WASHINGTON — Frankly, I wish the Pew Research Center would
occasionally keep its thoughts to itself. Sometimes those thoughts
are merely insipid and beneath the attention of serious minds.
Sometimes they are alarming and capable of stirring up an already
excitable populace. There is talk of cannibalism being practiced by
the criminal element. There is Lady Gaga. These are worrisome
times. Yet the Pew Research Center has gone and done it again. The
center released a study Monday that employed exhaustive polling and
ingenious charts to render my fellow Americans restive, or so it
seems.
The Pew Research Center’s overall finding is that political
polarity in America is tremendously more intense than it has been
in decades. Possibly since the Civil War, and 618,000 soldiers died
in the Civil War! Of course, intense partisanship is the kind of
thing that profoundly troubles Bien Pensants everywhere. It leads
to legislative gridlock and stalemate.
The Bien Pensants agree with the memorable plaint of one of
their own, Rodney King, who pled: “Why can’t we all get along?” He
uttered those imperishable words as Los Angles was going up in
flames, and between several more of his epic run-ins with the law,
with neighbors, and with the inevitable bill collector. Yet no
matter, he was expressing the Bien Pensants’ staunchly held view
that if we would all get along we could establish
consensus, follow the Bien Pensants’ diktats, and pay more
taxes, accept more government, and live happily ever after.
Of course, the Bien Pensant do not exactly put it this way.
Instead they say that political polarization is more intense today
and troubling. Or as the Pew Research Center’s Andrew Kohut, who
directed the study, put it, “The only thing that’s changed is the
extent to which Republicans and Democrats go to opposite sides of
the room on most issues.” That leaves the center empty and a kind
of no man’s land.
Kohut’s colleagues cited a massive amount of evidence, but let
me just mention a few to give you the gravamen of their complaint.
Twenty-five years ago on the question of the scope and performance
of government the Pew researchers found the spread between
Republicans and Democrats was just six percent. Today it is 33
percent. On support for a social safety net the spread was 21
percent. Now it is 41 percent. On environmental issues it is up
from five percent to 39 percent. Time and again on public policy
after public policy the gap between Republicans and Democrats has
widened. Consensus is dying. What to do?
The alarmists will say: Come back, Republicans and Democrats.
Join together in happy comity at the center of Mr. Kohut’s room.
Mr. Kuhut and his friends will tell us what policy to accept and at
what cost to taxpayers. Yet in the last three and a half years the
federal government has increased its size to almost 25 percent of
the Gross Domestic Product, up from under 20 percent. Traditionally
in peacetime it has been under 20 percent. Is it really wise to
accept the Bien Pensants’ 25 percent now and onto eternity.
There is another matter. Has anyone paid any attention to how
effective these policies have been over the past 25 years? Or how
expensive they have become? Or what other matters have inched their
way up the national agenda, for instance, the federal debt which
today stands at $16 trillion. Possibly it is time to review our
experience with, say, the scope and performance of government or
the social net and seek alternative solutions. Perhaps it is time
to learn from experience.
To all the alarmed social scientists at the Pew Research Center,
I would suggest that ever more Republicans and even many
Independents have learned from experience with these public
policies. They want to employ different approaches to them, for
instance to entitlements which are putting this country on the path
to Greece. For instance, they might want to privatize or follow
Rep. Paul Ryan’s policies of choice.
Some people learn from experience. Some people just keep
plodding along, spending more money heading for bankruptcy. And
some seem to believe they can scare the electorate into doing the
same old thing. The colleagues at the Pew Research Center are to be
numbered among the latter, but they ought to review the content of
the policies that Republicans are deserting. We tried them and they
failed.
