#Partisanship

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Daniel Cox at American Storylines:

Watching the clips from Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, what struck me more than anything else is how utterly unrecognizable the Republican Party has become under Trump. A party that once stressed the importance of honesty and integrity is gone. The rally speakers engaged in unrestrained vitriol and bigotry.  It’s not all happening on stage either.  The Washington Post interviewed Craig Dumas, a T-shirt vendor at one of Trump’s campaign events. His best seller? “Say No to the Hoe.” Variations of this message can be found at Trump rallies around the country. When the Post reporters talked with Brian Howard, a Trump rally-attendee, about his “Joe and the Hoe Gotta Go” T-shirt, he replied: “We can joke. We can wear crude shirts. Everybody here is having a good time.” 

Hilarious.  How much is Trump to blame for the type of nasty, derogatory rhetoric that has become a mainstay of American politics? I would argue more than a little.   But worse than the normalization of casual cruelty is the way Trump has subverted the importance of character in politics. In our late summer poll, we found that 44 percent of Americans believe he committed sexual assault. A Marquette Law School poll conducted over the summer found that 62 percent of voters believe Trump is corrupt. Only 41 percent of voters believe Trump could be described as honest and trustworthy. Even a quarter of Republicans do not believe Trump is honest.  Most Americans who are supporting Trump recognize that he has deep personality flaws, that he is not a good role model. The central animating question of the Trump era has always been: How can so many Americans support Trump for the country’s highest office when so many Americans have such a low opinion of his character? 

All Politicians Are Corrupt and Dishonest 

From the very beginning of Trump’s political career, he has sought to position himself as a brash outsider against a corrupt, effete establishment. At the same time, he never promised to restore honor and dignity to the presidency. Rather, he promised to wade into the swamp and fight dirty. Plenty of Americans were receptive to the message.  It’s not hard to see why.  Trust in government has plummeted over the past few decades. Part of the reason this happened is that Americans increasingly view their elected leaders as unethical. This is a fairly recent phenomenon. Twenty years ago, only about one in four Americans rated the honesty of members of Congress as low or very low. Most Americans rated the honesty of their elected officials as average, and one in five rated it as above average. Today, most Americans do not believe members of Congress are honest or ethical. In 2023, seventy percent of the public rated the honesty and integrity of congressmembers as low or very low. That’s a massive change and it has profound implications on the voting decisions Americans make. If elected officials are viewed as universally dishonest, then integrity is no longer a useful metric in assessing their worthiness for public office. 

Who benefits the most from this? The candidates who are most ethically compromised. Officials who engage in the most egregious acts of public corruption. 

[...]

Polarized Voters Want Pugilistic Politicians 

It's been well documented that Americans have become more polarized over the past couple decades. This has been especially evident in the negative views partisans have about those across the aisle—a phenomenon political scientists define as affective polarization. Republicans and Democrats have come to dislike each other much more in the modern era.  A couple years ago I wrote about the dramatic change occurring among partisans during the Trump presidency. Republicans and Democrats not only believed their opponents were simply wrong or misguided, but that they presented a threat to the nation. In 2017, only about half of Democrats and Republicans believed their opposition represented a threat to the country—a worryingly high number. By 2020, three-quarters of Republicans and nearly two-thirds of Democrats said the other side posed a threat to the country. 

More recent polling suggests things may be getting worse. A new poll by Johns Hopkins University found that nearly half of Republicans and Democrats believe the opposing party is “downright evil.” And a recent NBC News survey found that 8 in 10 Democrats and Republicans said their opponents are so dangerous they pose a threat that would destroy America as we know it.  The growing hostility that partisans feel towards their opponents has altered the way voters respond to deficiencies in their party’s candidates. As partisan animosity toward their political opponents grows, Democrats and Republicans become less concerned about the behavior of their own leaders. It becomes easier to overlook disqualifying attributes, because the political alternative is always worse.   It has also led partisans to prioritize candidates who would go after their opponents. If character no longer matters amidst heightened partisan hostilities, an ability and willingness to destroy the other side does. Trump excels at this type of combative politics. He relishes it. 

