As I’ve looked at the polls, including my own; as I’ve talked to people across the political spectrum; as I’ve read the news from various angles: I’ve come to the conclusion that for all our disagreements, we largely agree on five things. There are always a few outliers, of course; but each of these gets agreement from around three-fourths of the electorate. That should be enough to hold us together.
1. Diversity is a good thing
Diversity has become a polarizing issue; but on a closer look, there has been a huge and nearly-consensual move towards greater inclusion. The disagreements are only at the edges.
As a country today, we appreciate differences of culture and ethnicity. We think they should be celebrated. We know that it’s often difficult: diversity leads to misunderstandings, conflicts, hurt feelings. But very widely we feel this enriches us. 75% agree that “People from other places and cultures help us to grow, we should learn from them.”
This is a huge shift in the last fifty or sixty years. Just for example: Between 1958 and 1999, the percentage who said they could vote for “a generally well-qualified man for president who happened to be Black” went from 38% to 95%. In the South, it went from 13% to the same 95%. We actually elected a Black as President, twice – which would have been so far beyond thinkable a half century ago that it only fringe lunatics might have believed it possible. In much of 1950s America discrimination was widespread, open, and often brutal; today open racism is consigned to the margins, and battles are increasingly fought over “unconscious” and “structural” bias.
When the pressures of diversity lead us to name-calling and blaming and insulting each other – that divides us. The left has a tendency to claim moral superiority in a way that infuriates and divides on something that should unite.
2. We love our country
“Unpatriotic” has become in a sense the Right’s epithet of choice against the Left – the counter to charges of “racism” lobbed at them. Ann Coulter’s best-selling book has accused liberals of decades of “treason” and “treachery.” Again, the actual disagreements are only at the margins. Over 80% of Democrats say they were “extremely” or “very” proud to be Americans. Democrats I know are generally deeply offended at being called “unpatriotic,” to say nothing of “traitors.” They love their country, which is why they want to improve it.
Democrats are sometimes more willing than Republicans to voice criticisms of the U.S., and sometimes more open to learning from and admiring other nations. Neither of those indicates lack of patriotism. Republicans and populists, after all, are often viciously critical of their country over the last half century, or maybe century; and they admire foreign thinkers like Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, and Edmund Burke. Anyone not involved in a partisan fight will acknowledge you can criticize your country, as you can criticize your wife or children, while still loving them – in fact, it can be a mark of true love.
3. The future is scary
We don’t fully admit this to ourselves, but there’s a very general feeling of anxiety about the future. The older folks fret and fume. According to their politics, they may focus their anxiety on different things: social media, terrorism, artificial intelligence, biological engineering, environmental damage, the other party. But at bottom we all feel things are moving too fast and out of control. Many young people I’ve talked to about this just throw up their hands and say: We’re screwed, but what can you do? We react to that anxiety in different ways, but the underlying feeling is widely shared.
4. The government has lost touch with the people
Here’s a distressing statistic: three-fourths of the electorate believes that “most elected officials don’t care what people like me think.” In 1964, less than 30% Americans felt that government was run by a few big interests; in 2016 it was over ninety percent.
The collapse of trust in government began in the 60s, mostly among the the young and educated on the Left. Here they marched against Johnson and McNamara and the War; in Paris they marched against DeGaulle; and pretty much across Europe confidence in government started to collapse. Nowadays it’s been taken up by populists on the Right –generally less-educated, many working-class. They have knocked the survey numbers on trust in government down to the vanishing point.
5. Polarization sucks
Finally, we widely agree that the partisan battles of the last few decades are bad: exhausting, unpleasant, demoralizing. Over three-fourths are bothered by “politics being too divisive and there being a lack of respect for people who disagree with each other.” Many studies have shown a lack of ideological consistency among most voters; a 2018 study finds that over ⅔ of the population constitute an “exhausted majority”who do not fit well in either of the polarized camps.
Let’s let the partisans rant. We need to get to work on making the future less threatening and building policies most can support. There is room for agreement on important issues if we can stop labeling and insulting each other.
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