I’m not much for predictions. But I will go out on a limb and forecast that for politics in 2025, we are going to see a lot more partisan strangeness.
Strangeness? I’m referring to that odd phenomenon in which extreme polarization has started intruding into what used to be normal, apolitical parts of life.
Recently I was looking at a poll on health care that found Americans’ trust in the public health agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, has declined somewhat.
But what’s remarkable — strange, even — is the partisan breakdown in this Ipsos poll. The support for public health comes almost entirely from Democrats. Republicans overwhelmingly reject the health agencies as reliable sources of information.
Instead, they say their preferred source for information on medical topics, other than their own doctor, is … Donald Trump.
Sixty-eight percent of the GOP trusts Trump the most on medical issues, more than any other government source. That compares with just 7% of Democrats.
It’s hard to imagine turning to any politician for medical advice, let alone Trump. Some researchers have suggested this is an example though of how partisanship is becoming a “super identity.” The alliance with a political team or personality outstrips all other characteristics, such as gender, race, religion or nationality. Politics is on the verge of defining, and sorting, everything.
Like I said: weird, huh?
Here’s another example, from a recent survey of Washington state. The pollster DHM Research asked Washington residents some basic “how are you doing?” questions, such as “how would you rate your financial situation?”
Nearly two-thirds of both Democrats and Republicans answered that they were doing pretty well. Republicans had a higher percentage saying they were doing personally great with their finances.
But when the pollster asked about the Washington state economy, holy partisanship! More than 70% of Democrats said it’s good or very good. But 60% of Republicans rated it as poor or very poor.
How can this be? The split answer seems to spring more from a narrative important to a team position than any sort of reality.
Local pollsters detected this partisan strangeness tilting the other way when Seattle hit a 25-year-high in violent crime two years ago. Perhaps because Republicans were flogging high crime relentlessly, Democrats tended to deny that crime was an issue at all.
“Extreme partisanship has gotten to the point that if Republicans are going to be saying crime is a huge problem, then the Democrats are going to say it’s not. Even if it is,” Seattle pollster Stuart Elway said then. “And then it’s going to be vice versa on something else.”
I expect the reelection of Donald Trump, with his uniquely hyperbolic and divisive rhetorical style, will put this phenomenon on steroids.
The grand sorting has begun before he even takes office. “Republicans suddenly feel good about the economy,” Axios reported as consumer sentiment began surging for the GOP, and plunging among Democrats, after the election.
“Consumer sentiment used to reflect current economic conditions, but for the past several years it’s grown increasingly political,” the story said.
The same contrived divisions are happening across society on countless issues. It used to be left-wingers who were more skeptical of childhood vaccines, for instance. Now, according to Gallup, only 52% of Republicans say the shots are extremely or very important, compared with 93% of Democrats.
That’s the Trump effect: “The declining belief in the importance of vaccines is essentially confined to Republicans and Republican-leaning independents,” Gallup reported.
There are shifting and widening partisan splits like this on everything from the media to electric cars to really anything that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth (which is a lot).
Bemoaned the Ford CEO: “I never thought the propulsion system on a vehicle would be (partisan).”
Strangest example yet: daylight saving time.
Out of the blue this month, the president-elect weighed in on what’s been dubbed “the last bipartisan issue” — the drive to drop the twice-yearly switching of the clocks. Only he veered off script.
“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!” Trump said on social media.
The trouble is, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously a few years ago not to ditch DST, but to embrace it as the year-round default.
“I’ve been fighting for years to make Daylight Saving Time permanent so that Americans can have more sunlight during their most productive hours, and we can stop senselessly changing our clocks back and forth twice a year,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a statement.
Uh-oh. Ditching DST would instead make standard time the default — a position supported by some sleep doctors but not most federal politicians, or the 19 states, including Washington, that have voted to adopt permanent DST.
The snoozy clock issue has suddenly become “intense” in Congress, The Hill newspaper reported this month. One Republican would only speak about it anonymously, not wishing to cross Trump.
A GOP senator worried about Trump’s call to abolish DST: “I hope that doesn’t become a proxy for what a good conservative is.”
Too late!
“No one likes or wants Daylight Saving Time, and if some are saying they do, it’s likely just to oppose anything Donald Trump is for,” one conservative rallied on social media.
So much for the last bipartisan issue. It does suggest a fresh resistance opportunity for the Democrats, though. To fully embrace Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS, the party could fight like hell to keep the clock switch. TDS for DST!
Seriously: I have a proposed New Year’s resolution about all partisan strangeness. Let’s each try thinking for ourselves a bit more in 2025, instead.
The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.