The real tragedy is that more Americans have come to believe that honesty and integrity don’t matter. Trump has convinced many Americans that being a good guy in politics is not only unnecessary, but undesirable. It’s a sign of weakness or capitulation. An unsurprising result is that more Americans discount a candidate’s character when making political choices. In 2011 most Americans believed that elected officials who engaged in immoral acts in their personal lives would not behave ethically in carrying out their public duties. Now, most Americans believe the opposite. The shift is far more pronounced among Republicans, but it’s not exclusive to them.   Whether he wins or loses, Trump’s legacy will be forever wrapped up in his bizarre, belittling and bullying behavior, and how he transformed our expectations for political leaders. When Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, talked with Jared Kushner about Trump’s behavior, he received a startling reply. “No one can go as low as the president,” Kushner said. “You shouldn’t even try.” It was a compliment. 

Daniel Cox of American Storylines wrote a stark reminder that character and morals were jettisoned with the rise of Donald Trump in GOP politics.

[nodynasty4us]

A new NBC News poll shows another difference along partisan lines: media consumption. Among consumers of traditional media (newspapers, national networks and cable news networks), Joe Biden leads 52% to 41%. Among people who get their news from social media, Google, and other digital sources, it's Donald Trump 47% and Biden 44%. Among people who don't get any political news, Trump leads 53% to 27%. Also, the less well-informed you are, the more likely you are to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Electoral-vote.com

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The real scandal is overclassification

The fact that every president and VP has a garage or filing cabinet or shoebox full of classified documents isn't (merely) evidence of political impunity - it's also the latest absurd turn in the long-running true scandal: the American epidemic of overclassification and excessive secrecy.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/30/i-come-to-a-land-downunder/#but-id-have-to-kill-you

Thousands of American bureaucrats have unilaterally classified tens of millions of unremarkable documents without any legitimate basis for shielding them from public view. Meanwhile, millions of people have "Top Secret clearance" and can view these documents, making a mockery of their supposed secrecy.

Writing for The American Prospect, David Dayen crystallizes the incentives, problems and corruption that we should be paying to, and laments that instead, we're scoring cheap political points about the recklessness of presidents and ex-presidents, heavily salted with paranoid fantasies about the Danger to National Security (TM) posed by letting these docs escape the airless chambers of official secrecy:

https://prospect.org/politics/2023-01-30-president-classified-document-scandal/

Overclassification is a well-documented (ahem) problem, used by bureaucrats to cover up corruption, crimes and incompetence, as well as out of the lazy reflex to declare everything to be secret. This is abetted by members of the vast "Intelligence Community" who have rotated into the private sector and have a lucrative side-hustle as TV talking heads who spin spy-thriller fantasies about the risks of these paper broken arrows.

Dayen points to Senator Moynihan's 1997 report on "Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy," and its conclusion that if you declare everything secret, then nothing ends up being truly secret. It's a brilliant, readable, devastating critique of official secrecy. Nothing has been done about its recommendations:

https://sgp.fas.org/library/moynihan/

In 2016, the House Oversight Committee concluded that 90% of classified documents should not be classified, the same figure that the DoD came up with in its own report, 60 years earlier:

https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/examining-costs-overclassification-transparency-security/

Meanwhile, the Information Security Oversight Office - which oversees classification - keeps ringing alarm bells about overclassification, with 50m+ documents being classified in a typical year. Rather than listen to the ISOO, Congress has cut its staff in half over the past decade. 620 ISOO employees oversee the three million Americans empowered to classify documents:

https://fas.org/irp/congress/2016_hr/overclass.pdf

In 2010, the Washington Post's Dana Priest and William Arkin took stock of the post-9/11 explosion in state secrets in their "Top Secret America" report: "No one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/top-secret-america/2010/07/19/hidden-world-growing-beyond-control-2/

Attempts to liberate classified docs using FOIA requests fail repeatedly, with US agencies returning heavily redacted documents, even blacking out a report on the plans of the "Group of the Martyr Ebenezer Scrooge [to hijack the Christmas Eve flight of] Prime Minister and Chief Courier S. Claus."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/magazine/the-strange-politics-of-classified-information.html

As Dayen says, the talking point from ex-spooks on TV that "overclassification is no excuse for bad document handling," is the equivalent of the old saw that "mass shootings are not the time to talk about gun control." And yet, the press keeps buying it.

