Experts say local Left/Right political split a fiction--it's really about tribal hostility

One of the wackiest developments in Silicon Valley politics has been the inclination to cancel, banish, or savage people who were once political allies for not adhering to a rigid political agenda. Check out the manic efforts of the Santa Clara County Democratic Party's Central Committee to punish other Democrats for being too independent. The funny thing is, according to Harvard’s Prof. Verlan Lewis, is that these purity tests really aren't about policy; they're about enforced group conformity.

Left" and "Right" aren't fixed and enduring philosophical belief systems. They're merely social groups whose ideas, attitudes, and issue positions constantly change. Since the meanings of "left" and "right" evolve, it makes little sense to speak of individuals, groups, or parties moving "to the left" or "to the right." Nonetheless, talk of left and right dominate our public discourse and claims about "ideological polarization" fill the political science literature. 

The. left-right model ignores that politics is about human issues. Like every other realm of life, it is multidimensional, yet we describe it using a graph with only one dimension. It's true that many Americans hold their views in packages that we call "liberal" or "conservative"--those who currently support abortion rights, for instance, are also more likely to support vaccinations, income-tax increases, free trade, and military intervention in Ukraine.

But the question is why.  Why is there a strong correlation between these seemingly unrelated issues, and why do we find them clustering in patterns that are predictable and binary instead of completely random and pluralistic?

The answer is socialization. As the Democrat and Republican parties (as they have many times) evolve, the content and meaning of their ideologies change, too, meaning that ideologues will change their views to stay in line with their political tribe. Social conformity, not philosophy, explains their beliefs. Those who refuse to conform and maintain their political views independent of the tribe will appear to have "switched" groups--even though they stayed consistent while ideologies changed around them.

This article originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal. Read the whole thing here.

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