If anyone cares at this point, a recap: Kazin, me, Jon Chait, me. Today, Jon Chait weighs in again.
At the outset, Chait says:
Michael Kazin called independent voters largely irrational in their voting. John Sides replied that they’re not irrational, they vote predictably on the basis of economic growth and peace. I replied that it is too irrational:
That’s not what I said. In my original post, I said:
Now, it’s entirely possible to argue that voting based on the economy and war isn’t entirely rational.
Despite the infelicitous repetition of “entirely”—I should not blog after 9 pm—I think I was pretty clearly not endorsing the notion that economic voting was rational. Instead, I hedged because, as I pointed out in my second post, there is a lot of debate about this issue within political science.
Chait then follows up on my point that lots of voters—partisans and independents alike—rationalize their votes based on reasons that don’t actually cause their votes:
But partisans usually have coherent beliefs. At bottom they vote for Democrats because they want to protect abortion rights or they think Republicans only care about the rich, and they vote Republican because they don’t want their money redistributed to freeloaders, or because they want a president who won’t back down militarily. Then they tend to embrace a lot of silly reasons on top of that, taking partisan sides on issues on which they would happily reverse themselves if the show were on the other foot. But that doesn’t make the vote itself irrational. The Wall Street Journal editorial page will forcefully decry recess appointments and fiercely defend independent counsels when the president is a Democrat, and take the reverse position when he’s a Republican. Those arguments themselves are irrational. But the Journal’s preference for Republicans is not itself irrational. They want what’s good for the rich, and they’ll defend politicians who share those goals.
There is some truth to this, but I think Chait’s claim is too strong. Most voters—even most partisans—are not the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Partisans vary a lot in their attention to politics. Remember, 90% of the public is functionally partisan. It would be quite a feat if all 90% had coherent beliefs. But they don’t. Even among partisans, there are plenty of people who have beliefs that are ideologically inconsistent—using standard definitions of what liberals and conservatives believe—or at odds with their party. See, for example, The Persuadable Voter by Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields.
It would also be quite a feat if all 90% had specific reasons, like abortion rights, that actually caused them to vote for their party’s candidate. But people struggle to vote based on political issues. Even if they do have opinions about these issues, they don’t always know where the candidates stand, or perceive one candidate as “closer” to their position, or ultimately use those issues to decide how they vote. In The American Voter Revisited, a team of political scientists calculates that less than half of voters could conceivably vote for president on the basis of even relatively “easy” political issues, like the basic size of government. So plenty of partisans fall into that category. Moreover, even when there is congruence between a partisan’s issue positions and those of a candidate, this often reflects the influence of the latter on the former: many people simply adopt the positions of their party’s candidate. See this paper (gated) by Gabriel Lenz.
Thus, when I see partisans voting loyally for their party’s candidate, I assume that some of them may be doing so because of reasoned and coherent views about politics. But many others do so automatically, making the reasons they give for their choices little more than rationalizations ex post facto.
Chait concludes:
And, in any case, voting on the basis of recent economic growth while convincing yourself you’re voting for some completely unrelated reason is almost by definition irrational. That’s a point Kazin can make without considering the rationality of partisan voters. The culture places immense value upon non-partisanship, which is seen as evidence of discernment, and frowns upon partisan voting. That’s probably why so many people call themselves independent even when they vote like partisans. Kazin was pushing back on that sensibility, and I think he’s right.
I disagree and I agree. I disagree because Kazin said nothing about economic voting. His evidence regarding the apparent “irrationality” of independents was the results of a poll about the debate over the budget deficit. He appeared to suggest that there was nothing underlying their votes at all. I think my original post was a useful corrective of that suggestion.
I agree because, like Chait, I think there is great value in partisanship. Indeed, I have done my share of pushing back against the reification of independents.