Take the Politico op-ed by an ex-FBI spook, who turned the fact that "a foreign leader might like turnip-flavored ice cream into a classifiable scenario," proving that there is no overclassification excuse too absurd to get an airing:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/01/26/the-wrong-question-about-the-classified-documents-scandal-00079540

[Image ID: A photograph of the Military Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Displayed are some captured German records waiting to be boxed.]

[uniquenamesarehard]

Anyone else get annoyed when atheists claim they're superior to people of faith? Fam, you are doing partisanship, one of the greatest potential flaws of a religion, you are in the same boat as them now.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Pro-Israel Democrats could have taken a stand against her and Tlaib. But, intimidated by the rise of the intersectional movement that has seized control of the left-wing base of the Democratic Party, and fearing that they will be branded as racists if they speak out, they have refused to ostracize them.

In doing so, they have essentially legitimized Omar’s views. Her anti-Zionist and antisemitic ideas are now routinely published in the pages of liberal mainstream outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post. And the ranks of the “Squad” have vastly expanded in the last two election cycles, with even more sympathizers among those who identify as progressive Democrats.

Republicans have their outliers, like Greene and others. They routinely make outrageous and often indefensible statements, although Democrats are equally guilty of the promiscuous use of inappropriate Holocaust analogies.

But they are not guilty of seeking to normalize antisemitism by masquerading as mere “critics” of Israel. And, unlike Omar, they lack the influence that comes with being part of a movement that already dominates academia and much of the media with its toxic myths about white privilege and lies about Israel’s being an “apartheid” state.

-

In giving Omar a pass for antisemitism, Democrats have crossed a line that no party or its supporters can transgress without being rightly accused of enabling Jew-hatred. By rallying around her, either out of party loyalty or hypocritical opposition to cancel culture that they never apply to embattled conservatives, is to make antisemitism a partisan issue. This is a historic development that may make it impossible to ever put the genie of intersectional hate for Jews back in the bottle. It’s also an unforgivable betrayal of their Jewish voters and the principles of tolerance that they claim to uphold.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Abstract

A sizable literature tracing back to Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style (1964) argues that Republicans and conservatives are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than Democrats and liberals. However, the evidence for this proposition is mixed. Since conspiracy theory beliefs are associated with dangerous orientations and behaviors, it is imperative that social scientists better understand the connection between conspiracy theories and political orientations. Employing 20 surveys of Americans from 2012 to 2021 (total n = 37,776), as well as surveys of 20 additional countries spanning six continents (total n = 26,416), we undertake an expansive investigation of the asymmetry thesis. First, we examine the relationship between beliefs in 52 conspiracy theories and both partisanship and ideology in the U.S.; this analysis is buttressed by an examination of beliefs in 11 conspiracy theories across 20 more countries. In our second test, we hold constant the content of the conspiracy theories investigated—manipulating only the partisanship of the theorized villains—to decipher whether those on the left or right are more likely to accuse political out-groups of conspiring. Finally, we inspect correlations between political orientations and the general predisposition to believe in conspiracy theories over the span of a decade. In no instance do we observe systematic evidence of a political asymmetry. Instead, the strength and direction of the relationship between political orientations and conspiricism is dependent on the characteristics of the specific conspiracy beliefs employed by researchers and the socio-political context in which those ideas are considered.

[...]

Discussion and Conclusion

Are those on the political right (Republicans/conservatives) more prone to conspiracy theorizing than those on the left (Democrats/liberals)? The smattering of evidence across the literature provides conflicting answers to this question. We surmise that disagreement in the literature is substantially the product of limitations regarding both the operationalizations of conspiracy theorizing and the context––both temporal and socio-political––in which beliefs are assessed in previous work. Given the imperative of better understanding conspiracy theories and the people who believe them, we compiled a robust body of evidence for testing the asymmetry thesis. Across multiple surveys and measurement strategies, we found more evidence for partisan and ideological symmetry in conspiricism, however operationalized, than for asymmetry.

