Tag Archives: Pew Report

Sunday Shorts: Abramson, Pew and the Fabulous Baker Boy

Howard Baker, the three-term Republican Senator from Tennessee, died last week at age 88. He was remembered, and deservedly so, as “the great conciliator” who in his eight years as the Republican Senate leader (including four as majority leader) forged a reputation as a moderate (despite a rather conservative voting record) who was able to work both sides of the political aisle. But perhaps his most important service to the nation took place after he left the Senate. In early 1987, the Reagan administration was in full damage control as it struggled to deal with political fallout from the Iran-contra affair. As most of you know, despite a public policy of never negotiating with terrorists, Reagan had in fact secretly authorized the trading of arms to Iranian “moderates” in return for their help in negotiating the release of Americans held hostage by various Mideast terrorist factions. Moreover, overpayments from those sales had, evidently without Reagan’s knowledge, been used to support the Nicaraguan contras in their struggle against the Soviet-backed Sandinista government despite a congressional ban on U.S. aid to these “freedom fighters”.

Somewhat belatedly, and only after prodding from his wife Nancy, Reagan agreed to replace his chief of staff Don Regan, under whose watch the Iran-contra affair occurred, with Baker who, at the time, was widely perceived to be a front-runner for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination. It took a personal plea from Reagan to convince the reluctant Baker to take the job in the national interest. But as Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus recount in their excellent book Landslide, Baker did so while keenly aware of a whispering campaign that Reagan had begun to show signs of mental deterioration. It was only after directly observing Reagan handling a variety of presidential responsibilities that Baker concluded the rumors were untrue. He went on to orchestrate the resurrection of Reagan’s presidency, even at the expense of his own presidential aspirations. In Reagan biographer Lou Cannon’s words, “More than any single person, it was Howard Baker who brought Reagan back.” That may have been his greatest service to the country.

Jill Abramson, the deposed New York Times executive editor, has landed on her feet with a lecturer position in the English department at Harvard University. I had hoped to do a separate post on the circumstance surrounding her firing, but more important events took precedent. As you will recall, Abramson was let go amid conflicting reports regarding whether, and to what degree, gender played a role in her firings. In the media hullabaloo that followed, I thought one important point was underplayed: whether or not gender mattered in Abramson’s firing, the fact that it became an issue in the ensuing discussion suggests we have a way to go before there is true work-place parity. The reality is that women are fired from high-profile management positions all the time. Until those decisions are discussed solely on the basis of the woman’s own (in)competence, it’s hard to argue that we have true gender equality.

Finally, Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina tries once again to set the record straight regarding what the Pew Report report really says regarding whether Americans are becoming increasingly polarized. This relatively short interview (listen here) is worth a listen – pay particular attention to what happens when you ask a moderate public to choose between two relatively polarized options. Note also that increasing ideological consistency is not evidence of increasing polarization. The bottom line? There is no evidence of increasing ideological polarization in the public at large in the last three decades – contrary to what many pundits have said based on the Pew survey.

Have a great Sunday!

Sorry, But We Are Still Not Polarized

Stanford political science Professor Morris Fiorina, on whose research I relied heavily in writing my Politico piece analyzing the widely publicized results of the recent Pew survey on polarization has written his own take on the subject in this Monkey Cage blog post.

In contrast to much of the pundits’ read of the Pew results (but consistent with my read of its survey data), Fiorina does not believe the general public is becoming more polarized. He writes, “In sum, we can argue about the size of the political center in the United States since the answer depends on various ways of measuring it, but whichever measure one chooses, the conclusion is the same: the country as a whole is no more polarized than it was a generation ago.” Instead, he argues that what Pew shows is a process of party sorting in which partisanship, ideology and issue positions “go together in a way they did not in the mid-20th century. Issues and ideology used to cross-cut the partisan distribution, now they reinforce it.” The result is that parties are much more ideologically homogeneous than they were half a century ago. This is something I also discussed in the Politico piece, and therefore I won’t elaborate here, but it is this process that those who claim to see evidence of polarization are often describing.

But Fiorina makes two additional and very important observations regarding how some of the media commentary indicates a misreading of the Pew Report. The first is that many pundits have misconstrued the growth in ideological consistency among a portion of the public as evidence of increased ideological polarization. But they are not the same. As I noted in the Politico piece, Pew has utilized the same set of 10 questions, with a dichotomous response option (e.g., “homosexuality should be accepted by society” or “homosexuality should be discouraged by society”), to create their liberal-conservative index. The most recent survey results show a doubling, to 21%, in the number of respondents expressing either consistently liberal or conservative opinions across these 10 questions.

As Fiorina points out, however, this doesn’t mean Americans’ views have become more extreme on these issues – indeed, we can’t know that based on this set of questions and available responses. Moreover, we do know from other survey data that many Americans’ views on key issues aren’t easily captured by a simple dichotomous response set. So, rather than an increase in polarization, what Pew has found in terms of these 10 questions is an increase in the ideological consistency of some respondents’ anwers. By the same token – and the Pew authors make this clear – this does not mean the roughly 80% who express a combination of liberal and conservative views based on these 10 questions are all moderates. Instead, they may hold very extreme, but ideologically inconsistent, views on a number of issues. (As I noted in my Politico piece, the evidence that Americans are largely moderate comes from other survey data, such as the ANES surveys.)

