According to Howard and Poole, increased political polarization relates to increased social and economic divisions in the United States in the same period, but in a complex relationship that deals with cause and effect, this relationship involves the people at the top of the pyramid using economic clout in order to support Republican politicians who in return shape the policies of taxation for it to favour more affluent Americans and block changes that were significant to change the status quo during Clinton eras.
The scaling technique is used to measure the status quo in order to measure political polarization to analyze the roll call of votes by congress members in the last 120 years to rate changes in partisanship. The documents for evidence show a strong correlation that exists between demographic and economic characteristics of increased political polarization and congressional districts. Family income, college attendance and a southern location are correlated with many conservative scores and African-American, college degrees and Hispanic constituents resulted in liberal scores becoming more. Relative income was a factor that was statistically significant for voters to support Republican policies such that a change increased partisanship. This income effect in conservative Christian voters and the south is very strong, and people vote for their self–interest economically instead of socially conservative policies. Findings show that if a particular district has a higher income, the outcome of Republicans would be more.
There are less affluent political fortunes for poor immigrants due to their low participation in the political process. Non-citizenship affects voting behaviour due to disenfranchisement used to separate non-citizens from citizens and to share effect making affluent voters not to share with voters who are less affluent, which make voters have redistributive policies that are less attractive. Significant changes are needed in various groups’ loyalties to political parties. If the republicans push the social agenda, they end up alienating economic conservatives in the middle class; if their energies are devoted to the economic agenda, social conservatives in the middle class will be alienated. Alternatively, Democrats may figure out on appeal to Christian moderates by culture rather than by practice through having moderate views on social issues. However, political realignment has come about in the United States due to the great depression and civil war.
The biggest change in media role in the politics of America is where people get the news. Political news in the United States was dominated by network broadcasts and print media. A recent study by a project involved excellent journalism, circulation in daily news dropped by 11%, and there was a one-third decline in viewership of evening news. A large number of Americans are using the Internet to get news. Although there is a large audience in network news, it has a great challenge because networks are supposed to change coverage in order to meet the demands of the new information environment.
The Internet is interacting with media that provide traditional news in order to change campaign advertising. Under finance regulations of the new campaign, it is a requirement for candidates to verify their personal support in broadcast to limit negativity. The Internet has the potential to change the way of financing campaigns because, traditionally, candidates raised money through fund-raisers, personal networking and direct mail, and these methods relied on affluent donors who were very few. The use of the Internet for financial support made future potential candidates able to open the American political system to the outsider candidates who attract support at the grassroots level.