First, we found that the relationship between political orientations and beliefs in specific conspiracy theories varied considerably across 52 specific conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories containing partisan/ideological content or that have been endorsed by prominent partisan/ideological elites will find more support among those in one political camp or the other, while theories without such content or endorsements tend to be unrelated to partisanship and ideology in the U.S. We also observed considerable variability in the relationship between left–right ideology and 11 conspiracy theory beliefs across 20 additional countries spanning six continents; this variability suggests that the relationship between left–right ideology and conspiracy theory belief is also affected by the political context in which conspiracy theories are polled. To account for the potential impact of idiosyncratic factors associated with specific conspiracy theories, we next examined the relationship between beliefs in “content-controlled” conspiracy theories and political orientations. We found that both Democrats/liberals and Republicans/conservatives engage in motivated conspiracy endorsement at similar rates, with Democrats/liberals occasionally exhibiting stronger motivations than Republicans/conservatives. Finally, we observed only inconsistent evidence for an asymmetric relationship between conspiracy thinking and either partisanship, symbolic ideology, or operational ideology across 18 polls administered between 2012 and 2021. Even though the average correlations across studies were positive, indicating a relationship with conservatism/Republicanism (owing mostly to data collected in 2016), they were negligible in magnitude and individual correlations varied in sign and statistical significance over time.

Equally important as our substantive conclusions is an exploration of why we reached them, which can shed light on existing inconsistencies in the literature. While the core inferences we make from our investigation may deviate from the conclusions of others, empirical patterns are not irreconcilable. Take, for example, the study conducted by van der Linden and colleagues (2021). They infer from a strong, positive correlation between beliefs that “climate change is a hoax” and conservatism that conservatives are inherently more conspiratorial than liberals. However, we demonstrate that such conclusions cannot be made using beliefs in a single conspiracy theory. As can be seen in Fig. 1, climate change conspiracy theories show one of the highest levels of asymmetry; therefore, exclusive examination of almost any other conspiracy theory would lead to a result less supportive of the asymmetry argument.

Van der Linden et al. (2021) also find a positive, albeit weak, correlation between conservatism and generalized conspiracy thinking. While this relationship is statistically significant, liberals still exhibit high levels of conspiracism. Indeed, even strong liberals score above the 50-point midpoint on their 101-point measure (between 60 and 65, on average), whereas strong conservatives typically score about 10 points higher (see Figs. 1b and 3b). In other words, liberals, like conservatives, are more conspiratorial than not. Moreover, van der Linden et al.’s data hail from 2016 and 2018––years in which we also observed relatively elevated levels of conspiracy thinking among conservatives. However, this was not the case in other years and samples we examined. This is exactly what we might expect of a disposition that is not inherently connected to partisanship and ideology, but which may be sporadically activated by political circumstances. We do not question the veracity of van der Linden et al.’s empirical findings or those of any other study with conclusions that disagree with ours; rather, we argue that differences largely stem from the inferences made from empirical relationships, which are frequently more general than the data allows.

[..]

That we find little difference in conspiracy theorizing between the right and left among the mass public does not indicate that there are no differences between partisan elites on this score, nor does it imply that there will not be asymmetries in beliefs in specific conspiracy theories at any given point in time. Specific conspiracy theories can find more support among one partisan/ideological side than the other even though partisan/ideological motivated reasoning and conspiratorial predispositions operate, on balance, in a symmetric fashion. Likewise, the content of those theories and the way they are deployed, particularly by elites, can result in asymmetrical consequences, such as political violence and the undermining of democratic institutions. We encourage future work to integrate the conspiratorial rhetoric of elites with studies of mass beliefs and investigate elite conspiratorial rhetoric from actors including and beyond Donald Trump.

