So, last week, Pew Research released another of their powerful findings about the goings-on in America. They are in a multi-part release about a year long research project into “understanding the nature and scope of political polarization in the American public, and how it interrelates with government, society and people’s personal lives.” Their findings show “a complex picture of partisan polarization and how it manifests itself in political behaviors, policy debates, election dynamics and everyday life.”
What got my attention was a link from someone on Facebook to a Huffington Post blurb that only really linked to a Salon article. Yet, rather than talking about the “complex picture,” both sites (which lean left) quickly cast aside restraint or reflection to merely accuse those on the right of being warped by propaganda and following information “full of lies and misinformation.”
This is the kicker. Pew has, as usual, deep and insightful research that basically says we’ve got a growing problem of deep division between right and left, and that both sides have issues. If you think that is familiar, it is…I wrote about in my book Tracking the Storm, in chapter thirteen, back in 2010 (published in 2011). I blogged about it here in 2012. And yet, rather than reporting to their own leftists readers “hey, we have a problem”—I mean, one finding was that those most consistently liberal more much more likely to end a friendship over political disagreement—and then try to start finding ways to respect the other side….BOTH sites simply went with charged words like propaganda.
I wonder if either site actually read the reports from Pew! Propaganda is a loaded word, as I am sure you know. It smacks of judgment and, to some degree, condemnation, something those who want tolerance and open-mindedness would rarely, if never, do. The Liberals in my life, some of them dear friends, are always quick to trumpet that they champion tolerance. But perhaps that tolerance only extends to those with whom they agree…as the Pew Research seems to indicate. When a site like Salon wants to twist the findings of Pew Research to present the insights that they WANT to find, and probably the insights of their type of reader, if anyone is guilty of propaganda or spin, it’s Salon and Huffington Post.
I hope you will go read both reports, and hopefully look forward to the rest that I assume will come from Pew in the coming months. What you will find is troubling. I have quotes for you to read below. Basically, according to Pew, the most deeply entrenched people on the right and left listen to information that matches their views. Our country is perhaps in deep trouble, as the Pew Research indicates and many have written about (including myself), but the issue is not that one side or the other is bad, but that both have pulled away from each other and bring condemnation against the other. The deep philosophical divide is exactly that foundation for worse actions to come…if one person or group can let themselves move to the place philosophically that the “others” are merely that….”others” with dangerous views (exactly what Pew found for both left and right)….then it becomes easy to accept extreme solutions that silence or eliminate those “others”….all in the name of protecting “the nation.”
But hey, don’t believe me….go read the full reports. Here are some of the more troubling findings. At least I, unlike Salon and others, will bother to actually just quote the findings:
From the First Report issued in June 2014
Partisan animosity has increased substantially over the same period. In each party, the share with a highly negative view of the opposing party has more than doubled since 1994. Most of these intense partisans believe the opposing party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being….Ideological silos” are now common on both the left and right.” (pp. 6-7)
“Today, almost four-in-ten (38%) politically engaged Democrats are consistent liberals, up from just 8% in 1994. The change among Republicans since then appears less dramatic – 33% express consistently conservative views, up from 23% in the midst of the 1994 “Republican Revolution.” “ (p. 8)
“Meanwhile, the center has shrunk: 39% currently take a roughly equal number of liberal and conservative positions….And this shift represents both Democrats moving to the left and Republicans moving to the right, with less and less overlap between the parties.” (p. 9-10)
“Beyond the rise in ideological consistency, another major element in polarization has been the growing contempt that many Republicans and Democrats have for the opposing party…Since then, highly negative views have more than doubled: 43% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats now view the opposite party in strongly negative terms. “ (p. 10-11)
“The ideological consolidation nationwide has happened on both the left and the right of the political spectrum, but the long-term shift among Democrats stands out as particularly noteworthy. The share of Democrats who are liberal on all or most value dimensions has nearly doubled from just 30% in 1994 to 56% today. In absolute terms, the ideological shift among Republicans has been more modest, in 1994, 45% of Republicans were right-of-center, with 13% consistently conservative. Those figures are up to 53% and 20% today.“ (p. 23)
