Thread by @tzimmer_history

No, no, no. The problem is not “the extremes of political parties” (plural!), it’s not “both sides,” it’s not #polarization.

The key problem is the rise of far-right extremism and the accelerating anti-democratic radicalization of the Republican Party. 1/

https://twitter.com/FareedZakaria/status/1586782726874890240

Zakaria concludes that in America, “democracy has actually become minority rule, and the minority rule holding power is unrepresentative, angry, and increasingly radical.” An apt description of what’s happening on the Right - only he means: on both sides! 2/

It’s a remarkable statement in a situation in which one party is fully committed to erecting minority rule against the will of the majority and there is absolutely no equivalent anywhere near the center of the Democratic Party or mainstream liberal / progressive thinking. 3/

It’s a disaster how the escalating rightwing assault on democracy, civil rights, and constitutional government still leads to polarization / #BothSides laments from almost across the political spectrum that obscure far more than they illuminate. 4/

Only one side is embracing and elevating militant extremists who, while remaining members in good standing with their party, condone political violence, deliberately provoke it, actively legitimize it, excuse it – there is no equivalent on the Democratic side. 5/

https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/status/1576315800079712257

There is no equivalent on the Left to Republican elected officials gleefully mocking the victim of an attempt to torture a political leader - which influential rightwing activists have also turned into fuel for anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories. 6/

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1587182585557684225

No equivalent on the Democratic side to a reactionary pseudo-intellectual and pundit sphere openly declaring that “conservatism is not enough,” embracing state authoritarianism and demanding that over half the population be excluded from the body politic. 7/

No equivalent to powerful rightwing media activists with close ties to the GOP demonizing the political opponent, popularizing and normalizing extremist ideas every day - a propaganda machine that keeps the conservative base in a constant state of panic. 8/

https://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1584705291366461440

Absolutely no equivalent to the rightwing assault on the political system, the multi-level attempt to subvert the democratic process - to over half of the midterm candidates coming out of the Republican primaries being election deniers and Big Lie truthers. 9/

No equivalent on the Left to Republicans constantly deriding the political opponent as the “enemy within,” a fundamentally illegitimate, “Un-American” faction out to destroy the nation, an enemy that must not be allowed to govern. 10/

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1497678104449404936

Certainly no equivalent to the Republican Party remaining united behind the man who animated a violent mob to storm the Capitol, who leads a fascistic movement, and who remains the most powerful vessel for extremist conspiracy theories. 11/

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1566236890688258055

I want to be precise: The point is not that there aren’t specific aspects of American politics, society, and culture that are adequately described as polarized. But as an overall diagnosis, “polarization” obscures what is the key challenge: A radicalization of the Right. 12/

It is true that, in an internationally comparative perspective, the gap between “Left” and “Right” (if you’ll excuse the very broad way in which I am using these terms here ) is very wide, and has been widening, on many issues. 13/

But where that’s the case – say: on guns, pandemic response, the question of whether or not political violence is acceptable if you don’t win elections – it has often been almost entirely a function of Republicans being more extreme than mainstream conservatives elsewhere. 14/

There are indeed areas in which we are dealing with a rapidly widening partisan divide that is *not* purely caused by conservatives / Republicans moving right, but also by liberals / Democrats moving left. Take climate change, for example. 15/

When it comes to climate change, attitudes have indeed been polarizing, with Republicans and Democrats moving away from each other, largely vacating a position in the middle. But as a political narrative, polarization is still misleading, even here. 16/

The “polarization” narrative implies two things: a) both sides moving to the “extremes,” and b) that this move to the “extremes,” and the widening gap between the two positions that results from it, is the actual problem. 17/

Crucially, though, Democrats aren’t moving to an “extreme” position – they are getting in line with the position shared by nearly all serious experts and political parties in the world. Meanwhile, a sizable percentage of Republicans is drifting further into fantasy land. 18/

It’s also not the widening divide per se that’s the problem: If Democrats hadn’t moved on the issue, the gap would be smaller – but we absolutely wouldn’t be better off, instead just ending up with fewer people acknowledging the reality and urgency of climate change. 19/

We need to make sure not to miss the forest for the trees: By international comparison, the Democrats are very much a standard center-left party – while the Republicans are a party controlled by far-right factions and authoritarian desires. 20/

Most importantly, the “polarization/both sides are so extreme” narrative completely obscures the fact that on the central issue that is at the core of the political conflict, the two parties, Left and Right more generally, are very much not the same – that issue is democracy. 21/

The social, political, and cultural divides are inextricably linked to the struggle over democracy – the central conflict is the one between a vision of traditional white Christian patriarchal authority and one of egalitarian, multiracial, pluralistic democracy. 22/

That is the fundamental reality of American politics right now: The conflict over whether or not the country should actually be a democracy maps onto the conflict between the two parties - democracy itself has become a partisan issue. 23/

Republicans are willing to abandon and overthrow democracy because they consider it a threat to traditional hierarchies and their vision of what “real” (read: white Christian patriarchal) America should be. Many of them are embracing authoritarianism. Democrats… are not. 24/

One party is dominated by a white reactionary minority that is rapidly radicalizing against democracy and will no longer accept the principle of majoritarian rule; the other thinks democracy and constitutional government should be upheld. That’s not “polarization.” 25/

And yet, the least controversial thing one can do in American politics is to decry “polarization.” If you do, you will be rewarded with a steady stream of nodding heads from almost across the political spectrum: Yes, polarization! The root of all evil that plagues America! 26/

If, at best, it is debatable whether or not the “polarization” framework adds any analytical value, and at worst, it is a misleading narrative, lacking empirical evidence, distorting the political conflict – why are people from across the political spectrum clinging to it? 27/

