Bernie Sanders provoked the ire of Democratic partisans once again earlier this month when he criticized their party during an economic justice forum in Jackson, Mississippi, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
“The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure,” declared the Vermont senator. “Now, what happened — people sometimes don’t see that because of the charismatic individual named Barack Obama who won the presidency in 2008 and 2012. He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant man. But behind that reality, over the last 10 years Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across this country.”
Though nothing Sanders said about the Democratic Party was factually incorrect, or even remotely controversial, partisans on social media couldn’t hold back their fury, reacting as if Sanders had just questioned the validity of Obama’s birth certificate (rather than praising him as “extraordinary” and “brilliant”). That Sanders’ remarks attracted such vitriol is disheartening but hardly surprising. It tells us more about hardened attitudes within the Democratic Party than it does about him.
Indeed, the knee-jerk outrage that Democratic loyalists seem to display every time that Sanders says something slightly critical about the party or its leaders demonstrates how tribalism has infected our political discourse, and how party loyalty has come to take precedence over political values for many Democrats. This is primarily why Sanders enrages them so much: Because he is not, in their eyes, one of them, and has been unwilling to give up his political independence. He is an outsider, and therefore has no right to criticize their party. It is not so much the message but the messenger that infuriates them. It's also true, however, that the idea Sanders represents — namely, that principles should come before party, and that politics should not be treated like a team sport — is anathema to these committed partisans.
Of course, American politics has indeed become more like a team sport in recent years, and Sanders' rejection of political tribalism is unusual amid this hyper-partisan ethos. Consider a recent study conducted by University of Maryland professor Lilliana Mason, which examines how political polarization in the U.S. has been driven more by “identity-based ideology” than “issue-based ideology.”
While issue-based ideology is founded on a set of beliefs and a unique worldview, identity-based ideology, as the term implies, is mostly about group identity. Not surprisingly, the latter is much more likely to bring about the kind of political tribalism and personal resentment that we commonly see today (e.g., in Donald Trump’s brand of politics). It is the "otherness" of ideological opponents, Mason writes, “more than issue-based disagreement, that drives liberal-versus-conservative rancor.”
To compare these different forms of ideology, Mason looked at how they impact social interaction, including whether one would be willing to marry, befriend or live next door to someone based on issue-based or identity-based ideological differences. The results are clear:
“It could be argued that people would like to marry those they agree with politically, but the effect of issue-based ideology on ideological marriage preferences is less than half the size of the effect of identity-based ideology,” Mason reports. “In fact, the effect of issue-based ideology is less than half the size of identity-based ideology in each element of social distance.”
Team names without issue knowledge, Mason continues, “can generate political conflict that is unmoored from distinct policy goals. This is likely to lead to a less compromise-oriented electorate. After all, if policy outcomes are less important than team victory, a policy compromise is a useless concession to the enemy.”
This kind of team-sport mentality is evident whenever Republicans defend the indefensible things that come out of Trump's mouth by engaging in "what-aboutism," changing the topic to how awful liberals are (e.g., “But what about Hillary Clinton?”). It is also on display when Democratic partisans react to Bernie Sanders as if he were a committed opponent or an evil outsider. Ironically, one of the main reasons why Sanders is so popular with the American people (as polls consistently show) is because he rejects this kind of tribalism and identity-based ideology, and advocates that we talk less about labels and party loyalty and more about issues and potential solutions.
Another interesting finding in Mason’s research is that those who identify as “conservative” demonstrate “significantly less issue-based constraint.” As she notes, this is consistent with the research of Christopher Ellis and James Stimson, who find that “American conservatives tend to be relatively left-leaning in their issue-based preferences, while liberals also hold left-leaning attitudes.” In other words, so-called conservatives are even more likely to be driven by group identity than liberals, even though they might actually agree with liberal or progressive positions on many issues.
It's no wonder, then, that Sanders, who talks about the issues and offers progressive solutions that are popular with the broader public, while avoiding overheated partisan, has appeal not just to liberals and young people in blue states but to many voters in traditionally Red states. Though identity-based ideology has grown more pervasive over the past few decades, there is still a strong underlying desire for issue-based candidates.
As long as politics is treated like a team sport, the polarization that has given us President Trump will continue to get worse. Unfortunately, Democrats have proven to be nearly as susceptible to political tribalism as Republicans in the age of Trump. Such tribalism is unlikely to help Democrats win elections; to do this they have to get behind a bold progressive agenda, moving beyond the partisan rhetoric that seems to dominate the anti-Trump “resistance.”
According to a Washington Post poll from last year, a majority of Americans (52 percent) believe that the Democratic Party only stands against Trump, while 37 percent said the party “stands for something.” Another poll from November found that only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the party — the lowest level in 25 years. This is not a great sign for the Democrats, who are hoping for a blue wave this November that will win back at least partial power in Washington. At this point, it’s not a matter of whether Democrats will gain seats in the midterm elections but how big they will win, and that will depend largely on their strategy. Fervent anti-Trumpism may be enough to help the Democrats retake the House this fall, but the party will have to move beyond that if it truly wants to recover from the humiliating debacle of 2016.
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