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 5/10 Good --- tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com http://feeds.feedburner.com/tpmcafe-main
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 --- 45 days ago http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/tpmcafe-main/~3/343245369/
 Here's another potentially big problem with the Big Sort (again, the phenomenon, not the book). Sorting can make the electorate, as a whole, look more radicalized and polarized than it really is. Is the public more politically polarized, across the board, than it used to be? Could be, and I wish I knew. That question is at the center of a big and unsettled debate within political science. But this much is certain: just because you and I are sorted into more homogeneous communities, it doesn't mean that you and I, as individuals, are more likely to disagree, or that we disagree more strongly. Maybe these things are true, but sorting, by itself, doesn't make them so. At the same time, sorting can create an illusion of greater overall disagreement. Why? The simple reality of aggregating preferences and attributing, ultimately, one preference to one location. Which, for many purposes in any democracy, is just unavoidable. You can only elect one House member. And the media legitimately need some kind of handle to describe you. Suppose, for just a moment, that every person in America could safely be labeled "a moderate liberal" or "a moderate conservative". Then suppose that, over time, the moderate liberals all wind up in the same place; likewise with the moderate conservatives. Almost any way that you choose to average the preferences, you will see trends that suggest that "liberal town" and "conservative town" are moving ideologically apa ... |
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