Affective polarization encourages people, especially/mostly the highly engaged, to sign onto a party’s platform as whole bill of goods. On the one hand, there is a timelessness to this observation; everyone tries to fit in with their subculture and few people work out all their beliefs/policy stances, especially on abstract or distant issues, from first principles isolated from others’ opinions. It’s natural to seek belonging. People have always learned to fit in. On the other hand, you describe how this has grown more intense in the last few decades of American politics. You describe several reasons.
I know you could have gone on at greater length than brevity allowed about the role technology played in sorting not only Dems & Reps but also the politically engaged vs. not. (Everyone watching Walter Cronkite vs. CNN & ESPN; ubiquitous short form content that is mostly not political but algorithmically targeted when it is; collapsing participation in local, in-person organizations enabling avoidance of political “others” and weakening apolitical identities; internet-media profit models weakening local news and refocusing attention on more national & less tractable, practical problems, etc.) Emerging is the understanding that Trump won the vibes-voters while Kamala took the politically engaged. More and more, the spaces where people aspire to win the esteem of intelligent people by fluently expressing political opinions (👀) are overwhelming liberal. Looking for belonging in these spaces with a higher concentration of aligned aspirants raises the cost of having any heterodox positions. It’s another feedback loop.
Do you think it is possible to disrupt this polarization in a way that registers higher appeal with vibes-voters? Is it worthwhile? Or is trying to attract yet more of the educated more efficient (so as, say, to keep high propensity voters)? What positions would be the most efficient ones for Dems to change to pursue either strategy?
Finally, what would it take for you to switch parties in a national election, even if only for an office below the presidency?
An additional note: no, we cannot attract yet more educated voters and win, bad math. We need to figure this thing out.
Second, one insight in the following post is that all top dems agree "less wokeness" will help, which sort of goes along with my advice above about being less scripted and less under the consultants' influence.
The trouble (as I note in that post and an upcoming one) is that wokeness is broad, and non-wokeness is even more broad. The part of this that I think fits well with my non-scriptedness point is going on right-coded podcasts, etc., and being unafraid of dissent. It's the *censoriousness* aspect of wokeness that I think people most respond to — the thanksgiving uncle who says, Jeez you can't say anything anymore. Depending on the issue, there are probably ways to persuade people to be more
empathetic and left-aligned over time, as long as we don't shut them down. Think of the major evolution on gay marriage. Obama couldn't even run on it in '08 OR '12.
Censoriousness is the core of it. People can change. You have to let them.
Wonderful summary and analysis, and great questions — I'll go in reverse...
#2 — I have voted for at least one Republican before. The one that comes to mind is Pete Peterson for Sec of State in CA in 2014 (competing against our now-Senator, Alex Padilla). I guess that it's this long ago, and for such an apolitical office, belies the notion that I'd like to convey, which is that I've been able to switch myself.
Or, contrarily, maybe the fact that I haven't been able to switch as often underscores the point — even for someone seeking opportunities to incentivize heterodox politics, the other party is too distant to adopt.
#1 - Yes. To attract vibes voters, become a genuine cultural phenomenon, which is hard to strategize for.
My (less flippant) point is that Biden barely snuck in under the massive incumbent (Trump) disadvantage of the pandemic — otherwise, our political success stories of the past 20 years (Obama and Trump) are the people who create massive cultural attraction, in a way that I'm sure Eisenhower or LBJ didn't, but JFK and Reagan did. My loose hypothesis here is that this overwhelming cultural charisma was helpful (JFK/Reagan) but not necessary (Eisenhower/LBJ) to past political movements, and now it's 100% necessary.
What follows from this that we can actually strategize around?
Well, I have a planned post on this, but I think we spend way too much time (for electoral purposes) talking about a candidate's issue positioning. The whole 2020 dem primary was Medicare for All vs Public Option. We should be focused mostly on a candidate's fluency — the ease with which they answer questions and talk in a seemingly unscripted way. Tim Walz was a good VP pick for this reason, and then the consultants got to him and froze him up.
If you're trying to win vibes voters, nominate vibes candidates. Sure, make sure the candidate is within acceptable range on the issues. But Biden basically went into office with the Bernie primary platform. It's not clear that holding people's feet to the fire on issues is the best way to either get good nominee or an officeholder that has your positions.
Trouble is, there is a mismatch between primary voters (high info/ed) and the vibes voters you're talking about in the general. That probably leads us to select somewhat on non-vibes criteria.
You wanted to know what positions would be most efficient for Dems to take to win vibes voters? The anti-consultant stance.
