How often have you walked into the voting booth, held your nose, and pulled the lever?
Over the last forty years, the liberal consensus in America has been replaced by political fragmentation. Political fragmentation has gutted the influence of political parties and splintered voting blocs so decisively that's we are electing public officials with less than majority support. As we continue to dig in, the number of political factions will grow and their size will diminish further reducing the popular support for elected officials.
The Pew Research Center groups voters into seven different categories:
Staunch conservatives (9% of the population)
Main street Republicans (11%)
Libertarians (9%)
Disaffecteds (11%)
Post-moderns (13%)
New coalition Democrats (10%)
Hard-pressed Democrats (13%)
Solid Liberals (14%)
Bystanders (10%)
Check out the report for information on who is in these groups and what they support or here to take the quiz to see where you fall.
Even in individual Congressional districts that favor one or more of these cohorts more than the national average, chances are voters are electing their state legislators on up with a mix of legitimate support and luke warm if not disgruntled voters who don't have an option more in line with their views.
There is very little that brings together a majority of Americans. For example, less than ten percent of Americans would enthusiastically support a big business candidate. Only two of the seven cohorts, would strongly favor a secular candidate. The list goes on and on. Pick an issue and pick a position on that issue: chances are only a minority of people support it. Do that several times over and overall support for the candidates views erodes dramatically. Here's a hypothetical example:
Healthcare position 43% support
Economic position 44% support
Immigration position 40% support
Foreign policy position 39% support
Environment position 52% support
As you would expect, there will be voters who agree with the elected official's position on the environment but disagree with the official's views on immigration and others that support his healthcare position but don't agree with his economic position. To make a long story short, in this hypothetical example, the elected probably has the support of a third of his constituents, give or take, on all of these five major issues.
Ironically, distrust for the government and big business are among the few positions that Americans agree on. Good luck recruiting a candidate who's excited to run for an office he distrusts! Even if you could find such a candidate, you won't be able to motivate the magic number of voters with that campaign message despite support for it. I can see the TV ads now...
This leaves us with three options: just do what I say (my favorite option), endure a generation political cynicism and infighting, or build a new American consensus. There is hope. While there aren't many issues that Americans come together on there is support for a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, focusing on alternative energy, a foreign policy in the Middle East that encourages stability, and reducing the size of the national deficit. There are some issues that we can deconstruct why there is support for them and apply those same principles to other to create a political ideology that the majority of Americans would support. In addition, unlike any other time in history, we have the ability to quantify whether a policy is working or not. If we can find common ground on public policy goals and agree to adopt what works on the basis of data and not necessarily what fits our political worldview, we'll build a new American political consensus and start electing candidates that we're proud of.