slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Last Fall, the University of Virginia Center for Politics released a poll surveying Americans’ feelings about their political opponents.

According to the poll, 80 percent of Biden v**ers and 84 percent of Trump v**ers believed that elected officials of the opposite party present a “clear and present danger to American democracy”; 78 percent of Biden v**ers believed that the Republican Party wanted to eliminate the influence of “progressive values” in American life, while 87 percent of Trump v**ers believed that the Democrats wanted to eliminate “traditional values”; 75 percent of Biden v**ers and 78 percent of Trump v**ers believed that the opposing party’s supporters were a “clear and present danger to the American way of life.”

These statistics are, of course, alarming. The popular theory these days is that willingness by both Democrats and Republicans to abandon democratic norms — e******n result acceptance, checks and balances, due process of law and all the rest — is purely the result of reactionary dislike.

If you fear your neighbor is going to abuse the process, you’d be a fool to stick to the process — and the more we dislike our neighbors, the more we fear that they’ll take advantage of us.

But is this theory correct? Is polarization actually the reason for increased willingness to ditch democratic norms?

According to a new study from political scientists David Broockman of the University of California, Berkeley, Joshua Kalla of Yale and Sean Westwood of Dartmouth, the answer is no. They write, “We find no evidence that an exogenous decrease in affective polarization causes a downstream decrease in opposition to democratic norms.”

In other words, Americans hating each other less does nearly nothing to reduce Americans’ willingness to override democratic norms in order to achieve their goals.

If polarization isn’t driving the undermining of norms, what is? Perhaps the answer is that the reverse is actually occurring: As we’ve abandoned democratic norms, we’ve come to despise our neighbors.

This makes a certain amount of logical and correlative sense. The Founding Fathers had a particular vision of human nature, believing human beings were capable of great things but were also rife with sin and corruption.

Given the variability of human nature, epistemic humility — a recognition that human beings are often wrong — would be necessary. And that epistemic humility would t***slate into a desire for liberty. High-level government, in this view, would be hamstrung from cramming down a unitary form of virtue on a pluralistic society, at least; subsidiarity, in which local communities governed themselves while the federal government maintained certain basic norms, would be the proper approach.

The federal government would be pitted against itself through checks and balances, creating obstacles that would necessitate broad agreement about the use of power to legitimize such use of power.

Today, however, most Americans seem to instinctively recoil from this vision of human nature and its concomitant governmental approach. Instead, human beings are held to be entirely malleable creatures of circumstance who can be molded by a better system into their highest selves.

Grant the “right person” with the “right principles” unending power, democratically or not, and watch virtue spring forth. The government isn’t the problem, it’s the solution.

The problem with this, of course, is that we all have different ideas of the right person and the right principles. And once we have agreed that the government ought to have the ability to fix all our problems, anyone who stands in our way becomes a heretic.

By abandoning the Founders’ accurate characterization of human nature and the governmental structure embodied in the Constitution, we set ourselves up for polarization and rage.

Perhaps the first step toward fixing our newfound dislike for democratic norms is to reinculcate not a love of neighbor, but an understanding of human flaws, human foibles and the limits of human understanding.

Perhaps we ought to start with some epistemic humility. From that source, perhaps a renewal of democratic norms and an embrace of our neighbors might spring.

RobertV2

I agree with this part: that "a recognition that human beings are often wrong [such recognition being a kind of humility] ... [is] necessary".

woodguru

Give people the perfectly ordered life that has everything in order and people will hold that order against those who would disrupt it, getting to the ordered and controlled existence is another story when people can't agree to how it is achieved.

Order involves compliance with shared values

son of witless

The 78 % are wrong and the 87 % are right.

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

For some unknown reason, I totally agree with you!
There’s no way to get to heaven under our own power.
We’re flawed and UN agreeable with changes controlled by others who disagree with us.
There’s a solution though.
Give up!
Surrender!
EVERYONE!
Including the elected government.
That would leave only the constitution in power.
Works for me!

LogicallyRight Loc: Chicago

I believe that those numbers of h**e etc. for the other side is bred from our two party system and primaries. We would never be that far apart of the system wasn't set up to create and empower extremists. Think of a 1 to 9 scale with 5 being the middle. Where the country at as a whole is 5. But what we have is primaries where the left has extremists at the 1 position, pulling their party towards that 1 position. On the right it is the 9 position. But the primaries are for 1 to the left of 5. That seldom appeals to someone at the 4 position. More likely 3 and occasionally 2. On the other side it is seldom 6 but more likely 7 and occasionally 8. Those are the middle of the parties. Then in the General E******n, both parties try to claim that 5 position, the undecided and independents, by switching what they are actually for from 3 to 4 or 7 to 6. but is is all a lie and they will be strongly influenced by 1 or 9 after the e******ns, alienating everyone to the middle and past that.
With a non primary e******n, all candidates have to lean towards the middle and the extremists loose their strengths and influence. The winner is almost always a 4 to a 6 and more willing to work with the other side inside of against the other side, because they are of the middle and not the extremes. That starts to marginalize the extremes over time as leaders are more in the middle and not radicals or influenced by radicals. It takes many e******ns to erase the sins of the past and that devisiviness, but it is what will bring the country together. Drifting between 4 and 6 with the middle slipping back and forth a bit is far better then drifting between 2 or 3 and 7 or 8 every four years. We become more of America instead of democrat American or Republican American.

I hope that wasn't to hard to follow and makes sense to you. It does to me. It is just pure logical.

Logically Right

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

No!

Smedley_buzkill

According to a new study from political scientists David Broockman of the University of California, Berkeley, Joshua Kalla of Yale and Sean Westwood of Dartmouth, the answer is no. They write, “We find no evidence that an exogenous decrease in affective polarization causes a downstream decrease in opposition to democratic norms.”

I see that a l*****t from UC Berkeley and a couple of his sidekicks have almost mastered the art of pedantic, sophistic bureaucratese; a written, non-verbal foray into the intricacies of using arcane language to give the impression you know what you are talking about.

manning5 Loc: Richmond, VA

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Sounds to me like the Aristotelian Mean is our objective in most things.

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

Clear and sound!

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

If you eliminate every other word, you’ll end up with the next state of the union speech.
Look:
We no that exogenous in polarization a decrease opposition democratic.
See!
They should pay me for writing this speech.

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

I find what you say on this to have some logic..

Coos Bay Tom Loc: coos bay oregon

Republicans and Democrats both can govern--It's just that Democrats do it better--lol--that oughta upset a few---Bwaaaaa-

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

They’re better at governing from behind, for sure!
Not so much in actual leadership roles, more like disciplinarians than leaders.
Always vice principal, never principal.

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

So we can say,
democrats do it from behind!
Now that’s funny right there now.