Political Polarization

I understand the importance and value of political parties, but the parties should not come at the cost of bipartisanship and success.

Before the Great Recession, I would sometimes give public lectures in which I would talk about rising inequality, making the point that the concentrat...

As I watch America become more polarized, I worry that a balanced approach to the biggest problems of our generation will elude us as a country. I worry the lessons of Chancellorsville will be lost, and the battle lines will be drawn again.

In the Grand Old Party, we see moral standards as necessary but humbling measures of our imperfections, revealing how far and how often we fall short. The principled perfection of the left, however, requires little such humility.

We are with you, Olympia, we want a democracy that supports bipartisanship and action in Washington. You have spoken with your feet and I hope the others are listening. Our country cannot afford to see our best voices go.

The Olympia Snowes of the world can complain all they want about the lack of middle ground. But plaints like this misapprehend fundamentally the dynamics of American politics. We're polarized largely because one party -- Snowe's own -- has simply gone off the deep end.

Why did the Chrysler Super Bowl ad so affect Karl Rove that he felt he must speak out against it? The answer to this question reveals more about Rove and the Republican party than it does about Chrysler or its two minutes of heart-warming, pro-industry salesmanship.

The labels "Democrat" and "Republican" are an intrinsic part of how large groups of people define themselves. And these labels magnify and exaggerate the differences between them, which, at the same time, keep these groups apart.

Analysts and reporters need to stop looking in mirrors and start scrutinizing data. There is little evidence that Congressional polarization is rooted in sharp differences in public sentiment.

Once again we do the rigid Kabuki dance, leading once again to political stalemate -- this time over raising the federal debt ceiling. Even with the ...

Critical argument in the U.S. media is no longer about seeking truth to correct or sustain our formative values; rather it is about winning so that others might lose. How do we find a way back?

Broad Street has the usual attractions of a good farmers market. But it also enables a level of mingling that is rare for Central Pennsylvania, and the nation at large.

Marx was half right. Unfettered capitalism has promoted class polarization in the US. But it's far from inevitable that this will produce class conflict, revolution, and a new social order. American workers are too weak and disorganized.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams loved their country too much to settle for simplistic either/or debates. They believed we deserved better than that. I think we still do.

As long as it does not result in violence, as it did with Representative Giffords, I would rather have free speech and some degree of polarized politics than be fighting on the streets for a basic right that some of us might take for granted.

I was bothered by Krugman's reliance on what has become the political left's go-to explanation for the perceived increase in Washington's partisan polarization over the past few decades.

Free speech needs its own discipline, however enforced. The best rebuttal of the politics of hate is a torrent of love, and if not love then at least of facts.

Our country has the intellectual power to lead. Substantive intellectual, thoughtful, conversational dialogues surrounding issues would be a good way to start. Start the engines.

From 2006-2008, I studied political polarization in great detail at the University of Pennsylvania. My final research project can be found online here...