#partisanship — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #partisanship, aggregated by home.social.
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"Insisting that partisans be polite, moderate, reasonable and friendly would actually serve to exclude marginalised political voices. It could do so in two ways:
• First, there was the problem of gatekeeping. […]
• [Second] problem: voices at the margins of politics had special cause to be righteous and zealous. On important issues – such as the equality of the sexes – it would not do to remain polite or seek a moderate compromise."Geertje Bol: https://aeon.co/essays/polite-debate-has-privilege-the-marginalised-need-zealotry
#liberals #civility #respectabilityPolitics #respectability #politeness #partisanship #parties #history #England #feminism #privilege #politicalTheory
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‘Snapshot opinions’ are an easy way to answer tricky questions while avoiding an argument
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A quotation from Theodore Roosevelt
My duty was to stand with every one while he was right, and to stand against him when he went wrong; and this I have tried to do as regards individuals and as regards groups of individuals. When a business man or labor leader, politician or reformer, is right, I support him; when he goes wrong, I leave him.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 5 “Applied Idealism” (1913)More about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/8…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #theodoreroosevelt #teddyroosevelt #duty #integrity #loyalty #obligation #partisanship #political #politics #rightandwrong
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When democracy started sounding left-wing
Back in January, when I told my electrician that I would soon be working at the Israel Democracy Institute, he immediately said it sounded left-wing.
He did not know anything about the Institute’s research, its staff, its positions, or its history. He was reacting to the name. More specifically, he was reacting to the word democracy.
That moment stayed with me because his assumption did not strike me as unusual. In Israel today, the word democracy often arrives carrying political baggage. It can evoke Israel’s judicial-overhaul protests, the center-left, the courts, elite institutions, or opposition to the current government. A word that ought to describe the shared structure of political life has begun to sound like the vocabulary of one camp.
So the question is not whether democracy is left-wing. It is not. The question is how democracy came to sound left-wing, and what happens when a value that should belong to everyone begins to sound like someone else’s slogan.
A history that does not fit the label
The Israel Democracy Institute’s history does not fit neatly into the political category now attached to its name. Arye Carmon founded the Institute in 1991 with the support of Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot and the Institute’s founding benefactor. Marcus was also a major Republican donor who gave substantial support to Donald Trump1.
Nor is the Institute’s connection to the political right only historical. Its honorary chair is Israel’s former president Reuven Rivlin, who spent his political career in Likud and served as a minister and speaker of the Knesset before becoming president2. Rivlin’s support for democratic institutions, civic equality, and dialogue across Israel’s social divisions did not make him a man of the left3. It reflected a political tradition in which a person could hold firmly right-wing views while also treating democratic principles as part of Israel’s national foundation.
Marcus and Rivlin show that the Institute’s democratic mission was neither created by the left nor confined to it. The assumption that an organization devoted to democracy must be left-wing says less about the Institute’s origins than about how dramatically the political meaning of the word has changed.
I know what I mean by my values
I have never believed that political camps should be allowed to define my values for me. I know what I mean when I call myself a Zionist. I know what I mean when I call myself a feminist. And I know what I mean when I say that I support democracy.
Each of those words has been stretched, narrowed, praised, attacked, and turned into a political signal. But a value does not cease to be mine because someone else uses it differently.
To support democracy is not to endorse every institution, ruling, protest movement, or political party that invokes its name. It is to affirm a system in which power is limited, leaders can be replaced, citizens are protected, and no governing coalition is entitled to treat electoral victory as a blank check.
Democracy may now sound left-wing in certain political contexts, but that does not make it an exclusively left-wing value.
Two meanings of democracy
Part of the confusion comes from the fact that democracy is not a single, uncontested idea. For some, it means above all that the majority chooses the government and that elected leaders must be able to carry out their mandate. From this perspective, courts, civil servants, and other unelected bodies can appear to obstruct the will of the people4.
For others, elections are only one part of democracy. Democracy also requires an independent judiciary, the rule of law, minority rights, professional institutions, and limits on the power of the majority. From this perspective, a government can win an election and still act undemocratically if it weakens the safeguards that prevent power from becoming absolute.
