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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, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday January 27 2020, @07:01PM (26 children)
We're getting more of that than we used to. As in, more Americans under age 40 have a college degree of some kind than ever before in the country's history. And at least some of those degrees involved some sort of encounter with the concept of critical thinking, data synthesis, or in general not just believing what somebody tells you.
Yeah, but if you do that, then it's harder for the boss to fool their employees with talk about company loyalty or future rewards if you just put up with a lousy situation now.
That's part of a very specific con that's been going on for approximately 40 years. A problem what we now call "movement conservatives" were running into was that they wanted to eliminate Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, because after reading Ayn Rand they decided the government giving people money and/or services was bad unless the people in question were themselves, but those programs were and still are extremely popular. So they hatched the following plan:
1. Cut taxes relentlessly, because tax cuts are popular. Do not cut spending significantly, or even increase it, to cause massive deficits.
2. Wait until the federal budget becomes completely insolvent.
3. When a Democrat is president, use that budget crisis to argue that the Only Possible Solution (tm) is making cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, and that to do anything else is irresponsible spending.
4. Go to the voters and complain about how the Evil Democrats made cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.
Step 1 started early in the Reagan administration, and Newt Gingrich's GOP thought they were going to make step 3 finally happen in the mid-1990's, but then the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke and they put the plan on hold. They did a second round starting at the beginning of the George W Bush administration, and then Paul Ryan's GOP tried and failed to force the Obama administration into step 3 using self-created budget crises and government shutdowns. And guess what was one of the first things the Trump administration did? If you guessed "massive unfunded tax cut", you were right. And I can guarantee you that the next Democratic president will be subject to exactly the same effort by the GOP regardless of who it is in office.
If you want to see this kind of pattern in a microcosm, look at what's been going on with the US Postal Service. It was operating just fine for decades, then the Republicans mandated that they start funding the retirement plan far more than any other organization ever has had to (75 years into the future, so funding the retirements of employees that are 5 years from being born), and now they're going around saying "the US Postal Service is insolvent, we have to privatize it".
It's the same strategy as one half of a couple wanting to replace something, the other half doesn't, so the half that wants a replacement breaks the item in question to force the other half to agree to replace it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:20PM (18 children)
Don't worry, George Soros intends to fix that real soon. [bloomberg.com] At last courses such as "Gendered Memories of the Holocaust", "Ethnic Quotas and Affirmative Action in Higher Education" and "Communism and Gender: Historical and Global Perspectives" will get the financial backing to launch a million barristas into the workforce.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 27 2020, @09:30PM (17 children)
Thanks. Confirmed the assertion in the title very well.
Unironically linking to a article from Bloomberg, of all places. The billionaire running for office because he is concerned not enough billionaires are in the race.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:08AM (16 children)
Social Justice courses are built around discredited ideas and churn out dogma spewing activists. If you think it's more acceptable when it comes from the left as opposed the right (eg: creationism) then it is you who are polarized.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:33AM (15 children)
I have no views about Social Justice courses because they will never affect me in any way.
Now tell me about how "the Jews" are taking over.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:03AM (13 children)
I'm a Jew and I think your juxtaposition there is unfair. One can be skeptical of what might be termed the "SJW curriculum" for good intellectual reasons and also for valid economic ones. For example, the Seattle school district is going to do away with its middle school gifted and talented program because it has too many whites and asians. This is is the concept of equity (as distinct from equality) in action -- it is the Harrison Bergeroning of public education -- rather than help kids learn, they will depress the learning opportunities of smart kids because not enough black kids make it (and some of the most vocal opponents are the black parents of smart kids). Equity of outcome means pushing people down and grade inflating others up. You need to be concerned whenever you hear the word "equity" in a place you used to hear "equality" because it is incredibly costly, both socially and financially. Worse, all it does is cement race stereotypes and plants the seeds for discord.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:38AM (1 child)
I made the "Jew" crack because almost every time someone complains about social justice of some kind on this site, they then go off on some kind of "The Jews are taking over" rant.
I meant no offence, my sister is actually Jewish too.
Anyway, I'm sorry your local schools are so poorly run, but that indicates far worse problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:00AM
It starts with the colleges https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRdayXEOwuMG9DG66Bvx6YbUnhw-buS5K [youtube.com] and spreads to government https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKDWTwQ41Wk [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:53AM (10 children)
I'm in the thick of this in the bluest part of blue, blue Brooklyn. Some are trying to get rid of gifted & talented because of equity concerns, but it's just a dodge. Wealthy white parents have built what amount to private schools inside the public education system, using public dollars. Those schools are overwhelmingly white and wealthy. If you are not from a wealthy white family, but instead are black or Latino, then the gifted & talented program is one of very, very few avenues you have to get out of your zoned school.
