herbert hoover, MLK, and the legacy of race and partisanship in america

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Legally, the silence of the good people lasted from the start of Reconstruction to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, a period which spanned 101 troubled years. In large part, the Reconstruction project to which Dr. King ultimately gave his life was irreparably damaged by the assassination of President Lincoln, but it was the legacy of another President–Herbert Hoover–that had enormous repercussions for the future of race and politics in America.

how partisan attachments affect candidate assessments (part 1)

Few factors are of greater importance for our national elections than the lasting attachment of tens of millions of Americans to one of the parties….Most Americans have this sense of attachment with one party or the other. And for the individual who does, the strength and direction of party identification are facts of central importance in accounting for attitude and behavior.

–The American Voter (Campbell et. al 1960, 121) 

While it may seem absurd today, what with a 24 hour news cycle dedicated to bringing you the news in your flavor of reality, the idea that partisanship is the primary driver of  voter attitudes and behavior hasn’t always engendered widespread acceptance.

The 112th Congress and the accelerating polarization gap

In the classic film Network, anchorman Howard Beale famously instructs his audience “to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Americans, it would seem, took Beale’s advice to heart in November as voters, upset over a number of issues ranging from health care to unemployment, delivered Democrats their worst drubbing since 1938. And although the December tax deal stirred a late sense of cheer for some this holiday season, a collective sense of nausea has been steadily growing as the ubiquitous Congressional mantra of “No compromise” threatens to taint another two years of legislative workmanship—manifesting itself first in the rhetoric of the election’s big winners and second from glum, lame duck Democrats. As one popular political commentator bluntly assessed the coming 112th Congressional session, “Compromise is off the table. They didn’t want to compromise with us, and we have no business compromising with them. They lost. Losers compromise. We don’t. We’ve got nothing to compromise.”