The cost of political uniformity

On Thursday, the Statesman had an excellent article about The cost of political uniformity (you have to register to read it). The gist of the article is that most "Americans live in counties that haven't changed their party preference in presidential elections in more than a generation. That political uniformity comes with a cost ... as followers of the two parties look at the same set of facts and see two different worlds."

It seems in the past the political views were more heterogeneous. Most regions and neighborhoods contained a healthy mix of diverging opinions. Political leaning were more divided by wealth and class as opposed to geographical region. These days, regional politics are more concentrated. You have the liberal cities and coasts and the conservative rural heartland and small town. There are occasional exceptions, but this division is what gives us those red and blue maps we see around election times.

The reason for this, according to the article, is our tendency to surround ourselves with like-minded people. There is nothing strange in that -- for example, you'd go to a game with buddies who root for the same team as opposed to hanging out with the opponents. But would you move to Austin because you're a big Longhorn fan? The prosperity in the '50s and later allowed people to move from place to place, often for economical reasons, when changing jobs or starting out after college. So if you're looking for a new job in another region in America, your political or cultural leanings may influence you where to look and cause you to pick San Francisco over Orange Country, or vice versa.

So what's the problem with that? Well, homogeneity like that leads to mob mentality. When you have a group of like minded people, their like-mindedness tends to drift towards the extreme over time. The tendency is to subconsciously try to be "more true" than the average in the group in order to be more liked, to better fit in and not be viewed as an outcast. So in a liberal setting, members would to express more liberal views than they might in a neutral setting, in order not be appear as a sell out. The same goes for conservatives in a conservative setting.

This sort of thing creates a feedback loop and reinforces itself. Eventually you arrive at positions that, while making complete sense within the context of your group, appear bizarre to outsiders. It also makes it extremely hard to be a moderate in such situations. When a moderate liberal questioned Clinton's morals, their loyalty was suspect. If a moderate conservative questions Bush's economic plans or claims of WMDs, they are viewed as sellouts or potential traitors. This does not lead to healthy and self-critical discourse. Moderate views do not give you the stature and visibility that the more orthodox members of a group have, which makes it pretty much impossible for moderates to make it into leadership positions. That's how we end up with people like Ted Kennedy and Tom DeLay as faces of their parties. Admired by their central cadre, loathed by their opponents, and viewed dubiously by the rest.

The nice converse of these tendencies is that when you mix up members of opposing views, their expressed opinions tend to shift towards the group average. So mix some liberals into a group of conservatives and the tone is going to become more moderate -- same goes the other way. I'm talking about mature and civil discussions and not knee-jerk reactionary stuff where it would be more like pouring water into hot oil. According to the Statesman article, a great example is the Federal Appeals Court where panels of three judges (which are, after all, political appointees) are mixed at random to hear cases. A judge on a panel that only consists of judges from their party tends to rule more in line with the party view -- a "Republican panel" may rule 75% of the time for corporations while a "Democratic panel" may rule 75% of the time against them. But when a judge is on a panel where the other judges are of the opposite party, her opinions drift towards theirs, and theirs towards the single judge's.

So what can you do about this? Since this is human nature, there is not much to change this, but try to be aware of how your opinions, and the way you express them, changes depending of who you're with. And think of these tendencies when you read and hear stories and news. In general, bi-partisan commissions and reports are much more likely to be trust worthy than single-party commissions. Reports from partisan "think tanks" are usually skewed in the direction that pays the bills.

And you can try to infiltrate the other side and help shift their discourse towards the middle. And you may not even have to move to Omaha or San Francisco (or round Rock or South Austin).