Strong Partisanship, Weak Parties & Social Media

Francisco de Goya, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The phrase “terminally online” is something of a punchline on the contemporary political internet, capturing the notion that too many of our political strategists and pundits are myopically focused on how social media, particularly Twitter, is going to react to the latest story of the day. There’s something to be said for that. After all, as is said so frequently as to be almost cliché, Twitter is not real life. But to ignore the effects that social media is having on our broader discourse, and what that might mean for politics more generally, is dangerously, and similarly, short-sighted. It was once the contention of many that the phenomenon we call “wokeness” was a peculiarity of college campuses and was destined to stay confined there. That, we have come to learn, was not the case. And while it is true that Twitter is not real life, it is also true that nearly every newsmaker – every celebrity, every elected figure serving in national government, every major athlete, even the freakin’ Pope – is on it. They think it matters, and if they think it matters, we might do well to consider the broader consequences that has for our politics.

Frenemies¹ is a 2018 book by political scientist Jaime Settle exploring the effects of social media (specifically, Facebook) on our broader political environment. While Facebook is the explicit subject of study, the lessons of the book apply widely to the phenomenon of social media. Settle notes how those of us spending good chunks of time online have become more exposed, whether we wanted to or not, to the political opinions of others. Of course we always knew (so long as we were politically engaged, which not all of us were) the opinions of our elected officials – they had those big bold letters next to their names, after all – and we probably stumbled across the opinions of some of the rich and famous from time to time, if they were so inclined to be vocal on the subject of politics, as many frequently were and are. But, Settle says, now we’re exposed to a torrent of signals (“takes,” if you prefer) that consistently put politics at the forefront of our minds. Not everyone paid that much attention then, but if you spend any meaningful time on the internet, you are consuming political content.

“Who cares?” comes the inevitable rejoinder. So more people are paying attention to politics – that isn’t a bad thing, is it? And it isn’t a bad thing by definition. The problem is the broader incentive structure of social media, which encourages the construction of echo chambers and the constant reinforcement of what one already believes. This hardens opinion and pushes people further apart. One phenomenon of interest to political scientists in recent years has been what is known as “affective polarization,” which refers to polarization in how people feel about their party and the other party ². The evidence is clear: Affective polarization has intensified, and many people are now motivated more by their hatred of the other party than they are by support for their own party.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Anyone who has spent any amount of time paying attention to politics can note the level of division. The environment is poisonous. Social media isn’t helping. It rewards trolling and “dunks” and preaching to the choir. And even though it’s true that Twitter is not real life, it has real effects when major opinion-makers spend hours on it every day. We’ve watched as press secretaries and federal judges have referenced online controversies, and it won’t do to say that this behavior will stay confined to the online sphere.

This is particularly dangerous because the Democratic and Republican parties have, as institutions, become so much weaker. Political scientist Julia Azari of Marquette University has written on this extensively ⁴. Lee noted the intense competition that exists between the modern Democratic and Republican Parties: Unlike in many other eras, the parties are so closely balanced that either one feels it has a chance to regain the majority within one or two elections. This tamps down the incentives for cooperation. For example, why settle for 50% or 75% when, after the next election, there’s a possibility that you can get 100%? It is not unlike the post-Reconstruction period, when the Democratic and Republican parties frequently competed for control of Congress (the presidency remained stubbornly out of reach for the Democrats, save Cleveland’s non-consecutive terms). We should not be eager to emulate this period.

But why have the parties become so weak? Here, disagreements become more acute, but consider the various congressional reforms of the 1970s that were meant to enhance transparency and may have instead, in one estimation, fostered dysfunction and polarization. Not all of the reforms were bad — Congress struck down the seniority rule for committee chairs to remove the ability of segregationist Southern Democrats to maintain a stranglehold on committees, for example – but on balance, short-term political winners proved to be disastrous for the institution and had effects that have reverberated throughout our politics.

