I know in the past decade or so this subject has been examined by many…..but it is getting out of hand and deserves a closer look and often.
This is a report I read recently….it is a good look at what has been happening in this country for at least twenty years. (Personally I think it began way before their assertion)(I shall explain my disagreement later in this post)
This article posits that this polarization began in 2008 or the Obama years….
Forget Donald Trump. A new analysis suggests the U.S. public’s sharp lurch into polarization began in 2008, years before his first presidential campaign.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Political Psychology Lab tracked shifts in Americans’ views across nearly four decades and found that divisions were broadly stable through the 1990s and early 2000s, before rising steadily from 2008 onward. Using more than 35,000 responses from the American National Election Studies between 1988 and 2024, they estimate that issue polarization has increased 64% since the late 1980s, with almost all of that change occurring after 2008.
The research uses a machine-learning approach to move beyond party labels and better understand what actually drives Americans’ political views. Instead of relying on whether respondents identify as Republican or Democrat, the team grouped people based on patterns in what they believe across a range of issues, from abortion and “traditional family values” to race, inequality, and health insurance. That distinction matters because in many countries politically opposite parties do not exist, says David Young, a psychology researcher at the University of Cambridge, U.K., and one of the study’s authors. “You might even want to study countries where there are no parties, like Saudi Arabia,” he says.
The paper challenges the idea that polarization is solely a Trump-era phenomenon. It points to 2008 as the “major turning point,” a year that also included the financial crisis, Barack Obama’s election, and the widespread adoption of the iPhone-era internet. “Our ability to nail down when it starts is slightly divided by the fact that we only have data points every four years,” Young says. Still, “we know that this increase starts from our 2008 data point,” he adds. “That’s our best guess at the starting point.”
Now my disagreement.
I say that the polarization began with the election of Reagan…..he weaponized the religious Right and emboldened every conspiracist that waddled out of the ether.
One could go back to the Goldwater years as the fodder that lit the flame of polarization.
We can say that conservatism is about free enterprise, smaller government, lower taxes, yada, yada…..but let’s be real in conservatism there is the privileged class and then us peasants…..we disguise it anyway we like but the simple fact is wealth knows best.
Thanks to Uncle Donny we see their true colors now….they no longer hide their distaste for the people.
This must be met with equal force by those that think that the people of this country are the important nay the only important issue.
Until then this slide will continue and god only knows where it will lead.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
I tend to agree with you, chuq. The era of Reagan/Thatcher was the final nail in the coffin of both our countries. It just took a while for the worst to kick in.
Best wishes, Pete.
It has been a long time coming…..now we need to do something about it. chuq
It’s a very interesting point you make: Reagan did indeed flame the “morning in America” era where our self-interests began to create an “us versus them” mentality that started the great divide…and there hasn’t been a great unifier since….
I think Reagan’s intent was not an “us versus them” matter. But unity and hope in a hopeful “we” for all. However, “us vs them” seems to be the dynamic of contemporary society. I will ever resent the contempt Hillary had for half of America and her unparralled grandiosity rooted in the idea that there must be something inferiour about about the vermin that did not worship her.
He weaponized religion and it went on from there. chuq
Give credit to Hillary, a maser of idendity politics and the otherization and demonizing opponent thinkers.
Carl the demonization comes from both sides and Hillary is the only one you know. chuq
The polarization was little noted anywhere until the day that the female governor of Alaska (I can’t remember her name right now) started talking about Red States and Blue States. That is where it started for serious division…Polarization is, of course, the chief “Boring From Within” stategery embraced with massive ejaculatory force by the really right wing radical lunatics.
John I dis agree the process began decades before Palin. chuq