Rethinking Political Division and Media Segmentation

Dan Loney: Welcome to the Ripple Effect, the podcast that takes you on a journey through the minds of Wharton faculty. The issue of redistricting is one that has drawn the attention of both the public and the media, and it once again shows the division that we have in our country right now. Looking at the division that we have within our media outlets, we are seeing a greater and greater divide in how reporting is done and how the information is processed and sent to us on a daily basis.

We wanted to spend some time talking about that component of what we're seeing play out right now, and it’s a pleasure to be joined by Wharton professor Jerry Wind. Jerry, you wrote about this in an article in The Hill. What was the genesis.

Jerry Wind: I felt that the typical reporting by party line, “Republicans say this; Democrats says this,” doesn't really capture the new reality. The new reality is that the country is ideologically divided. There is a strong pro-Trump group and there is a strong anti-Trump group, and this is not aligned by party. There are a lot of Republicans who do not support Trump. There are some Democrats that support Trump, and the independents are split. Some of them support Trump and some do not. So, why are we ignoring it? Why are we continuing to report Republicans say that and Democrats says that, as opposed to trying to identify on specific issues who are the ones who support the Trump philosophy and those who do not? And I think it's clear in almost every domain that we're dealing with, whether it is climate, trade, abortion, you name it, on every one of those issues, the dividing line is not party line anymore, but it's rather the alliance with and loyalty to Trump versus opposing Trump.

Loney: I assume that is occurring because of the concerns that other politicians have of not getting the support of the president when you get to a midterm election.

Wind: Right. And we just saw recently all those who opposed Trump lost in the primary, but losing in the primary is not a signal as to what's going to happen in the election. I think it's, again, misleading. It doesn't suggest the fact that Trump can't support that candidates won the primary does not mean that they are shoo-in to win the elections, because the elections will be won by the new coalition that's formed: the Republicans that oppose Trump, the Democrats that oppose Trump, and the independents that oppose Trump.

Loney: You say that this is also playing out to a degree in our media landscape.

Wind: Very much so. I think the media, to a large extent, does not report the new reality. They're still using the old lens. Even though I had both my undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science, all my life I've been in marketing, and it's a pure marketing issue. It's a segmentation. It's basically, how do you segment the market? And unfortunately, the reporting of this has been along the traditional line of party line, as opposed to realizing that the country is really divided ideologically. We have to start recognizing this in our reporting.

Loney: How do you see this segmentation play out in the general public?

Wind: Obviously, this segmentation does reflect the general public. Look at dinner discussions. Look at party discussions where people discuss. The focus is not so much, “I'm Republican and this is the traditional Republican values.” The discussion is whether it is a support of the Trump policy or not supporting the Trump policy. In effect, the traditional Republican Party was kidnapped by the extreme right. Lincoln would never recognize MAGA today as the Republican Party.

Loney: Do you see the use of segmentation occur with businesses in terms of trying to gain consumers over, say, their rival companies as well? This is obviously playing out in politics, but does this play out in our general lives as well?

Wind: I think it's a great question. I have not studied it to look at this specifically. The general reaction that I see from many businesses is, try to avoid politics at any cost. They're trying to avoid it because they're afraid. They're afraid the same way that the Republican congressmen and senators are afraid. No one is speaking up. They're afraid the same way that university presidents are afraid; you don't hear from them. The same way law firms are afraid. The same way that many of the media are afraid. You know, there is a fear culture here and people don't speak out loudly. They can try to stay under the radar. So, you don't see so much positions from business that are clearly anti-Trump. People try to ignore it, to basically know that's not an issue to discuss. But it's a great question, and I think it definitely deserves some research.

Loney: Does this segmentation have longer term impacts on political parties as a whole as we move forward? Should we be looking for even greater change in what political parties are like as we move ahead?

Wind: I would hope so. I think if the Democrats were smart, and we don't really see too much evidence to the fact that they're really galvanizing, which is the effective strategy against Trump. If they were smart, they will stop sending messages, “As Democrats, support us.” They will appeal much broader. The Democratic approach and candidate should be both for the Democrats, for the Republicans that oppose Trump, and for the independents.

