Amidst all the ink and electrons reporting on the bitter partisan divisions that gnaw at America today, what has been missing is due recognition of how extreme policy positions and failure to compromise are incited by certain fundamental realities of our national character as well as our political system.
The first fundamental reality is simply demographics — where people live, and how partisan demographics naturally line up along regional lines. In this era of the infamous Red vs Blue America map, the nation has balkanized along regional lines with heavy partisan overtones. Like other large winner-take-all democracies, such as the UK, India and Canada, entire regions of the U.S. have become one-party fiefdoms.
The Democrats control the cities, most of the coasts and a small chunk of the Midwest and Southwest, while the GOP dominates the South, the Plains, the Mountain West and most of the sparse flyover zones between the coasts. While a picture is worth a thousand words, the ominous-looking Red vs Blue map barely begins to encapsulate the consequences of these partisan-laden demographics.
The second fundamental reality is how those regional partisan demographics are funneled as votes through our winner-take-all electoral system. In over 90 percent of the “me against you” legislative districts — at both federal and state levels — it’s only possible for one side to win. There are simply too many of one type of voters packed into that district.
In the vast majority of states, this effect is occurring outside whatever shenanigans take place as a result of partisan gerrymanders during redistricting. This is a matter of where people reside, and the fact that only one side can win in this zero-sum game. In the vast majority of districts, demography has become destiny. Someone should print that on a bumper sticker.
Consequently, party leaders and political experts can reliably predict who is going to win nearly all of the 435 US House seats. FairVote has forecast that in the 2024 elections, only 26 seats – six percent – will be toss-ups, the least in the last 25 years. FairVote not only can tell which candidate will win each race, they can predict the margins of victory. In a double-barreled corruption, that in turn allows party leaders to focus their “Pyramid of Money” resources on the handful of battleground districts and states.
In combination, these two realities of partisan regional demographics combined with the winner-take-all electoral system add a sharp geographic schism to America’s destructive polarization. This mix of geography and partisanship, especially when combined with race – which I will discuss in a moment – constitutes an extremely toxic brew that has usually been explosive whenever it has appeared in US history.