Political Polarization Ben Anderson

Political Polarization

Ben Anderson

Ben Anderson is an exchange student from Bishops Diocesan College in Cape Town, South Africa

Looking at Boston, and indeed parts of America, from an outsider’s perspective presents some interesting observations. As a South African, I can only watch on in slight envy as I admire the modern infrastructure, the high levels of employment, the safe streets, and the pristine parks. It’s clear America leads the free world in many of these areas and, judging by the apparently high levels of national pride amongst the American populace, it’s clear they know this just as well as outsiders like me do. But America also leads the world in other areas, ones that they are perhaps less proud of. Over the past 10 years America has gone from being a beacon of democracy to an example of what not to do with regards to party politics and polarization. Never fear though, my dear Bostonians, for just as your country plunges into the depths of polarization, South Africa (and indeed many other nations in the free world that you lead) are right behind you, for worse, or for very much worse. I believe we need to learn from the examples in this country, and my home country, to find the solutions our democracies need in order to deliver the great democratic system effectively for everyone.

If we want to forge a way forward from polarised politics, we need to pinpoint what polarization actually looks like in democratic societies nowadays. polarization itself is merely a stark divide in opinions between two political entities. It can occur on any number of fault lines and in any number of discussions and is essentially when politicians - and thus the populations of people backing them - become incredibly divided on a number of topics to the point where their disagreement becomes hostile and is a general hindrance to the effective functioning of democracy and government. This is almost always caused by political parties creating divide along cultural, religious, and racial lines. Sometimes, political parties may actively try to cause this divide, using violent rhetoric against one group to attract support from another. In America, we saw Trump do this originally by openly attacking immigrants in order to stoke fears around them and gain votes in states where immigration was a hot button issue. More recently we’ve seen certain republicans trying to villainize ‘woke’ individuals and democrats trying to paint ‘MAGA supporters’ in the same negative light. Whether these portrayals are accurate or not is based on your perspective, but either way, the manner in which these comments and attacks on opposing groups are made has been incredibly divisive and encourages this high level of polarization that we see in modern day America. But political parties do not always stoke divide intentionally, sometimes their very nature becomes a catalyst for polarization. I’ve seen this in South Africa, where our leading party, the African National Congress (or ANC), has become incredibly associated with rural and township voters despite not openly campaigning as a

‘rural’ party. The Democratic Alliance (or DA); however, gains a large majority of its votes from a whiter and more urban demographic. Whilst neither of these parties actively campaign for these groups’ support (in fact the DA often tries to shed its reputation of being a ‘white party’) people of different backgrounds still end up getting divided by their presence.

Across nations around the globe, political polarization occurs and occurs for different reasons, sometimes it is instigated actively by campaigners, other times it is a mere byproduct of a country’s culture and history. Whether it’s the North and South divide in the UK, the rural and urban split in America and France or the Racial divide in South Africa, political polarization poses significant threats to any democracy. The foremost harm that it often causes is the lack of accountability that political polarization encourages. If democrats know they can keep getting elected by bringing up the same old talking points around attacking republicans (and republicans vice versa), then it’s likely they’ll be less effective at delivering real change and more effective at presenting appealing talking points. In South Africa, the ANC knows that if they keep appealing to their rural base by talking about how they freed the country from Apartheid they will keep winning elections, thus, they have no real incentive to actually deliver on policy. This issue is essentially caused by the fact that political polarization creates incredibly loyal voters and therefore pretty lazy ruling parties. If people are committed to voting for a certain political party just because they’ve always voted that way, or because they’re convinced that the other guys are either communists or fascists ready to burn the country down, then whoever they elect doesn’t have to govern even vaguely well, they just have to appear better than the alternative. In America, this looks like republicans and democrats not delivering on promises and getting away with it merely by calling the other side extreme or violent. In South Africa, the DA gains votes merely by saying they aren’t as corrupt as the ANC and the ANC gains votes by saying the DA is only a party for white people. It’s in these situations of mass polarization and party mudslinging, where elections essentially get decided by the minimal amount of people who are willing to change their mind (swing voters) and democracy begins to fail. Governments and representatives get elected not to serve a country, but to serve a certain voter base. Elections are meant to be a core pillar of democracy; under an era of polarization they’ve become a core reason countries lose stability in the first place

Another issue with political polarization is how it cultivates a parliamentary environment of hostility as opposed to cooperation. As I have said, polarization pushes politicians to appeal to their loyal voter core above all else. What this means is that extreme politics becomes more favourable. Suddenly there becomes no need for candidates to appeal to a diverse base if their standard base is always loyal. Candidates become elected purely because they went heavy on a certain agenda which they know will appeal to their voters. Trumpian populism exhibited this in its extreme rhetoric, far left politicians like AOC and Bernie Sanders often show it in their policies and this could also be seen in the ANC with the personality cult, which was built around our former president, Jacob Zuma, to appeal to voters in his home province, KwaZulu-Natal. In these cases it meant that politicians became

less compromising once elected because they only needed to deliver for their specific bases. In parliaments where divide is so stark that members cannot reach across the aisle; compromise becomes rare and key choices cannot be made. It is tough to pass bipartisan proposals when you think the other guys are racists or traitors. Elected officials ought not be spewing the current level of vitriol that they do at their opposition because their duty is not to win elections, it is to serve people (and not just the ones who voted for them).

Modern day political polarization has hindered western democracies and their political processes. The fact that China’s one-party system and Russia’s autocracy are appearing as more effective leadership systems even though they are literally abusive dictatorships is concerning. Democracy at its best is the best way to govern a country, but when we allow it to fall into polarization then we lose many of its strongest benefits: co-operation, embracement of a variety of ideas and a system which works for the many, not the few. Above all the macroscale harms polarization has on countries like the US and South Africa, we need to remember the effect it has on the ground. Politics like never before have begun to divide families, workspaces, and friends. People begin to form echo chambers around themselves based on who they hang out with because they consume media and rhetoric which tells them that anyone with a different political opinion is ‘problematic’ or ‘toxic’. The most tangible harm that political polarization inflicts is its ability to change our perception of other people to the point where we cannot bear interacting with them.

But surely, you might say, amidst all this doom and gloom there must be some form of solution? I believe there are many: we could reform our election processes, limit the influence of people who spread divisive rhetoric on social media or start platforms and movements aimed at dismantling these polarising portrayals of the other side. But, these solutions are complex to implement and are not guaranteed to be effective. South Africa, the UK and the US all have completely different political systems and censorship laws, and yet in all of them there is a high level of political polarization. The issue does not lie in politics or even in the politicians, the issue lies in the ballot box. Change in democracy starts with the voter, and it starts with the voter making decisions not based on narrative or previous opinions but based on the actual facts around a candidate. America gets the chance to change something every 2 years (my country only gets that chance every 5), and the next opportunity to do that for some of you is just around the corner. I would encourage everyone with the chance to vote in the upcoming midterms (and indeed in any election you encounter in the future) to get out and vote, and to vote not for the person you always have, or for the person who is the least bad according to Fox News or CNN, but according to the real issues. America has the incredible privilege of having very public political campaigns. Whether it’s watching a debate for an hour, reading through a candidate’s website or checking someone’s voting record: make an effort to do more than just make your decisions based on a talk show or what seems to be the most popular thing. When we vote for politicians who actually work for us, we hold those who try to divide us accountable. This November America’s most important choice is not red or blue, it is efficiency or dysfunction.