So what those white liberal crusaders are doing (and well they know it) is not helping the black and brown kids at all, but fucking them over twice as hard while patting themselves on the back about how virtuous they are.
We're trying to change the school zones now, because it is the educational equivalent of the redlining banks did in the 60's to deny home and business loans to minority folks, and you should watch the wealthy white parents show up and flip the fuck out: "I fully support more diversity and educational opportunity, but...my kids might have to walk two blocks further to school and their. Little. Legs. Can't. Go. That. Far. (sad, sad, sad expression and tears of concern dripping down Penelope's nose)."
The polarization is by design, and the white liberal woke are the absolute worst.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:07AM (2 children)
A microcosm of the meritocracy mindset.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:13PM (1 child)
Not sure what to make of that comment. Merit is a vast system with multiple avenues for achievement and reward So what if the majority of scientists and entrepreneurs are Jewish, asian and white while the majority of basketball players and footballers are black? Equal opportunity and equal outcome are very different things and the latter can only be enforced via oppression.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:07AM
Your racist observations aside, the point was to point out the fallacy of "meritocracy." It quite often just means letting the privileged continue being privileged.
Academic outcomes are strongly tied to socio-economic status and parental education. So perhaps it isn't the races so much as families passing on good practices. Have a child genius raised by monkeys and don't expect much beyond them being good at remembering where the berries are.
The concept of meritocracy is broken and results in massive inequality. Should the person with a 1380 on their SAT be allowed to have a job while 1250 puts them below the cutoff and they must live in poverty forever? Even though the same menial job they're competing for would be capably handled by either candidate?
The problem with you racists (sorry but you're need to put forth racial stats for various fields makes that seem inevitable) is that you take the easy explanation. You look at first order correlations and come away with eugenics and white power movements.
If you're just being a troll, or you're simply race-curious, then good. Please don't continue down that road.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 01 2020, @12:11AM (6 children)
> The polarization is by design, and the white liberal woke are the absolute worst.
No they aren't. They're annoying and ineffectual, but they are far from "the absolute worst." You have to believe they are worse than people outright calling for genocide to believe that, and if you do, I have some bad news for you...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 01 2020, @04:53AM (5 children)
Are you talking about the Bernie Sanders campaign workers promising re-education camps and guillotines [youtube.com] for Trump voters? Or maybe you're thinking of the Bernie supporter that tried to assassinate Republican Congressmen [wikipedia.org] at a baseball practice? I don't think they or Antifa are representative of Bernie supporters and are in fact a radical minority on the left. But white supremacists are equally rare on the right.
I say the white liberal woke are the worst because they are virulently racist but are too cowardly to come out and say it. They exercise their racism with subtle, invisible, structural means; those tactics have been incredibly successful at destroying black and latino advancement for 70 years. All the while they make kewpie doll eyes and swear up and down how caring they are. It's sickening, and it keeps racism from being faced honestly and resolved.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 01 2020, @03:05PM (4 children)
No, Phoenix. I am speaking of the people who goose-step in the streets throwing the Heil and celebrating Hitler's birthday. I am speaking of the Stormfronters and worse.
If you actually think affirmative action is equivalent to calling for a white ethnostate or ethnic cleansing, you are worse than delusional, you're willfully ignorant. Then again, aren't you also the whining little manchild who thinks Christians are "persecuted" in the US? Take your self-serving "butbutbut LIBRULZ'R THUH REAL RAYSISZ HURR!" bullshit and shove it up your lying ass so hard you choke on it. You're so full of it you're leaking at the seams.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 01 2020, @08:50PM (3 children)
Have you ever read Stormfront? Those people are so pitifully anemic they couldn't organize a march out of a wet paper bag. I grew up next to the Idaho panhandle, the supposed epicenter of white supremacy in the United States, and have never seen so much as a swastika or other white supremacist symbol there much less a march with people throwing the Nazi salute. And this was back in their heyday, before they got broken up and taken down by the FBI, ATF, IRS, and other government agencies.
This supposed "rise in white supremacy" is a figment of your imagination.
I didn't say anything about affirmative action. I never have. I did ask why "shooting up synagogues" proves "rising anti-Semitism" when shooting up churches does not also prove rising anti-Christian hatred. Because to me those two things signify that people in the United States are being killed for their religious beliefs. Or does it not matter if people you (presumably) hate, Christians, are dying also?
A person who was not blinded by tribal hatred and rank hypocrisy could consider that point without shrieking, Azuma.
