In 2020, in January 2020, long before the election and even before COVID-19, I published a book on political polarization. It was called “Why Are We Polarized?” And I’ve been thinking a lot about how this year’s polarization is different from what I was tracking when I was writing that book.
The division is more fundamental. When I was writing that book, a lot of the discussion was about Obamacare and taxes. And now the battle is over the legitimacy of elections, the use of federal power to go after our enemies, and the nature and integrity of America’s basic system of government.
I think that is the most important fact for politics today. This year, this has been the subject of many of our episodes. But I think it’s interesting that policy issues that once seemed like there was little room for compromise are now much more open. From free trade to antitrust, health care to outsourcing, China to labor unions, there is suddenly a lot of overlap, at least in the language of both parties.
It’s always the language, not the policy. And sometimes that overlap can be substantial. The Trump administration has indeed broken with the Obama administration on China. However, the Biden administration did not return to the Obama administration. The Biden administration has continued what Donald Trump did with China and gone even further.
What does it tell us? Historian Gary Gerstle introduced me to this concept of political order, a structure of political consensus that lasts for decades, in his book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order. The New Deal order lasted from the 1930s to the 1970s, and the neoliberal order lasted from the 1970s until the financial crisis. And part of what’s destabilizing politics right now are those random moments between orders, those moments when we begin to see the vague outlines of something new taking shape. It appears that both parties are in deep internal turmoil as they try to rebuild themselves. Grasp it and respond to it.
And we know where we are in the election cycle. I know where everyone’s heart is. I have nothing to say about the polls. There is nothing I can say that will ease your anxiety over the next few days. And I know that in the emotions of this moment, it feels strange to talk about the possibility of agreement and compromise rather than disagreement and danger.
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