Morris Fiorina on Polarization, Stability, and the State of the Electorate

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🗓️ 8 July 2013

⏱️ 59 minutes

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Summary

Morris Fiorina, the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow at Stanford University, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the state of the American electorate and recent election results. Fiorina argues that while the Republican and Democratic parties are more extreme than they were in the past, there has been only modest change in the character of the American electorate. Fiorina discusses these differences in light of recent election results which show an inability of either party to sustain control of the Presidency or the Congress.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts,
0:07.8	of Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org where you can
0:13.6	subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find links and other information related to today's
0:18.2	conversation. You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever
0:22.8	done going back to 2006. Our email address is mailadycontalk.org. We'd love to hear from you.
0:32.5	Today is June 5, 2013, and my guest is Morris Fierena, the Went Family Professor of
0:38.4	Political Science at Stanford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
0:43.4	Is the author of numerous books and articles, including Culture War, the myth of polarized
0:47.9	America, co-authored with Samuel Abrams and Jeremy Pope? Is a member of the National
0:52.7	Academy of Sciences, Mo, welcome to Econ Talk. Thank you. Good to be here. Our topic for today is a
0:59.6	recent article you wrote for the American interest titled America's Missing Moderates, Hiding in
1:06.0	plain sight. And when we may also touch on some of the issues in your book Culture War,
1:10.3	I recommend the article in the book very much. Let's start with some 21st century political history.
1:16.8	Republicans got off to a great start at the beginning of the 21st century, but then everything
1:21.9	changed. Tell us what happened. Okay, that's correct. The 2000 election gave the Republicans
1:28.8	full control of the presidency in both houses of Congress for the first time since Eisenhower
1:34.9	in 1952. And that's what got all the publicity, but it was also one of the very few instances of
1:40.4	unified government from either party in the last half century. Essentially after the,
1:45.7	the Kennedy Johnson years, we had a large generation basically of divided government
1:51.0	where one party would control the presidency, but not both chambers of Congress. And this continued
1:56.8	through the 2004 to 2006 election, and everything came apart in 2006. And we went from unified
2:03.4	Republican government in 2004 to a Republican headed divided government in 2006 to a unified
	...

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