The partisans are blind to their own faults. My Democratic Party friends invited my wife and I to a « meet the candidate » soirée during the last election. I believe that they wanted NPAs there. I liked the candidate. She had an engineering degree and shared many of my most important concerns. She seemed sincerely open minded and willing to listen. I immediately thought « I can vote for her. »
During her presentation she explained that she needed 100% of Democrats and 50% of independents. She went on to explain that independents were concerned about defunding the police, trans ideology in schools, inflation, the environment (water,air, uncontrolled growth), immigration and so forth.
The Party ideologues angrily shouted her down. None if these things were real anywhere and the only real threat was Trump and evil Republicans. I kept all of my questions to myself and this nice, thoughtful woman retreated to Republican bashing. Her target audience never had the chance to hear her ideas. I wanted to get away from those people as fast as possible. She got creamed in the election.
I am sure that the same thing happens in majority Democratic districts.
The parties are filled with corrupt ideologues. They pass bills to enrich themselves and their families at the expense of their country and communities. Partisans only see problems on the imaginary « other side. » They deny reality, especially their own faults.
I miss the WWII generation. Now, we are all victims of the partisan spoils system controlled by private political parties. The Democratic Party prevented me from voting in the primary by giving me a preordained single choice. The last Republican challenger dropped out before the primaries in my state. Normal people with executive experience are demonized by our major news outlets that speak with one shallow voice. Nothing good can come from this.
I prefer the French system to our own. At least I could have voted for any number of competent candidates at least once. Joining a party today means aligning oneself with the anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, and increasingly antisemitic forces.
I may be wrong, but I don’t hear many comparisons of our problems to Kenya, Lebanon, or Bosnia-Herzewhatever. It was interesting to learn of these, but I think mostly we compare Now to Before. And I think the shift is not so much on policy as in what your science calls affective polarization — seeing the other side as immoral or detesting them.
The Democrats view of Republican immorality did this: 35% (2016), 47% (2019), 63% (2022). While the Republicans reciprocated with 47% (2016), 55% (2019), 72% (2022). Where’s that going?
OK, the super-polarized countries are characterized by ethnic, religious or cultural divisions, to me that sounds pretty familiar: Attitudes toward Blacks & Jews, Born-agains, and a 60-year culture war.
While I agree we are nowhere near Civil-War levels, I would have liked to hear more about how CRT/Identity Politics (our side of the culture war) is stoking this.
Personally, I’m not so worried about where we are as where we are going. My political epiphany came in 1972 (50 years ago, when you say we were not so polarized). After 8 years of Black Power (proto-CRT), McGovern admitted I opened the doors to the Party and 20 million people walked out (40% of Dems were lost); talk about swing voters.
I think you’re right, that affective polarization was not as bad. I love learning from Persuasion, but I do wish we were building that fighting community you talked about at the start.
A quick read of these readers comments seems to explode your theories Yascha on the importance or lack of it, of the presence of a divide in the American electorate. American politics breeds contempt and alas hatred, of those on the other side of the political aisle. This is also present in other countries for sure, but America is the big boy on the block at this time in history and seems to come in for more scrutiny and derision than other democracies. How about a series on what is needed to ameliorate this worsening state of affairs?
I dont think any one of these four ‘myths’ is? worth discussing. Take these last two (1) what the Clinton to Biden shifts actually tell us is precisely the opposite of what Professor Mounk asserts. There was no, zero, nada shift in trumps votes and Biden got most of the votes of the few swing voters who had voted for 3rd parties in 2016. Looks to me as though roughly 3% of the electorate can be counted as swing. (2) comparing us to Lebanon is just dumb. Finally while I don’t think actual civil war is likely , I do think that the chances of what you might call a soft split are,much higher than political scientists acknowledge. Trump will,probably win - one way or another - so we’ll get a test. Do you really think that the more than 50% of the country that has voted against Trump in 3 elections (I’m including 2024) will put up sedately with the regime that Trump has signaled ?
And your sky is falling won’t happen if Trump wins. Harris is just as awful pretending to move to the center but if she wins she’ll go as far left as possible which is also destructive to our constitution —- but neither will be able to do much, our country will remain divided… if Harris wins the D’s will be stuck with her unless there’s an open convention & hopefully the R’s will get a sane nominee.
