What Updates Are There Regarding Political Developments in America?
Political Developments in America
When it comes to their views of politics and their elected officials, Americans are unrelentingly critical. They view the political process as dominated by special interests, flooded with campaign money and mired in partisan warfare. They feel the country’s leaders are self-serving and ineffective. And they’re highly skeptical of the federal government as a whole.
The year started with Republicans retaking the House of Representatives, but their tenure in this chamber was off to a rocky start. It took 15 rounds of voting to select House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and many members of the far right were opposed to his nomination – in some cases threatening to use a procedural tool (the “rule change” filibuster) to block his appointment.
More generally, Republicans and Democrats alike are deeply dissatisfied with the nation’s politics. A majority of America updates say the national political process is a source of great stress, and a similar percentage believe it’s impossible to solve the nation’s problems with current political leaders and parties. And a large share of Americans think that both parties and the people running for office are corrupt.
What Updates Are There Regarding Political Developments in America?
Despite this deep dissatisfaction, Americans are not nearly as ideologically polarized as they often perceive themselves to be. In fact, the recent rise in politically motivated violence may be due more to affective polarization than ideological polarization. The heightened levels of emotional polarization in the United States have exacerbated some political conflicts and may even be contributing to some forms of violent protest.
In addition, increased understanding that reducing ideological polarization does not reduce antidemocratic attitudes or political violence has made democracy scholars more aware of the role of emotions in U.S. politics. Moreover, increasing research indicates that the American public’s frustration with the political system is not caused by a partisan gap in beliefs, but rather by a sense of alienation and a lack of agency over problems they care about, whether those issues are local—such as building a community’s resilience against increasingly frequent extreme weather—or nationally oriented.
The goal of many organizations focused on improving American democracy is to rebalance the political system so that it better empowers ordinary Americans to take action on problems they care about, and that do not require them to compromise or abandon their core beliefs in order to do so. This is possible, but it will require intensive mobilization efforts that build a positive vision of America’s future and do not further fuel the political anger that contributes to some forms of violence.
And it will require a recognition that the current system’s partisan incentive structures and mass misunderstandings are to blame for most of its dysfunction. Amid this backdrop, there are some signs that reformers are making progress. They are working to introduce ranked choice voting, decoupling fundraising and elections and other steps that could make the political system less asymmetrical and more inclusive. It is not yet clear, however, whether these reforms will be enough to prevent the next wave of political violence.