SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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, @07:23PM (3 children)
The 2A was about, in no small part, reducing or even eliminating the need for a standing army by having a citizen militia that would defend the country if attacked. That would also make the cost of government a lot lower, as well as reduce the risk of a tyranny forming.
The theory proved wrong in relatively short order, in 2 ways:
1. George Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion by force of arms, demonstrating that the armed populace could not in fact resist the armed government.
2. The professional British Canadian army thoroughly kicked the butts of the US forces during the War of 1812, and it was a minor miracle that the US even survived that mess. So much so that the memory of that lingers on in the national anthem to this day.
So now the US has a large, highly technologically advanced, and extremely expensive standing military. And if a bunch of citizens decided to try to stand up to that force using nothing but civilian small arms, they'd have about as much chance as the Second Spanish Republic did in the 1930's. A lot of guys are out there vastly overestimating their chances in the "AR-15 versus Abrams tank" scenario.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:44PM (1 child)
Remind us again, how did the US military fare in Vietnam and Afghanistan?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:58PM
You mean (Vietnam, Afghanistan) as a military deployed to a foreign country to put down an enemy a lot of Americans didn't care about vs. a military fighting on its own soil for the existence of the country that commands them (a civil war on American soil)?
These two things are not alike.
I notice you left out the last time we had a civil war: the establishment (US govt) won that one.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:18AM
This is a decent read on the topic from the opposite perspective: http://monsterhunternation.com/2018/11/19/the-2nd-amendment-is-obsolete-says-congressman-who-wants-to-nuke-omaha/ [monsterhunternation.com]