Affective polarization encourages people, especially/mostly the highly engaged, to sign onto a party’s platform as whole bill of goods. On the one hand, there is a timelessness to this observation; everyone tries to fit in with their subculture and few people work out all their beliefs/policy stances, especially on abstract or distant issues, from first principles isolated from others’ opinions. It’s natural to seek belonging. People have always learned to fit in. On the other hand, you describe how this has grown more intense in the last few decades of American politics. You describe several reasons.
I know you could have gone on at greater length than brevity allowed about the role technology played in sorting not only Dems & Reps but also the politically engaged vs. not. (Everyone watching Walter Cronkite vs. CNN & ESPN; ubiquitous short form content that is mostly not political but algorithmically targeted when it is; collapsing participation in local, in-person organizations enabling avoidance of political “others” and weakening apolitical identities; internet-media profit models weakening local news and refocusing attention on more national & less tractable, practical problems, etc.) Emerging is the understanding that Trump won the vibes-voters while Kamala took the politically engaged. More and more, the spaces where people aspire to win the esteem of intelligent people by fluently expressing political opinions (👀) are overwhelming liberal. Looking for belonging in these spaces with a higher concentration of aligned aspirants raises the cost of having any heterodox positions. It’s another feedback loop.
Do you think it is possible to disrupt this polarization in a way that registers higher appeal with vibes-voters? Is it worthwhile? Or is trying to attract yet more of the educated more efficient (so as, say, to keep high propensity voters)? What positions would be the most efficient ones for Dems to change to pursue either strategy?
Finally, what would it take for you to switch parties in a national election, even if only for an office below the presidency?
An additional note: no, we cannot attract yet more educated voters and win, bad math. We need to figure this thing out.
Second, one insight in the following post is that all top dems agree "less wokeness" will help, which sort of goes along with my advice above about being less scripted and less under the consultants' influence.
The trouble (as I note in that post and an upcoming one) is that wokeness is broad, and non-wokeness is even more broad. The part of this that I think fits well with my non-scriptedness point is going on right-coded podcasts, etc., and being unafraid of dissent. It's the *censoriousness* aspect of wokeness that I think people most respond to — the thanksgiving uncle who says, Jeez you can't say anything anymore. Depending on the issue, there are probably ways to persuade people to be more
empathetic and left-aligned over time, as long as we don't shut them down. Think of the major evolution on gay marriage. Obama couldn't even run on it in '08 OR '12.
Censoriousness is the core of it. People can change. You have to let them.
Wonderful summary and analysis, and great questions — I'll go in reverse...
#2 — I have voted for at least one Republican before. The one that comes to mind is Pete Peterson for Sec of State in CA in 2014 (competing against our now-Senator, Alex Padilla). I guess that it's this long ago, and for such an apolitical office, belies the notion that I'd like to convey, which is that I've been able to switch myself.
Or, contrarily, maybe the fact that I haven't been able to switch as often underscores the point — even for someone seeking opportunities to incentivize heterodox politics, the other party is too distant to adopt.
#1 - Yes. To attract vibes voters, become a genuine cultural phenomenon, which is hard to strategize for.
My (less flippant) point is that Biden barely snuck in under the massive incumbent (Trump) disadvantage of the pandemic — otherwise, our political success stories of the past 20 years (Obama and Trump) are the people who create massive cultural attraction, in a way that I'm sure Eisenhower or LBJ didn't, but JFK and Reagan did. My loose hypothesis here is that this overwhelming cultural charisma was helpful (JFK/Reagan) but not necessary (Eisenhower/LBJ) to past political movements, and now it's 100% necessary.
What follows from this that we can actually strategize around?
Well, I have a planned post on this, but I think we spend way too much time (for electoral purposes) talking about a candidate's issue positioning. The whole 2020 dem primary was Medicare for All vs Public Option. We should be focused mostly on a candidate's fluency — the ease with which they answer questions and talk in a seemingly unscripted way. Tim Walz was a good VP pick for this reason, and then the consultants got to him and froze him up.
If you're trying to win vibes voters, nominate vibes candidates. Sure, make sure the candidate is within acceptable range on the issues. But Biden basically went into office with the Bernie primary platform. It's not clear that holding people's feet to the fire on issues is the best way to either get good nominee or an officeholder that has your positions.
Trouble is, there is a mismatch between primary voters (high info/ed) and the vibes voters you're talking about in the general. That probably leads us to select somewhat on non-vibes criteria.
You wanted to know what positions would be most efficient for Dems to take to win vibes voters? The anti-consultant stance.