This is not meant as a comprehensive answer to the question
posed in the title. It is, however, what I believe to be a major contributor to
the rise in independents.
Sean Theriault provided the impetus for this post with his
Monkey Cage
post on polarization, which is definitely worth reading in its entirety.
But here are several long quotes that help explain the rise of independents:
In more
recent work, I explore a second – admittedly, related dimension – of
political competition. Actually, I called it “partisan warfare” in the book,
but I think “political warfare” is more accurate, because partisanship is not
always the cause. While it, too, may have its roots in party polarization,
political warfare is more combative in nature and requires more than what can
be revealed in voting patterns on the Senate floor. The warfare dimension taps into the strategies that go beyond defeating
your opponents to humiliating them, go beyond questioning your opponents’
judgment to questioning their motives, and go beyond fighting the good
legislative fight to destroying the institution and the legislative process.
Partisan warfare serves electoral goals, not legislative goals. (emphasis
added)
This warfare certainly has party
polarization at its roots. Polarization may be necessary for warfare, but it is
not a sufficient cause of it. Parties that are divided over policy can have a
serious and honest debate, which can even become heated. . . .
This partisan warfare dimension is
harder to quantify, though it most certainly exists. What I call “warfare” is
what Frances Lee characterized as “beyond ideology” in her
book of the same name. Lee argues that only so much of the divide between
the parties can be understood as a difference in ideology. The rest of the
divide–by some accounts, the lion’s share of the divide–is motivated by some other
goal. I argue that it is this portion of the divide beyond ideology is what
causes the angst of those participants and observers of today’s Senate. . . .
The difference between my senators
is that when John Cornyn shows up for a meeting with fellow senators, he brings
a pad of paper and pencil and tries to figure out how to solve problems. Ted
Cruz, on the other hand, brings a battle plan.
The trick for me, and all those
interested in party polarization, is coming up with systematic, repeated
behaviors that differentiate ideological legislators from political warriors.
The former make legitimate contributions to political discourse in the
Congress; the latter don’t, and need to be called out for the havoc they wreak
on our political system. The Senate has in the past and can continue in the
future to accommodate senators with serious disagreements. Too many warriors in
the Senate, unfortunately, will only perpetuate the dysfunction and low
congressional approval we’ve seen the last couple of years.
Whether it’s called “partisan” or “political” warfare
doesn’t matter to me. What’s important is that the public is affected adversely
by its presence in the political system, and it’s not only evident in the
Senate. It is evident in intraparty
competition as well as interparty
competition. Within a party, its roots are in the attempt to make the party
ideologically pure, which means you identify those members of the party who are
not ideologically pure enough for your tastes, and you try to eliminate them
from the party’s ranks. It’s manifested in such terms as RINO—Republican
in Name Only—which indicates that the person to whom it’s
applied does not conform to the party’s ideology. I have observed it in
attempts by Texas Republicans, supported by such groups as Empower Texans and
Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, to eliminate certain members of the Texas
legislature. For example, Sarah Davis (R-134) was identified by Michael Quinn
Sullivan as “failing” in fiscal responsibility although her score on their
scorecard was 44.7, which was higher than 23 Republican House members’ scores. The
opposition to Davis is a result of her vote on HB 2 during the special session.
The point is the any deviation from the party’s position results in electoral
challenge and possible defeat. As the party becomes more ideologically pure,
the party’s members are pushed to more extreme ideological positions. When party
members become ideologically extreme, compromise with the opposition party
becomes impossible, affecting interparty competition.
The result is a public that is alienated from political
parties and, to a certain extent, from politics itself. The public observes a
battle for survival that may be appropriate for “reality TV” but is not what
the public wants from its politicians and public officials. The resulting
alienation is politically damaging, especially in a democracy. The public loses
faith in politics, government, and the political institutions.
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