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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Political polarization among Americans has grown rapidly in the last 40 years—more than in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Germany—a phenomenon possibly due to increased racial division, the rise of partisan cable news and changes in the composition of the Democratic and Republican parties.
That's according to new research co-authored by Jesse Shapiro, a professor of political economy at Brown University. The study, conducted alongside Stanford University economists Levi Boxell and Matthew Gentzkow, was released on Monday, Jan. 20, as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
In the study, Shapiro and colleagues present the first ever multi-nation evidence on long-term trends in "affective polarization"—a phenomenon in which citizens feel more negatively toward other political parties than toward their own. They found that in the U.S., affective polarization has increased more dramatically since the late 1970s than in the eight other countries they examined—the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden.
"A lot of analysis on polarization is focused on the U.S., so we thought it could be interesting to put the U.S. in context and see whether it is part of a global trend or whether it looks more exceptional," Shapiro said. "We found that the trend in the U.S. is indeed exceptional."
Using data from four decades of public opinion surveys conducted in the nine countries, the researchers used a so-called "feeling thermometer" to rate attitudes on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 reflected no negative feelings toward other parties. They found that in 1978, the average American rated the members of their own political party 27 points higher than members of the other major party. By 2016, Americans were rating their own party 45.9 points higher than the other party, on average. In other words, negative feelings toward members of the other party compared to one's own party increased by an average of 4.8 points per decade.
The researchers found that polarization had also risen in Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland in the last 40 years, but to a lesser extent. In the U.K., Australia, Germany, Norway and Sweden, polarization decreased.
More information: Levi Boxell et al, Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization, (2020). DOI: 10.3386/w26669
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GlennC on Monday January 27 2020, @06:28PM (8 children)
The reality is that there's only the ILLUSION of two parties.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @06:52PM (5 children)
Wrong: there ARe two parties: there's the party that favors the rich and the party that screws the poor! Get it right, Glenn!
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:10PM
Best description yet. Many consider the distinction important. The rich and powerful are going to always try and game the system, and given no viable alternative in the interim we should choose the ones that don't actively screw the poor.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:27AM
That's another way to look at it. :D
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:56AM
Wrong: there ARE two parties: there's the party that favors the rich and screws the poor, AND, there's the party that screws the poor and favors the rich.
FTFY
(Score: 2) by dak664 on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:36PM (1 child)
Is false false dichotomy a true dichotomy?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @04:34PM
Only in boolean logic.
But why would you restrict yourself to binary when you can have the delights of fuzzy logic [wikipedia.org] at a price no higher than the boolean (still between 0 and 1).
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday January 27 2020, @09:11PM (1 child)
This, this very much.
Both parties are heavily invested in perpetuating this to ensure they stay in power.
The "Presidential National Debates" are a mockery, paid for by Democrats and Republicans working together (!), specifically to disinclude alternatives, as one example.
Anything they actually agree on should instantly call your attention, they work so hard to differentiate from each other 99% of the time.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 27 2020, @09:18PM
Exactly, and they're really good at it too.
Another way of putting it would be that your ruling class have done a fine job of preventing the working class from having a say in government, but of course comments like this one:
show just how well the brainwashing has worked.