Yes, Americans Are Politically ‘Divided’—We’re Not One-Policy-Fits-All Borg

Americans continue to see the country as sharply
divided over political issues—but fewer of us see that as a bad
thing, while growing numbers see a real upside in that division,
according to
USA Today/Bipartisan Policy Center polling:

The sharp political divide that Americans say they hate may be
becoming the new normal.

A USA TODAY/Bipartisan Policy Center poll taken this month, the
fourth in a year-long series, shows no change in the overwhelming
consensus that U.S. politics have become more divided in recent
years.

Well, of course there’s political division in a nation
of over 300 million people. We’re not the damned Borg. If we didn’t
have strong disagreements over policies that reach deeply into our
lives, that would be really weird. Recent years have brought us
Obamacare, the surveillance state, and metastasizing federal
spending, to barely scratch the surface. The fact that we so
strongly perceive political polarization around us may have less to
do with increasing policy disagreements than with the fact that so
many one-size-fits-all solutions are jammed down our collective
throats even though we’re not, you know, a collective.

The most notable shift here is the move toward accepting and
even celebrating America’s political divisions. In just one year,
the percentage of the population calling the divisions “a good
thing” rose from 20 percent to 40 percent. The prepackaged
rationale from the pollsters for the political divide being good is
that it “gives voters a real choice.” But, tellingly, USA
Today quotes a man saying, “It helps stop bad policies.”

In fact, blocking bad laws should be the priority for members of
Congress, according to the poll—54 percent of Republicans and 51
percent of Democrats agree.

The Americans growing increasingly comfortable with a country
that disagrees with itself are, after all, the same people who say
that
government is burdensome, who have
little regard for federal employees, and who see
big government as the greatest threat. Having been on the
receiving end of the implementation of government policy and very
much not liking it, Americans are painfully aware that many of
their fellow countrymen want the government to do things that they
themselves oppose.

What policies Americans define as “bad” certainly vary from
individual to individual—differing definitions of good and bad
policy are at the heart of that perceived political divide.

But Americans will always disagree with one another. The fact
that we’re growing content in that disagreement and see slowing and
stopping the implementation of policy as a key goal for lawmakers
is all the more reason to avoid top-down, centralized decisions
that force one part of the country’s population to suffer the
detested policy preferences of another faction.