‘Great’ but not great

Steve Barnes

“This is great!” he emailed. He is a retired academic, long active in politics in Arkansas and, sometimes, beyond.

“What do you mean, ‘great,’ ” I replied, slightly appalled.

“Well,” he answered, clearing his throat in cyber-space, “great research.”

Yes, great research. No, not great in what it says about contemporary America, Arkansas included. It is a package of poll data gathered by the Public Opinion Strategies firm of Washington, D.C., and supervised by one of its principals, Bill McInturff. The findings are, in a word, discouraging. The survey was commissioned by NBC News, which, along with the Wall Street Journal, has long relied on the Strategies company for polling on political and social issues.

“Just how bad is our political polarization?” the report begins.

Answer: “Roughly eight of 10 partisans believes the agenda of the other party poses a threat that if not stopped will destroy America as we know it.” Not damage, not hinder, not change — destroy. Eight of ten is better than nine of 10, or 10 of 10. But it’s not good, and certainly not great.

Nor is this: Since 2010 the share of partisans expressing confidence in the nation’s ability to join hands in addressing serious problems has fallen by half to 27 percent. In the same dozen years, the percentage who say the government has been crippled by political polarization, and that the division will only widen, has almost doubled, to 70 percent.

Before we go on, a word about McInturff for the uninitiated: He is a Republican and a staunch conservative. He has worked for scores of GOP congressional candidates, and was in charge of polling for Sen. John McCain’s race against Barack Obama. He helped design advertising that torpedoed the health care legislation crafted by Hillary Clinton in the early 1990s. He is nobody’s liberal. So, presumably, he takes no joy in reporting that “the composition of the Republican Party has moved decisively to be comprised [by almost two-thirds] of non-college educated White voters” whose animating issues — gun rights, abortion, religion, foreign economic competition, immigration — are at odds with the views of most independents, whose favor the GOP’s presidential nominee and many of its Senate candidates require for success against Democrats. (Interestingly, McInturff found that Republican tolerance of same-sex marriage has grown perceptibly.)

There seemed little doubt that attitudes among professed Democrats had shifted to the left in recent years, and McInturff’s work confirmed it. In the past decade the measure of Democrats who term themselves “very liberal” tripled to 30 percent.

I ran the survey past some other Arkansans. Among them, a public school educator in the Delta who faulted a media culture that essentially encourages individuals to choose the “news” that fits their biases.

“This is the science behind the obvious,” he said. “I recently had a conversation with a doomsdayer who really is just a man taking what he considers news and twisting it to his Internet beliefs. When I mentioned facts from genuine news sources he was in disbelief. Did I change his views? Probably not. Did I adjust his perception? Definitely.”

A retired judge in Washington County concurred: “(Y)ou can’t discount ignorance and misinformation as a significant reason for the divide.”

On condition of anonymity, a Republican state representative lamented her party’s “full speed ahead drive to the edge” and said she hoped “we can put on the brakes before we go over the cliff.” Then: “But so many of my supporters tune in to ‘Hannity’ or whoever on Fox every night and the next morning I’ve got a couple dozen voicemails” demanding she stay the course.

A friend of hers, a House Democrat who she’s done business with, can only sympathize. “You wouldn’t believe it, and it doesn’t make any difference since we’re such a (legislative) minority, but there are days when it seems those groups that we always thought of as moderate are shifting to the left.” He thought for a moment. “In a weird way it’s almost better that (the GOP’s House and Senate majorities) is so big. If (Democrats) had more members, in this atmosphere, we might have gridlock on motherhood resolutions.”

“The (McInturff) data is stunning in how quickly this chasm in the American public developed,” said Dr. Jay Barth, emeritus professor of political science at Hendrix College. “Sadly, there is also a sense that, while the change happened quickly, any course correction will take generations to bring about. It’s all just very bad news for the American democratic experiment.”