Fretting About Polarization

The Post is running an alarmist story about growing polarization in America that goes like this:

Political polarization is now deeply embedded in the United States — more so than at any time in recent history, according to the Pew study — and has intensified in recent years. The percentage of Americans who hold either consistently conservative or consistently liberal positions on major issues has doubled over the past decade and now accounts for fully one-fifth of all Americans.

One fifth of all Americans think the government is hiding evidence of aliens. Is it so alarming that one fifth are politically partisan?

Partisan combat has produced rising animosity, “bordering on a sense of alarm,” toward the opposite party. More than a third of all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and more than a quarter of all Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents see the other party as a threat to the nation’s well-being. Among the most politically engaged and most ideologically polarized Americans, this apocalyptic view of the threat posed by the other party is substantially higher.

Actually I don't see how you can care about politics at any level and not regard the opposite party as "a threat to the nation's well being." If you don't regard one party or the other's policies as a bad thing, why bother to vote?

I do think it is interesting that "conservative" and "liberal" are increasingly the way many Americans define their identities. This can be destructive when people identify so strongly with their own side that they excuse crimes by their own partisans, but in America that still seems to be at a fairly low level. I find it weird that when presented with a policy problem so many people ask what is the conservative or liberal approach, not what is the best approach. But then I am skeptical of our ability to identify the best approach anyway.

Political polarization is a problem, and I think it is preventing us from adopting better policies in areas like health care and energy. But it is a problem endemic to democracy, and if you ask me we have much worse things to worry about.