Further, I pointed out that through the lens of my experience with trying to de-segregate elementary and middle schools in Brooklyn, NY, that white liberal "woke" people are incredibly racist and two-faced about it, such that black and latino kids don't get even a minimally adequate education while the rich white kids get to choose between more than one style of opera after-school enrichment classes to take. The white liberal woke people don't even have the integrity or balls to come out and declare that's what they're doing, so I find them especially despicable. I mean, hey, something's at work if blue, blue New York City has the most segregated school system in the US (per the Washington Post, June 2017).
But what do I know? Azuma, a woman who doesn't volunteer many hours every week as a civic leader to de-segregate schools in New York City surely knows more about it than I do. Surely you are a vastly superior moral being who is so more upright than lesser beings like myself who, pshaw, actually get off their ass and go places to help others. Indeed I cannot hold a candle to a supreme avatar of virtue such as you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 01 2020, @10:46PM (2 children)
Okay, first of all, I don't hate Christians (or Jews, or Muslims); what I hate is the ideology. You may know this concept under the thought-terminating cliche "hate the sin, love the sinner." If you are so wedded to your belief system that you believe someone pointing out the internal and external problems with it--chief among them being that if your God exists, it's some species of demon--that is a problem with you, not me. From this vantage point, it's like a man with tuberculosis claiming that he, himself, *is* tuberculosis.
Second, cram the fake moral outrage. I grew up in that city, spent the first 27 years of my life in it, and am very well familiar with 1) the amount of de-facto segregation that goes on and 2) the failures of middle-class and rich self-appointed "liberals" to do anything about it. Class is the final determining factor. I remember being one of three white kids in my grade for a couple of years, and no one seemed to have a problem with me for it. It sucked that I couldn't speak Cantonese or Spanish but that was my "fault" if anyone's. Why was I practically the only white kid in the school? Simple: poverty. As you were talking about. We *should* be on the same side here, but you have a permanent persecution complex.
Christians, again, are the furthest thing from persecuted it is possible to be in the US. You want to be persecuted as a Christian? Staple a flag to your ass and airmail yourself to Iran. We've had 44 Christian presidents in a row (I seriously doubt 45's claims...), senior staff like Mike Pompeo are making foreign policy explicitly predicated on Christian eschatology, and Christian ideologues are stuffing the judiciaries nationwide to get their culture-war bills passed. You are the exact opposite of persecuted.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 05 2020, @02:59AM (1 child)
Yeah, that sounds rather like saying, "Oh, no, no, I don't hate you. I just hate the fact that you live in sin because you're a homosexual."
I submit that you are a bigot, with the only difference from the Nazi kind being that the target of your hatred is a (currently) more socially acceptable one among the Left. Ask yourself if you would call a Jew lamenting attacks on synagogues a "whining man-child." I bet you wouldn't. Ask yourself if you would call a gay man who survived the attack on the club in Florida a "whining man-child" for talking about it. I bet you wouldn't. But you call me that for daring, having the gall, to mention attacks on churches in the same thread in which attacks on synagogues were discussed.
No, I don't. I have never been persecuted in a meaningful way for factors I can't control. But my gender, race, religion, and culture have been disparaged constantly in the national discourse since I was a small child, and even my sexual orientation has been added to the list in the last half decade. I'm tired of it. I have lived overseas, speak several languages, have a world-class education, and have been intimately involved in politics and civic life in NYC for the last twenty years; I know exactly how full of shit the people peddling that nonsense are, and how mercenary it all is. I know full well what a stinking bunch of hypocrites the people pushing those memes are.
There was a citation of recent attacks on synagogues as "proof of rising white supremacy!!!", except the guy that attacked the orthodox in Rockland County was black and could hardly be called a champion of white supremacy. Further, I know that area well because we started house-hunting in the area just to the west of there two months ago; Orthodox dominate it so thoroughly that it could almost be considered a Jewish ethno-state. There is a lot of tension between the black community and the Orthodox community there, just like there is in Crown Heights in Brooklyn (where they had race riots a couple decades ago).
So the facts be damned, the narrative must be served. And it must be served because it's so darn lucrative.
Finally, you're just fucking dense to suppose that a Protestant man married to a Korean Catholic, who has two beautiful children with her, and who lives in the bluest, most progressive, most diverse part of Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY, is in fact a closet white supremacist. I have given my adult life to working for the environment through the Sierra Club and Green Peace. The last seven years I have spent all my free time working on de-segregating schools in Brooklyn. Whatever life choices a white supremacist might make, they look like the total opposite of those I have made.
