Lots to Blame on Elites….But This Isn’t the Best Case

By Mike Koetting October 30, 2024

A speaker at a University of Chicago event two weeks ago said that the rising level of political polarization is among the elite and not shared by the mass electorate. Just a few days earlier, David Books made a similar, though goofier, argument that the polarization is primarily a function of the “high priests” of the right and left insisting on orthodoxy. Both arguments imply that the voters are mostly innocent bystanders, maybe even victims, and left to their own devices, we wouldn’t have this polarization. While there are elements of truth here, this argument is more wrong than right and masks how difficult it will be to address the sources of our polarization.

Basis of Their Argument

I understand where these arguments come from. They have both a basis in fact and a basis in hope.

It is a fact that when you ask people about specific policies, it turns out there is fairly high degree of “common sense” agreement on even the most controversial issues. Most people were happy with Roe v Wade, most people support fairly stringent gun laws, most people think we need a pathway to citizenship for people who have been here a long time, however they got here, and so on. Pick your issue—while there are definite differences by party, what is striking is the appearance of a clear path to enough consensus for a democratic outcome.

Perhaps more important in supporting this argument is the basis in hope. We all want to believe that at its core, democracy works because people are reasonable and have a lot of incentives to get along. In the rare circumstances where people can actually talk across the gap, we often find out that they aren’t that different from us and that we all really want to do good for our families and neighborhoods and that we really do have a lot in common. Most of us simply don’t want to believe that people come to their positions because they are flawed—which would make it hard to believe in democracy—but that they have good reasons for their positions and if we could work together more, we really could blunt the polarization.

The problem, in my estimation, is that the above—while true—do not close the argument that today’s polarization is primarily about the elites arguing with each other. It fails to give significant weight to the large group of voters dragging their party’s elite along with their own frustrations and demons.

Trump Is a Product of the Voters

Trump is by no means the sole cause of current polarization. There are historical precedents and excesses across the entire political spectrum. Nevertheless, his rise is associated with polarization reaching new heights (or depths, perhaps). But he is not a product of elite disagreements.

Donald Trump came to his position over the fevered opposition of the elite of the Republican Party. He became the candidate of his party not because of elite involvement—but despite it. He rose to power on the voices of a group of “average voters” who cast loud and enthusiastic votes for him precisely because he echoed their sentiments, their outrage and their alienation from mainstream society. His main selling point was that he wasn’t part of the elite. He is not, to be sure, a mere beneficiary of the concerns of his voters. He has fueled and exploited them to vanquish all the previous elites in the Republican Party. But is delusional to suggest that this happened without the vigorous support of that part of the electorate. There are no sellers unless there are buyers.

There does seem to be a bit of paradox in that when specific issues are considered, the difference on policy are hugely smaller. To me, this suggests not that the average voters is being misled by differences among the elites, but that for a material part of the electorate, their dislike of the way society is trending is so large that it obscures rational policy differences. If we want to blunt polarization, we need to look at what’s causing this alienation and not blame differences among the elites.

Lack of Symmetry

I can understand wanting to describe polarization as a mutual problem. There are practical reasons (e.g. newspapers are afraid of being accused as biased, teachers are afraid of retribution) but beyond that there is a powerful drive to address problems as being shared because that makes it much easier to imagine solutions—Brooks suggests leaders could “just” reach across the aisle. Moreover, most of us are intellectually uncomfortable with an attitude that baldly assigns the blame to the other guy.

Fair enough. Problems are rarely completely one-sided. In this case, we know there is collection of progressive tropes that drive one nuts, are debatable, and sometimes just dead wrong. I have previously lamented  positions, postures and attitudes that I think cause much more trouble than whatever problem they might be addressing. But that doesn’t suggest that the causes of the current polarization are equally shared. Simply put: the current degree of polarization—while it does have longer roots and multiple causes—is disproportionally caused by MAGA voters. They are willing to toss over the democratic norms we have come to expect because they are angry beyond reason at what has happened in society.

Note that whereas the majority of voters in the Democratic party have consistently rejected more extreme positions, MAGA voters have embraced them. While there is a distinctly overreaching wing in the progressive movement, Democratic voters don’t openly support positions that are wildly inimically to the American system. Or, indeed, elect many extremists to office. Time and time again, they resist the arguments of their more liberal elements.

This is not to say that there are no legitimate grievances involved. On the contrary. A great many of the MAGA voters have good reason to feel they have been getting short shrift by both parties, particularly on economic issues. But there is also more openness to racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic and reflexive dislike for all things “elite” or “liberal”. These are perspectives through which they view any arguments, among the elites or otherwise. When combined with the real economic concerns, the result is a substantial group of voters open to blowing up the entire system. Their willingness to do this may being accelerated by the unscrupulous. But ascribing it to elite manipulation or disagreements among elites ignores a very fundamental part of the current polarization.

In this context, polarization per se is not the problem. Failure to be polarized given the territory these voters have staked out would be tantamount to giving up on the fundamental promises of American democracy. I don’t consider myself part of the “party elite” but I am happy to be counted as polarized against everything MAGA stands for. Which raises the question of who are these “elites” or “high-priests”? I don’t know what definition is envisioned, but it seems to me that the opposition to many of the things often supported, at least tolerated, by a large percentage of the MAGA voters, extends deep and wide among Democratic (or democratic, for that matter) voters. No “high priest” is required to parse what it means when a candidate calls immigrants “vermin” and suggests that he will call out the military to quash dissent. The “mass electorate” has real opinions on these matters without elite interpretation. Yes, in a different context the electorate might have more consensus on policy issues. But the issue is how people vote. When people wonder how Trump is making this election so close, they tend to overlook the obvious: there are a lot of voters who would be just as happy to blow up the system. Blaming this on disagreements among some unspecific elites, even if that has a grain of truth, deflects from this reality.

Frankly, from my point of view, I am less concerned by disagreements among the political elites and more concerned about the unspoken agreements among the economic elites about the fundamental structure of our society—the toleration of high levels of income inequality, unflagging commitment to consumerism, and the objections to all kind of government interventions. The real problems of our society, about which many MAGA voters have legitimate complaints, are problems about the distribution of wealth, the ability of government to deliver a greater degree of equality, and the ability to plan for and execute policies that will carry us into a future that will be different from the past. These are going to require some very heavy lifting, and I expect the economic elites will lock arms to prevent radical change.