These two understandings often speak past one another. One side hears the word democracy and thinks of popular sovereignty. The other hears it and thinks of constitutional restraint.
How political language changes
Words acquire political meaning through repetition. When one camp repeatedly describes itself as defending a principle, while the opposing camp avoids the term or treats it with suspicion, the public gradually begins to associate that principle with the first camp.
Political leaders help drive this process. People tend to trust the language used by figures on their own side and to distrust the same language when it comes from their opponents5. Over time, the word itself becomes a cue. It no longer points only to an idea; it also signals who is speaking, which institutions they trust, and which political coalition they are likely to support.
This is how a value that once functioned as common civic language can become a partisan marker. It happens as repeated patterns of use teach people to hear a political identity inside it.
The American shift
In the United States, democracy was not always a word associated primarily with the Democratic Party. Ronald Reagan spoke comfortably about democracy, and Republican platforms once used the term as part of their own description of the American political system6.
The contrast with 2024 is striking. The Democratic Party platform repeatedly emphasized the defense and strengthening of democracy. The Republican platform did not use the word at all, relying instead on terms such as the Constitution, freedom, election security, and government by the people7.
Public opinion reflected the same divergence. Democratic voters were far more likely than Republican voters to identify the preservation of democracy as a central concern in the presidential election. Yet majorities in both parties still expressed support for democratic government in principle8.
The shift, then, was not simply that one party supported democracy while the other rejected it. It was that the word itself had become much more central to the identity and rhetoric of one side than the other.
Israel’s constitutional rupture
In Israel, the partisan coding of democracy accelerated sharply during the judicial-overhaul crisis that began in 2023. Opponents of the government’s proposals filled streets, bridges, and public squares with Israeli flags and signs declaring that they were defending democracy. Week after week, the word became visually and emotionally identified with the protest movement9.
Government supporters answered with a competing claim: the overhaul was itself democratic because it would reduce the power of unelected judges and restore authority to the representatives chosen by the public. In their telling, the protests were not defending democracy but resisting the outcome of an election10.
The conflict therefore attached the word to a specific political and social camp. Even people who had no detailed opinion about judicial appointments or constitutional design could see who was carrying the signs, organizing the demonstrations, and speaking most insistently in democracy’s name.
By the time the struggle became part of Israel’s ordinary political vocabulary, “democracy” no longer sounded merely like a description of the system. To many Israelis, it sounded like a position within the fight over that system.
When democracy becomes a party name
The formation of a new Israeli party called The Democrats made the shift impossible to miss. Created through the merger of Labor and Meretz, the party chose as its name a word that should describe the political system shared by all parties11.
The name was politically effective precisely because the association already existed. It appealed to voters who saw themselves as defending liberal institutions, civil rights, and constitutional limits. But it also reinforced the idea that democracy belonged to one part of the political map.
The party did not cause the word to become left-coded. It revealed how far that process had already gone. Once “democracy” can function naturally as the brand of a center-left party, it no longer sounds only like a common national principle.
What I saw at the Eli Hurvitz Conference
I work at the Israel Democracy Institute, and I attended this year’s Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society. Coalition politicians were invited, but not a single representative of the current governing coalition participated. I saw the imbalance firsthand.
I cannot know why every invited politician declined. But in an election year, one plausible explanation is that appearing at an Israel Democracy Institute event carried a political cost12. Coalition politicians may have feared that their own voters would interpret participation in a nonpartisan policy forum as a sign of association with the left.
That matters because their absence was not imposed by the Institute. It was the result of a political choice. A conference intended as a national forum appeared more politically one-sided because one side chose not to enter the room.
A cycle that confirms itself
Once an institution acquires a partisan reputation, political behavior can make that reputation appear increasingly accurate. Public figures who fear being associated with the other side stay away. Their absence changes who appears onstage, whose arguments are heard, and how the event is perceived from outside.
The resulting picture then becomes evidence for the original assumption. Observers see an institution populated mainly by figures from one side and conclude that it must belong to that side.
