BEING PARTISAN, IS THE STRONGEST INFLUENCE IN POLITICS TODAY

…Senator John McCain’s last request was for Americans to stop their tribal rivalries

Partisan voters are being driven by their fear and loathing for their opposition parties.

We have been hearing for a couple of years how the nation is dividing and that there are now something like 4 different political categories. 

That being: Liberals, Conservatives, Trump Supporters, Independents.

And within those groups, there is no possibility of any of them coming to “common ground” as it had been occurring over the last decades of the previous century.

As to which group is the largest, it’s probably the Liberals and the Independents.  But it’s the Trump supporters and the Conservatives that seem to show up more often when it’s time to vote.

Therefore, that’s why we have a Donald Trump in the White House, and that most states are being run by the Conservatives.

But with that being the case, I was still surprised that upon the death of Arizona Senator John McCain, the number of hard-line critics, mostly from his own party, came out and began to pounce.

On Instagram, a Ms. Lynne Patton, a longtime associate of the Trump family that is working in the Trump administration, had taken to social media to praise McCain.  She wrote: “Anyone who serves this country is an American hero. And when an American hero dies, everyone should mourn, tonight, we lost an American hero. Period.”

Here is the critical storm from those that responded to Ms. Patton’s post:

·       Some comments tore apart McCain’s unsuccessful first marriage and his military service.

·       Some even referred to the long-debunked conspiracy theories about his confessing to being a war criminal time while being a prisoner of war.

·       A few suggested that he should “rot in hell.”

·       “Sorry, phony, fraud and a traitor,” wrote Shawn Halan, a Southern California real estate agent.  She also wrote: “He was a pathetic egomaniac bent on fighting conservatism and did it as a pretender!”

·       “Faux conservative,” added another supporter of President Trump.

·       “We can admire his service in Vietnam, but also realize he was a scoundrel and backstabber as a politician,” wrote a photographer based in the New York area. “I don’t mourn.”

Over the past two decades, instead of looking for compromise, most Americans have fled to their political poles.  Where the once vibrant and decisive “middle” used to be the largest group, that group today is almost non-existent

.

Increasingly, partisan voters are being driven more by fear and loathing for their opposition party than admiration for their own leaders.  This is a fairly new a phenomenon that the political consultants are now calling: “Negative Partisanship.”

Today, partisanship has a “stronger influence on voters’ behavior than at any time since the 1950s”.  This was stated by Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster, two Emory University political scientists.

What this brings is that any act of compromise with the enemy [opposition party] is greeted with anger and derision.

“Dislike of the opposing party, its supporters and its governing elite is a powerful mechanism driving individuals to remain consistently loyal to their own party. This anger is likely to shape voting behavior well into the future,” the two political scientists wrote.

This new phenomenon appears to account for this attitude toward McCain, particularly among today’s Republicans.

Even though he was a reliable Republican vote, he often called for compromise with Democrats on key issues such as immigration and health-care legislation. Because of this, he was hit regularly with the bad title of being called a “RINO”… a Republican in name only.

Neither increased partisanship nor an angry attitude toward those on the opposing side began with Donald Trump, but Trump fuels and benefits from both.

National polls have confirmed that Trump supporters soured on McCain in the years before his death. A Fox News survey showed that 52% of all registered voters had a favorable view of McCain.  And that is  significantly higher than they have of Trump.

But those figures are for “all registered voters” and the percentage was increased by Democrats of which 60% viewed McCain favorably.

Among the Republicans, the overwhelming majority of whom support Trump, only 41% of Republicans had a positive view of Senator McCain.

In his final years, McCain complained about this new trend in American politics as forcefully as anyone. On three major occasions in his last year, two speeches and a statement read after his death, McCain spoke in favor of modesty, bipartisanship and compromise.

Before he passed, McCain praised longtime political adversaries, such as former vice president Joe Biden, whom he described last fall as an “old, dear friend.”  “We often argued, sometimes passionately, but we believed in each other’s patriotism and the sincerity of each other’s convictions,” McCain said of Biden.

After casting the deciding vote last year against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, McCain said that the Senate debates were “more partisan and more tribal” than at any time during his long Washington career.

“Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on radio and television and the Internet,” he begged. “To hell with them. They don’t want anything done for the public good. Our incapacity is their livelihood.”

McCain’s final message in support of harmony and compromise came in his farewell statement.  He also directly dismissed Trump by saying:  “We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all corners of the globe.”

McCain’s long-time staffers in Arizona offered some explanations for McCain’s unpopularity with his own party.  Some blamed the increase of Internet media outlets, which has elevated the loudest and most outrageous voices.

Others blamed Trump, who has remade the Republican Party in his own, bullying image. Trump’s popularity among many Republicans has increased the demand for party members to fall in line behind Trump. But McCain fought in the opposite direction.

From his deathbed, McCain said that the United States was a “three-hundred-twenty-five million opinionated, vociferous individuals.” And he encouraged his fellow Americans to “give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country.”

Because of the tremendous pressure from public criticism, Trump apparently gave in by reversing an earlier and much criticized decision to not to keep American flags on federal buildings at half-staff to honor McCain. We all know that Trump seldom admits mistakes, and of course, he would not go that far this time.

But he did say while addressing a group of evangelist leaders at the White House, “Despite our differences on policy and politics, I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country, and in his honor, have signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff until the day of his interment.”

In death, it appears that John McCain did get the last word.

Copyright G.Ater  2018