The partisans are blind to their own faults. My Democratic Party friends invited my wife and I to a « meet the candidate » soirée during the last election. I believe that they wanted NPAs there. I liked the candidate. She had an engineering degree and shared many of my most important concerns. She seemed sincerely open minded and willing to listen. I immediately thought « I can vote for her. »
During her presentation she explained that she needed 100% of Democrats and 50% of independents. She went on to explain that independents were concerned about defunding the police, trans ideology in schools, inflation, the environment (water,air, uncontrolled growth), immigration and so forth.
The Party ideologues angrily shouted her down. None if these things were real anywhere and the only real threat was Trump and evil Republicans. I kept all of my questions to myself and this nice, thoughtful woman retreated to Republican bashing. Her target audience never had the chance to hear her ideas. I wanted to get away from those people as fast as possible. She got creamed in the election.
I am sure that the same thing happens in majority Democratic districts.
The parties are filled with corrupt ideologues. They pass bills to enrich themselves and their families at the expense of their country and communities. Partisans only see problems on the imaginary « other side. » They deny reality, especially their own faults.
I miss the WWII generation. Now, we are all victims of the partisan spoils system controlled by private political parties. The Democratic Party prevented me from voting in the primary by giving me a preordained single choice. The last Republican challenger dropped out before the primaries in my state. Normal people with executive experience are demonized by our major news outlets that speak with one shallow voice. Nothing good can come from this.
I prefer the French system to our own. At least I could have voted for any number of competent candidates at least once. Joining a party today means aligning oneself with the anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, and increasingly antisemitic forces.
I may be wrong, but I don’t hear many comparisons of our problems to Kenya, Lebanon, or Bosnia-Herzewhatever. It was interesting to learn of these, but I think mostly we compare Now to Before. And I think the shift is not so much on policy as in what your science calls affective polarization — seeing the other side as immoral or detesting them.
The Democrats view of Republican immorality did this: 35% (2016), 47% (2019), 63% (2022). While the Republicans reciprocated with 47% (2016), 55% (2019), 72% (2022). Where’s that going?
OK, the super-polarized countries are characterized by ethnic, religious or cultural divisions, to me that sounds pretty familiar: Attitudes toward Blacks & Jews, Born-agains, and a 60-year culture war.
While I agree we are nowhere near Civil-War levels, I would have liked to hear more about how CRT/Identity Politics (our side of the culture war) is stoking this.
Personally, I’m not so worried about where we are as where we are going. My political epiphany came in 1972 (50 years ago, when you say we were not so polarized). After 8 years of Black Power (proto-CRT), McGovern admitted I opened the doors to the Party and 20 million people walked out (40% of Dems were lost); talk about swing voters.
I think you’re right, that affective polarization was not as bad. I love learning from Persuasion, but I do wish we were building that fighting community you talked about at the start.
A quick read of these readers comments seems to explode your theories Yascha on the importance or lack of it, of the presence of a divide in the American electorate. American politics breeds contempt and alas hatred, of those on the other side of the political aisle. This is also present in other countries for sure, but America is the big boy on the block at this time in history and seems to come in for more scrutiny and derision than other democracies. How about a series on what is needed to ameliorate this worsening state of affairs?
I dont think any one of these four ‘myths’ is? worth discussing. Take these last two (1) what the Clinton to Biden shifts actually tell us is precisely the opposite of what Professor Mounk asserts. There was no, zero, nada shift in trumps votes and Biden got most of the votes of the few swing voters who had voted for 3rd parties in 2016. Looks to me as though roughly 3% of the electorate can be counted as swing. (2) comparing us to Lebanon is just dumb. Finally while I don’t think actual civil war is likely , I do think that the chances of what you might call a soft split are,much higher than political scientists acknowledge. Trump will,probably win - one way or another - so we’ll get a test. Do you really think that the more than 50% of the country that has voted against Trump in 3 elections (I’m including 2024) will put up sedately with the regime that Trump has signaled ?
Swing voters? Not going to vote for either. Both are equally awful
Insults are your form of debate? No thanks
And your sky is falling won’t happen if Trump wins. Harris is just as awful pretending to move to the center but if she wins she’ll go as far left as possible which is also destructive to our constitution —- but neither will be able to do much, our country will remain divided… if Harris wins the D’s will be stuck with her unless there’s an open convention & hopefully the R’s will get a sane nominee.