This is the sort of thing you read every day, and that columnists write every day, without really thinking about it:

His dream coalition includes decent Republicans and independents, along with young people, African-Americans and lots of new voters who’ve been turned off by the polarization of the Clinton-Bush years.

The author is Joan Walsh, the subject Barack Obama.

Is there any evidence that voters aren’t voting because they’re “turned off” by polarization? If things are really polarized, wouldn’t that be more of a reason to vote? I can understand voters staying away from the polls because of moderation or complacency — the sense that both parties, or both candidates in a race, are basically the same — but if they’re actually “polarized,” radically different, wouldn’t that draw voters to the polls?

And were the Clinton-Bush years especially polarized? Before that we had the Reagan-Bush years, which were pretty polarized, as I recall. Before that it was Nixon-Ford-Carter — Watergate, gas lines, stagflation, hostages, pretty polarizing stuff — and before that we had two of the most polarizing figures in American politics — John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson — who were caught up in a host of incredibly polarizing issues: Vietnam and the Cold War, civil rights/desegregation, the Great Society, &c. The Iraq war is unpopular, but it is far from being a era-defining conflict in the way Vietnam was. Truman was enormously unpopular when he left office, but he isn’t remembered as a particularly polarizing figure, and his administration isn’t thought of being associated with conflicts so bitter that people stop voting.

But columnists trot out this cliche with impunity. A more likely explanation is that most Americans, being very well fed and housed, and enjoying significant disposable income and material comforts that a generation ago were available only to the very wealthy, if they were available at all, do not much care about politics, are bored by politics, or have more important things to do with their time than engage in politics. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. What is unhealthy is the media’ presumption that politics should be at the center of American life, and that Americans’ relative indifference to politics is a sign of disorder rather than a sign of health.