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posted by janrinok on Monday January 27 2020, @05:46PM   Printer-friendly

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


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:03PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:03PM (#949476)

    Actual crazy people (not BS like ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and career criminals (not fake crimes like drug felonies) are already excluded from the right to bear arms by The Constitution. What the seditious scum and their useful idiots want, is to be able to deny people fairness, and due process in the stripping of their 2a protected, natural born right.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @08:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @08:04PM (#949518)

    Drug felons usually ARE hardened criminals who have murdered or been involved in serious, non-victimless crimes.
    Don't fall for that friendly pot head myth. They are not present in the prison system in large numbers. It's gang members and murders instead, not simple possession. Except for poor Tommy Chong. They shit on that dude.

  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @09:49PM (1 child)

    by Gaaark (41) on Monday January 27 2020, @09:49PM (#949592) Journal

    Until they are legally declared 'crazy', they can have as many guns as they have money to buy: pistols, rifles, AR-FuckYous, grenade launchers, anti-tank weapons, even tanks themselves....

    ...but yeah, ONCE they are DECLARED 'CRAZY' after killing as many people as they can, yeah...take their weapons away. Sure... makes sense.....

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:47AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:47AM (#949826)

      You wish. Many states and counties don't report their mental illness findings to the national database. Plus, there is no universal background check law. Together means that you can be considered so dangerous as to be involuntarily committed, and legally buy a gun the day you are released, despite being disqualified under federal law due to mental illness.