This is how perception hardens into political reality. A label shapes participation; participation shapes appearance; and appearance strengthens the label.
Why this matters
A democratic system depends on more than formal rules. It also depends on citizens recognizing certain principles as binding even when those principles frustrate their own political side.
That becomes harder when democracy is treated as the language of one camp. Courts, elections, civil rights, and limits on power are then judged less by whether they are legitimate than by whether they help or hinder a preferred coalition. Violations become easier to excuse when they are committed by allies and easier to condemn when they are committed by opponents13.
The danger is not only hypocrisy. It is the gradual loss of a shared standard. Once democratic norms are filtered entirely through partisan loyalty, there is no longer a common basis for objecting when power is abused.
Reclaiming the word
The answer is not to abandon the language of democracy, but to use it more precisely. The word should not function as praise for one coalition or condemnation of another. It should describe standards that apply regardless of who is in power.
That means asking the same questions of every government: Does it respect the outcome of elections? Does it preserve meaningful political competition? Does it accept legal limits on its authority? Does it protect the rights of citizens who did not vote for it? Does it permit institutions to perform their roles without being reduced to extensions of the ruling party?
A democratic commitment becomes credible only when it survives political inconvenience. It must restrain allies as well as opponents.
Reclaiming the word therefore requires separating democracy from political allegiance. It should name the rules under which the struggle for power takes place, not one of the teams competing within it.
Someone else’s slogan
The political meaning attached to a word is not the same as the value the word names. Democracy has not become left-wing simply because it is now invoked more often by the left, distrusted more often by the right, or attached to institutions that one side increasingly avoids.
The deeper problem is that polarization has made a shared constitutional value sound like someone else’s slogan. Once that happens, defending democracy can be mistaken for choosing a camp rather than defending the conditions that allow competing camps to exist at all.
I do not accept that surrender. Democracy does not belong to the left, the right, the government, the opposition, the courts, or the protesters. It belongs to the public—and it remains most necessary when those in power would prefer to treat it as optional.
Footnotes
- Home Depot’s co-founder and billionaire philanthropist dies at 95 ↩︎
- Reuven Rivlin ↩︎
- President Reuven Rivlin Joins IDI as Honorary Chair ↩︎
- Populism in Europe: An Illiberal Democratic Response to Undemocratic Liberalism ↩︎
- Elite Cues and Political Decision Making ↩︎
- Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, “Address to Members of the British Parliament”; American Presidency Project, archive of party platforms ↩︎
- American Presidency Project, 2024 Democratic Party Platform; 2024 Republican Party Platform ↩︎
- Gallup, “Economy, Immigration, Abortion, Democracy Driving Voters”; AP-NORC, “Most say democracy is important for the U.S. identity, but few think it is functioning well” ↩︎
- Tens of thousands join protests against Israeli judicial overhaul ↩︎
- ibid. ↩︎
- The Democrats ↩︎
- Israel’s parliament dissolves ahead of Oct. 27 elections ↩︎
- Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States ↩︎
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@timrichards
There is a world of difference between #Patriotism and #Partisanship and the two terms are often, erroneously so and often intentionally, used interchangeably. -
A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt
Under the spoils system a man is appointed to an ordinary clerical or ministerial position in the municipal, Federal, or State government, not primarily because he is expected to be a good servant, but because he has rendered help to some big boss or to the henchman of some big boss. His stay in office depends not upon how he performs service, but upon how he retains his influence in the party. This necessarily means that his attention to the interests of the public at large, even though real, is secondary to his devotion to his organization, or to the interest of the ward leader who put him in his place.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 5 “Applied Idealism” (1913)More about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/8…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #teddyroosevelt #theodoreroosevelt #civilservant #civilservice #corruption #employment #favoritism #graft #influence #merit #partisanship #politics #publicinterest #quidproquo #spoils #spoilssystem
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Well, what do you know. Someone at Fox News was smart enough to call out the Republican Party for hypocrisy regarding a political candidate's character flaws. Would have thought that would be impossible in this day and age, especially since the fallout in 2020. It's amazing when one hears a mundane fact coming from a group one otherwise disagrees with. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/forget-corruption-graham-platner-ken-paxton-both-parties-embrace-politics-hypocrisy
#journalism #mediaCriticism #corruption #GOP #KenPaxton #partisanship -
A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt
Indeed, the doctrine that “To the victor belong the spoils,” the cynical battle-cry of the spoils politician in America for the sixty years preceding my own entrance into public life, is so nakedly vicious that few right-thinking men of trained mind defend it. To appoint, promote, reduce, and expel from the public service, letter-carriers, stenographers, women typewriters, clerks, because of the politics of themselves or their friends, without regard to their own service, is, from the standpoint of the people at large, as foolish and degrading as it is wicked.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 5 “Applied Idealism” (1913)More about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/8…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #teddyroosevelt #civilservice #partisanship #politics #publicservice #spoilssystem #government #personnel
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A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt
Civil Service Reform had two sides. There was, first, the effort to secure a more efficient administration of the public service, and, second, the even more important effort to withdraw the administrative offices of the Government from the domain of spoils politics, and thereby cut out of American political life a fruitful source of corruption and degradation.
