One of American politics’ most comforting nostrums is the notion that we always are united by far more than what divides us. It’s a sentiment Barack Obama repeats frequently in his speeches, and both the president and California Gov. Jerry Brown are relying on it to help them move toward resolution of government’s worst budgetary crisis in generations. A comprehensive new survey of the American electorate by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, however, indicates that the most politically engaged Americans now are fundamentally opposed to compromise, divided on virtually every basic national question and separated from each other by everything from their race to the choice of where they get their news. Moreover, the increasing numbers of independents, who’ve theoretically pushed national politics to the center with their preference for middle-of-the-road policies, no longer are particularly moderate. California has traversed this sort of political landscape for more than a decade, and now the rest of the nation seems poised to discover that it’s a difficult and discomforting place.
The nation’s partisan alignment, according to Pew, now closely resembles California’s: 25 percent of the registered voters hold views that make them “mostly Republican”; 40 percent incline “mostly Democratic”; and 35 percent are independents of various stripes.
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