Partisan affiliation : the new opium of the people ?

The rise of abstention in western countries seem to be the proof that less and less people identify themselves with political parties. Indeed with an average 50% abstention at the presidential election for the United States and 60% for European elections, people are apparently becoming different to parties. This concern is widely express as it appears with this article http://www.libdemvoice.org/politics-is-losing-people-especially-young-people-what-do-we-do-about-it-36090.html. Yet according to Green, Palmquist and Schikler, the reality is quite opposite to this impression.

In Partisan hearts and minds, their thesis is that partisan identity is actually stronger than other social identifications like gender, class and religion, with the exception of race. Partisan affiliation is in fact close to religious affiliation ; just as religious affiliation, partisan affiliation change are rare and slow to process. For example, as McAdman and Kloos remind us in Deeply Divided, the shift of African Americans from the GOP to the Democrat party took decades to occur. Because stereotypes (positives or negatives) link to party are resilient, thus if people don’t vote for one party with enthusiasm, they are motivated by the defeat of the opposite party.

But despite the arguments of the three authors, it is not certain that partisan affiliation erases social and racial cleavages. On the contrary according to Brooks and Manza in Partisan hearts and minds, political division are driven by four major cleavages as race, religion, social class and gender. Moreover, those cleavages are as important today as they were in the past, especially race which is even stronger than before and is the first one by far. Actually, race is going to be even more important for this presidential election du to the presence of Trump, if we follow Pollard in American Socilogical Association. Either way, all of the authors agree that partisan identity is far from being dead or even weaker ; once you attach yourself to a party, you attach yourself to a social group.