The impetus for reform was noble: The Johnson and Nixon Administrations had obfuscated, at best, on a number of issues, and Americans were rightly growing weary of what they increasingly perceived as a corrupt government. However, the forces these reforms were meant to tamp down unleased others that were arguably worse. The first was the decision to put Congress on television; of course Congress had been on television on some occasions before the 1970s, but it did not become systematic until various reforms, including the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970, and public pressure campaigns opened the door. C-SPAN launched in 1979 and the legislature has never been the same. It was political scientist David Mayhew who was among the first to describe one of the chief activities of a member of Congress to be “advertising:” building your brand, putting yourself out there, and so forth [1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. Yale University Press.]. That incentive had always been there, but television altered the incentive structure: Favoring soundbites and moments more than cautious deliberation, politicians found purchase in making as much of a show as they could. They gesticulate wildly in empty chambers and badger witnesses under the bright spotlights of committee hearings. Much can be said of Congress since these reforms, but I do not believe one can argue convincingly that the quality of debate has improved.

The second set of reforms which I believe significantly weakened the parties were the various campaign finance laws of the early 1970s. Again, a noble goal: We do not wish for politicians bought by and in the pockets of the wealthy and well-connected to be making rules for the rest of us. But by restricting campaign donations so dramatically, politicians had to change the audiences to whom they appealed. No longer would it do to appeal to the median voter: you had to appeal to the true believer, the one who shells out $50 or $100 or maybe $1000 as an act of political expression. There is some significant research showing that these donors tend to be more politically extreme ⁵. It has certainly made the process more “democratic” in the strictest sense of the word, but it has also made it significantly more ideological and populist.

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There is an obvious rejoinder to this argument: Without these campaign finance restrictions, the wealthy would simply buy our elections. But does anyone doubt that some people have more influence than others even in spite of contribution limits? Does anybody believe that these laws have leveled the playing field between the billionaire and the mechanic? The answer, of course, is no. But in our system, it is voters who make the decisions regarding who will serve in government. Money can buy campaign signs and advertisements; it can buy dinners with powerful people and ambassadorships. But the voters are the ones who choose. Jeb Bush’s millions did him no good. Neither did Mitt Romney’s, nor Hillary Clinton’s, nor whoever’s. Money can only take you so far.

Which brings me to the third reform which has disempowered the parties: primary reforms. Voters choose virtually all major party candidates when it comes to elections to national office (and most elections to state office, for that matter). This is certainly more “democratic” than the old smoke-filled rooms, but is it necessarily better for a functioning government? Candidates in this social media-driven environment seek virality. They seem less leaders than followers, looking to see which way the mob is moving and rushing to get in front. Has it led to better candidates? Is our government more functional?

If one is inclined to believe that disempowering the parties is good because the parties were corrupt, they might have a compelling argument. The parties were frequently corrupt. But, as often happens in politics, we have swung to the other extreme and neutered the ability of parties to function effectively at all. And we see the results: Partisanship has not dissipated, and polarization has gotten worse, not better. The reforms have failed to achieve their stated objectives. “Modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties,” wrote E.E. Schattschneider in the early 1940s ⁶. And it is. For all the negatives of partisanship, it also provides voters with incredibly valuable cues and helps them make sense of the issues of the day – or at least parties do this when they are healthy. Today, they are anything but.

Power abhors a vacuum, as they say. Social media has filled it. In the immediate term, this portends ill for our politics.

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1. 2018. Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America. Cambridge University Press.
2. See, e.g., Shanto Iyengar and Sean J. Westwood. 2015. “Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization.” American Journal of Political Science 59(3):690-707.
4. See, e.g., “Weak parties and strong partisanship are a bad combination”. There is much debate about what caused this institutional weakness, but it has presented something of a curious puzzle where we have voters who are intensely partisan (even if it is mostly anti-partisan, in that they are voting more against the Democrats or Republicans rather than for them), but professional party organizations that are relatively powerless. Or, as Professor Azari has succinctly put it, we have “weak parties” but “strong partisanship.” This has serious consequences: On the one hand, party leaders in Congress, for example, maintain a near iron grip over their caucuses. At the same time, neither party has proven to be able to withstand populist insurgencies, and the tendency of voters in both parties to nominate candidates well to the left or right of the median voter in the United States has often left voters with less-than-ideal options and Democratic and Republican leaders frustrated. This frustration leads to marginalization of the other party, which compounds the misgivings of voters and leads them to elect ever-more-extreme candidates. “Compromise” and “bipartisanship” become dirty words. To collaborate is to surrender.

   And it’s no wonder. Frances Lee’s 2016 book, Insecure Majorities, is instructive here ³2016. Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign. University of Chicago Press.

5. See, e.g., Richard H. Pildes. 2020. “Participation and Polarization.” Journal of Constitutional Law 22(2):341-408.
6. 1942. Party Government. Rinehart & Company.