Combative Politics: The Media and Public Perceptions of Lawmaking by Mary Layton Atkinson

     Combative Politics is more of a study than a survey book, and goes into the empirical details of Atkinson's research on the news and perceptions of politics and policy. There are a few major findings. First, the news media tends to use the conflict framing when covering politics, meaning that the primary way of framing news from Congress is "Democrats say this, Republicans say that." Without getting too deep into the details of why this happens, she does mention that this may be because it satisfies a feeling of objectivity to "get both sides" and that it may be more interesting to news consumers than a discussion of policy. Second, this framing serves to reduce the esteem of the public for the lawmaking process. That is, rather than see policy disagreement as part of healthy public debate, most of the public see it as "playing politics." Politicians themselves also feed into this narrative by accusing their opponents of putting party over country, rather than focusing on the merits of their opponents' arguments. And third, this framing also serves as a useful tool for the minority party or group to drag out opposition to legislation, because simply opposing a bill for long enough and loudly enough is usually enough to convince independents that it is a bad bill. And so the study finds tons of examples of laws where people agree with all the actual provisions of the law, but go from supporting the law to opposing it after months or years of high-profile opposition without the bill changing. For instance, on laws supporting gay marriage in the mid-2000s, Atkinson finds that prolonged opposition led support for the laws to drop ten to twenty percentage points, with most of the drop coming from independents. 

    It would probably be better for the public discourse if journalists focused less on the partisan conflict "game" and more on the fundamental reasons for conflict. This coverage would reinforce a different public view, that genuine differences of opinion motivate policy debate. Until this happens, many Americans will continue to see policy not as an attempt to solve a problem, but as bickering to advance partisan interests. But the partisan framing used in the media turns the legislation from an attempt to solve a problem into a piece on the larger chessboard of partisan conflict. It makes me think that a possible solution is to actually make politics more like the Senate, with a higher standard of decorum. Thinking about how people see the Supreme Court, for example, may show that higher standards of civility are what the public want from lawmakers. A lot of the book seems to suggest that the media and the public take their cues from lawmakers, so if lawmakers practice better decorum, that might improve public discourse. But partisanship also means that whatever a Democrat favors, a Republican will oppose, so that may backfire if it becomes partisan. Education may also be a solution, as more highly educated voters are more likely to believe that members of Congress are trying to do what they think is right for the country. And another solution, which is not sustainable on a large scale, is "stealth democracy." Using the ADA as an example, Atkinson shows how major legislation can be passed when there is bipartisan agreement and it doesn't make news. After it was enacted, only 18% of Americans were aware of what happened.