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Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics
Over the past several decades, American society has experienced fundamental changes � from shifting relations between social groups and evolving language and behavior norms to the increasing value of a college degree. These transformations have polarized the nation's political climate and ignited a perpetual culture war. In a sequel to their award-winning collaboration Asymmetric Politics, Grossmann and Hopkins draw on an extensive variety of evidence to explore how these changes have affected both major parties. They show that the Democrats have become the home of highly-educated citizens with progressive social views who prefer credentialed experts to make policy decisions, while Republicans have become the populist champions of white voters without college degrees who increasingly distrust teachers, scientists, journalists, universities, non-profit organizations, and even corporations. The result of this new “diploma divide� between the parties is an increasingly complex world in which everything is about politics � and politics is about everything.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
398 pages, Hardcover
Published September 5, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 31, 2025
This was an ASAP read for me: two of my favorite American political scientists got together on a book. is my primary source for contemporary political science books and research. This book also incorporates over the past five years (at Honest Graft and WaPo).
When I was a PoliSci Major at UW-Madison, the major political realignment we learned about was the gradual shift of Southern Whites to the GOP between 1948 and 1994, which started with votes for GOP Presidents and finished with votes for a GOP House/Senate, as voting preferences of enfranchised black voters and the region's economic growth pushed them out of the Democratic Party (see by my former professor for more).
"Polarized by Degrees" highlights the critical partisan realignment during my lifetime: culture war, combined with growing numbers of college graduates and nonwhite Americans, pushed college graduates into the Democratic Party and pushed noncollege whites (NCWs) into the GOP. The diploma divide is now the key cleavage in elections, rather than the previous era's splits between income groups and geographic regions. Obama and Trump personify the new culture war between college graduates and NCWs, in which extreme partisanship freezes out college graduates from setting policy wherever the GOP is in charge (and vice versa). 60% of Clinton voters in 1992 were NCWs, as opposed to 20% of the 81 million who voted for Biden in 2020. They were replaced by nonwhite voters and college graduates, who bring an outspoken leftward shift on social issues, and a technocratic perspective to governing. GOP NCWs have remained steady at two-thirds of their voters, as the nation's fastest-shrinking demographic leaves the Democrats to angrily vote for MAGA at increasing rates. Close presidential elections mask the shifting of these tectonic plates, which involved tens of millions of Americans switching their votes to the other party.
This dense book is thoroughly sourced and comprehensive in scope. I have a great sense of how and why the diploma divide developed, the pros and cons confronting both political parties, as well as a framework for understanding where the next electoral battlegrounds will develop.
The Sun-Belt is the next frontier for swing states: not just Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, but anywhere with high concentrations of nonwhite voters and college graduates will soon be in play. But if nonwhite noncollege voters, particularly Hispanic voters, consistently support Republican candidates at similar rates to NCWs, then the Democratic Party will face an insurmountable challenge to ever taking power again. A small number of such defections brought Trump back in 2024.
At the same time, the brain drain of college graduates out of the GOP and into the Democratic Party creates a "power without credibility" problem for the GOP. After 13 years of Trump (2015-2028), anyone with a brain or a conscience has either been purged, or is actively supporting Democratic candidates now. Cunning, cruelty, and racial grievances only get you so far; once elected, the ghouls and toadies who remain actually have to run the country (or must outsource that task to creepy oligarchs). The GOP no longer attempts to justify its actions with logic, reasoning, or evidence, and the nation's elites (i.e. college graduates and anyone at the peak of our meritocracy) will never be persuaded by their insults and coercion. The best the GOP can hope for is a rearguard action to slow or delay the rate of social change, before college graduates return to office to rebuild what was torn down. The chaotic and shambolic first weeks of the 2024 Trump Administration, in which the most perverse whims of this demented rapist are quickly backtracked after vehement opposition, are an early preview of the problem of "power without credibility." - 1/31/25
When I was a PoliSci Major at UW-Madison, the major political realignment we learned about was the gradual shift of Southern Whites to the GOP between 1948 and 1994, which started with votes for GOP Presidents and finished with votes for a GOP House/Senate, as voting preferences of enfranchised black voters and the region's economic growth pushed them out of the Democratic Party (see by my former professor for more).