Honestly, I don't know if you have lost your mind because the DNC is cheating Bernie (and all the other non-establishment candidates) again or what, but you have lost your mind.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 05 2020, @03:46AM
Read the reply to your other post, and thank your lucky stars I saw *that* one first, because this one does nothing but prove all the worst things I said about you and a number of others I didn't even think of before reading it. This is beyond insulting. You have no idea who or what you are dealing with here, and if *anyone* has lost their mind it's you!
Where the fuck did I ever call you a white supremacist, closet or otherwise?! What the actual hell?!
If you really think your gender, race, religion, culture, and sexual orientation are under threat, you're beyond reasoning with. You, yes you, personally, you, Phoenix666, are the normative barometer in ALL of those in the US! You are male, white, Christian, middle-class and educated, and (presumably) straight. You are playing this horrible game of the Sims on the easiest difficulty it is possible to play ON without being incredibly wealthy! Your biggest complaint is *disparagement* for fuck's sake, not discrimination or persistent economic injustice or even fucking *genocide!* So people spout off and *say things about you you don't like,* boo-stupid-hoo! Ignore it! Grow a thicker skin! If nothing else, laugh as it all bounces off the impregnable fortress of economic and social security you have as, again, a representative member of *the* social and cultural norm in this country!
I get it, all us uppity queers and non-Christians and feeeeeeeeeeee~males demanding equal treatment *feels* like your world is getting turned upside down. You are such a zero-sum thinker! You see someone rising and think it means you're sinking, like there's only so much "human rights juice" to go around, is that it? You think every single person who isn't like you and is rightfully pointing out how skewed and unjust this world is wants you personally to suffer and die? You really think people like me want to use your head as a springboard on the way up?
I have some bad news for you: if you do, *you are one short step away from Runaway and others of his ilk.* Yes, even with all your precious Sierra Club activism and your Greenpeace membership and your Korean Catholic wife and your two beautiful interracial babies and allllll the other virtue-signalling you've been doing. If this is the real you, if this is what you truly believe, if you are honestly this zero-sum and panicked and shortsighted, *you are just a politer version of Runaway.* Or at least have the potential to become like him.
I know, the truth hurts. You need to take a good look at yourself, even if it's some mouthy dyke on the Internet who's holding up the mirror to you. You are now at a crossroads: you can take this post as the final confirming piece of evidence for your feelz-based persecution complex and follow the road Runaway and his kind have, or you can reflect on it and do some soul-searching.
Keep this in mind: I would not be going off on you and wasting my time typing this up if I thought you were irreedeemable or a bad seed. No, I think you have the makings of a very good person in you indeed. But you're at a dangerous crossroads now, and if you do the easy, lazy, feels-good-in-the-moment thing, you'll lose your soul.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:39PM
They will.
What is this crap? Criticizing George Soros for his character is not anti-Semitic. Note one of the courses I named attempted to shoehorn gender based ideology into studies on the execution of 6 million people. If you had a passing familiarity with "Social Justice" texts, you'd understand that diversity is division and will be achieved by "naming the jew". [twitter.com] I'd suggest verifying the content and tone of these texts for yourself, I suspect you may be horrified.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Monday January 27 2020, @08:03PM (3 children)
Unfortunately that paid their tribute to the academic system, not that they've actually learned anything worthwhile.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @08:13PM (2 children)
Yup: a college degree in being a YES MAN (which I see too often) does not make an educated person.
If you can't think AND change your thinking WHEN (not if) you are wrong, you are useless.
You CAN'T lead when your lips are attached to an asshole.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:00AM (1 child)
But one can pose as a leader, by the metric of how many others are attaching (willingly or not) their lips to one's ass (incidentally, this is the vision of career bureaucrats).
For (far too) many, posing is just enough - don't tell me this surprises you.
(note: bureaucracy is not inherent to public institutions. One will find such persons inside the mid-management in companies, usually those that will show you an MBA paper)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:09AM
How so very true. The most memorable illustration of this was an interesting text called: "The Peter Principle" [1] I encountered in my youth.
I thought it '+1 Insightful" then, and still do many decades later. :-)
*note: I find the parallel between 'The Peter Principle" and 'Idiocracy' disturbing: both intended as satires, that became somewhat seemingly predictive.
{1}https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle/ [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 27 2020, @10:51PM (2 children)
Confusion between "schooling" and "education" detected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:14AM (1 child)
I didn't confuse schooling and education, I said specifically that over the course of their schooling there's a good chance they at some point learned a specific skill that was being taught. Critical thinking and healthy skepticism are a big part of those liberal arts degrees that a lot of STEM types like to hate.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:45AM
I'm afraid this takes a bit more time than a single term elective with an exam at the end.
I have this nagging feeling that some 4-5 years of apprenticeship is barely cutting it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford