Once upon a time, the media could say or write “Democrats think. . . .” or “Conservatives want. . . ” and we would know about whom they were speaking. There were always gradations within parties, but we generally knew what “Democratic,” “Republican,” “conservative,” etc. meant. Then came President Donald Trump.
Headline writers were tied up in knots last week trying to describe those reacting to Trump’s deal with the Democrats on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). “Republicans” were not uniformly outraged; indeed some are working on legislative fixes. You couldn’t fairly say “conservatives” were outraged for who would call Sen. Jim Lankford, R-Okla., a co-sponsor of the more conservative version of the Dream Act, outraged by progress on an issue he is trying to solve.
Referring to “Trump’s supporters” is tricky too, as in “Trump’s supporters were outraged that . . .” But that’s not quite right either. Even among hard-core Trump idolizers there were distinctions. Laura Ingraham decried the move toward a DACA fix; Sean Hannity implausibly assigned blame to the conservative establishment. Then there are Trump voters, who, it seems, want DACA kids to stay. As William Galston wrote for the Brookings Institution about recent polling:
“The breakdown of the 76 percent who want the Dreamers to remain either as citizens or permanent legal residents is revealing. It includes 84 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of Independents, 69 percent of Republicans-and two-thirds of self-identified Trump voters. 60 percent of the voters who ‘strongly approve’ of Mr. Trump’s performance as president want the Dreamers to be allowed to stay, compared to 33 percent who want them to be deported.”
So it would be correct to say some Republicans were outraged, others used the opportunity to get to work on a fix. Some Trump fans blamed him, but others did not and some would be favorably disposed to a DACA fix. I know - it’s hard to fit in 140 characters, let alone a headline.
The left cannot be lumped together either. Are “Democrats” on board with the single-payer plan Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., rolled out? Hardly. He got more support than when he first rolled it out (none) but less than 20 Democrats in the Senate signed on. Well, we can say “progressives” signed on, right? Not so fast. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, one of the most progressive members of the Senate did not sign on. Meanwhile, some centrist Democrats such as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., did line up behind Sanders. To make matters more complicated, a good number of “progressives” backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, while many seethed and sat on their hands.
Part of the tendency to overgeneralize and label is human nature. We are categorizers to a large degree; the practice is hard-wired into us. Michael Lewis, author of “The Undoing Project,” which recounts the development of behavioral economics, says, “One of the big things the human mind is doing all the time is making similarity judgments: Is this a friend or a foe? Is this a potential mate or not? Is this edible food or not? It’s always classifying. We take it for granted, but we’re doing it all the time.”
That’s not the only thing going on, however. Politicians and partisans intentionally spur imprecise, unflattering categorizations of their opponents. Republicans love to say things like, “Democrats are for socialized medicine.” Democrats love to say, “Republicans want to deport every illegal immigrant.” Those are misleading, so misleading as to be wrong. But politics has largely become about broad brush smears of the other side. Again Lewis observes, “If you want to reduce the power of a stereotype, you eliminate the classifications. The more you reinforce the classifications, the more powerful the stereotype will be.”
We in the media would do well to resist over-categorizing. For one thing, it would enlighten readers/viewers so they avoid adopting inaccurate stereotypes. But in a larger sense, in hyper-divided America we might actually reduce differences, instill respect for one another, and encourage civility by refusing to paint the politic debates in such stark white and black (or red and blue, as the case may be) terms. We could use more nuance and less stereotyping these days. I know, that seems like pie-in-the-sky stuff in a Twitter world. Nevertheless, we can certainly try.
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Rubin is a Washington Post columnist.
