Practicing Democracy
Political polarization has made too many pessimists in America.
Let’s understand our country’s history is dotted with polarization but also understand what’s different today than it was at numerous previous times.
Different today is that partisan animosity is at an all-time high. No political party or member thereof is intrinsically evil. We should be able to talk to each other.
The Polarization Research Lab (PRL), a joint activity of Dartmouth, Stanford and the U. of Pennsylvania, each week tracks and measures the opinions of 1,000 Americans.
These real time polls measure the level of support for topics like democratic norm violations and political violence and the extent to which they hate people on the opposite end of the political spectrum.
At the same time, PRL tracks communications and social media from elected officials and political commentators, providing a side-by-side comparison of how Americans feel and how accurately politically elite rhetoric matches their attitudes.
The research shows the good news as the absolute majority of Americans stand upon the principles this country is based on.
The bad news is about 86% of Americans have nothing positive to say about those on the other side of the aisle, and up to a quarter of Americans see the other side as evil.
Stan Westwood, director of PRL, reports: “When an American turns on their TV, or when they go to social media, they’re going to see political conflict. It’s not just in the period around a presidential election, it’s every day.”
He goes on: “Our lab, for the first time, has identified that Americans are modeling their political behavior on what they hear from their elected officials who are setting the norms for political culture. When leaders and politicians become more negative, citizens become more negative.”
Frankly, the PRL research is scary to this writer.
What’s happening does not just result in pessimistic Americans. It freezes our ability to make progress as a society. When our most critical issues are shrouded in hate and alarm, we are unable to talk openly, consider all sides, or make informed decisions to move forward.
What PRL and other researchers are telling us is that when it’s impossible to talk to the other side, it’s impossible to have the kind of critical, policy-focused discourse that is necessary for democracy to function.
When people disagree with another, it serves no worthwhile purpose to denigrate the name, attitude or life of those who disagree. Name calling should be left for other venues like the WWF and the wrestlers who compete under that banner. It’s expected there – part of the show and nobody gets excited enough to adopt a hatred for the rivals of a favorite wrestler. That’s a circus and showmanship.
It has no place in our political arena, no place in Congress, no place in our supposedly objective mass media.
Here’s a symptom of what I mean. Almost every time I turn on cable news it’s loud, bombastic and shallow. It’s not commentary, it’s combat. Its vitriol disguised as debate. Elected officials are judged on what the media hierarchy and anchors of cable news believe and think. There’s no truth in, nor any defense for, calling an opposing political party member Hitler, or a group of them Nazis.
Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone and The Upswing, warns that America’s unraveling is fueled by political polarization that is greater “than during the Civil War.” He recounts how Americans “entered the Sixties in an increasingly ‘we’ mode . . . and we left the Sixties in an increasingly ‘I’ mode.” And in her book Uncivil Agreement, Liliana Mason puts it more starkly: “Our conflicts are largely over who we think we are, rather than over reasoned differences of opinion.”
What’s different isn’t the temperature of our rhetoric — it’s the absence of a shared commitment to the ideals of self-governance and the framework to ensure it succeeds. The Founders — despite their flaws — believed in building a system rooted in equality, individual liberty, free enterprise, and public virtue. And they trained themselves to participate in this republican life, establishing norms and institutions to prepare them for the hard work of leadership.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the stakes are especially high. America’s challenges — spiraling debt, fractured schools, immigration gridlock, foreign wars and adversaries — are real. None of this will matter, however, if the American experiment collapses under the weight of its own apathy.
Let’s remember what our democracy requires.
It means we can disagree on issues and policies – and even personalities, we value the principles self-discipline, respect, reason and tolerance.
In today’s rhetorical environment, where coarseness is common and debate is often performative, it’s easy to forget that disagreement can be an art form — studied, perfected, and understood as essential to democracy — not a threat to it.
Can we return to building our debate muscle and practice democracy?
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/06/self-government-takes-practice-weve-stopped-rehearsing/
SPIDER Bytes
This week’s trivia question is: What was the name of Istanbul prior to 1930? The answer to last week’s question re the temperature at which Fahrenheit equals Centigrade: -40°. To convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, use the following formula: °F = (°C × 1.8) + 32 – where 1.8, is the equivalent temperature in Fahrenheit and 32 is the difference to the Fahrenheit scale. (0 degrees Celsius is the freezing point with the corresponding 32 degrees Fahrenheit.)
The US dropped a half dozen earth-penetrating bunker buster bombs on Iran’s uranium enrichment sites last night. President Trump said the sites were totally obliterated. Meanwhile Israel continues to downgrade the country’s military offensive and defensive capabilities via airstrikes.
The Iranian conflict has raised oil prices to $75/barrel, and it may be pushed higher.
LSU can wrap up the College World Series with a 2nd win today over Coastal Carolina. If CCC wins, the series will end tomorrow.
PODS, the moving and storage company known for its distinctive containers, reports the Ocala area as the #2 national destination for move-ins between March 2024 & March 2025. The Ocala area was also #2 the previous year. Little wonder why we’re experiencing heavier and heavier traffic and that we’re no longer a well-kept secret Paradise. BTW, Myrtle Beach was #1.
The week saw some dimwit wannabee politicians make disruptive scenes at I.C.E. field operations and facilities. They are guaranteeing themselves the small, radical vote percentage in their election bids. Meanwhile, anti-I.C.E. protests continue in several cities.
Tennessee enacted a law last year, and now many other states are also considering banning geoengineering experiments. Concerned that the federal government might try, these experiments involve the intentional injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances, or apparatus into the atmosphere with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of sunlight. With the divergence among climatologists re: global warming now being made public, experiments to cool the world’s temperatures may not have the assumed ‘scientific’ backing to proceed in the future.
SCOTUS voted 6-3 to uphold Tennessee’s law restricting access to puberty blockers and hormone treatment to children who identify as the opposite sex. It should be no surprise to anyone that there is no Constitutional or legal right for children to receive gender altering drugs and procedures.
The Federal Reserve kept interest rates where they are last week – 4.3%. The benchmark federal funds rate remains at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. The fed funds rate in March 2020 was 0.65%. Inflation went from 1.4% in 2020 to 7% and 6.5% respectively in 2021 and 2022 as the federal government spent its way to runaway debt – and the fed raised interest rates to offset/compensate.
SpaceX is building a new rocket garage at Kennedy Space Center. It’s called The Gigabay. Set for completion next year, its size will rival NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building and stand 380 ft. tall with 46.5 million cubic feet of inside space. Now SpaceX needs to successfully launch its super heavy rocket – the biggest rocket ever – (and boosters) designed for deep space exploration – starting with the moon and Mars.
Now we see a ‘study’ by Surendra Adhikari of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that climate change is slowing the rotation of the earth.
