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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: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @09:04PM (3 children)
Yeah: i think Canadians wanted election reform, but yeah: his fellow cabinet members (Liberal) knew that election reform would actual harm them so they quietly let it go away.
Which is why i support Green. They say they support reform: if they were to drop that, i would tell them what's what and drop support.
People need to be more vocal and aware and election 'woke' (although i hate the word, the idea is okay). Too many people vote Conservative, then hate the
Conservatives and vote Liberal, then hate the Liberals and vote Conservative.... too many people DON'T THINK.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by NickM on Monday January 27 2020, @10:07PM (2 children)
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @10:55PM (1 child)
Read some of it and so far like it: the problem is, why do people STILL use Windows: because it is too difficult/no knowledge of other systems. "i can use windows or i can use apple.....i'm using Linux? Really??? I thought i was using android!Too many people are idiots and vote conservative, then vote liberal, then vote conservative, then vote liberal....or vote conservative with no idea, really, why they do.
People are stupid: BUT, i will look further into P3.... this looks interesting: i like the personal choice.
But the people who use windows because "What else is there"....... will they be smart enough to SEE a difference...a choice....another FECKING UNIVERSE.
"To paraphrase Mackenzie King, Canada has little history but a lot of geography."
VERY true: which is Alberta's problem right now because of a lack of forward thinking.
Okay: read teh meat of it. I like it: vote for WHO you want, plus the party you want, plus it opens competition between candidates! Makes good sense!
THIS should be part of the educational system. Period.
--- 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, @11:47PM
Never mind that Trudeau promised electoral reform, then sent out surveys asking tricky questions that weren't "do you want electoral reform Y/N" or "which one of these options for electoral reform (including none) do you prefer", then throwing up his hands and saying the people didn't want it...
Never mind that for the 2019 election, Trudeau asked for strategic voting to avoid a conservative victory, whereas if he actually followed through with his electoral reform promise there would be absolutely no need for strategic voting...
On the other hand you have the conservatives that "solved" first past the post many years ago by their unite-the-right merging of the major parties right of center, because they weren't getting elected enough due to vote splitting. A solution to the first past the post problem that's simple, elegant, and wrong. So if you're slightly more right of center than the Liberals, your only option is the one conservative party, which admittedly has much more of a chance now because now only the non-conservative parties' votes are split. But there's no room for a range of conservatism, you're either with them or against them.