"Polarized by Degrees" highlights the critical partisan realignment during my lifetime: culture war, combined with growing numbers of college graduates and nonwhite Americans, pushed college graduates into the Democratic Party and pushed noncollege whites (NCWs) into the GOP. The diploma divide is now the key cleavage in elections, rather than the previous era's splits between income groups and geographic regions. Obama and Trump personify the new culture war between college graduates and NCWs, in which extreme partisanship freezes out college graduates from setting policy wherever the GOP is in charge (and vice versa). 60% of Clinton voters in 1992 were NCWs, as opposed to 20% of the 81 million who voted for Biden in 2020. They were replaced by nonwhite voters and college graduates, who bring an outspoken leftward shift on social issues, and a technocratic perspective to governing. GOP NCWs have remained steady at two-thirds of their voters, as the nation's fastest-shrinking demographic leaves the Democrats to angrily vote for MAGA at increasing rates. Close presidential elections mask the shifting of these tectonic plates, which involved tens of millions of Americans switching their votes to the other party.
This dense book is thoroughly sourced and comprehensive in scope. I have a great sense of how and why the diploma divide developed, the pros and cons confronting both political parties, as well as a framework for understanding where the next electoral battlegrounds will develop.
The Sun-Belt is the next frontier for swing states: not just Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, but anywhere with high concentrations of nonwhite voters and college graduates will soon be in play. But if nonwhite noncollege voters, particularly Hispanic voters, consistently support Republican candidates at similar rates to NCWs, then the Democratic Party will face an insurmountable challenge to ever taking power again. A small number of such defections brought Trump back in 2024.
At the same time, the brain drain of college graduates out of the GOP and into the Democratic Party creates a "power without credibility" problem for the GOP. After 13 years of Trump (2015-2028), anyone with a brain or a conscience has either been purged, or is actively supporting Democratic candidates now. Cunning, cruelty, and racial grievances only get you so far; once elected, the ghouls and toadies who remain actually have to run the country (or must outsource that task to creepy oligarchs). The GOP no longer attempts to justify its actions with logic, reasoning, or evidence, and the nation's elites (i.e. college graduates and anyone at the peak of our meritocracy) will never be persuaded by their insults and coercion. The best the GOP can hope for is a rearguard action to slow or delay the rate of social change, before college graduates return to office to rebuild what was torn down. The chaotic and shambolic first weeks of the 2024 Trump Administration, in which the most perverse whims of this demented rapist are quickly backtracked after vehement opposition, are an early preview of the problem of "power without credibility." - 1/31/25
August 30, 2024
Solid - And Solidly Dense - Examination Of The Topic. You know those jokes about the Christmas fruitcakes that are so dense you could use them as an anvil or even the cornerstone of a house? This... is damn near that dense. So be prepared for that up front, and it is a solid examination of political and even, to a lesser extent, religious polarization in the US over the last 60 years or so - with more emphasis on the last 40 years or so, when the authors claim that the "Diploma Divide" began explaining ever more of the results of elections.
Well documented at roughly 33% of the overall text, there isn't anything particularly "explosive" here, but there *is* a lot of detailed discussion of what has occurred and why the authors' research says it happened. One of the few books of its type where the authors are explicit in *not* making policy recommendations, instead taking an attitude of "this is the data we have, this is what we believe it shows, do with it as you will". Which is actually refreshing - the authors note that they are academics working in academia, and even if they have worked with campaigns off and on at times, they are not politicians or political operators, and thus their expertise isn't campaigns or campaign strategy - their expertise is in asking questions, gathering data, and analyzing that data.
Overall, while the outcomes are those we all know, Grossman and Hopkins add more data to the discussion - which is never a bad thing - and thus help aid in our overall understanding of what we have seen, giving us a more complete picture of the events as we know them.
Recommended.
Well documented at roughly 33% of the overall text, there isn't anything particularly "explosive" here, but there *is* a lot of detailed discussion of what has occurred and why the authors' research says it happened. One of the few books of its type where the authors are explicit in *not* making policy recommendations, instead taking an attitude of "this is the data we have, this is what we believe it shows, do with it as you will". Which is actually refreshing - the authors note that they are academics working in academia, and even if they have worked with campaigns off and on at times, they are not politicians or political operators, and thus their expertise isn't campaigns or campaign strategy - their expertise is in asking questions, gathering data, and analyzing that data.
Overall, while the outcomes are those we all know, Grossman and Hopkins add more data to the discussion - which is never a bad thing - and thus help aid in our overall understanding of what we have seen, giving us a more complete picture of the events as we know them.
Recommended.
December 28, 2024
Interesting and well documented perspectives on our current political parties and our culture. Be prepared for a long slog of data. While this seemed a bit much at times, his takeaways are solid and worrying.
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