayers" - pretty much little mention of it at all. Remember how politicians would claim "this isnt the time to do anything - too soon"?
I sure do. It was like "something" flipped a switch on11-22-63.
I will never forget that day. I still have many questions. Then there was Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy in the same year, riots from anti war protesters and African Americans in cities protesting what they experienced daily and what we white people are just starting to scratch the surface of learning about their experience in the past few years (see Kerner Commission for analysis of race in America which is still pertinent today).
I don't know if things radically changed after 11-22-63 by design or if "the change" is the actual truth about an aspect of American reality that we either didn't notice or not want to notice.
I have read and heard it said that on that day, 22 November 1963, America lost its innocence and saw the cold, hard, brutal reality in the world. I've always thought it was the beginning of our "education" as a nation. The long, slow process of self-awareness begun that day that--guess what??--showed we were NOT the perfect country we thought we were.
I hope this isn't a duplicate post (my previous one sprang into the Ethers before I hit "Post") but the feelings I had after November 2016 election were similar to the feelings I experienced after 11-22-63 when a succession of rapid fire events occurred quickly leaving little time to "process". I would describe it as an assault on my senses.
Every hour of every day, why so many of the horrors were barely mentioned, on to the next horror show, and on and on…l
Precisely.
Kathleen, that’s a good way to put it. And maybe your “sprung” posts will meet up with some of mine, out there in the ether! Maddening when that happens....
Bruce, it’s a tragedy that after 58 years how many Americans are vehemently un-self-aware. Reality bites....
Yeah, the so-called Christians are extremely un-Christianlike. I still find it shocking how evil these people are behaving and refusing to act with civility. Very scary.
I'm watching a L&O SVU rerun in which a doctor who performed abortions is killed (the original L&O had a few plot lines about anti abortion activists). They were showing who they were in the 80's and the 90's but to my recollection the news media did not report their activities except as a sideline reference to the story.
I was in 5th grade in Ft. Worth Tx on that day. My step-dad was an Air Force meteorologist at Carswell AFB where AF1 landed right outside his office before it hopped over to Love Field ih Arlington. We were sent home when it happened and I ran home to find my mom, a life long active Democratic Party volunteer, crying on the couch. It was too close to home and it rocked all our lives to the core.
Marcia, once again you have flattened me with the way you can put things. This is a spur in the flanks for all of us. Thank you.
🦋
She speaks for me. Why is the obvious so hard to see. Maybe it's the cult megaphone from Fox. I have seen sanity slip slide away for decades and the right become wrong in ways i could only imagine in a nightmare, and being embraced by a coalition of zygote warriors, Pharisees, gun worshipers, and casual racists as well as the radical white supremacists. A cult that spews propaganda about Democrats that Goebbels would be proud of.
"Casual racists"; how perfect. Those who bleat "I'm not racist" in one moment but counter with some statement/scenario/belief that is, in fact, racist at its core.
Stole it from someone, boy does it fit some who have no clue
Thank You Christopher. Exactly. I reposted, hoping my conservative friends, still clinging to the rags of their grand old party, will see the light.
Will I be able to find, if I go through all of the comments posted this morning here, any which disagree with Ms. Rubin's Washington Post column? Of course not. They don't follow LFAA nor read columns like hers. Democracy is still challenged by most of the 74 million who voted for the ex-president in 2020, and who constitute a majority in most States, enabling their legislatures to pass laws that restrict voting opportunities. Democrats in both Houses of Congress must use every tactic available to them to preserve democracy, starting with passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, even if this means first fighting the battle to eliminate filibusters.
Jack, you won't. They "don't believe" in the press (unless it's Faux, or OANN*, or Brietbart) so they won't even read the opinion.
*I cannot help but refer to this as "ONAN" in my head... that's just my junior high ego coming out.
Actually, as HCR has pointed out, 2020 trump voters comprise a minority in many states that have recently passed redistricting laws for 55-85% representation in their state legislatures. True minority rule over both party and racial identity.
Yes to passing national voting rights legislation.
And pay attention to state and local races. Listen and read David Pepper’s Laboratories of Autocracy:
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9saW5jb2xucHJvamVjdC5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw/episode/NTJmOTAyZTctY2E2Ni00NDI5LWFhNjktN2UyMTIzMTA2ZDYy
Here’s more via LFAA reader Joan Garvin: a 4 minute watch on how Ohio Republicans refused to participate in the nonpartisan redistricting commission, thereby sending the task to the Republican legislature, a scary template for states across the country.
https://twitter.com/newday/status/1461681726124609536?s=21
In Georgia, which went for Biden like 51% to 49%, our gerrymandered state will probably end up being 60% to 40% representation in the state house in favour of the Republicans. Welcome to democracy Southern style...
Will check Peppe out. But those minorities, if properly gerrymandered, amount to a majority.
Absolutely Jack. Minority rule, the holy grail off the antebellum southern planter aristocracy. They’re finally achieving it....
What is LFAA? Oh those acronyms!
Letters from an American.
Thanks for answering Barbara. But how often do we assume that people understand what we talk or write about when they really don't? Beyond acronyms, an example might be "Reconstruction," which without HCR's historical posts, many might think was something it wasn't.
For the longest time I thought "lol" was about love. Honest!
Barbara, don’t feel left out. Plenty of us painfully attempt to figure arcane acronyms out on our own, rather than just ask. One good thing happens when the words I come up with are really funny, having no relationship to the real meaning. Sometimes I do that on purpose....
I like your method. Truth be known I believe we may just have gone overboard on the acronyms. I quit trying to figure them out and just ask.
I just call it “the Letter” and hope everyone here knows what I mean, ‘cuz I don’t like to use acronyms. We had too many of them in the military.
Heather's daily "letters" to us Americans.
Saw this a few days ago and it struck a cord. Don't accept polarization. This is a cult Republican Party. Thank you for posting it here.
You're welcome. It's strange and education to read Jennifer. She bashed Obama like a red-headed stepchild for 8 years and now this.
The old paradigms no longer stand we are being resorted from liberals and conservatives into lovers of democracy and fascists.
Exciting times!
Horrific times, I love what Jennifer writes now, didn’t know she trashed Obama. Strange happenings all over…
Should be shouted from podiums and rooftops by every concerned American until everyone knows it by heart!
Christopher, Perhaps the nihilism stems from our species' growing awareness that we have doomed ourselves, and all currently viable life with it?
We need to mitigate. And teach our descendants how to live well with each other as they cope with what is coming. Right now.
We are not that far removed from more civilized times. The drift of the GOP from conservatism to whatever you want to call them now has many causes. A lot of it we brought on ourselves for the way we treated them. Most of it, as Heather has pounded into our brains, goes back to the 19th century mentality that only rich white men are smart enough to vote and government's role should be to maintain that status quo.
My daughter and her daughters (12 and 14) are fully aware of what's going on. Kids today have the ability to be just as informed as we are and many more are engaged that you or I might think.
It will most like require an earth-shaking event to bring us together. It can't come too soon for me.
FDR was probably grateful for Pearl Harbor, as horrid as it was. All of a sudden “unity.”