Forget Paul Bunyan. There’s a bigger American myth that needs to be busted, and you know it all too well: America is divided. Pick a tribe. Stop thinking.
That’s an idea only Karl Marx could love. It’s opposed to liberty, offensive to human dignity, and plays fast and loose with the facts.
One problem is its vague insistence on a left-right divide — but the devil is in the details. When you drill down into policy specifics, rather than political identities, differences fade. “On most issues,” Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina found, “attitudes continue to cluster in the middle rather than lump up on the extremes.”
The fatal flaw, however, is that Americans have never been more united in their distaste for the two-party system. Sixty-one percent of Americans, and 71 percent of millennials, say a third major party is needed because Democrats and Republicans do such a poor job representing them. But rather than correct course, and speak sensibly, the duopoly is doubling down on its myth of division.
Democrats and Republicans may be this myth’s main spouts. But its true source is D.C.’s political-industrial complex, a network — divided along partisan lines — of special interests, lobbyists, pollsters, think tanks, front groups, PACs and media. These puppets of the powerful use hate and fear to divide and conquer the powerless it keeps them employed — and their cronies and clients empowered.
Think about it. If you’re a member of a do-nothing, gridlocked Congress, turning voters on each other is a great way to get re-elected. Hence all the sensational, partisan rhetoric, which media outlets cover because it gets clicks and views, which rakes in more advertising revenue.
It’s a badly broken system because the private profits of the political-industrial complex come at the cost of the common good.
Americans know this, and it’s a recognition that unites, rather than divides. For proof, consider public approval of government. More than 80 percent of Americans disapprove of how Congress handles its job, while only 18 percent trust government to do the right thing.
These are not random trends. They coincide with the rise of the multi-billion dollar political-industrial complex, which has effectively enlisted D.C. in the service of special interests.
Corporations spend about $2.6 billion every year on lobbying because it works. According to The Sunlight Foundation, a firm investing $28 million in politics will “earn” more than $22 billion in corporate welfare. And lobbyists shill because it pays: Four of America’s five wealthiest counties surround the District of Columbia.
With facts like that it’s no wonder 92 percent of Americans believe “the government is pretty much run by a few big interests.” The bad news for Democrats and Republicans is this isn’t history’s greatest case of mass hysteria — Americans are right. According to a study from Princeton comparing 20 years of public opinion to policies enacted in law: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact.”
That’s a tough pill to swallow. But the silver lining is that Americans are far from divided; 92 percent of Americans agree about a fundamental problem. More important, supermajorities agree on the necessary and proper reforms needed to solve it. Eighty-five percent of Americans want real campaign finance reform, while 71 percent want to end extreme partisan gerrymandering.
The meaning of such agreements cannot be missed. It debunks the myth of division — and more. It uncovers common ground for a new movement, committed to reform and accountability, to rally on.
