The House is Extreme

Science magazine reports on a study* comparing voting by congressmen and women and their constituents' opinions. Two political scientists compared, district by district, the voting records of congressmen with results of a national opinion survey that asked questions nearly identical to bills voted on. The results were that members of Congress were more extreme than their constituents. In the 109th Congress (2005-6), dominated by Republicans, the median House member was more conservative than the folks that elected them. In the following Congress where Democrats regained control, the votes were more liberal than the constituents. This is called leapfrogging, because moderate views of the voters are leapfrogged as one party's extreme replaces the opposite extreme. In the new Congress starting January 2011 the Republicans are already shown by polls to be more extreme than the country as a whole. Why do people elect representatives that are more extreme than they are? Is it because we only have two political choices and they are becoming completely polarized?

* published in Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev. 104, 519 (2010).

Celebrate Secession?

The New York Times has an article today on plans in South Carolina to party and celebrate the secession of the southern states that started the Civil War. Many comments address the inappropriateness of this - here is mine:

As a nation we should mark the start of the Civil War and the major events that occurred during it, but there is little to celebrate. The reason for secession was the south's belief that it should be able to maintain slavery - "states rights'' was simply a euphemism for continuing to base a society on the cruel bondage of others. It is reprehensible to celebrate secession, and I can't see any interpretation other than that some South Carolinians of 2010 share the views of their ancestors. Instead of having a party, I would prefer if they were hosting a discussion of alternative paths that the south could have taken to balance moral and financial needs.

The Civil War was the bloodiest event in our history, and while there was supposed glory in winning various battles, the deaths of more than 600,000 young men, the destruction of the south, and the ultimate assassination of Lincoln were monumental losses to our nation. The only thing to celebrate about the Civil War is that we finally corrected the most grievous error of our Constitution - slavery.

Republicans and Racism

Up through the Civil War the peculiar institution of slavery was strongly defended by southern Democrats. For generations the South voted against Republicans because Lincoln freed the slaves. That all changed when Lyndon Johnson championed civil rights, which he understood meant that the Democrats would lose the South for a generation. He was right, except it may be two or more generations.

A hundred and fifty years ago, as now, the South hid its true concerns by talking of states rights and individual rights. For example, Republican senator-elect Rand Paul has said that private businesses should have the right to refuse service to anyone  - do you think he means blondes? - or blacks, Jews, gays or women?

Now the Republicans are widely identified as being less supportive of minorities, and over the last 50 years that attitude has sometimes been nakedly promoted by Republicans. For example, conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh routinely make remarks that blacks consider racist, but Limbaugh just laughs at. Virtually no national Republican figure criticizes Limbaugh for his comments that seem racist. It must be that Republicans generally share these sentiments; an interpretation that is supported by the tiny number of blacks who are Republicans or Tea Party members.

The fact that in the South, first Democrats supported racism and later Republican did, shows that the  Republican and Democratic parties have changed policies over time. It would be more accurate to say that thoughout US history, conservatives, no matter what their party affiliation, have exhibited more racist tendencies than liberals. But because Republicans have been increasing dominated by conservative views in modern times, I equate Republican and conservatism.

Democrats are Better Presidents

From time to time historians rank presidents, and Wikipedia has compiled all modern rankings into a colorful table. Before considering any details it is obvious that good and bad presidents come in waves. The first seven presidents - from Washington to Jackson - are all ranked in the top 50% of presidents, but during the next fifty years the nation was mostly cursed with presidents considered to be in the bottom 50%, from Van Buren to Harrison. Of course, the best president of all, according to virtually all rankings, Lincoln, is right in the middle of that period of pathetic presidents, and only two others, Polk and Cleveland, are considered better than average.

During the 1910s there were three good presidents (McKinley, T. Roosevelt and Wilson), sandwiched around the ho-hum Taft. The 1920s were solidly bad, but then from F. Roosevelt through L. Johnson the country had effective presidents. These were followed by three weak presidents - Nixon, Ford and Carter, and since then, perhaps because we are too close for clear analysis, all the presidents are in the middle of the pack, except for uniform low rankings for G.W. Bush.

These waves of good and bad are interesting, but for this blog the question is how have Republicans and Democrats been ranked as leaders of the US? Although there are always concerns of bias, patterns are clear. Looking at ranking by all 16 polls included in the Wikipedia summary, 72% of the Democratic presidents are ranked in the top 50% - above average, and 71% of Republicans are ranked in the bottom 50%, below average.

I have heard conservatives claim that presidential rankings are skewed because so many academics are liberal, so I looked at the 1982 rankings that were separately tabulated according to the self-professed conservative or liberal leanings of the 240 historians who did the rankings. The remarkable result is that most of the rankings agree. The best presidents are Democrats, say 75% of the liberal historians and 62% of the conservative ones. And the worse presidents are overwhelmingly Republican (71% according to liberals and 66% according to conservatives).

With these data, Democrats have been better presidents than Republicans by quite large margins.

Rising Inequality and Taxes

New York Times columnist Frank Rich writes today of the continuing increase in income inequality. In 1976 the richest 1% of Americans accounted for 9% of the country's total pre-tax income, but by 2007 it was 23.5%. In the 2000s when the richest 1%'s income increased 10% each year, median incomes for families declined and poverty rates increased. Rich quotes a new study that claims the reason for the increasing share of wealth going to the the top 1% is that tax laws and policies have been consistently rewritten to favor them. Both Democrats and Republicans have legislatively contributed to this increasing inequality in hopes of getting campaign contributions from the superrich.

Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits

The words above are the title of a research article published in the journal Science in 2008. Science is the leading scientific journal in the US and all articles must pass stringent peer review to be accepted for publication. Here is the abstract for this article - my comments are below.

Democrats, Republicans & the Economy

In the recent campaign season, and always it seems, there were arguments about how to most rapidly improve the economy. Republicans want tax breaks - believed to be an all purpose medicine - while the Democrats only want them for the poorest 98% of citizens. What evidence is there about the effectiveness of Republican vs Democratic economic policies?

American Colossus

This is the main title of a new book, about - as its subtitle says - The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900, by the historian H.W. Brands. I've only read 55 pages so far but this promises to be outstanding. Brands makes clear how Republican beliefs from the very beginning in 1856 were focused on two things, the abolition of slavery and the support of government for business.

Why Do People Believe What They Do?

I have long wondered why otherwise sensible friends have political beliefs that differ from mine. And they have probably wondered the same about me. There are so many influences from family tradition, to economic status, to religious upbringing that it is difficult to isolate a single cause for a person's beliefs. And beliefs can apparently change rapidly - witness the change in public support for Obama from 2008 to 2010.

In this blog I will ruminate on things I have seen and read that bear on this question. Although I am a liberal Democrat, I am not sure what caused me to believe that a government should provide opportunities for its citizens so I will also explore what is known about the development of political belief. Whatever writing occurs here will be mostly my record of searching for understanding. If anyone happens to read this and has comments they will be welcomed.