Myths About National Unity
Myth- America is more divided now than ever?
Yeah, I guess you could believe that, if you forgot about this thing called the Civil War. Not to be glib, but no, we're not. There have been many elections and many periods in American political history where we were as or more divided than we are now, and there are other times when we are not very divided. As I said, the period of time, the decade before the Civil War was a time of very divisive politics, a time when congressmen--well, mostly congressmen because the Senate's more prestigious. The House of Representatives, there wer literally instances where people who disagreed would hit each other with sticks and canes and physical violence. It's hard to overcome that in terms of division.
Myth- Politics in the US are too divisive?
There's a famous document, or argument written by James Madison called Federalist Number 10. In which, he argues that the United States has the best chance at succeeding as a Republic, as a Democratic Republic because it's so large and diverse that there's going to have a bunch of different interests who are competing against each other for power so that no one interest can easily dominate and oppress the other interest. For instance in Scandinavia, in Europe, there tends to be a secular consensus in which religion is treated more culturally. Scandinavia tends to be very Lutheran and part of the non divisive, consensus driven nature of the politics is that taxpayer money is directly given to Lutheran churches. Well if you're Jewish, if you're Muslim, if you're Atheist, if you're Evangelical or Pentecostal or any of these other things; you're money is going to fund a religion which you don't agree with, or at least to churches of that religion. Well, that's partly what consensus driven politics gives you is the consensus has to be somebody's consensus. It's usually a homogenous majority's consensus and that can be problematic and that can mean certain people lose out.
Myth- The 2008 Presidential election is the most important in history?
Elections that dealt with things like the Great Depression in which 25% of the American populous was unemployed, the largest percent of unemployment in American history, in which FDR won the election and seriously altered the way we think about the welfare system, about capitalism, about other things in the United States -- that was a pretty big election. The election in which Abraham Lincoln won and as soon as he won that election, the South seceded? I would think that was a pretty big election too. No, this is not the most important election we've had in the United States. It definitely has some big issues but that's a historical, that's a historical argument that needs to be made. Once this election can be placed in historical context which means, probably twenty, thirty years from now.
Myth- Divided government causes gridlock?
There is a very persuasive argument by a guy named David Mayhew who wrote “Divided we Govern”. His argument, he looks at the amount of legislation and the amount of activity that Congress gets done in years of divided government and years of non-divided, or unified government. He said there's not that much of a difference. He shows that there's not much of a difference. This is because the amount of 'stuff', or work that government gets done tends to vary more over time. Certain years are more active than other years than it matters whether the parties are different. Also, important legislation gets passed. He looked at specifically important legislation, and he said important legislation is important in its own right and so has a tendency to get passed. It might take a different form under divided government than under unified government, but still, it gets passed.
