The rise of partisan polarization is the most important development in American politics over the past 50 years. Both Jacobs and Milkis’s book and my own document how polarization has reshaped our politics in important and troubling ways. As Jacobs and Milkis correctly note, in my book I view the rise in mass polarization as an elite-led phenomenon. The elites became polarized, and the electorate sorted into the correct partisan camp as a result. This left us with two partisan camps that are divided on policy, identity, and just about everything else.
My theory argues that the elites—elected officials, partisan media, and activists—began to send clear signals about where the parties stood, and voters became better able to tell which party best matched their views. All theories are simplifications of reality, and mine is no exception. There certainly must be a reciprocal relationship between elite and mass polarization: adopting extreme positions would be an electoral loser if there was no appetite for extremity among voters.
From an empirical perspective, accounting for this recursive relationship between elite and mass polarization gets complicated very quickly. Yet, the fact that this relationship is difficult to untangle does not mean it is unimportant—quite the contrary. One of the great flaws with much of the political science literature is that it gives elites too much credit and the masses too little. I tried to avoid this trap by arguing that people have real attitudes about what the government should do. Yet, if this is the case, it has numerous ramifications for elite politics.
During the 2016 primary, I had a conversation with a reporter who was surprised when I told him I thought Trump had a real chance to capture the nomination. “Why?!” he exclaimed. My answer was simple: “Look at the polling. Trump is closer to Republican primary voters on every single issue.” In my view, the rise of Trumpism was about bringing the positions of GOP elites in line with those their voters had long held. Clearly, the electorate has the power to influence the nature and direction of the parties, even if it is difficult to capture this influence in a theoretically or empirically parsimonious way.
As Jacobs and Milkis note in their book and in this critical dialogue, institutional changes have weakened the parties’ abilities to control candidate selection, among other things. The electorate has more power to steer the ship than ever before, and it certainly appears unwilling or unable to rein in polarization. Perhaps, as What Happened to the Vital Center? implies, weakening political parties in an effort to democratize the system helps neither democracy nor the parties.
Both What Happened to the Vital Center? and Political Choice in a Polarized America warn us that extreme polarization hurts democracy. Perhaps it is time we empower political parties once again and give them the tools to check populism and its associated ills.
