The party of “please leave me out of this”

Last Sunday the NPR program Hidden Brain discussed two political categories, a political divide, in American politics. The usual assumption is this refers to Democrats and Republicans. But not so. Host Shankar Vedantam talked to Yanna Krupnikov, a political scientist at Stony Brook University. She and fellow political scientist, John Barry Ryan, wrote the book The Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American Politics. The audio is 55 minutes. There is also a transcript. Krupnikov saw a flaw in the studies that asked: Would you marry someone of the other party? If all you’re told about a person is their party affiliation you conclude it is quite important to them. So she revised the study, asking half the participants: Would you marry someone of the other party but they won’t talk about politics? Then the party didn’t matter so much. Krupnikov then explored the idea that the divide isn’t between the left and the right but between those deeply involved in politics and those who aren’t. And those who aren’t hold the majority. Some characteristics of the deeply involved: They are connected to politics for large parts of their day (somewhat true for me). They are interested in minor political developments, such as the nasty guy’s “Covfefe” tweet a while back leading to hours of debate (not true of me – and I hope this blog reflects that). They constantly talk about politics (yes, I talk a lot about politics in this blog, but not much beyond it). This is where social media comes in. In my daily life if I want to talk to someone about politics I have to search out someone. But on social media there is always someone willing to talk politics, either to reinforce my beliefs or to tell me I’m stupid. Since many people on social media – especially those who respond to political tweets – tend to be “loud,” as in ever present, one can get the impression that the number of people deeply involved in politics is “everyone,” a much larger portion of the population than they actually are. This loudness, this conflict, draws media coverage. Journalists are attracted to conflict. And that means they’re attracted to the deeply political. They’re the ones that demonstrate the narrative of polarization, who declare compromise to be a dirty word. So the deeply political people dominate news stories and dominate stories of public opinion. And they’re not the majority. The majority includes people who work more than one job, who have kids to take care of, who don’t have the time to be deeply engaged in politics. That means deep engagement includes a level of privilege. If one is deeply political one sees things that are horrifying. It is natural to want others to care about the situation as well, to warn others about the bad things coming, to get them involved. But when the majority see the deeply political they see that it seems one is supposed to be deeply political and they see what it takes to be deeply political. And they don’t want that effort and don’t have the interest. The majority also believe that all Republicans and all Democrats are all deeply political though most of them don’t talk about politics much. The majority believe they don’t know enough to be a part of the political world. They become the party of “please leave me out of this.” And they don’t vote. When confronted by partisans saying voting is so important they retreat even further. And that means politics caters to the deeply political (I can hear you saying, “well duh!”). But the voices of the other half are being ignored. We lose their ideas. We don’t address their needs. Politics is not all there is to life. Clay Jones posted a cartoon on Daily Kos inspired by the wildfires in Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott comes up behind a firefighter and says, “Have you tried dousing it with racism, razor wire, and abortion bans?” In the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos Denise Oliver Velez posted a lot of cartoons and a half dozen are worth sharing. Nick Anderson drew one of a boxing punching bag that hangs from a ceiling, this one in the shape of an elephant head. Biden is shown whacking away at it. The head says, “I miss the old, frail Biden.” Katie Britt did the Republican response to Biden’s State of the Union speech and seems to have done an especially bad job of it (after a long series of bad Republican responses to other SOTU speeches). The setting for Britt’s speech was a kitchen. That prompted Rachel Bitecofer to post a meme of a 1950s woman saying, “We don’t need rights, we have kitchens!” Joe Heller posted a cartoon showing a man watching TV that’s showing Putin gloating over Navalny’s murder. His wife says, “So, do you still think a president should have absolute immunity?” In honor of International Women’s Day Boyce created a cartoon of women standing, looking around, and waiting. One says, “I’m not sure the man’s coming, shall we go ahead and make up the punchline ourselves?” Christine Spadafora tweeted a cartoon by Ted Littleford. A white cop and a black child are sitting at a lunch counter.

Cop: What do you want to be when you grow up? Child: Alive.

Pat Begley posted one of a child sprawled on the ground. The caption says, “If you need to know if this dead child is Israeli or Palestinian before knowing how you feel about it ... You’re doing it wrong.”