We live in bubbles. Not merely online spaces with like-minded partisans — our physical lives are within geographic bubbles. That’s not news to most people. However, the bubbles seem to be getting more “pure” with less overlap. That has serious implications for compromise and understanding within our political system.
Why does political and philosophical segregation matter if people freely choosing where to live?
Our bubbles lead to distrust, even “hate,” and an unwillingness to compromise, yet governing requires trust and compromise.
As with racism, classism, and other biases, our prejudices increase or decrease in relation to our contacts with people unlike ourselves. The more we interact with people from other backgrounds, the more we are inclined to perceive their communities favorably. And, even when we continue to disagree with the values or ideals of a group, we are less likely to presume they have dark motivations for those beliefs.
When Republicans and Democrats lived side-by-side, they didn’t hate each other. Now, large numbers are willing to say that the world would be better off if their opponents didn’t exist. Partisans don’t want their children to marry across party lines. Partisans assume the other party places their group ahead of what is best for the country. And both sides embrace their disdain for the others so deeply that it leads to yet more sorting and segregation. Some studies found 15 percent of each party said we’d be better off with members of the other party not existing.
We dislike each other… and we don’t understand each other! Each side believes myths about the other side, because they don’t know each other.
How bad is the sorting?
Election maps show “middle ground” communities are disappearing
NBC News. Sept. 8, 2019, 8:03 AM CDT
WASHINGTON — This week, the Democratic Party in South Dakota announced it was closing its last two offices in the state. The move surprised some analysts and brought criticism from some quarters as an example of Democrats abandoning difficult political terrain.
But a look at the numbers over the past 20 years shows some of the thinking behind those moves. The changes in culture and politics in that time have left an election map that is full of communities that are either deep red or deep blue, with little room for the political space between.
Do people really move for political reasons? Cultural reasons? Yes.
My wife and I moved from urban Minneapolis to rural Southwestern Pennsylvania because I don’t like cities. It’s not just the noise, the clutter, the general chaos of cities, but I also dislike their political cultures. Their culture isn’t mine. We moved to the exurbs of Austin, Texas, for much the same reason. It’s close to things we enjoy and use, but not too close to Austin. We live in a different county than Austin, as we lived in a different county than Pittsburgh. If we lived in the urban counties, our votes wouldn’t matter on most issues.
We are fortunate enough to select where we live. Apparently, a lot of people make similar choices.
[Over] 20 years the number of “competitive” counties declined by about 72 percent. That’s a huge drop, but it’s even more extraordinary when you consider than the 2016 election was much closer nationally than the 1996 election.
Driving the shift seems to be a familiar culprit, the growing divide between urban and rural America.
Urban areas have gotten more blue and rural ones have gotten more red.
How blue are blue counties? A dark blue.
In 1996, Marion County, home of Indianapolis, went for Dole by 3 points. In 2016 it gave Hillary Clinton a 22-point margin. Dole won Dallas County in Texas by one point. Hillary Clinton won it by 26 points. And Mecklenburg County, home of Charlotte NC, voted for Bill Clinton by a narrow three-point margin in 1996, but voted for Hillary by 29 points.
And red counties are getting darker, too.
Meanwhile, the margins have moved massively in the other direction in rural places.
In 1996, Dole won DeSoto County Florida, Dodge County Wisconsin and Ionia County Michigan each by one point. In 2016, Trump won them by 27 points, 29 points and 31 points respectively. Those counties and others like them were key elements of Trump’s rural surge that carried those states.
We wouldn’t be New York residents and we would struggle to return to California. Curiously, those places are also more expensive than we’d tolerate. What good is a location if you cannot afford a home or rent? And so, we selected a place that matches us, and it happens to be closer to our views. As a “purple” voter, I find both parties going to the extremes and leaving me behind. But, if I have to choose between two philosophies not quite aligned with mine, I go with the “red” location.
As a result of all this sorting, there’s almost no point for Democrats in rural areas or Republicans in urban settings to waste time and money running for office. There are exceptions, but those are rarer and rarer.
[T]ime and money are limited and these numbers suggest that in very real terms that there are fewer and fewer places for candidates to target swing voters who might be receptive to their messages. It’s a lot easier to find areas full of “base” supporters where candidates can focus on boosting turnout.
In other words, the middle ground of American politics may be literally disappearing, but, to a large extent, candidates and parties are playing on the terrain they’ve been given.
I recently read an argument that Democrats should move to more rural areas and try to change counties from red to blue. That’s an interesting theory, and one being tested in suburbs. But, more likely a person moving into an area would slowly shift to match the Local Bubble.
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