PDF Summary:Why We're Polarized, by Ezra Klein

In Why We’re Polarized, American progressive journalist, political commentator, and podcaster Ezra Klein argues that Americans are divided into two sharply contrasting groups rooted in partisan identities.

He writes that the clustering of nearly the entire electorate into the Democratic and Republican camps is a story about identity. Specifically, our partisan political identities have become overarching super-identities that encompass and activate our most deeply felt personal, religious, linguistic, socioeconomic, and ethnic/racial identities. In today’s America, these underlying lines of division all come together in one main division—between Democrats and Republicans—that makes bipartisan cooperation increasingly difficult.

In this guide, we explore the origins of modern political polarization and its differing impact on the two major political parties, how polarization has made American politics a winner-take-all struggle, and ideas for how we might depolarize our politics. We also supplement Klein’s ideas and analysis with commentary from other political scholars and analysts and explore additional perspectives that both support and challenge Klein.

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(Shortform note: Although Klein argues that tribal, identity-based appeals are what matter most to voters in a polarized climate, some data seems to suggest the opposite. In a poll taken just before the 2022 midterm elections, registered voters still claimed to be basing their votes on substantive issues. The poll showed that 59% rated the economy as a top priority in determining their vote in the elections. The poll also showed 72% of voters ranking abortion rights as highly determinative of their upcoming vote.)

The Pull of Negative Polarization

In Klein’s analysis, these identity-based politics transform political competition into an all-or-nothing, us vs. them struggle marked by a phenomenon political scientists call “negative polarization”—we hate and fear the other political coalition more than we love and admire our own. In other words, loyal Democratic Party voters aren’t Democrats because they have deep love and admiration for the Democratic Party and all it stands for. Instead, they have an abiding fear of and hatred toward the Republican Party, and they view the Democrats as their only bulwark against them.

(Shortform note: American voting habits demonstrate just how strong a pull negative polarization exerts. Even though large swathes of voters profess a distaste for both major parties, those same two parties still combined for over 98% of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election. Negative polarization can explain a lot of this voting behavior—a voter may not like her party, but she knows that sitting out an election or voting for a third party is tantamount to voting for the rival major party. And in our polarized system, voting for “our” party, even if we’re ambivalent about it, is vastly preferable to seeing the other party win.)

The Impossibility of Compromise

Klein writes that this level of extreme partisanship makes democratic governance all but impossible. After all, you can’t compromise or accept the normal give-and-take of democratic governance (like losing elections), because to do so would risk letting the hated other side “win.” And when your partisan rivals are feared and despised rivals who you believe want to destroy everything you cherish (instead of merely being a group that you disagree with on routine political matters), you’ll inevitably come to see every election as an ultra-high-stakes contest. Ultimately, writes Klein, both sides develop a mentality of winning at all costs—because the other side is simply too radical, dangerous, and different to be trusted with power.

The Role of Norms in Democratic Functioning

In How Democracies Die, Levitsky and Ziblatt write that healthy democratic functioning stems from adherence to political norms—the unwritten rules that govern political conduct. In systems where these norms are respected by all political actors, everyone agrees on what is and is not acceptable behavior. Crucially, they adhere to these bounds of behavior even if violating them may technically be permitted by the written rules.

The two main democratic norms Levitsky and Ziblatt focus on are mutual toleration and institutional forbearance. They define mutual toleration as accepting the legitimacy of your political opponents and acknowledging their right to govern, as long as they win in free and fair elections. Institutional forbearance is the unwritten rule by which political actors agree not to use their control of institutions to marginalize their opponents.

They describe these norms as guardrails that prevent political competition from getting too intense or the stakes of elections from getting too high—however, these norms can erode under the circumstances of extreme polarization outlined by Klein. When opposing parties come to see their opponents as too dangerous or “other” to be trusted with power, anything can be justified in the name of keeping them out of power. Levitsky and Ziblatt warn that this can lead to a democratic death spiral as each side engages in a tit-for-tat violation of norms until there’s no democracy left.