“But today, the majority of ideologically-oriented Americans hold deeply negative views of the other side. This is particularly true on the right, as 72% of consistent conservatives have a very unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party. Consistent liberals do not feel as negatively toward the GOP; nonetheless, 53% of consistent liberals have very unfavorable impressions of the GOP, more than double the share that did so two decades ago….Among all Democrats and Democratic leaners, 27% go so far as to say the GOP is a threat to the well-being of the country. Among all Republicans and Republican leaners, more than a third (36%) say Democratic policies threaten the nation….While there are plenty on both the left and the right who express these levels of antipathy toward the other side, there is substantially more anger among conservatives than among liberals. At the most extreme, two-thirds (66%) of consistently conservative Republicans see the Democratic Party as a threat to the nation’s well-being, compared with the half (50%) of consistently liberal Democrats who say the same about the Republican Party….This impassioned Republican discontent has persisted from the early days of Obama’s presidency, yet it is only the latest instance of a longer pattern in how the public assesses its presidents. There has been a steadily growing level of partisan division over presidential performance over the past 60 years, and it is driven almost entirely by broader disapproval from the opposition party, not by greater loyalty among the president’s party. And in that regard, the phenomenon is not limited to Republicans. At a comparable point in George W. Bush’s presidency eight years ago, Democratic disapproval of Bush’s job performance was on par with Republicans’ ratings of Obama today; in April 2006, 87% of Democrats and Democratic leaners disapproved of Bush’s job performance, and 75% very strongly disapproved. “ (pp. 34-36)
“Public perceptions of two major news sources – MSNBC and the Fox News Channel (FNC) – are deeply divided along ideological lines. And what stands apart the most are the negative views among those on the other side of the ideological spectrum. Notably, both of these news channels are viewed more favorably than unfavorably in the public at large, reflecting the fact that both receive generally favorable, or at least neutral, marks from people with mixed ideological views. In that regard, while consistent conservatives overwhelmingly express a positive view of the Fox News Channel (74% favorable), that is a more uniform expression of the generally favorable view found among the general public. By contrast, the strongly negative reaction to Fox News from consistent liberals – fully 73% view FNC unfavorably and just 8% favorably – stands starkly apart. The same pattern arises in views of MSNBC. Consistent conservatives are far-and-away the most likely to have an opinion of MSNBC, and it is overwhelmingly negative: 71% unfavorable and just 10% favorable. This stands in contrast to the positive balance of opinion from the public at large. ” (p. 54)
From the most recent report in October 2014:
“When it comes to choosing a media source for political news, conservatives orient strongly around Fox News. Nearly half of consistent conservatives (47%) name it as their main source for government and political news, as do almost a third (31%) of those with mostly conservative views. No other sources come close. Consistent liberals, on the other hand, volunteer a wider range of main sources for political news – no source is named by more than 15% of consistent liberals and 20% of those who are mostly liberal. Still, consistent liberals are more than twice as likely as web-using adults overall to name NPR (13% vs. 5%), MSNBC (12% vs. 4%) and the New York Times (10% vs. 3%) as their top source for political news. “ (p. 4) [ed– the concept that more conservatives listen to fewer sources (thus potentially skewed views) is countered by the fact that most of the news outlets are on the left of the center point. So, except for those closest to the middle (according to Pew: CBS, Google News, Bloomberg, ABC, USA Today, Yahoo News, Wall Street Journal), people who have views that skew left have more choices, thus are happy to get a broad range of inputs because all of those inputs will provide roughly the same take on the issue. Make sure you look at this wonderful, insightful image on p. 9…that shows the audience of news sources…my point]
“consistent conservatives are twice as likely as the typical Facebook user to see political opinions on Facebook that are mostly in line with their own views (47% vs. 23%). Consistent liberals, on average, hear a somewhat wider range of views than consistent conservatives – about a third (32%) mainly see posts in line with their own opinions. But that doesn’t mean consistent liberals necessarily embrace contrasting views. Roughly four-in-ten consistent liberals on Facebook (44%) say they have blocked or defriended someone on social media because they disagreed with something that person posted about politics. This compares with 31% of consistent conservatives and just 26% of all Facebook users who have done the same.” (p. 7)
“At the same time, consistent liberals are more likely to stop talking to someone because of politics. “ (p. 8)
“Overall, consistent conservatives are somewhat less likely than consistent liberals to get government and political news on Facebook or Twitter, primarily because they are somewhat less likely to use the sites in the first place. About half (49%) of consistent liberals (and a similar share of those with mixed ideological views) say they got news about government and politics in the past week from Facebook, compared with 40% of consistent conservatives. And while 13% of consistent liberals say they got political news on Twitter in the past week, just 5% of consistent conservatives (and 8% of groups in between) say the same. “ (p. 27)
“Consistent liberals are somewhat less likely than consistent conservatives to have politically like-minded friends. About half (52%) say most of their friends share their views – though that is still twice that of those in the middle. And 12% are not aware of their close friends’ political views. Similar to what the data reveal about people’s circle of friends on Facebook, consistent liberals might have close friends that span a wider mix of political views than consistent conservatives, but they are the most likely to stop talking to or being friends with someone because of politics. “ (p. 35)