By Nicholas Deroose
I like to think that I have a better chance of riding a unicorn than meeting a gay Republican. Because in today’s world of political polarization, there is no middle ground, if you are gay then you’re a Democrat and if you are not pitching for the blue team certain social exile awaits. In his book, The Big Sort, Bill Bishop explains how and why America has become a country of political extremes. Bishop explains that the phenomenon of “assortative migration”, whereby people move to neighborhoods of similar political leanings, breeds homogenous thinking. This concept of ‘group think’ suppresses different viewpoint and is similar to the concept of the ‘tyranny of the majority’ that De Tocqueville wrote about. If the predictions of De Tocqueville in the 1800s are coming true what does this mean for the future of American democracy?
When selecting a place to live we want to be as comfortable as possible. We want to live in a neighborhood that provides us the luxuries that we desire. Whether it is escape from the chaos of the city or easy access to public transportation we have a certain list that we go through before settling down. The politics of the neighborhood, how Republican or Democratic, have also become a consideration for people’s choice of settlement. But this was not always the case. “In 1976, Okanogan County in Washington had split fifty-fifty race between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.” “In 2000, 68 percent of Okanogan County voted for George W.Bush.”(Bishop 20). People used to live in politically mixed neighborhood but this is not the case now.
What people don’t realize is that the best prisons are the ones that are most comfortable. This sort of geo-political segregation breeds group thinking. During groupthink, members avoid expressing views that are outside the comfort of the consensus. By moving themselves into these politically homogenous neighborhoods, people feel comfortable in their similar views but however box themselves into a surrounding of homogenous thinking. The dangerous of groupthink is that it discourages discussion and creative thinking. “the most profound insight of the men who framed the Constitution “was to see heterogeneity as a creative force which would enable people not to hate each other but to think more productively what might be done to solve problems.” (Bishop 72) How can we expect to debate and come up with the best solution when our views are all the same?
De Tocqueville wrote that Americans rather be equal in slavery than to compromise on their notions of ‘equality’. “There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.” (De Tocqueville 53) This lack of comprise and groupthink also leads to extremism. Known as the “risky shift phenomenon’, the phenomenon shows that over time groups become more extreme in the direction of the average opinion of individual group members. “Like-minded groups create a kind of self-propelled, self-reinforcing loop. Group members send signals bolstering existing beliefs as they all vie to stand out as the most Republican or most Democratic in the group. And that sets off a new round of unspoken competition.” (Bishop 69) When people are in like-minded groups they feel safe enough to take their views in the extreme end of the average. “Mixed company moderates; like minded company polarizes.” (Bishop 68)
It is this polarization that forces certain demographics out of politics. Gay Republicans are on the verge of extinction because the majority of the gay community is so left-leaning and by being anything other than Democratic is a sure way to be excluded from the next holiday party. Sure, the majority of Republicans don’t support gay rights but that is not all that they stand for. We have picked out a few controversial issues such as gay rights and abortion to represent entire parties. By focusing on being one issue parties, people blanket over the stances of the party over other issues such as taxation and education.
One example of why it is important that we have gay people on both ends of the political spectrum is the current debate over the US military’s policy on gays in the military. The current policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” excludes openly gay people from serving in the military on the grounds that it affects ‘team cohesion’. This policy has no scientific evidence to back it up and is based on fear and ignorance. However, gay people who support the repeal of the law are also forgetting that by doing so they are supporting a pro-war stance. Their intentions of LGBT equality are good but do not take into account the entire voice of the LGBT community. There are people in the gay community that do not want gay people to serve in the military because they are anti-war altogether. They do not see allowing gays to serve in the military in line with the overall progressive stance of the LGBT community because war uses a large amount to the country’s resources to wage war against others. The LGBT community has been so focused on the repeal of discriminatory laws that they have completely excluded voices from the other end of their own community. The example exhibits tension between two agendas of the LGBT community, equality and social justice, whereby on one hand the community argues that gays should be allowed to serve in the military if they chose to do so and the other is campaigning for a boarder view against war entirely. This is not unusual in a debate but however the difference is that one voice is overwhelmingly louder than the other and has dominated the debate over the issue within the same party. De Tocqueville explains how the collective interest and opinions can dominate the entire conversation without leaving room for debate. “In democratic States organized on the principle of American republics, this is more especially the case, where the authority of the majority is so absolute and so irresistible that a man must give up his rights as a citizen, and almost abjure his quality as a human being, if he intends to stray from the track which is lays down.” (De Tocqueville 271) James Madison similarly also agreed that it was important to guard against the omnipotence of the majority. “It is of great importance in a republic to guard against not only the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.” (De Tocqueville 304). This is what De Tocqueville referred to as the tyranny of the majority. Debate over LGBT issues have been reduced to shouting matches where only the loudest are heard.
Another danger tyranny of the majority brings is that the Democratic Party has now taken the gay vote for granted. Because the LGBT community has been so consistent with their voting patterns, Democrats know they will not vote Republican because why would they? The Republicans are the ‘enemies’ of the gay community. This has allowed the Democratic to hold on to the gay vote without coming through with their promises to the community. After electing the president of hope President Obama, many people in the gay community looked to him to come through with some of the promises that he made during his campaign, such as the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and amendments to national AIDS/HIV policies. While outwardly the president appears to be supportive of the gay cause, by attending dinners and making speeches, actually concrete action has not been taken and this has left many gay voters disillusioned. The recent vote to allow same-sex marriages in the state of New York actually showed some Democrats voting against the bill! The fear now is that if the Democratic Party does not provide the change that is needed who will? Gay voters have essentially trapped themselves within one party and elections have become nothing more than a song and dance routine with false promises and no actual result. Gay people in America are still second-class citizen in their own country because despite having made gains in visibility, the acceptance of gay people is based on the acceptance by straight America rather than civil equality. (Vaid 6)
So what does this mean for the future of democracy in America? One prediction could be that gay people would be so frustrated with the Democratic Party that they would stop voting altogether, this would leave a huge gap in the voting population for the Republicans to sway over. However, they would have to balance its new stance with the already ultra conservative voices in their party. Another prediction could be that if the majority continues to dominate the discussion then America would cease to be a democracy where you would only have one party in power and trying to get a foot into the door would be near impossible, very much like how it is in Singapore whereby the country is only democratic in name because the same party has been in power for the last 40 years. The only reason why the country has not erupted in riots is because protesting is illegal.
America is becoming a country divided in politics and when the middle ground collapses, so will democracy.
Works Cited:
Bishop, Bill, and Robert Cushing. The big sort. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. Print.
Tocqueville, Alexis, and Henry Reeve. Democracy in America. Bantam Classics, 2000. Print.
Vaid, Urvashi. Virtual equality. Anchor, 1996. Print.
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