With this posting, this blog
shifts direction. It will, though,
continue to address the concern over the prevailing obstacles that confront civics
educators in any attempt to institute a communally oriented curriculum. Specifically, the blog focuses on the
challenges one faces in following the guidance of federation theory in devising
such curricular strategies.
Leading
up to this posting, this blog has looked at the ubiquitous challenge of
immaturity, the general political culture that has adopted, as prominent, the
natural rights construct in defining governance and politics, and the general
curricular outlook in civics that is based on a natural rights view. This posting
moves on to add one more area of concern, the political landscape current
civics teachers face in their efforts to encourage good citizenship; that is
the level of polarization the citizens of the US currently face.
The
writer is reminded that this bifurcated politics is not a first-time event or
condition in American history. He is
currently reading Ted Widmer’s Lincoln on the Verge[1] that traces the political
environment of another time – that time between Lincoln’s election in 1860 and
his assuming the responsibilities of the presidency in 1861. Of course, Widmer relates a good deal of the
developments that resulted in the division leading to the threatened
dissolution of the Union.
What seems to this writer to be so bizarre is that one can
readily trace the current sources of division to the issues that faced the
nation in the nineteenth century. A lot
has to do with race, a lot of it has to do with the conflicts between the urban
centers and the rural areas. And a lot
of it has to do with the effects of technology – in those days, the advent of
railroad travel had its divisive effects and today, the recent growth in social
media[2] is having its effects.
What
is a bit paradoxical, for example, is that these technologies initially
promised that they would serve to unite Americans. They did to an extent, but they also did the
opposite. For example, for a variety of
reasons, most railroad lines were constructed in the North and most of those
lines linked East to West instead of North to South.[3]
Before
moving on, this writer believes an editorial comment should be made. He has purposely avoided expressing his
opinions over those issues that seem to be so divisive today. He does have an opinion and he definitely
falls on one side of the divide. His
promotion of federation theory will indicate some bias when it comes to the
contentious debates of this time.
Therefore, the reader might surmise where this writer falls.
But
these upcoming research concerns – research that is meant to instruct the writer
as to the nature of the prevailing division – call for an objective approach
and he will attempt to hold to that. Of
course, the reader will decide how successful the writer is. So, with the reader’s forbearance, this
writer will share with him/her his research findings concerning this
subject.
The
first bit of questioning is: has the US
come about this polarization suddenly or is it the product of long-standing
divisions that have simmered under the surface and erupted lately? For example, has the bifurcation between
urban centers and rural areas just popped up in the last few years or have they
been there more or less under wraps?
To
assist the writer, he is initially counting on the work of the journalist, Ezra
Klein.[4] To shed light on this question, Klein asks,
what do the election results of 2016 indicate.
Do they reflect a shift in the opinions of Americans? If they do, then what would suggest that
Americans have gone through some basic change?
Perhaps the election results do not identify what the changes are
specifically – they might hint at them since the voters’ preferences do reflect
choices between policy proposals of the candidates – but only if there was a
change in how people voted.
So,
what did Klein find? He begins by
agreeing that some of the candidates’ positions probably caused this close
election to go in one direction as opposed to the other, but do the numbers
vary significantly from prior elections?
Klein summarizes his findings by writing,
The 2016 election didn’t look like a
glitch, he [Larry Bartels, political scientist of Vanderbilt University]
said. It looked, for the most part, like
every other election we’ve had recently.
The simulation was, if anything, too stable, like we had unleashed tornadoes
and meteors on our virtual city and only a few windows had shattered. It was normalcy that was unnerving.[5]
To give the reader a
sample of Bartels’ findings the following can be offered:
·
Using exit polling, Trump in 2016 won 52%
of male voters compared to McCain’s 48% in 2008, Romney’s 52% in 2012.
·
Trump won 41% of women, McCain won 43%;
Romney won 44%.
·
In 2004, Republican Bush won 58% of white
voters; McCain won 55%; Romney won 59%; and Trump won 57%.
If any change took place,
it was probably the sharp support Trump received among whites without college
education, especially in key states – e.g., Michigan and Pennsylvania. In 2016, the one item one can cite as
outstanding is the nature of Trump himself – what he represented.
And that, according to Klein indicates how polarized
Americans are. That is, given the
bizarre nature of Trump’s candidacy, according to Klein, the results illustrate
how “locked into our political identities [Americans are]. … [Currently] there
is virtually no candidate, no information, no condition, that can force us to
change our minds. We will justify almost
anything or anyone …”[6] The result is “a politics devoid of
guardrails, persuasions, or accountabilities.”[7]
Of course, these quotes do not hide Klein’s biases, but the
information upon which his conclusion is based are straight statistics that are
not biased in what they include. In
addition, it seems Klein is merely reporting the research results Bartels discovered. This writer finds Klein’s reportage as
uncontroversial. To the extent his
stated conclusion is true, a further question becomes, why have Americans’
politics become so toxic. This blog’s
writer needs to do more research.
[1] Ted Widmer, Lincoln on the Verge (New York,
NY: Simon and Schuster).
[2] See Andrew Marantz, Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking
of the American Conversation (New York, NY:
Viking).
[3] Ted Widmer, Lincoln on the Verge.
[4] Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized (New York, NY: Avid Reader Press).
[5] Ibid., xi.
[6] Ibid., xiii.
[7] Ibid.
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