Affective Polarization Has Broken Me
Everything is political and everything about politics sucks
Back when I was in grad school at Maryland, I went to a bar in downtown DC one night, and on the wall over one of the urinals in the men’s room, somebody had written “For a good time, call Newt.” This was followed by an actual Capitol Hill number— the right area code and exchange for Congress— that might very well have been Gingrich’s office (I didn’t call it to check).
This sticks in my head as a nice (if slightly crude) illustration of what a single-industry town DC is. At the time, though, I thought that was pretty great, because I was really into politics. I read the Washington Post in detail, watched at least some of the Sunday chat shows, and kept up with all the ins and outs of the big debates in Congress. If there was a big speech or press conference or televised debate, I was there for it, and hours of commentary afterwards. Our lunchtime conversations at NIST were often about politics, with occasionally spirited debates about this or that.
I was thinking about that recently because the sports and pop culture podcasts I listen to while walking the dog are mostly on hiatus at the moment, so the only current episodes are from shows about politics. And last week that just started to feel incredibly bleak. I actually added a show about the New York Yankees— who are embarrassingly terrible right now— because that was less distasteful than the prospect of listening to yet more punditry about the current state of politics.
It’s to the point where I don’t even want to talk about politics with people I basically agree with. When the conversation turns in that direction, I do what I can to change the subject as quickly as possible, because I just can’t take it any more.
This isn’t anything to do with the concrete state of the world, or actual policy debate; it’s all down to affective polarization, the tendency to see only the best of your own camp and only the worst of the other. Every political conversation now seems to devolve into “Can you believe how terrible the Other Side are?” “Yes, they’re the Absolute Worst, and deserve scorn and humiliation,” repeated ad nauseam. It’s just excruciating.
To be clear, much of that is well-earned— the policies pushed by the national-level Republican party are appalling and stupid, particularly when it comes to LGBT+ issues. I’m not a fan of their take on higher education or economics, either. I’ve been negatively polarized to a very strong degree where I can’t really imagine myself voting for a non-Democrat for any office in any forseeable future election. Even the rapidly dwindling number of halfway reasonable candidates with an (R) after their name would caucus with the grifters and lunatics who dominate the party now, and I can’t countenance that. I’ll turn out to vote in off-cycle years, and give money to Democrats where it makes sense to do that (even though it means individually unsubscribing from something like 600 campaign mailing lists every year going forward).
The problem, though, is that that polarization means there’s no longer much need to participate in the conversation around politics in order to decide which candidates or policies to support— the decision has long since been made. Which, in turn, has allowed the tenor of those conversations to shift away from any kind of actual policy discussion to almost pure boosterism. There’s very little “Which of these options is the best way to improve people’s lives?” and a whole lot of “Aren’t you glad you’re not an Awful Person like those guys?” There’s no substantive discussion or attempt to persuade, just self-congratulatory base-wanking.
Even intra-coalition debates have taken on that polarized character. The slightest deviation from the maximalist policy preferred by whoever is speaking is immediately cast as support for the worst maximalist policy of the Other Side. The gain on almost every political conversation has been cranked up to the point where everything goes right to the rails, becoming either an intractable slugfest or a cloying competition to see who can agree most emphatically.
In the social-media space, this also picks up a kind of middle-school character, though I almost hesitate to call it that because it’s demeaning to my child who is actually in middle school and much more kind and level-headed than many nominal adults on political Twitter. There’s an in-group and an out-group, and any and every form of disparaging or outright deceptive rhetoric is fair game, provided it’s directed at the out-group. Deliberately obtuse readings, selective quoting, and demeaning personal insults are all on the table when it comes to the Bad People, even when the analogous tactics deployed in the other direction are an outrageous affront to basic decency. Particularly online, choosing sides in politics these days seems less about choosing a set of policies or goals to support, and more about choosing which group of people you’re allowed to behave abominably toward. And then taking full advantage of that license at every opportunity.
It’s all just incredibly dispiriting. I’m really not any more interested in hearing incest and oxycontin jokes about that bearded dude with the cringe-y protest country song than I would be in hearing gay panic jokes about people speaking up for LGBT+ rights. Based on the reshares in my timelines, though, the former are deemed perfectly acceptable by a depressing number of people on my side of the political spectrum.
To the limited extent that anyone bothers, this kind of thing is defended as a “fire up the base” sort of move, bringing people together to point and laugh at the Other Side. The main effect on me, though, is to push me toward “All of you can just fuck right off,” and checking out of the whole business to go take a long walk in the woods.
This was written mostly for the catharsis of typing it out; I’ve been kind of blocked by this topic for a week or so, and hopefully this will clear things out. If you want to see if it succeeded in freeing energy for something more worthwhile, here’s a button:
Since the point of this is just me venting, I’m not going to open the comments. Please don’t take any frustration that may cause out in the comment sections of other posts. The Internet is fractal; if you want to vent, there are no end of corners you could claim as your own.