When one thinks of politics, the words Democrat and Republican are usually the first things to come to mind. They symbolize the unique division of ideals in America that is found no where else. However, is our nation as divided as it seems?
In 2002, Lewis Bolce wrote an essay titled “Our Secular Democratic Party” in which he argues that the Democratic Party has become increasingly non-religious, making the Republican Party traditionalist by default. Thus he pits Orthodox religious ideals against Progressive reason and science. His conservative/liberal spectrum puts conservative Evangelicals against liberal Seculars. He also states that, as far as interest groups go, the American Way is the antagonist of the Christian Coalition. Supporting this, he states that the “religious gap is bigger than any other gap.”
However, journalists focus on the gap between religions instead of the gap between that of the religious and non religious. One reason for this may be that they take secularism for granted because they are more likely to be Democratic and secular themselves. It may also be that journalists and editors focus on the Christian threat to Democracy, stating that the wall of separation is “endangered” and the church is too powerful. In later years, non believers were “shunned” if their beliefs became known. However, the amount of seculars has risen to the point where this fear of being shunned has begun to dissipate.
According to Bolce, The Washington Post and The New York Times affect the rest of the media. Out of the articles written by these two newspapers, six hundred eighty-two articles are written about Evangelical vs. Fundamentalist issues while only forty-three articles are written about seculars. Because of these articles about inter-religious issues, media ignores tolerance and focuses on over exaggerating religious scandals. There is also no TV coverage on secular leanings in the 1990’s, so people who watch the news are more likely to vote based on views against Fundamentalists.
Two years later, in 2004, Morris P. Fiorina wrote an essay titled “What Culture Wars?” opposing the existence of culture wars. He argues that journalists embrace the “culture war” mentality because “Disagreement, division, polarization, battles, and war make good copy. Agreement, consensus, moderation, compromise, and peace do not.” In every election, journalists focus on a map sporting red and blue states. Supposedly this shows that the “culture war” exists. It also shows that conservatives live midland while seculars live on the coast and in the north. However, the United States of America is actually purple with republicans and democrats distributed almost equally among states.
Fiorina also found research in “Publicly available databases” that had evidence to suggest that the culture war to be something “between simple exaggeration and sheer nonsense.” Most of [[the]] people in the three “divisions”, Democrat, Republican, and Independent, agree that compromise is in order. He also argues that culture war clashes are between a few extreme “elites”, leaving out most of the public. As to the division between parties, he states that it is “the choices [that] are polarized, not positions”. In other words, the issues have two definite answers and thus two definite choices, but the two parties are not set on one answer as a position.
Even though Bolce wrote thirteen pages worth of material, much of it was repetitive. However, I did not find any glaring contradictions in his arguments. Instead there was some missing information. As I stated in my first paragraph, Lewis Bolce labeled Democrats secular and Republicans “traditionalist”. The second of the two is not something new since Republicans have always been known for its conservative, and therefore traditionalist, leanings. However, not all Democrats are seculars, just as not all Republicans are Evangelical Christians. Also, most of the statistics Bolce quoted concerned people in congress who are mostly white, extremist, and belong to an older generation. Thus most of the population, in particular the moderates and youth, are excluded from his data. Consequently, the nation is not as “divided” as Bolce implies.
Bolce also argued that journalists are more focused on inter-religion scandals than the "rivalry" between religious and secular. However, there is a statistically greater probability that there will be a conflict between religions than there is of a conflict between religious and secular. There are many different religions, all with different points of views. For example, lets say we have a Catholic (C), an Evangelical (E), a Methodist (M), a Protestant (P), a Lutheran (L), and a secular (S) in the same room. The possible combinations for a inter-religious conflict is: CE, CM, CP, CL, EM, EP, EL, MP, ML, and PL; while the possible combinations for a secular versus religion conflict is CS, ES, MS, PS, and LS. For every 5 possible religious versus secular conflicts, there are 9 possible inter-religious conflicts. In other words, there are almost twice the amount of chances for an inter-religious conflict than there is a secular versus religious conflict.
I found the influence of The Washington Post and The New York Times on other media interesting as I do not have enough knowledge to debunk this argument entirely. However, I believe that average citizens mostly concern themselves with local matters, so the national and global matters they do hear about are usually negative. The reason for this is that as long as it looks like the rest of the world is doing fine, they do not pay attention to it, but as soon as something goes wrong it gets their attention. This negative-dwelling behavior comes from survival tactics deeply embedded into the human psyche. When in a state of nature this was needed in order to survive and, even though we are no longer in this state, it has been passed on in our genetics to think this way.
On this note, Morris Fiorinna is partially right in saying that it is the negative articles that drive the newspaper. Newspapers have become slightly desperate with the emergence of web blogs and television. Networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace also work to provide news as government officials turn to them to spread the word on what they're up to before newspapers get to it. Many people also turn to the humorous rants of [[I’m assuming you mean Jon Stewart, which his Daily Show thingy.]] Don Stewart and Stephan Colbert instead of reading the dry reports provided in print.
I found no fault with Fiorina's red/blue state argument as what he said has statistical proof to back it up. When looking at the "purple" map, one can see large red areas. However, those areas are sparsely populated and have the same weight as a smaller area. Since the coastal and northern areas are supposed to be largely democratic, it is surprising to see that the northern states are as "divided" as any other when it comes to voting. Thus it comes to no surprise that "democratic" states are voting for republican leaders and vice versa. Therefore, the nation is much more moderate and supports compromise rather than conflict.
Something I found interesting was how boldly Fiorina dismissed the thought of culture wars existing. The continuation of a two party democracy has instilled in America's citizens that there is a division between them. Many Americans barely know what each party stand for, let alone what side to take, so many vote for the candidate they feel comfortable with. During election times the division seems black and white, or red and blue as the case may be. However, when there is not an election, most people go through their lives ignoring political ideologies. Some don't even know what "side" they are on in the first place.
As you may have concluded from my analysis, I found Fiorinna's arguments more compelling than Bolce's. This may have been colored slightly by my original dislike for politics in general, but I believe that my arguments are sound. From the two essays and this class I have learned much about politics and hope that this information will help me as I begin to find my own path in this world.
