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Nate Cohn

19 Apr, 9 tweets, 3 min read

The rise of political sectarianism is a growing threat to American democracy
nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/…

I'm a little surprised this concept hasn't already taken off! There was a paper in Science by a lot of prominent political scientists last fall. It deserves a book--it's a clarifying lens for thinking about America today--so I'm giving it an article
pcl.stanford.edu/research/2020/…

In recent news, I think sectarianism helps make sense of the declining role of policy debate in sustaining partisan conflict. It's hard to make sense of, say, Dr. Seuss or Rubio on Amazon unionization unless you put intergroup hostility at the center of politics

Joe Biden's unity pledge is another example. His actions don't necessarily jive if 'unity' means 'bipartisan policy initiatives' under a policy-focused vision of America political conflict. His actions might make perfect sense if it means deescalating intergroup hostility

Even the 2016 primary is another example. If you thought about the conservative movement in terms of ideology, Trump didn't make so much sense. But he makes quite a bit of sense as a sectarian candidate who mobilized intergroup hostility and the sense of in-group threat

Finally, sectarianism usefully reframes the threat to democracy. We usually think about the risk to democracy in terms of authoritarianism.
Sectarianism re-centers the threat on the varying dangers of a deeply divided citizenry. Many of those dangers appear in America today.

https://twitter.com/jgkoomey/status/1384129324131880960?s=20

Mass sectarianism is bipartisan--your tweet is an example, oddly!
But so far, elite sectarianization--the mobilization of sectarian attitudes for political purposes--is mainly on the right. That's in part, I'd posit, because they fear minority status

https://twitter.com/jgkoomey/status/1384129324131880960?s=20

But the fact that Democrats *also* feel Republicans are an immoral, alien enemy (so strongly that my replies are full of people offended by allegations of both-sides-ism) does have consequences with risks of its own, even if for now they're badly overshadowed by the right

https://twitter.com/the_ildon/status/1384131659830763531?s=20

The Irish are the more relevant example. I'm not an expert, but I would sure think English colonization of Ireland is plainly at fault. But as a result *both sides* hate each other, and eventually that can become the salient political feature

https://twitter.com/the_ildon/status/1384131659830763531?s=20

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More from @Nate_Cohn

Nate Cohn

@Nate_Cohn

16 Apr

One thing about Democratic gains in the Sun Belt and Republican gains in the Rust Belt is that it's at least beginning to upend the 2010-era story about gerrymandering, redistricting, and the Democratic 'geographic' disadvantage in the House

From 2010-2014, the main story about the Democratic disadvantage in the House centered on purple/blue states where Democrats faced a two part problem: Republican gerrymandering and a Democratic 'geographic' inefficiency problem

The geograhpic problem was simple: in the blue/purple states, Obama's strength mainly depended on running up the score in areas that were already blue (thus yielding few new D districts), while Republicans won rural/exurban areas narrowly, netting more districts with fewer votes

Read 13 tweets

Nate Cohn

@Nate_Cohn

6 Apr

https://twitter.com/fairfightaction/status/1379464786405101573?s=20

What I implied is that new the law probably doesn't increase the length of lines, and could just as easily shorten lines.
I am not implying that lines don't matter to turnout (the article, in fact, says long lines affect turnout), or to human beings

https://twitter.com/fairfightaction/status/1379464786405101573?s=20

When it comes to the effect on in-person voting, there are provisions cutting in both directions.
An example in the negative direction: ending the Fulton County bus voting stations, which could directly alleviate a problem

An example in the positive direction: expanding early voting days and the provision requiring that large precincts with long lines (over an hour) either add staff, add machines or split apart.

Read 11 tweets

Nate Cohn

@Nate_Cohn

6 Apr

The new Georgia law increases the risk of partisan interference in election administration, even if it doesn't make it easy.
Election subversion is a risk outside of Georgia, too, and it's a risk that's being overshadowed by focus on mail voting
nytimes.com/2021/04/06/ups…

As an aside, the response here to the my piece on the voting half of this law was series of absolutely unhinged--which is not to say there weren't several valid critiques, some of which I'm sympathetic to.

One of the most wrong headed critiques was the notion, often implicit, that there's something problematic about examining individual aspects of a law at a time (especially when there's more coming later on those very aspects)

Read 14 tweets

Nate Cohn

@Nate_Cohn

3 Apr

The Georgia election law's restrictions on voting are unlikely to discernibly affect turnout or the result
nytimes.com/2021/04/03/ups…

I've limited my analysis to the provisions affecting whether and how people can vote, not those that empower the state legislature to play a larger role in election administration. More on those later, but those provisions don't inherently affect voting access in a particular way

I also like to say that I do think it's important for journalists to report about the consequences of these laws, not just their intent or morality, for a few reasons.

Read 13 tweets

Nate Cohn

@Nate_Cohn

2 Apr

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1377752717951655941

I do think there’s a credible, somewhat counterintuitive case that Democrats would have been better off if the GA GOP got rid of no excuse absentee voting altogether, v make it more difficult and risk higher rejections

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1377752717951655941

This supposes that no excuse absentee voting does little to nothing to increase turnout, which I think is probably right. It’s less clear whether the GA law would increase rejections by more, but it’s uncertain enough to be imaginable

And the GA law does quite a bit to make it harder, between ID requirements and the huge dropbox restrictions. Not hard to imagine the law trapping Dem voters in a more difficult voting method

Read 8 tweets

Nate Cohn

@Nate_Cohn

31 Mar

One thing I've been thinking about lately: how different is the optimal voting system in a low-trust and high-trust society? What about in a society where partisans will play no-holds barred to win, versus one where democratic norms are strong?

To take an easy example from 2020: maybe it's not optimal for the vote count to last three weeks in a low trust society. There's nothing wrong with it, strictly speaking. It could have advantages. But maybe it's not worth the risk if there are bad actors and low trust

I can imagine taking this to more extreme places where there would probably way more debate: say, arguing against multiple forms of voting with varying eligibility, as it creates distinct categories of voters/ballots that can be targeted by law, election admin, courts, etc

Read 4 tweets

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