The spoils theory of politics is that public office is so much plunder which the victorious political party is entitled to appropriate to the use of its adherents. […] Yet there were many flagrant instances of inefficiency, where a powerful chief quartered friend, adherent, or kinsman upon the Government. Moreover, the necessarily haphazard nature of the employment, the need of obtaining and holding the office by service wholly unconnected with official duty, inevitably tended to lower the standard of public morality, alike among the office-holders and among the politicians who rendered party service with the hope of reward in office.Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 5 “Applied Idealism” (1913)More about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/8…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #teddyroosevelt #theodoreroosevelt #administration #civilservice #corruption #duty #government #immorality #partisanship #plunder #politicalparty #politics #publicservice #spoilssystem
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John Roberts Is The Driver Who Wants Credit For All The People He Didn’t Run Over
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John Roberts Wants You To Stop Believing Your Own Eyes
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Gerrymandering or not, however you slice it, this does not change my view that drawing districts ought to be a process left to independent commissions based on as transparent and nonpartisan a methodology as possible. The United Kingdom knows better than to have politicians pick voters, as does even Brazil.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5856022-redistricting-supreme-court-voting-rights-act/
#democraticBacksliding #democracy #electionReform #elections #gerrymandering #partisanship #redistricting #SCOTUS #VotingRightsAct #voterSuppression
#USPolitics -
AUDITOR: By Hercules, I prefer to be wrong with Plato […] than to be right with those idiots.
[Errare mehercule malo cum Platone […] quam cum istis vera sentire.]Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Tusculan Disputations [Tusculanae Disputationes], Book 1, ch. 17 (1.17) / sec. 39 (1.39) (45 BC) [tr. @sententiq (2012)]More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/cicero-marcus-tulliu…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #cicero #authority #bias #correctness #esteem #loyalty #partisanship #party #respect #right #truth #wrong
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A quotation from Madeleine L'Engle
Perhaps people who read and write and have enough vocabulary to think with are universe disturbers. But we need to disturb the universe if, as human beings on planet earth, we are to survive. We need to have the vocabulary to question ourselves, and enough courage to disturb creatively, rather than destructively, even if it is going to make us uncomfortable or even hurt.
Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
Speech (1983-11-16), “Dare To Be Creative,” Lecture, Library of Congress, Washington, DCMore about this quote: wist.info/lengle-madeleine/836…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #madeleinelengle #candidate #choice #democracy #election #illusionofchoice #partisanship #politicians #selfdefeat #selfinterest #voting #creativity #writing
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A quotation from Douglas Adams
“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see ….”