Polarization Leads to More Polarization

Klein points out that the US political system operates according to the logic and incentives that our polarized society imposes upon it. He writes that divisive and fear-mongering politicians aren’t necessarily evil or malicious people. Instead, they’re responding rationally to their political incentives—and those incentives are to demonize and antagonize the other party. In other words, it’s politically advantageous for politicians to refuse to compromise and to stir up the most partisan reactions among their supporters. Electorally speaking, it pays to be a divider.

(Shortform note: Although Klein argues that politicians are rewarded by further polarizing the electorate—driving more polarization—some polling data appears to suggest the opposite. A December 2022 NPR poll showed that a supermajority of 74% of Americans want members of Congress to compromise and seek common ground with members of the other party. Eighty-two percent of Democrats expressed this preference for compromise, as did 78% of independent voters—although a notably smaller majority of 66% of Republicans expressed this desire.)

Part 3: Polarization Has Affected the Two Major Parties Differently

Klein writes that while polarization has affected the composition and electoral strategies of both major parties, its effects have not been equal—instead, he observes, the Republican Party has been far more deeply distorted by polarization than the Democratic Party.

The Diversity of the Democratic Party

Klein argues that the Democratic Party has been less vulnerable to polarization because of its diverse makeup. Democrats, he writes, are a broad coalition of different racial, religious, and other demographic groups. Within those demographic groups, there’s also lots of ideological diversity. For example, although they remain staunchly Democratic, lots of Black and Latino voters have socially conservative views, particularly on issues related to gender and sexual orientation.

The diverse composition of the party’s base acts as a moderating influence and a check on polarization: Candidates need to win over a broad demographic and ideological coalition to be nominated, and they need to compromise once they’re in office. Left-wing activists, argues Klein, do not control the Democratic Party or set its agenda—rather, they are one constituency among many that Democratic politicians need to cater to. Thus, Democrats can’t be pulled too far left, because if they did, they wouldn’t be able to hold their coalition together.

The Democratic Shift to the Left

Although Klein writes that the diversity of the Democratic coalition acts as a check on polarization, it’s worth exploring how much the Democrats have moved away from the political center, especially in recent years.

In the 2020 Democratic primaries, viable candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposed policies that would have been considered far to the left of the median voter only a few election cycles before. These policies included reparations for the descendants of enslaved people, universal childcare, a wealth tax, and forcing corporations to reserve 40% of board seats for workers.

Moreover, self-identified liberals comprise a far larger share of the Democratic base than they did a generation ago. In 1994, self-identified moderates made up half the party, while liberals made up only a quarter. In 2020, liberals represented half the party, while moderates represented only a third. And this move to the left may be influencing how the broader American electorate views the party: A 2019 Quinnipiac poll showed that nearly half the country thinks the Democratic Party has moved too far to the left.

The Uniformity of the GOP

According to Klein, the GOP is more vulnerable to polarization because of its comparatively homogeneous and uniform composition. Unlike the Democratic Party, the GOP is dominated by a single ideological and demographic group—white conservative Christians.

Klein writes that this uniformity does give Republicans some real political advantages: They’re able to achieve a level of internal cohesion and discipline that Democrats lack. Republican politicians don’t have to cater to as many groups with competing interests to keep their coalition together.

But, because the party is largely synonymous with a single identity group, Republican voters are also more susceptible to identity-based appeals and provocations than their Democratic counterparts.

(Shortform note: Although Klein discusses the ethnic homogeneity of the GOP, it’s worth noting that the GOP has shown strength with certain segments of the nonwhite electorate. In 2020, Republican Donald Trump dramatically increased his share of the Hispanic vote—earning 38% of the group’s vote, a 10 percentage-point increase over his performance with them in 2016.)

Part 4: Responding to Polarization

After exploring the history and roots of polarization and its different impact on the two major political parties, Klein suggests ways to reduce polarization’s impact. In this last section, we’ll explore his ideas for how certain institutional reforms can reduce the impact and incentives for polarization, as well as how individuals can resist the pull of divisive identity-based political appeals.