I think it's a very narrow, old-fashioned perspective of what we see in promotion by the Democratic Party, ignoring this new reality. They need to find the candidate or candidates for all the positions that take the broader position, not of the old Democratic Party. The Democrats don't know really who they are. Are they supporting the progressive group? The election of the New York mayor definitely strengthened this part of the party. But the rest of the Democrats are not necessarily defined as progressive. So, I think that the Democrats were smart from a political point of view and tried to select the candidates and the campaign. They will stop campaigning on the old approach of, “We’re the Democrats, and that's our values.” But they will focus on this coalition of the liberal Republicans and other Republicans that oppose Trump, the independent and the Democrats. And I think that's their only chance of winning.

Loney: How much of this segmentation has occurred because of the [ideological divide] that seemingly both parties have right now?

Wind: I've been arguing for years that one of the biggest challenges facing us as society is the ideological divide. The country is divided. Families are divided. I have friends who basically they're divided. We're going out for dinner with them. The one topic we cannot discuss is politics, because the husband is anti-Trump and the wife is a pro-Trump. You cannot have a civilized discussion. The only way to be with them is avoid the topic. Where do we go from here?

Loney: How do we correct this? Because this feels like it's going to be a long-term process to try and get back to what our political landscape was, say, 20 or 30 years ago.

Wind: I think you're right. I don't think it will ever get back. And I think the new landscape probably would depend to a large extent on who will succeed Trump and who will be the Democratic candidate. Unfortunately, we cannot avoid the kind of the traditional segmentation to Democrats, Republicans, and independents because of the machinery behind the election. So, the party is going to remain with the House.

But I think in terms of informing the public and providing accurate reporting on the reality that we face, I think it's important that people start augmenting the traditional party reporting by the new reality of the pro Trump, anti-Trump. And I think this responsibility is really on the media to a large extent. Because the media is the one that feeds the public the information. So, if the media will start reporting accurately, I think we'll make a big difference.

Loney: Part of the challenge is also the impact that social media has had on reporting, but also on conversation. In many cases, people feel like they can say anything on social media and don't have any consequences. We're also going into the realm of AI, where you may or may not be seeing a video that's real or not. So, the technology that we have has complicated this process even further.

Wind: Absolutely, and I think so someone has to take the lead. I think that the easier and the more impactful lead, at least initially, will be the media, the institutionalized media. If they start, hopefully this will impact the conversation we see on social media.

Loney: The challenge is those media outlets are as divided as the country is right now, and it doesn't seem like they are willing to make a move to change this back.

Wind: That's a great point. You do not expect Fox News to start reporting anti-Trump segment or sentiment. But hopefully there are many other media outlets that try to be independent. Let's start with the big names. Let's start with The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time magazine. Let's start talking with the TV channels, CBS, ABC and the like. Even though with CBS, I'm not sure there's much hope there.

Loney: Let's use The Washington Post as an example. When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post, even before he had a chance to have an impact on what was going to be produced in that paper, the theme out there was,” He's going to change everything. He's going to be pro-Trump. He's going to be pro-Republican.” I don't know if that's actually occurred to the level that people thought. But just that story, that narrative was out there even before he really had a chance to have an impact on the paper.

Wind: You're bringing up a great point. You know, people's reaction and behavior drive expectations, drive what they're saying, drive the commentary. I'm glad that The Washington Post tried to maintain its independence. Let's hope they could continue this. The challenge is that also the traditional media is losing following because people don't trust them anymore. So, I think it's really an opportunity for the media, especially the more independent media, to try to start portraying the correct perspective. And the correct perspective, in my view, is augment the party reporting with the Trump, anti-Trump perspective.

Loney: How much is just the control that both sides want to have in this entire process? Like the control that we see Democrats and Republicans want to have on Capitol Hill, the control that the media outlets want to have, the control that the public on each side of the political aisle wants to have. There's that element of control that seemingly is driving a lot of this.

Wind: I think you're absolutely right. And I think it's a real challenge that goes back to our educational system. I think our education system really failed in encouraging people to listen to the other side, to seek win-win solutions as opposed to, I have to win and kill the other side. I think it's truly a failure of our educational system of not developing this ability to listen to the other side and try to find win-win solutions.

But given this, that the solution here, as opposed to just giving up, and control definitely explains part of the behavior here, I think we should try to change it. We have to try to change it and have enlightened journalism. I was delighted that you accepted little op-ed. I'm delighted that you want to follow up on this. And I hope that more independent journalists will do it and start realizing the reality we're dealing with. Because on every single issue that we face, the division is not Democrat-Republican. The division is pro-Trump and anti-Trump.