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 Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:06AM (1 child)
I would say the froth coming from the Establishment and transmitted via their mouthpieces in the media and entertainment, are absolutely apoplectic. They are polarized, and polarizing. They are doing everything they can to cast America and Americans as evil. They hate America's history, they hate its ethos, they hate the people in it. They hate that they won't do what they're told by their betters not in Flyover Country (yes, that's the dismissive little pat on the head spoken by people in New York and California).
The pith, though, is different. Most people show up every day at jobs they don't particularly like, that they wished paid them a little more money, and which they could get more vacation time from. Most people are worried trying to pay their bills and taxes and save enough for their kids' college and still have enough for retirement. Most people are breathing a bit of a sigh of relief right now that the economy is working for them at last. That is where most people, most voters, live, and that experience is common and far outweighs the screamers on social media.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @08:00AM
LOL, all the others, for which the economy doesn't work for, are non-people, amiright?
See page 15 what will expire in 2025 [jct.gov] (PDF warning) - mostly whatever tax cuts were applied for the working people. Afterwards, they'll start paying back the deficit that was created and some more. On the other side, the corporate income tax to 21% stays in place.
True, until then there are some other elections, other congresscritters, time will tell.