Political polarization is rapidly becoming one of the greatest public issues of our time. As the Pew Research Center has found, fewer Americans are taking centrist views while more are shifting toward the extremes. The consequences are dire: the Pew Research Center found that 73% of Americans say Republicans and Democrats “not only disagree over plans and policies, but also cannot agree on basic facts.” And animus has turned personal; one PRRI study found that 35% of Republicans and 45% of Democrats would be very unhappy if their child married someone from the opposing party.
What accounts for this polarization? Are Americans just more divided over policies, like tax rates, abortion, and immigration? Or are we living in a more tribal era in which political attitudes are driven by partisan loyalties and animus toward opponents—regardless of the policy?
Some may recall when the Jimmy Kimmel show asked Hillary Clinton voters in 2016 if they supported a plan to cut corporate and estate taxes while telling them the plan was Clinton’s idea. The interviewees dutifully agreed, only to be told later that it was actually proposed by Trump rather than Clinton. Kimmel concluded, “It seems to me most people pick a candidate and go along with whatever that candidate says.”
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/are-ideological-differences-only-reason-republicans-democrats-cant-agree
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