Between opinion and identity

The 2024 presidential cycle is upon us. If you’re feeling queasy, unsure how to constructively engage, you’re not alone. The betting markets currently show the race being a showdown between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis close on Trump’s heels. There’s still plenty of time for things to unfold, but on its face, this feels like a sad deja vu.

Unsurprisingly then, there’s been excited chatter of a third-party candidate, or an independent unity ticket. A recent survey found that the share of independents in America has hit record highs (49%) in 2023, greatly outnumbering Republican (25%) and Democratic (25%) identifiers, suggesting that such an effort could have juice. The Hidden Tribes report, by the think tank More in Common, used the term “exhausted majority,” to refer to most Americans who are tired of our divided and toxic politics and want compromise and problem-solving.

Polling consistently has revealed that a majority of us agree on a set of commonsense policy solutions that cuts across our political parties. For example, according to Princeton polarization scholar Nolan McCarty, “Most Americans still indicate moderate or centrist positions even on very divisive issues, such as abortion and sexuality.” A plurality of voters support legal access to abortion but this drops off after the first trimester. (Meanwhile our states are implementing abortion free-for-alls or clawing back Mifepristone.)

Likewise, Gallup polling shows that the majority of Americans support comprehensive immigration reform, increased border security and also reforms to our legal immigration system. The same is true for many other contentious issues, such as reforms to gun laws (most people want more restrictions than we currently have in place), and when it comes to policing political correctness, a full 80% of Americans it’s become a problem.

I have felt this personally. The existence of widely agreed-upon policy solutions and concern with polarization was the motivating energy behind Howard Schultz’s 2020 exploratory run for president, in which I served as policy director. Trust me, we had wonderful white papers of commonsense, popular reforms that I wish had gone into effect, and instead are only alive on a hard drive somewhere.

So let me say, I support hope that the 2024 race has surprises. I support other people running with fresh ideas. The free market economist in me thinks the spoiler argument gets used to squash competition, and that any conversation that helps move those vying for public office to address real problems and not political talking points, the better. And who knows, maybe they win! Maybe we get a budget deal, immigration, education reform through and things look better in 2028. We can hope. We can pray.

But I want to spend a minute on another dynamic in our current political life that led one of our nation’s top experts on polarization to write this in her recent book: “If any grounds can be found for political harmony in American politics, it will not be the common ground of shared policy opinions.”

Maybe it’s my mood or the work to which I’ve devoted my profession, but the quote has stuck with me. After all, our agreement on policy stands in sharp contrast to nearly everything being written about American political life these days. Almost any way you slice it, we are more politically polarized than at any time in modern history. A nearby graphic from Pew Research Center shows the growing ideological split among voters, but other measures can be used, such as the disappearance of most moderates from Congress, increase in party-line voting, the growing level of violence we feel is justified against the other party, or how we’d feel if our children married someone of the other party. Put simply, anywhere you look, Republicans are becoming more conservative. Democrats are becoming more liberal. I was at a Washington, D.C., dinner this month, and even saying that I live in Texas felt like a political statement, which prompted one attendee to tell me her daughter would never go to a red state for college.

So what gives? How can we agree on so much and yet be so bitterly divided? It’s here I’ll turn to polarization scholar Lilliana Mason, author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity, which includes the quote above. As the book’s name suggests, Mason also found in her research large agreement on policy, but a simultaneous and growing emotional animus for political opponents. What holds these two competing things together in her analysis is this: Politics has become our identity, and so while we agree about many things, we are voting on who we are, not what we think. Increasingly, political allegiance parties have become an identifier of gender, geography, race, religion, education as opposed to a set of policy beliefs. In Mason’s words, this means that even in the moderate center of the electorate, where partisans from both sides find common ground on issues, a sorted identity is capable of driving citizens to feel increasingly warmly toward their own party and coolly toward their partisan opponents.

As sobering as her analysis is, it is an unlock. It explains why most of the books written on polarization tend to trail off a bit when it comes to recommendations. It’s likely not as easy as nips and tucks to our political processes, such as ranked-choice-voting, open primaries, or even campaign finance reform. It explains why, other than reading a diversity of media outlets or going out to vote in primaries, the political steps any individual can take also feel wanting. Not that these things shouldn’t be pursued or a selection of them wouldn’t help on the margin. Put me in the favor of a larger House of Representatives, for instance, or new Senate procedures to cut performative politics, as outlined by Sen. Ben Sasse several years ago. For those interested in learning more about political polarization reforms, I highly recommend McCarty’s book, Polarization: What Everyone Needs to Know, which douses cold water on the efficacy of oft-talked about reforms. (Bonus, he’s from Odessa.). But it’s Robert Putnam’s book, The Upswing, which plants our political divides alongside a host of other economic and cultural trends pulling us apart over the last 50 years, that gets closer to the issue I’m discussing now. Political solutions are limited because at its root what we are experiencing is not a political problem. It’s a question of identity.

Real and lasting identity is found outside of politics, which is why political scientists are in a bit of a knot over this one, and we’d do better to consider politics within a broader context of disciplines.

Identity is found in commitments to family, community, work, and, as an Anglican, I believe, in a God and purpose beyond oneself. It’s no accident that these allegiances have declined while politics as religion has grown. And I think politics has become so unsatisfying because ultimately we cannot find identity in it. It becomes a vicious loop of outrage and hardening.

Contrast this to places where real identity can be found: Relationships can deepen and grow into new stages. Work can create and innovate. Religion can bring new and deeper understanding and knowledge. Politics as identity is the same as any vice, which delivers less and less benefit the more it is consumed, leading to a deeper craving and even deeper void.

By confining our solutions to politics, we’re not going to get to the heart of it. Mason goes on to say: “One robust force for political harmony appears to be an increasingly rare set of cross-cutting political identities rather than a moderate set of issue positions. … Even among those strong partisans who care a great deal about issues, they are more likely to be socially tolerant of other partisans if their racial and religious identities do not match their party. … The increasing levels of social sorting are encouraging Americans to avoid social contact with members of the opposing party. The more socially sorted American partisans become, the more they will want to pull away from one another.”

So by all means, this presidential cycle, read local news, vote in primaries, get off social media, reward politicians who have good character, prudence, and civility, ask them to go beyond the soundbites on policy reform and explain how what they will do will last and not be overturned by the next administration which probably means building broad coalitions instead of playing to their base. Look for political leaders who bend the boxes, who demonstrate empathy and understanding.

But by all means, let politics be what you think, not who you are.

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