I image searched for 'partisan'...
Now, I don't mean that only liberals are partisans, no. It's more the idea of partisan turning into a curse word, a pejorative. So much so that, even here, I've observed a pretty straightforward definition of the word be misinterpreted to be only negative.
Apparently I'm not alone in this sense of wonderment, as Mother Jones had an article up about the evils of partisanship on Friday.
Right, so what does it mean to be partisan or a partisan in the political sense.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/...
1. A fervent, sometimes militant supporter or proponent of a party, cause, faction, person, or idea.
So it'd be fair to call me a Democratic, perhaps liberal or progressive, partisan. I can't recall ever choosing to vote for a Republican when a Democrat was available on the ballot, although there was one time when I did threaten...boy, was my dad pissed.
1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) an adherent or devotee of a cause, party, etc
Sure, more of the same...note that I'm leaving out armed resistance groups in occupied territory and spear- or pike-like weapons, this isn't Red Dawn here.
1. an adherent or supporter of a person, party, or cause, esp. one who shows a biased, unthinking allegiance.
Here we go. Now, even this definition leaves room for the partisan as a loyal supporter of a cause and
not necessarily the unreasoning type. But even here I see arguments over partisanship as something inherently bad, as a quality to be expressly avoided in oneself. On a site dedicated to electing more and better Democrats -- a
partisan blog, as the site owner declared.
Since I use 'liberal' to label myself in part to spite those conservatives who turned it into a bad word, I have to stop and ask, when did partisan turn into a bad word? I find this curious, and apparently I'm not the only one. Mother Jones cited this Washington Post article, in which the WP studied and then explained the phenomenon.
A key to understanding independents is media coverage of politics in Washington. When people see politics in the news and entertainment media, they see partisan gridlock and disagreement. Partisans are portrayed as uncooperative, uncompromising and angry.
Mother Jones invokes some gentle mockery here, on all sides in the debate.
Yeah but I'll bet all those intolerant jerks were narrow-minded tea-party Republicans. No wait. I mean they were probably arrogant, sanctimonious Democrats. No no. Hold on again. I'll bet they were really smug, pox-on-both-your-houses "moderates." See? I can do that all day long.
Clearly the MJ writers have been here to witness the resultant firestorm after the latest bipartisan compromise of the day!
The Washington Post went to some lengths to study this idea of independence as a desirable trait, and I was left wondering if they recognize any encouragement they may have done in their own news coverage?
This belief that independence is more socially acceptable than partisanship is magnified by news coverage that highlights partisan disagreement. In another study we asked a representative sample of Americans to read one of three news stories. Among these stories was one about partisan disagreement in Washington. Reading a story about partisan disagreement increased people’s tendency to identify as independent by nearly 20 percentage points.
The WP article is worth reading, obviously I can't quote too much more of it; but they studied how pictures of neighborhoods with political signs in them would make people less likely to want to live there. How people would be rated as more attractive based on whether or not they were considered independent instead of partisan. And toward the end of the piece, they point out an
important exception.
This just a portion of our findings regarding the extent to which people prefer “independence” – but equally important is what we don’t find. What we don’t find is any change in people’s actual political views. Even while reporting that they are independent, respondents repeatedly clung to the partisan issue positions they had held all along. Indeed, when we asked people to place themselves on either the Republican or Democratic side of a series of issues, they were not only consistent in which side they picked across all the issues, but reminding them of partisan disagreement had no effect.
Perhaps this relates somewhat to the phenomenon of Americans not favoring 'Obamacare' last year, while managing to like so much of what it does -- as long as it wasn't connected to
that name.
While only 37% of Americans viewed the ACA favorably in a March 2013 Kaiser poll, most liked what the healthcare bill is scheduled to do. Over 55%, and up to 88%, of Americans regard the following facets of Obamacare at least somewhat favorably: tax credits to small businesses to buy insurance, closing the Medicare "doughnut hole", creating insurance exchanges, giving rebates to customers of insurance customers that spend too much on administrative costs, and the employer mandate. Even Republicans like all of them except the Medicaid expansion, increase in Medicare tax, employer mandate, and individual mandate.
So, it seems the media are teaching people to value independence, or at least, the
appearance of independence. And yet, they apparently have failed to teach people to change their positions, or to point out the politicians who play at being independent while going right on being partisan as all hell.
Mother Jones sums it up this way, indicating that perhaps the media are really teaching people to not care about politics...and I think I know who wins in that scenario.
Bottom line: Krupnikov and Klar find that (a) most people don't like engaging with partisans, but (b) are themselves mostly partisan, no matter what they actually call themselves. This makes sense to me. Engaging with conservatives is obviously annoying for me, since I'm a liberal and I think they're wrong about everything. But engaging with liberals can be kind of annoying too. After all, liberals are annoying, always trying to tell you that the power structure is oppressive and factory-farmed beef is an outrage and you should be more concerned about lead in the environment, blah blah blah. Better to just find a nice independent and chew the fat about whether Andrew Luck has what it takes to put Tom Brady out to pasture tomorrow.
Partisans! Get 'em!