The Era of Predictable Politics

Brian YS Wong August 22, 2024 23:05

If you spoke with a Democrat and a Republican in 2021, there would be an 83% chance that the former told you they believe climate change had already begun, whilst the odds of the latter saying the same would be 30%. Roll back the clock by 24 years, in year 1997, the odds would be roughly even.

I am citing here a paper published in January 2024, penned by E. Keith Smith, M. Julia Bognar, and Adam Mayer. Don’t believe me? Check out their article.

The underlying explanations are rather simple – at least conceptually. Political polarisation has gotten considerably worse in America – the proportion of voters with “no” or “weak” party preferences declined precipitously in the forty years straddling 1972 and 2012. Individuals are more likely to identify with or vote consistently for one party over another – from the presidential race down the ballot to the county races. More specifically, polarisation has also ‘caught on’ and spread to new, distinct domains – including ones that one would think belong more to the remit and realm of science, facts, and objective truths. Climate change is not immune to the hyper-politicisation of any and all possible cleavage for divides.

And it’s not just America. Picture yourself a Brexiteer in Britain. Chances are, your innate heuristics and biases would compel you to think of someone who is in their 60s, an old, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant man, perhaps grumpily berating immigrants and living in the Midlands. Or picture a ‘Remain’ voter who – you’re told – campaigned fervently for the ‘sensible option’ in 2016. Chances are, you’ll immediately associate these descriptive words with the image of a twenty-something, upper-middle-class student enrolled at the London School of Economics or University of Oxford. I can safely say, as an eighteen-year-old student at Oxford back in 2016, I was guilty as charged: I spent most of my time besides sitting my preliminary examinations debating and arguing with pro-

Brexit voices and campaigning on the streets for the EU. So much for democratic engagement.
The tragedy of these stereotypes isn’t the half-grain of truth and statistical trends that they may potentially reveal or expose. It is instead the ubiquity and firmness with which they have taken root in our zeitgeist. For instance, speak with a traditional German conservative, and they’ll likely tell you that they dislike unbridled immigration, are skeptical towards COVID-19 vaccinations, and do not believe the Russians ought to have a say in the post-war European security infrastructure. If one tells me that one is a Marine le Pen supporter, chances are I could develop a fairly accurate assessment of one’s beliefs concerning Russia (affirmative), migrants from the Mediterranean (negative), Muslims (very negative) the United States (negative), and populist economic policies (affirmative). Oh, and the total abhorrence and spite towards Macron (but then again, that’s probably 70% of all French voters).

Across the globe, we may be tempted to conclude, from our anecdotal observations, that politics has become more unpredictable. But political attitudes, and the correlation of beliefs that may or may not be – in and of themselves – political, have most certainly become more predictable. Liberals in the US are likely to back not only more liberatory and emancipatory views on sex and gender, but also be more environmentally conscious and oriented towards civil liberties. Conservatives used to come in two forms: economically and socially. These days, the lines between social, cultural, and economic conservatism are increasingly blurred – though one could argue that the differences between MAGA Republicans and the old Establishment Republicans are just as stark as the divide between MAGA Republicans and Democrats.

To some extent, such predictability is understandable. There are, as Jonathan Haidt so eloquently notes, certain priors that we are likely to possess and develop beliefs in accordance to: for instance, those who believe in authority and “purity” are more likely to adopt hyper-conservative, prudish, even, views on queer rights and same-sex marriage. On the other hand, individuals who see value and rights in non-human animals, are also more likely to respect and champion the rights of foreign others – i.e. refugee rights. This is not to say that all animal rights are thus compassionate defenders of refugee rights and vice versa – after all, many BernieBros are economically left-wing and pro-redistribution, but completely clueless when it comes to gender equality and feminism. Yet it is to say that there are demand-side, organic explanations for why certain issues are ‘bunched up’ the way they are.

Yet this does not suffice in explaining why and how the polarisation over climate change came to be between the DNC and the GOP. Nor, indeed, can it account for the apparent double standards in Indian politics, where Hindutva followers and Modi disciples are only unduly harsh on the personal conduct and choices of Congress politicians, yet opt to turn a blind eye towards failures of their own leaders – especially when it comes to violating religious pluralism and prospective incitement of anti-Islam hatred.

Nor, indeed, can this hypothesis explain the polarisation over public health and seemingly technocratic, anodyne issues such as public health controls and measures introduced to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the West, or, alternatively, discourses surrounding nuclear energy, foreign policy (Russia in particular), and the mass panic over ‘trans bathrooms’. The rights of trans individuals to be recognised clearly do not violate the core interests of non-trans individuals, yet it is thanks to the inflammatory and provocative rhetoric and discourses promulgated by the GOP and its ilk in the US, or the Reform Party and their kind in the UK, that trans rights and sexual liberation have once again come to the forefront of Western politics – this time round, as the subject of a moral panic that is both disproportionate and ill-informed.

Such predictability, or collinearity, stems from supply-side policies. It is the politicians and leaders who insist that those who are “loyal” members of their parties must exclusively adhere to their ideological dogmas: the failing of which would amount to a fundamental neglect, a defect, and an excuse for exclusion. Folks are becoming more polarised on everything, because that is exactly what politicians want – to stir up hatred, to entrench divides, so as to hold these votes captive. And ain’t that a tragedy?

Brian YS Wong

Assistant Professor, HKU