Can Polarization Be a Good Thing?

A final positive consequence of polarization is that it slows down the government.

Political polarization, it is said, is tearing this country apart. As politics creeps into everything, it can seem like America is increasingly becoming a battleground for liberals and conservatives, while a shrinking moderate majority suffers the collateral damage.

Witness the left-wing condemnation of Taylor Swift’s insufficiently anti-Trump stance or the right-wing’s sudden loathing for the NFL and it will seem childish. Consider that forty-five percent of Republicans and forty-one percent of Democrats now believe the other party is a danger to the country and it appears nothing short of malignant. Recall the recent politically motivated shooting of Republican legislators in June, and you will conclude it is downright terminal.

But in many ways, polarization is the unhappy consequence of the increased choice enjoyed by media consumers and voters — things that most would probably consider to be not only good, but essential to a healthy democracy. Like many unpopular-but-ubiquitous phenomena, polarization also serves many important functions. First, and probably most importantly, polarization helps simplify an otherwise complicated question: for whom should we vote?

Often, votes are cast from a position economists refer to as rational ignorance–that is, a situation in which the costs of educating oneself about the various candidates and issues in question outweigh the benefits. In other words, since a single vote has next to no impact in a high-turnout election, most voters will rationally avoid spending too much energy diving into the nuts and bolts of candidates’ proposals. Therefore, one can vote for the candidate of one party or the other and, even without familiarizing himself with every position held by that candidate, have a reasonably good idea of what the person he’s voting for believes.