Failure of Political Leaders to Get Along in Elections

The legislative process, and presidential appointments has led to ineffective leadership by causing roadblocks in getting anything done in regards to laws and policy. Political polarization is about the attitudes towards our political parties, what the gap between the Democrat and Republican parties is. The closer together this bi-partisan gap is, the more likely parties are to agree, causing overlaps in ideology that will enable them to work together. Political scientists typically differentiate between two cases of political polarization: Elite polarization and popular polarization.

Elite polarization refers to the polarization of governmental elites, such as party organizers and elected officials, while popular polarization refers to polarization in the electorate and general public.

During elections, identity-group politics2 comes into play. In this century, the political landscape is becoming increasingly more polarized as the number of centrist Democrats and Republicans decline. America’s political polarization is only going to get worse. It will increase as long as the only major parties in American politics are the Democratic and Republican parties.

They prevent any third political party from coming into leadership and that may be part of the problem as well. Political polarization represents a divide in the ideas of the people, and makes debating ideals in a way that can be understood much more difficult. The distinction between the left-wing and the right-wing has never been so clear, with the left thinking bigotry and racism are root causes for the failure of leadership and with the right thinking identity politics and political correctness are root causes for the failure of leadership.

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These stark differences in belief create tension on the debate floor, which gives way to leaders allowing personal issues to get in the way of highlighting their own positive stances on issues – stances that will get them elected – and instead highlighting the flaws of the opponent to create an antagonistic electoral atmosphere. There is also a political phenomenon called political party sorting. Liberal republicans and conservative democrats were once but no longer are a thing thanks to political party sorting. Nowadays, there are liberal democrats and conservative republicans. There is no mixing of ideas within either of these parties and that is what is creating a larger partisan gap and pitting politicians against each other even more. What this means is that during elections, candidates that make it to the end are either radically left or radically right. Ergo, whatever leader is elected will have radicalized views regarding law and policy.

New rules for political parties5 also factor into polarization. There have been reforms aimed at making the system more democratic, eliminating any part of the system that neutralized bi-partisan interaction in government. What donors for candidates donate based on5 comes into play as well, as donors donate more based on ideology, so if the richer donors are on the left, then it is more likely the left-wing candidate will gain more money to fund their campaign, and vice versa. What this means for an election is that the left-wing candidate in this scenario would likely win the election, causing more of a divide between parties. Gerrymandering6, or the use of electoral borders to sway a political party or nearly guarantee an electoral result affects the redistricting process in the U.S. Political scientists relate this to political polarization in elections. Scholars argue that gerrymandering creates more ideologically distinct districts, resulting in leaders with more polarized beliefs.

Regarding the legislative process, the weakening of rules and customs and even social fraternization between parties has made it difficult for members of Congress and the President to get along. When politicians that are supposed to work together don’t get along, then their stubbornness not to go along with what their adversaries say will hinder their progress and ultimately prevent beneficial laws from being passed. According to Cynthia R. Farina at Columbia Law Review, the Republican and Democratic caucuses have been becoming continuously more distant from each other since the 1970s. Polarization seems to be greater in the House of Representatives but the Senate is not far behind in such terms. Farina lists three reasons that Congress is polarized: ideological coherence, partisan sorting, ideological divergence. Ideological coherence is being consistent across the range of social and economic issues. Partisan sorting is members being better sorted by party.

In the 1970s, more white Southern Conservatives entered Congress and more liberal ‘Rockefeller Republicans’ disappeared as a result of party sorting, widening the gap between parties. Ideological divergence is the distance between median party members increasing in both chambers. There have been studies that show that this ideological divergence is asymmetric, with Republicans moving further to the right than the Democrats are to the left. The left is still moving further to left, however, and have been since the exodus of Democrats that occurred during the Civil Rights Movement. This would mean that legislative future is possibly in the hands of the Grand Ol’ Party. This polarization would also mean that whatever political party the president is, the more likely they are to adhere to the needs of their party and not the whole nation, making them an inefficient leader. This is a result of unilateralism, supporting one-sided action in disregard of other parties. For example, President Obama’s actions in the political arena in an attempt to find a way around Congress when passing the Affordable Care Act were unilateral, and the Affordable Care Act is still an issue in Congress even under the Trump Administration.