1. Paul H. P. Hanel, Natalia Zarzeczna, and Geoffrey Haddock write,
We directly compared the variability across moderate-, left-, and right-wing groups. Our findings suggest that the values of more extreme (left-wing or right-wing) supporters are usually more heterogeneous than those with more moderate views. We replicated this finding for politics-related variables such as attitudes toward immigrants and trust in (inter)national institutions. We also found that country-level variables (income, religiosity, and parasite stress level) did not moderate the pattern of value variability. Overall, our results suggest that endorsing the same political ideology is not necessarily associated with sharing the same values, especially in the case of common citizens holding extreme political attitudes.
That is from the abstract. I could not find an ungated version of the actual paper. Depending on the exact nature of the analysis, this might confirm the view that polarization is more a matter of hating the other team than it is about substantive differences.
Pointer from Tyler Cowen.
In a separate post, he passes along a chart showing that hatred of each party has gone up four-fold since 1980. Stare at the chart. Right now, I don’t think there are nearly as many rabid Republicans or rabid Democrats as there are rabid anti-Democrats and rabid anti-Republicans.
Ungated version (thank you Sci-Hub)
http://sci-hub.tw/http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550618803348
No time to find my old advanced statistics text and look it up, but I seem to remember there was an issue with two dimensional / elliptical distributions that when the correlation factor was not 0, that the standard deviations of the x’s for any particular choice of y were not constant and, in some situations, grew as the data dispersed far from the y mean. I’m not saying that’s what happening here, but those quadratic-like curves seem familiar. Paging Andrew Gelman / Dan Simpson.
You couldn’t be more correct. There are ‘rabid’ – or perhaps there are some better words? – anti-R/anti-D and anti-Both. There are also anti-Sanders, anti-Trump, anti-Clinton. There are relatively few who believe that someone who champions them would be:
1. nominated
2. not torn to shred unfairly
3. allowed to exercise the authority of the office
The chart passed along is fascinating — among other things, I had never seem this factoid captured anywhere. I confess that what it seems to show confirms my biases: Republicans pick up their “bad habits” from Democrats.
The middle period was a Golden Age of bipartisan non-hate. Can anyone really hate GHW Bush? And Republican anger at Clinton did not seem to have been too genuine, or it did not spread to hating Dems in general.
But in general, Republican ascendancy (Reagan’s and GW Bush’s, and, pending data, Duh!, Trump’s elections), have been met by sharp increases in Dems-hating-Reps. By 2008 Republicans got tired of “being net-hated” — and notice that the “hate gap” began to really widen as Dems refused to accept the legitimacy of GW Bush’s presidency initially, and subsequently that of just about any Republican attempting to hold it. The revolution is now bipartisan, and it is eating its young.
There is probably some basic realities at work here:
1) The decline of national press to cable news, late night TV, and internet has vastly increased news sources and opinions. I am old enough to remember Dennis Prager as reasonable religious PhD conservative on 1980s AM 790 and having conversations with Muslim religious leaders. Now he is Rush Limbaugh with a Phd and just throws bombs on liberals all day.
2) When all else fails, the population of 1980 still included Depression era people that were conservative, liked Social Security and very happy they survived the Depression and WW2. (And a lot them were FDR voters that turned to Nixon/Reagan) Unlike under 50 today, they truly experienced vast economic improvement in their lives and their kids and grand-kids.
3) I still believe the angrier and wilder the parties get the more the center is holding. My long time Republican House Representative is advertising he supports Pre-Existing Conditions. I think most issues are bickering between the 35 yard lines with massive over-stated claims. (Think Immigration here.)
4) In reality, Parties are quicker to move on issues than in the past. Witness gay marriage and the Republicans dropping that one by 2016. (I remember the Democrats and Mondale of the 1980s still trying to be FDR and Hubert Humphrey.)
5) We just hear more stories every day and know more about national and global news. Remember the EBOLA panic in 2014 with 5 US cases? in the 1980s that would have blips on the news instead of screaming Obama Katrina. Or the latest execution of Khashoggi would have been fairly quiet in the 1980s.
6) The one aspect my kids REALLY don’t understand about the 1980s is the Cold War against Soviet Union. (They get he is communist and Soviets were bad but they do not grasped how it impacted our beliefs and the realities we faced.) Having a relatively equal enemy is very unifying to a society. And remember the years 2001 – 2003, Bush did have a bi-partisan support when the war on terror was unifying. (It started weakening in 2004 when the reality of the Iraq War was becoming a 8 year quagmire.)
7) And finally any time the world has a major change to communication there is always disruptions. Try to think about how the printing press changed Europe after 1500.