Golis: Finding harmony in the partisan states of America

In Sonoma County, being a fan of President Donald Trump cannot be easy. In a county where fewer than 1 in 5 voters is a registered Republican, Trump supporters are outnumbered, and his critics are not shy when it comes to voicing their condemnations of the current occupant of the White House.

The tables are turned, of course, in places where Trump is more popular and Democrats are outnumbered. Think Kansas or Alabama or Wyoming.

A 2008 book - “The Big Sort” - was the first to chronicle how Americans are choosing to live among people who share their political and cultural values.

We've come to reside in a country in which politics is as much about tribal identity as it is about government policy.

A new report from the Atlantic magazine explains: “In parts of America, it is markedly more uncomfortable to be perceived as a Democrat right now. In other places, it is very isolating to be outed as a Republican.”

Research shows more Americans view people in the other party, Democrat or Republican, as ill-informed and dangerous, and more Americans wouldn't want a family member to marry someone from the other party.

What we've learned through hard experience is that these divisions do not make it easier to govern our country. See Congress, U.S.

Which is not to say we've figured out a way to overcome our differences. We live in a time in which people are offered advice about how to keep the peace on Thanksgiving Day because someone from the other party is coming to dinner.

Politics has always been a competitive business, but this is different. If we're not careful, what holds us together as Americans will get lost in the anger and bitterness.

Trump, it should be said, has turned up the volume on these divisions. A day doesn't pass when he doesn't do something to play to our national disharmony. People who admire him are willing to forgive his foibles. People who don't admire him can't believe what others are willing to accept.

As we've all seen in social settings, attempts at conversation often turn angry. The two sides might as well be speaking different languages.

Now comes the Atlantic magazine with its study aimed at measuring our political prejudices. The report begins with a simple premise about America today: “Most of us now discriminate against members of the other political side explicitly and implicitly - in hiring, dating, and marriage, as well as judgments of patriotism, compassion, and even physical attractiveness …”

So how prejudiced is Sonoma County?

It's listed in the 87th percentile for political bias - that is, only 13 out of 100 counties are more prejudiced against people who hold different political views. We're above average - but not in a good way.

The study also found that the minority Republicans in Sonoma County tend to be more prejudiced against Democrats than are Republicans elsewhere in the country. (Your party affiliation may determine whether you think this says more about Republicans or Democrats in Sonoma County.)

The report found the most politically tolerant Americans live in parts of North Carolina and upstate New York, and the least tolerant in Massachusetts and Florida.

The most politically intolerant Americans, researchers say, are “whiter, more highly educated, older, more urban, and more partisan …”

“They don't routinely talk with people who disagree with them,” the Atlantic explains. “This isolation makes it easier for them to caricature their ideological opponents.”

The results are based, in part, on answers to questions designed to test the intensity of feelings about Democrats and Republicans. Do you think Democrats or Republicans are more patriotic, compassionate, selfish?

This transformation of our political culture has been going on for a while. The partitioning of audiences made possible by social media and cable news promotes the echo chambers that divide us. Want to have your opinions validated? Want to be told that people who disagree with you are ignorant and corrupt?

No problem. Tune in (or log on) here.

Economic changes also contribute to these divisions. It's not a coincidence that Trump is more popular in states left behind as manufacturing jobs moved away.

Citylab.com noted last week that the decline of the working class has created fault lines both economic and geographic. “For more and more Americans,” the report found, “our zip codes are our destiny …”

It's a truism that most Americans believe they are right and the other side is wrong, but we all might take note of this passage from the Atlantic's report: “Fundamentally, partisan prejudice is another way for one group of humans to feel superior to another.”

It goes on: “By cultivating meaningful relationships across divides, by rewarding humility and curiosity over indignation and righteousness, people can live wiser, fuller lives.”

In writing about the divisions in the country and the risk they pose to democracy, the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof declares: “We will survive.”

And then he adds: “Probably.”

Probably isn't the most reassuring of assessments, but it is instructive about what is at risk. And it might persuade us that this big idea - America - is worth our vigilance and our determination to work through our differences.

Pete Golis is a columnist for The Press Democrat. Email him at golispd@gmail.com.

You can send a letter to the editor at letters@pressdemocrat.com