Reduce Polarization Through Electoral Reforms

Klein recommends a set of reforms to American political institutions that he argues will reduce politicians’ incentives to stoke division and resentment by forcing them to compete on a more level playing field. Three reforms Klein proposes to break up this push toward ever-greater polarization are:

• Replacing the Electoral College with a direct popular vote for the presidency
• Creating multi-member districts
• Changing the rules of the US Senate to eliminate the filibuster

Institutional Reform #1: Replace the Electoral College

Klein proposes replacing the Electoral College with a direct popular election for the presidency.

According to Klein, the mechanics of the Electoral College create a built-in advantage for low-population, rural, and predominantly white states over high-population, urban, and ethnically diverse states—effectively boosting Republicans while handicapping Democrats. And, Klein writes, in two of the last six presidential elections, the anti-democratic flaws of the Electoral College have resulted in the Republican loser of the popular vote winning the presidency—George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016.

Klein argues that replacing this system with a direct popular election for the presidency would deny Republicans their automatic advantage in presidential elections and force them to compete on a more level playing field. If they were forced to appeal to a majority of all voters instead of just their partisan base, Republicans would have far less incentive to engage in a polarizing style of politics. Instead, they would be compelled to reach out to and win over more middle-of-the-road voters and voters who don’t already share their ideology.

(Shortform note: Academics have backed up Klein’s argument that the Electoral College affords Republicans a significant advantage. One team of researchers found that even in elections where the Republicans lost the popular vote by as much as three percentage points, they would still win a significant share of such elections. And one Democratic Party analyst argues that Democrats would need to win 52% of the vote just to have an even chance of winning the Electoral College.)

Institutional Reform #2: Create Multi-Member Districts

Another reform Klein proposes is creating multi-member districts, in which more than one candidate can win a seat. This would be a significant departure from the US’s current system of winner-take-all, single-member districts.

Under the current system, each district only has one representative. And because there’s only one seat to be won, voters have a strong incentive to gravitate toward one of the two major parties—instead of voting for a third-party candidate, which would split the vote and allow the rival party to win.

Imagine an election where there’s a right-wing Party A, a center-left Party B, and a further left Party C. If Party A receives 10,000 votes, Party B receives 9,999 votes, and Party C receives 8,000 votes, Party A wins the seat—Party B and Party C get nothing for coming in second and third place, even if they won a combined majority of the votes. Because the two left-wing parties split their votes, the right-wing party wins with a minority of the total vote. Klein writes that this dynamic effectively rewards and reinforces the major parties’ tactics of unending partisan rhetoric and polarization: They know that their voters won’t abandon them or vote third party for fear of throwing the election to the rival party.

The process, however, would be different in a multi-member district, observes Klein. Multi-member districts would reduce the incentive for partisanship and polarization. If, for example, each district had five members—that is, the top five vote-getters earn a seat—voters would have more freedom to vote for the candidate they liked the best, since they wouldn’t have to worry about splitting the vote and inadvertently electing their least-preferred candidate.

Duverger’s Law and the Two-Party System

Klein’s argument about the polarizing tendencies of simple-plurality, single member-district electoral systems has actually been known by political scientists for decades.

In 1954, the French political scientist Maurice Duverger hypothesized that such electoral setups favor the creation of a two‐party system. The rationale behind Duverger’s law is that, over time, politicians and voters will conclude that it’s futile to have multiple parties competing at the national level. This is because minor parties will have no chance of winning any seats if their support is too broadly dispersed across the country and not strategically concentrated within electoral districts where they can win majorities. Thus, candidates and voters come to realize that it’s more efficient to pool their support into one of two major parties, each of which stands a plausible chance of winning a majority of voters in each district.

However, Duverger’s law isn’t ironclad. For example, Austria and Germany both have systems of proportional representation, in which seats are allocated to parties based on the percentage of the national popular vote they receive (above a certain threshold). But while these systems tend to foster multiparty democracy, both Austria and Germany have political systems that still consolidate around a small handful of major parties.

Institutional Reform #3: Abolish the FIlibuster

In addition to replacing the Electoral College and creating multi-member districts, Klein also proposes abolishing the legislative filibuster in the Senate.