The answer lies in the fact that the analytical inadequacy is not a bug, but a feature of the polarization narrative – it is precisely the fact that it obscures rather than illuminates the actual problem that makes it attractive politically. 28/

Mainstream journalists, for instance, are drawn to the polarization framework because it allows them to say that things are bad while remaining “nonpartisan” and “neutral,” which is all too often defined as keeping equidistance from either side and mistaken for objectivity. 29/

This is not at all just a phenomenon in American political journalism. Take this perfect example of “polarization”-induced distortion from a BBC reporter – who, as far as I can tell, does important investigative work on conspiracy theories and extremism. And yet… 30/

It starts with a precise description of the problem in the first tweet: The extent to which the facts of a heinous act of political violence are being distorted on the Right really is incredible (I’d say: shocking, though not surprising). 31/

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1587110338142654470

But then comes the misleading framing: It is the “polarization across partisan lines” that is supposedly responsible for the fact that “the two sides cannot even agree on the reality of a violent attack.” But that - the lack of agreement - is decidedly not the key issue here. 32/

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1587112659228540928

It’s reminiscent of the climate change situation: If Party A accepts the facts and Party B is entirely devoted to vile conspiracy theories, the problem isn’t that they aren’t in agreement – it’s that Party B has radicalized and embraced extremism to the point of lunacy. 33/

Beyond journalism, the “polarization” narrative is extremely attractive to elite centrists who certainly aren’t comfortable with Trumpism, but will always be worried about the dangers of the “Left” and any leftwing attempt at leveling existing hierarchies. 34/

https://twitter.com/FareedZakaria/status/1586782726874890240

Zakaria presents a perfect example of this position: Framing the problem as extremism on both sides, accelerating polarization, allows him to suggest an incredibly self-serving solution – let’s just restore the rule of traditional centrist elites (rational people, like him!). 35/

Zakaria’s take is also indicative of how the “polarization” narrative almost inevitably comes with a hefty dose of “golden age” nostalgia for a long-lost “consensus” - and prescribes consensual elite politics as the solution. 36/

Too often, the polarization story tends to create a narrative of the American polity in decline - suggesting that the status quo ante against which the polarized decades since the 1970s are measured was one of unity and order. 37/

But political “consensus” was usually based on a cross-partisan agreement to leave a discriminatory social order intact and deny marginalized groups equal representation and civil rights. Those “golden eras” were periods of white male elite consensus. 38/

The frequently invoked “consensus” of the post-World War II era, for instance, was depending on both major parties agreeing that white patriarchal rule would remain largely untouched. By the 1960s, however, that white elite consensus had started to fracture. 39/

The parties began to split over the question of whether or not the country should become a multiracial, pluralistic democracy - a system in which an individual’s status would not be determined largely by race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. 40/

Not coincidentally, “polarization” started when one party broke with the white elite consensus and supported the civil rights legislation of the 60s. In many ways, “polarization” is the price U.S. society has had to pay for real progress towards multiracial pluralism. 41/

There is absolutely no need for polarization-induced “consensus” nostalgia. But that’s exactly what characterizes much of the broader polarization discourse. And it primes people to accept a politics focused on turning the clock back to a supposedly better past. 42/

In general, the “polarization” concept is useful to all those who want to lament major problems in American politics, but either don’t see or simply can’t bring themselves to address the fact that the major threat to American democracy is a radicalizing Right. 43/

In this way, the concept even provides a rhetoric of rapprochement since it does not require agreement as to what is actually ailing America, only that “polarization” is to the detriment of all. 44/

We need to see the polarization narrative’s rise to dominance in the context of an ongoing search for unity in the wake of the fracturing of the white elite consensus in the 1960s. Is there nothing America’s elite can agree on anymore? There is: Polarization is the problem! 45/

“Polarization” is so attractive partly because the interpretation confirms the unease with which America’s white elite has looked at the contentious developments that have shaped the country since the 60s – providing alleviation by legitimizing the nostalgia for “consensus.” 46/

Look at what happens on political talk shows when the state of the union is discussed: “Polarization” is the villain, everybody agrees. “Polarization” never breeds contention, it makes everybody nod in approval; it engenders unanimity. 47/

That’s the genius of the “polarization” narrative: It provides the language for a lament that blames nobody and everybody, and satisfies the longing for unity – which it constantly fuels in turn! – by offering a consensual interpretation. Consensus re-established. 48/

Conservatives, by the way, are very adept at using this feature of the “polarization” narrative. After January 6, Republican elected officials liked to tell us we shouldn’t focus so much on the Insurrection, but on the real, underlying problem: polarization. 49/

After Republicans blocked voting rights legislation in the Senate earlier this year, Senator Rob Portman explained how the actual problem was that “Democrats forced the Senate to vote on controversial … legislation,” which would only increase the real evil, polarization. 50/

https://twitter.com/senrobportman/status/1484001774906265600

And now, in the wake of the assault on Paul Pelosi, Republicans are eager to shift the narrative away from “threat of far-right violence” to “both-sides extremism” – much better to be lamenting a problem (polarization) than to be identified as the source of the problem. 51/

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1586823045120917504

By latching onto “polarization” as the new consensus discourse, conservatives are counting on its obscuring-rather-than-illuminating features to present their actions and positions as legitimate and in line with the mainstream. 52/

As a master narrative of what is wrong with America, “polarization” is not just analytically inept – it is actively misleading. It feeds and propagates a nostalgia that is being weaponized by reactionaries and allows the Right to deflect and completely distort the picture. /end