Foreign policy, meet the people.

• Author: Shapiro, Robert Y.

THE OLD adage that partisanship ended at the water's edge, no matter the degree of domestic division, is officially debunked. Especially striking now, this partisanship has penetrated to the level of mass public opinion not only on issues like economic welfare, gay rights and abortion but also when it comes to foreign policy--at unprecedented levels. (1) We owe this to the Bush administration's Republican conservatism on domestic issues in tandem with its neoconservativism in foreign policy. Independent voters and the ideologically moderate center of the electorate may remain decisive, but this has not prevented conflict between the extremes from dominating political debate and challenging government's ability to address pressing national problems.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, harkened in our new foreign-policy divide. The unpopular policies of the White House have not been tempered by the close 2004 elections and, worse, even the resounding Republican defeat in the 2006 congressional elections has had no effect. President George W. Bush, not having to worry about reelection, has had his veto pen and signing statements at the ready for both domestic and Iraq wartime policy legislation.

We are skeptical that either presidential candidate, Barack Obama or John McCain, will be able to change the high level of partisan conflict in American politics, even with all their promises. Remember George W. Bush's own claim to be a "uniter not a divider"? Watching the current presidential campaign at this writing, the partisan enmity that exploded during the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the 2000 vote count and the 2004 campaign is alive and well. (2) If this continues, we'll be living in an America crippled by partisan divide--unbridgeable on issues inside and outside our borders.

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RED STATE--Blue State antagonism all started back in the mid-1970s. But what got the blood boiling among the political establishment were domestic-policy prescriptions. Politics became increasingly polarized along both partisan and ideological lines. Defining ideology largely in terms of favoring or opposing an expansive economic and regulatory role for government, (3) during this period the Democratic and Republican Parties became more ideologically cohesive internally and distinctive from one another as civil-rights and racial-equality issues shook up party loyalties. A big part of the story is the South, which became the new base of the Republican Party. Over time, conservative Southern politicians who had been part of the New Deal coalition left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party or were replaced by liberal Democrats. In the Republican Party, liberals and moderates on civil rights and later women's rights no longer had a political home. As new social issues like abortion, gay rights and the like became part of party politics, in both primary and general elections, Democrats and Republicans became the liberals and conservatives as we know them today.

It was not long before these divides penetrated mass public opinion. Because the public relies heavily on partisan leaders for information which the mass media widely cover, we would expect that these...