The filibuster is a rule in the Senate that requires a bill to get a 60-vote supermajority (a 60% threshold in the 100-member chamber) to end debate on it. It can then go to a final floor vote, where it will then receive a simple majority, up-or-down vote. Unless the majority party wins 60% of the Senate seats (which is increasingly rare in our tightly contested and polarized system) the filibuster gives the minority party the means, motive, and opportunity to frustrate the majority’s agenda by forcing every bill to clear a supermajority threshold. Effectively, the minority party can veto the majority party’s agenda.

Klein writes that the abuse of the filibuster is both a product of the climate of polarization and a contributor to it. The filibuster breeds cynicism among the voters because it makes it impossible for the majority party to govern and implement the agenda it was elected to implement. People become convinced that the majority party is corrupt, dishonest, or incompetent. Voters then typically respond by punishing the majority party at the polls and electing the minority party to replace them—effectively rewarding the minority party for its obstructionism and incentivizing it to engage in similar tactics in the future.

Without a filibuster, argues Klein, legislative majorities would have greater ability to pass legislation and enact their agenda. This would tamp down the voter cynicism and disillusionment that helps foster polarization. Instead, voters would see a greater connection between their votes and actual policies enacted. If voters are pleased with the policies passed by the majority party, they can reward that party at the next election; if they’re displeased, they can vote them out. Klein argues that this is precisely how politics is supposed to work in a healthy, functioning democracy.

Does the Filibuster Encourage Bipartisan Cooperation?

Some political figures have argued that, contrary to Klein’s analysis, the filibuster actually encourages bipartisan cooperation and reduces partisanship. In 2021, Republican and former Senator Orrin Hatch wrote that the filibuster enables the minority party to have a meaningful role in shaping legislation because it forces the majority party to secure some buy-in from the minority to clear the 60-vote threshold. Hatch argues that this doesn’t give the minority party unlimited ability to obstruct since overcoming a filibuster usually only requires the cooperation of a handful of members of the minority.

Hatch points specifically to the passage of the CARES Act, the Covid-19 relief package passed in 2020. After a filibuster by Senate Democrats, the GOP majority agreed to add a number of progressive priorities to the package to ease its passage through the chamber, including additional funding for hospitals, increased unemployment benefits, and additional conditions on loans for businesses impacted by the pandemic. The revised bill passed the Senate unanimously. Hatch cites this as an example of the filibuster constructively shaping major legislation and forcing the two parties to come together.

Reduce Polarization Through Greater Personal Awareness

Aside from institutional reforms, Klein recommends that each of us as individuals can play a role in reducing political polarization.

Since polarizers take advantage of our sense of identity—be it our ethnic, religious, geographic, or economic identity—we can start by being more conscious of how those identities are being manipulated and exploited by cynical political operatives. We can ask ourselves questions like, “Is this politician really concerned about me, or are they trying to activate some sense of tribalism in me?” Once we recognize attempts to manipulate us by appealing to certain parts of our identity, we can more effectively push back against and transcend them.

(Shortform note: Attempts to manipulate our actions by appealing to our core identities can be highly effective. In Influence, Robert Cialdini writes that professional persuaders use a set of common persuasion tactics to get us to comply with them. One of these tactics is based on our openness toward people we see as similar to ourselves—we’re more willing to listen to people with whom we feel we have a common identity, be it religious, ethnic, or anything else. Cialdini writes that we evolved to form a bond with people as soon as we can identify some common ground with them. Knowing this psychological principle, we can see how politicians can skilfully appeal to our shared sense of identity to get us to think, vote, and act how they want us to.)

Finally, Klein also recommends engaging in politics at a more local level. The routine concerns of local politics can often transcend ideological and identity-based grievances and bring different people together. By attending meetings of your local school board or engaging with local civic and nonprofit organizations, you’ll likely find that your neighbors—regardless of their party affiliation—still share the same desires for good roads; quality schools; and clean, honest government.

(Shortform note: In How Democracies Die, Levitsky and Ziblatt write that one strategy to overcome the divisions in our politics is to forge broad, pro-democratic coalitions that cut across the racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic lines that drive our polarization. Such coalitions can be enormously beneficial, they argue. By their very nature and composition, these coalitions can appeal to a broader slice of the country and transcend the partisan divide. This partial defusing of partisan tensions can lead to depolarization, which in turn, strengthens democratic norms of mutual toleration and institutional forbearance.)