In defense of pundits who misinterpreted this portion of the Pew Report, the robust publicity (and still continuing!) rollout pushed by Pew , as well as some of the Report’s language seemed to suggest their results indicate a more divided United States. But the Pew data does not show that American is becoming increasingly polarized – only that it is better sorted along party lines and that there has been an increase in ideological consistency.

Fiorina also addresses a second result in the Pew survey that has become a matter of some debate: whether political “polarization” is asymmetrical – that is, whether the “growing” extremism – read, partisan sorting – is situated largely within one side of the ideological spectrum (Republican or Democrat). In keeping with Jack Goodman’s admonition to keep these posts short, however, I’ll deal with this issue in tomorrow’s post.

For now, however, the key point is this: despite claims to the contrary, the Pew study does not “offer overwhelming evidence of a sharp increase in polarization and in tribal political characterizations over the past two decades, but especially in the past few years.” Instead, it provides further evidence of party sorting. And, contrary to what some have argued, the difference between sorting and polarization is not simply academic hairsplitting. Instead, the two describe completely different phenomena. Polarization refers to a process in which we see movement among Americans away from the moderate center toward the ideological extremes. Party sorting, in contrast, suggests a general stability in the distribution of Americans’ political views with, if other survey data is to be believed, most Americans remaining situated closer to the ideological middle. Deciding what is actually occurring is not simply a “nerd” fight among academic geeks. Instead, the answer has real world ramifications. For example, we might worry less about the increase in congressional polarization if we thought it simply mimicked the evolving views of a polarizing public. But, if Fiorina is right, the polarization in Congress is not a reflection of a growing ideologically divide within the general public. And that should be cause for concern.

Are Americans Becoming More Liberal?

Politico magazine has published a slightly revised version of my earlier post analyzing the highly publicized Pew Research Center survey that so many media outlets portrayed as evidence that we are living in “the divided United States of America”. (Note: I did not choose the Politico headline, which was a bit more provocative than is probably necessary. But I suppose it drives more traffic that way. It also wasn’t actually the final version I sent them – that version included “Jenny North” as one of my baby boomer archetypes. But no matter – the message is the same. ) I’ll have more to say about some of the Pew survey results, but for now these two interactive graphs tell much of the story. This first graph is what most of the media focused on.

The second graph below is of the general population as a whole – it shows that most Americans still possess a mix of conservative and liberal views, based on the survey responses recorded by Pew to ten values-based questions (they are listed below) they have asked repeatedly since their 1994 survey. Indeed, as the Pew Report authors acknowledge, “To be sure, those with across-the-board liberal or conservative views remain in the minority; most Americans continue to express at least some mix of liberal and conservative attitudes.”

If you hit the interactive button on the original page for this graph, you’ll see that there is a slight leftward shift in the peak of the distribution across two decades toward “consistently liberal”. What appears to be primarily driving that leftward movement are Americans’ responses to two questions among the ten Pew uses to construct their ideology measure. Here are the ten questions:

http://www.people-press.org/files/2014/06/PP-2014-06-12-polarization-A1-01.png

The first question on which aggregate opinion has moved in the liberal direction addresses attitudes toward homosexuality. As this graph put together by Middlebury student Tina Berger shows, Americans have become increasingly accepting of homosexuality since 1994, with about 62% in 2014 agreeing “that homosexuality should be accepted by society”, an increase of 16% choosing this response compared to 1994, and 12% above the average agreeing with this statement during the 20-year interval. This appears to be a long-term sustained trend in the liberal direction that started in the mid-1990’s, and it’s not clear if or when it will level off.

Source: Pew Research Center 2014 Political Polarization and Typology Survey Final Topline, page 16.

The second factor shifting the modal peak to the left is the public’s changing views toward immigration. Today 57% of Pew respondents agree that “Immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents” – a figure that is up almost 13% from the 20-year average, and up 26% compared to 1994. To be sure, the trends aren’t uniform, but over two decades the net movement has been toward the liberal response.

Source: Pew Research Center 2014 Political Polarization and Typology Survey Final Topline, page 9.

On the remaining eight questions, however, there is very little sustained consistent movement in the aggregate in either a liberal or conservative direction. Of course, this can’t tell us what is happening at the individual level. The Pew summary indicates a doubling since 1994 of those holding ideological consistent views, with 21% expressing “either consistently liberal or conservative opinions across a range of issues – the size and scope of government, the environment, foreign policy and many others.” This means most Americans, by Pew’s standard, still hold a mix of views, at least based on responses to these ten questions. And, on most issues, it does not appear that in the aggregate views have changed all that much across two decades. Again, this suggests that despite the media focus on evidence that Americans are growing increasingly divided, the details of the Pew survey results suggest a more complex and perhaps reassuring picture.

In sum, while it appears Americans’ views have become more liberal in regards to immigration and homosexuality since 1994, it is not clear whether this means, as some have claimed, that the country is “moving left”. It’s all in how you parse the data.