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Control of legislative chambers is split between parties now in two states — Minnesota and Virginia — compared with 15 states 30 years ago.

Quoted from first NY Times article below

From this NY Times article, to this one, in the Washington Post, and in The Atlantic, it seems obvious that states are more heavily progressive or conservative, with fewer truly "purple" states.

One take comes from thisBBC article quoting Republican Senator Josh Hawley

I would predict that the effect is going to be that more and more red states are going to become more red, purple states are going to become red, and blue states are going to get a lot bluer [...] And I would look for Republicans as a result of this extend their strength in the Electoral College. And that's very good news.

One can assume there has been a liberal/progressive congressman(-woman) who has spun the scenario to their benefit as well, but I've yet to find a source to include here (open to suggestions). One related note, that could potentially be extrapolated to show a net benefit to progressive's is found here. While not directly stating that, it suggests a benefit of polarization is engagement, which has, in U.S. history, benefited progressives.

Regardless of Senator Hawley's correctness, and assumptions based on turnout and engagement, what impact do more polarized states have on the United States Federal Government?

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  • Like your immediately preceding question, this is asking us to predict the future. Hawley starts out from one assumption and spins it into a narrative that suits him. Another possibility is that some of the +/-40% pro-choice minorities leave the reds, making them redder, but without much influx, losing electoral college votes by next census: we don't know and we won't until it happens. We also don't know how people will react to losing their abortion rights as opposed to taking them away from others. VTC Commented Jul 8, 2022 at 17:25
  • @ItalianPhilosophers4Monica I did base this on an assumption, but the assumption is that at some point in history there has existed either another democratic republic meeting these conditions, or the US itself has in the past met these conditions of higher polarization than 30-50 years ago. It is an assumption, however if I knew with certainty of either cases existence I would be able to easily research myself. Since I don't know, I instead pose a question. If a democratic republic with highly polarized but homogenous-within-themselves-regions has never existed, great frame challenge.
    – TCooper
    Commented Jul 8, 2022 at 19:42
  • Well, 2 things: has never existed, is kind of a red herring. Nation states are not massive data sets allowing us to say with certainty when X happens Y is the outcome 70% of the time. There just aren't that many federal states and even if there were, outcomes are not necessarily the same as if you found a good match, 70 years back. Second, you can start out with an assumption of an effect (migration between blues and reds) and not know the outcome of that migration at the federal level. So, no, extremely interesting question, no doubt, but too early to tell. Commented Jul 8, 2022 at 20:55
  • I suggest changing the question a wee bit to be about how polarization has affected it in the past. Hawley seems to be essentially extrapolating from that. I.e. to make the Q a bit less speculative, make it about whether polarization was good for R insofar. As with cause-effect relationships in hindsight that may also not be answerable "beyond a reasonable doubt", but it is a fair question insofar as whether that association can be plausibly inferred because its existence is seemingly used to shape political strategy, so whether it's plausible or just nuts is an ok question in this case. Commented Jul 8, 2022 at 22:04
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    @Fizz I think many consider the current state of American politics to be unprecedented, so there isn't really much to extrapolate from. Much of political science is based on assumptions and educated guessing, since we can't really do controlled experiments.
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 3, 2022 at 22:26

1 Answer 1

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As noted in the comments, specific future events are impossible to predict; human behavior is a chaotic system.

That said, proceeding from our current working understanding of how representative democracies function, a handful of general trends may be predicted with reasonable levels of confidence.

1. More Extreme Electeds

Higher levels of polarization, defined as a stronger (more measurable) effect of party identification and shrinking of the unaligned center, results in conditions favorable for ideological extremes to survive primary elections and prevail in the general election in those districts where one party or the other holds a powerful majority (the so-called 'red' and 'blue' districts). As these districts increase in number (due to the shrinking population of unaffiliated voters as well as migration of citizens to geographies where they feel more socially comfortable), holding the proportion of these districts that produce extremists constant, we would expect to see a rise in the absolute number of extremist members of Congress proportionally.

2. Congressional Deadlock

A knock-on effect to #1, as Congress itself comes to contain more and more extremists (on both sides), the ability of party leadership to achieve even modest bi-partisan support becomes diminished. Highly polarized voters demand resistance of opposition agendas and uncompromising support for their own agendas, creating an environment where the incentive structure for those seeking office favors more vigorous resistance of policy actions that do not originate within their own party. This reduction in bipartisanship makes achieving majorities on middle-of-the-road policy objectives more difficult, and consequently party leadership must increasingly make concessions to its more extreme members to secure their support - often at the cost of moderate members. Not that Congress has typically been viewed as 'speedy' but a general lack of ability to get things done would be reasonably expectable. Because of how SCOTUS' members are appointed, this can occur within that body as well.

3. Shutdowns, Missed Deadlines, Dysfunction.

If #2 continues for long enough, or as polarization becomes more extreme without a clear dominance of one part over the other, it will eventually spread to budgets and re-authorizations which the Executive branch requires in order to carry out the day-to-day business of running the government. Parts of programs can cease to function, others can be rendered effectively moot.

4. Control Over Congress Becomes All-Or-Nothing

Again, as the phenomenon exists for longer periods of time or becomes sufficiently severe, the deadlock and disfunction can become bad enough that the only way to effectively govern is to adopt all-or-nothing approaches where achieving majority status at any cost is the only way to make meaningful progress on policy while faced by the demands of voters. In reality, this is probably the limit of plausibility because dysfunctional governments will eventually irritate their constituencies to the point that some degree of bipartisanship becomes necessary for reelection to be meaningfully possible for an incumbent.

Any, all, or none of these could actually occur, but these are what theory of representation says is more likely under high levels of, or increasing voter polarization than otherwise.

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