“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”
“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Hitchhiker’s Guide No. 4, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, ch. 36 (1984)More about this quote: wist.info/adams-douglas/49165/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #douglasadams #hitchhikersguide #hitchhikersguidetothegalaxy #solongandthanksforallthefish #candidate #choice #democracy #election #illusionofchoice #partisanship #politicians #selfdefeat #selfinterest #voting
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While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a Stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than 3 or 4 thousand years ago. What is the Reason? I say Parties and Factions will not Suffer, or permit Improvements to be made. As Soon as one Man hints at an improvement his Rival opposes it. No sooner has one Party discovered or invented an Amelioration of the condition of Man or the order of Society, than the opposite Party, belies it, misconstrues it, misrepresents it, ridicules it, insults it, and persecutes it.
John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Letter (1813-07-09) to Thomas JeffersonMore about this quote: wist.info/adams-john/36370/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #johnadams #censorship #factions #government #parties #partisanship #politicalscience #politics #progress #publicpolicy
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History is thought of largely in nationalist terms, and such things as the Inquisition, the tortures of the Star Chamber, the exploits of the English buccaneers (Sir Francis Drake, for instance, who was given to sinking Spanish prisoners alive), the Reign of Terror, the heroes of the Mutiny blowing hundreds of Indians from the guns, or Cromwell’s soldiers slashing Irishwomen’s faces with razors, become morally neutral or even meritorious when it is felt that they were done in the “right” cause. If one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported from some part of the world; and yet in not one single case were these atrocities — in Spain, Russia, China, Hungary, Mexico, Amritsar, Smyrna — believed in and disapproved of by the English intelligentsia as a whole. Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1945-05), “Notes on Nationalism,” Polemic Magazine (1945-10)More about this quote: wist.info/orwell-george/46140/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #orwell #georgeorwell #atrocity #cause #condemnation #endsandmeans #history #justification #nationalism #ourside #partisanship #politics #takingsides #tribalism #truthiness #usvsthem #warcrime
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In addition to #CivilRights, the court powered by #Trump’s picks — Justices Neil M. #Gorsuch, Brett M. #Kavanaugh & #AmyConeyBarrett — has pushed to the right of any modern court on #religious rights & #voting issues.
The court has also entered a new era of extreme #partisanship. None over the past 7 decades has been as starkly polarized.
“There is no center now,” said political science professor Lee Epstein, who performed the analysis with Andrew D. Martin & Michael J. Nelson. -
Spread of education hampers political dealignment in #Germany #partisanship #2015 #throwbackpost
https://www.kai-arzheimer.com/spread-of-education-slows-down-partisan-dealignment-in-germany-2/ -
Political Party Identification in Germany: far from being dead #throbackpost #partisanship #2015
https://www.kai-arzheimer.com/party-identification-in-germany-not-dead-yet-1/ -
New study published in @Nature showing that following the algorithmic feed developed by the #X platform shifts users' political #opinions towards more #conservation position, even if self-reported #partisanship is not affected.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00486-z -
#technologyconnections dropped what starts as an explainer of solar and ends up ripping on #ice , #trump , #maga , #partisanship , #execution , and spins up from there. Truly no one has been this passionate while smacking a solar cell. Hats off and bravo!!
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There is nothing I dread So much, as a Division of the Republick into two great Parties, each arranged under its Leader, and concerting Measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble Apprehension is to be dreaded as the greatest political Evil, under our Constitution.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter (1780-10-02) to Jonathan JacksonMore about this quote: wist.info/adams-john/4853/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #johnadams #America #division #divisiveness #factions #partisanship #politicalparties #politics
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A quotation from Abraham Lincoln
If both factions, or neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware of being assailed by one and praised by the other.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Letter (1863-05-27) to Gen. John M. SchofieldMore about this quote: wist.info/lincoln-abraham/9373…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #abelincoln #abrahamlincoln #extremism #factions #middleoftheroad #moderation #neutrality #partisanship #bias #fairness #praise
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But what impressed me then, and has impressed me ever since, is that atrocities are believed in or disbelieved in solely on grounds of political predilection. Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1942-08), “Looking Back on the Spanish War, ch. 2, New Road (1943-06)More info about this quote: wist.info/orwell-george/80109/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #georgeorwell #orwell #spanishcivilwar #atrocities #belief #partisanship #politics #propaganda #tribalism #warcrimes #usvsthem #usversusthem
