Golden Media Group – Talk-N-Westtn.com – 101.5 FM – visited with Sean F. Evans, Ph.D. Chair, Department of Political Science at Union University for a Question and Answer session to discuss today’s political landscape and how we got to where we are.
Question: First, a little background information. Where are you originally from, family, education, and career?
Answer: I am originally from Decatur, Alabama. I got my Bachelors in PSC at Lipscomb and my MA at the University of Alabama. After living all my life in the South, I decided I wanted to live someplace different and get a differing perspective, so I pursued my Ph.D. at the University of Colorado.
Boulder was the most liberal, secular, and affluent place I have ever lived. During my time in the department, I was one of only 2 or 3 students who were conservatives and one of three orthodox Christians. My time in Colorado was a great period of personal, intellectual, and spiritual growth.
I interacted with people who were different than me in just about every way imaginable, and it made me a better person. Spiritually, I made my faith my own and learned to explain why I believed what I did and used my life to be salt and light. From that experience, I wanted to teach at a liberal arts college, preferably Christian, so I could teach students how to defend their faith in a secular world.
My first full-time job was here at Union. In 1998, Union created a PSC major and then sought to find someone to teach American politics to complement the international relations professor already here (Ann Livingstone). While here, I met my wife, a nursing professor. We are the first interfaculty marriage in Union history. Other professors came here married to another faculty member, but we were the first two single professors to meet and marry. The second interfaculty marriage at Union involves my current colleague who married a Sociology professor. Union is now up to three interfaculty marriages (two Pharmacy profs married each other).
Question: You serve as the Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Union University. What motivated you to pursue a career in political science?
Answer: Like many PSC majors, I was interested in law school. But the pre-law advisor at Lipscomb gave some good advice. He said all students interested in becoming attorneys should take an attorney to lunch and find out what the law is really like, because it is nothing like what we see on TV or in movies. I did that and found out that was true. My interest was in constitutional law, and there were few jobs in that field outside of teaching at law school.
Once I found that out, I thought about what I was really interested in. For most of my life, I have always enjoyed politics and read biographies of major political figures since a young age.
Eventually, I decided there could be nothing more fun than teaching something I like to people who like the same topic. Thus, I decided to teach PSC at the college level.
Question: When teaching, let’s say you have a classroom of 20 students, where some opinions are the same while others are as different as night and day. How do you teach without leaning one direction or the other?
Answer: Well, Union used to have a more politically diverse student body than it does now.
However, I have never wanted students to tell me what they think I want to hear. So, I try to keep my political ideas out of our discussions. I let students talk about their perspectives, and if no one offers a different perspective, I ask them to explain the other side. In doing this, I have them “steel man” their arguments by requiring them to make the best case for the other side so that if someone who supports that position heard the student, they would say the student was accurately explaining their views. If students can accurately explain the other side’s view, they will develop better critiques, be more respectful, and have a better chance of persuading an opponent.
Sometimes, students struggle with this, so I play devil’s advocate. That is always fun. Explaining other points of view signals to students that those views are valid. The student may not accept those views, but they usually walk away more empathetic and with a better understanding of other people and their ideas. Finally, I can find the good and bad in most things, so I praise and critique both sides when appropriate.
For most of my career, students have had no idea what my political views were. In fact, I was dating my now-wife during the 2008 election, and she could not figure out who I voted for because I would present both sides to her.
Question: How does it happen that the politics of an inner city of a Metropolitan area and the rural area of the same state can be as opposite as they are?
Answer: Simple: Different people have different interests. The differing areas have different racial, economic, and other demographic differences and experiences, which lead to different political views on a range of issues.
We talk about urban-rural polarization, but this is nothing new. For most of the post-Civil War period in Tennessee the biggest divide was between rural and urban areas. In fact, rural areas refused to reapportion and redistrict state and congressional districts from 1901 to 1963 because they knew power would shift to urban areas.
Then the Supreme Court ruled in Baker v. Carr that reapportionment was a justiciable issue, which eventually led to the “one person, one vote” principle, which requires equal population in congressional districting (state legislatures have more flexibility but still have to meet the principle). At that time, both parties were divided by geography. Urban areas were more liberal, and rural areas were more conservative. In fact, West Tennessee Democrats thought they had more in common with Mountain Republicans in East Tennessee than with urban Democrats. Because rural areas were the last part of Tennessee to switch to the GOP (Grand Old Party), rural Democrats had enough power in the state legislature to successfully distinguish the state party from the national party.
Question: Is there a time or an event you can pinpoint as to when this country became so divided (I’m thinking Bush v. Gore 2000)?
Answer: There is no single event that caused our division. It has been a slow process. Post-WWII, both parties had liberal and conservative factions. This required the parties to build broad internal coalitions that could appeal to a wide range of people. However, the GI Bill and other policies led to an increasingly educated public. These individuals got good jobs and became less concerned with survival and more focused on quality-of-life issues.
These activists became the ideologues who took over both parties. Over time, the parties began to take more distinct positions on an increasing number of issues, signaling to liberals in the GOP and conservatives in the Democratic Party that the other party was a better fit for them. The result is that voters sorted into the two parties based on ideology. With more ideological homogeneity within the two parties, party leaders found it easier to build coalitions because most people agreed on policy.
The problem is that while the parties moved to the ideological poles, most Americans remain in the middle. Today, we have two ideologically homogeneous parties that are distinct from each other and use elections to impose an unpopular agenda on the public, leading the public to throw out the incumbent party at the midterms and replace the unpopular president or his party.
Question: Do you ever change your lecture due to a political event such as a Supreme Court ruling, Federal Reserve changes interest rates or drastic changes in crude oil prices?
Answer: I have done that a few times. Obviously, 9/11 changed what I was teaching that day and for the next few days. When Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel who investigated Russiagate during Trump’s first term, issued his report, I had my presidency class read it, and we discussed it in class. Or I will spend the beginning of class talking about an event. Most of the time, I can find a way to weave current events into a lecture or topic I already planned.
Question: Why do you think media outlets decided to go conservative or liberal?
Answer: Like most businesses, media companies try to find a niche to make money. With the explosion of the internet, people could find media resources that told them what they wanted to hear. Some people saw this as an opportunity to make money and advance their political views and seized it.
Question: Could you have ever imagined how technology has influenced politics?
Answer: Technology has always influenced politics. Politicians want to communicate their views to the public and hear what the public has to say. This leads them to find new ways to reach and hear from the public, whether through newspapers, radio, TV, cable, the internet, and social media. In fact, successful politicians today must use multiple media to raise funds, communicate messages, and connect with activists and voters.
We can see this evolution as politicians began starting partisan newspapers, which were eventually replaced by the penny press and tabloid-style news. The introduction of the telegraph meant stories could reach the masses more quickly and led to national publishing empires. They might be partisan, but most of the time they pursued the publisher’s point of view. Then, radio allowed politicians to talk directly to the public. FDR used “Fireside Chats” to explain his program and reassure the public. JFK mastered TV, though he was helped by a supportive press.
Obama used the internet to connect and mobilize his supporters. Trump uses social media more effectively than any other president so far to go around the media and set the media’s agenda.
Moreover, when presidents use a new technology effectively, then other politicians copy it and it diffuses throughout the country.
(PHOTO: Sean Evans)
