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I'm going to have to look at that in more detail, but I already see some howlers, like implicitly claiming there was a low degree of political polarization in t
by hga 10y ago
I'm going to have to look at that in more detail, but I already see some howlers, like implicitly claiming there was a low degree of political polarization in the early FDR years. Sure, the Congress was relatively less polarized, but there was great tension between it and FDR, and him and many Democrats and Republicans "in the street" in general. I.e. guess who had a much better chance of being allowed to grow food on their farms....
And what about the polarization between Republicans and Democrats when the former came into existence and got Lincoln elected? 600,000 million dead in a civil war, about as many in all our other wars combined.
A lot of people don't believe we really had the same system of government during and after each of these men were president....
- ArkyBeagle 10y agoWe usually haven't had the same after each of these wrenching events.
- Analemma_ 10y agoYou should carefully read his definition of "polarization". It has an exact meaning that is objectively measurable: it's how often individual politicians vote against the majority vote of their party. It does not refer to the amount of animosity between the parties or the extremeness of their positions. Part of his thesis is that these two measurements are now moving together, and were not necessarily doing so before.
- hga 10y agoI suppose I should, but in that case I think it's something of a redefinition of the word and less than useful. Especially since you have to, for example, factor in strength of party discipline methods. For example, expect a great discontinuity when the Senate started being selected by popular vote instead of by each state's legislature.