==

Similar to anti-vaxers. We've heard a lot of anti-vax rhetoric from the right over COVID vaccines, but the battle over MMR vaccines was largely on the left, with nutters like Jenny McCarthy and David Avocado at the top, and ultimately trickling down to anti-gluten, organic kale, "chemical-free" mothers conducting their goalpost-moving war on big words.

As with conspiracy theories, it depends on who's for it. If "they" are for it, "we" are against it. If "we" are for it, "they" are against it.

Back in April 2020, the Trump administration aimed to fast-track 100m vaccine doses by the end of the year, intending to shave off 8 months of development in a project called "Operation Warp Speed." Dems who were anti-vax when Trump was going to deliver it...

"Watch out...they are going to push it too early...this corrupt administration could give a crap about the safety of the American people"

... are now pro-vax today and will tell you so as an identity in their bio, while the Republicans who today still talk about them being "experimental" and preemptively deciding that nobody ever died of a heart condition before the vaccines, were cheering it on at the time as "far and away the most effective means of controlling the disease and allowing Americans to return to fully normal life."

What happened? Reality was reorganized along tribalist lines of contrariness, rather than truth.

[mooretoons]

Division

This whole cartoon is a response to a single article in the New York Times, “Two Families Got Fed Up With Their States’ Politics. So They Moved Out.” Well, and taking a potshot at David Leonhardt, whose bloodless newsletter appears in my inbox every morning, like a turd on my doorstep. I moved to Portland in 1995, when housing was still affordable and employment was easier to find. Yet the seeds…

[nosferdoc]

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal! and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his com-petitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.”

— George Washington, September 17, 1796, Farewell Address.

[erik-even-wordier]

The major dynamic here is called the polarization cycle. Not all conflicts are polarization cycles, but you get such cycles when you have two groups at either extremes, groups that each believe they are in an existential struggle for survival. Especially when you also have a media environment that feeds the worst statements and actions of the other side instead of the average statements and actions. So each side is then driven towards more and more passion by all the anecdotes and stories that supposedly confirm the radicalism of the other side. Both sides also believe the end justifies the means so neither side will care about due process and law. Victory must be had at all cost. Then, yes, you get a polarization cycle that can easily lead to violence. In America we are absolutely experiencing a polarization cycle.

Jonathan Haidt in How to Overcome Tribalism, the Shouty Minority and Facebook Toxicity - POLITICO

[luvsjimmyreed]

I’m not a Democrat. I’m not a Republican. I’m also not a Libertarian or a member of the Green Party. My principles don’t jibe entirely with any of the political parties established in this country. My principles are about basic human rights, freedom, equality, and treating others the same way you wanna be treated. I don’t believe in ‘us versus them’. I believe in trying to see the good in everyone. It’s not to say that there don’t exist people with hate in their hearts, but I try to treat everyone with dignity and respect - and I also believe in letting people’s actions speak for themselves. There is a reason for the adage of ‘actions speak louder than words’.

Jimmy Reed, On Principles versus Partisanship

[allurlsaregone-blog]

Politics as eradication. Policymaking as the foremost idea of the fattest faction at the moment the vote is taken.

[usindistress]

Republicans have so much animosity against liberals they will try to punish conservative voters in blue states for "liberal tears" rather than take the uncontroversial stance of FUNDING DISASTER RELEIF IN A DISASTER!

Matt Gaetz is a horrible person who is horrible at government.

[nodynasty4us]

Marriages where the couple belongs to different parties are common, although partisanship is so strong now that there are separate dating services for Democrats and Republicans. Interestingly, the Democratic site offers four options: man seeking woman, woman seeking man, man seeking man, and woman seeking woman. The Republican site offers only two options. We don't want to spoil it for you, so we aren't going to tell you which ones here.

Electoral-vote.com

[trendynewsnow]

The Polarization of Online Spaces Following Trump's Election Victory

The Polarization of Online Spaces Post-Election Following Donald J. Trump’s victory in the recent election, his supporters flocked to various online platforms to celebrate and discuss the outcome. Hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic posts praising Mr. Trump filled Truth Social, the social media network that he owns. Speculation about the potential achievements of the forthcoming administration…

[carlthemuse]

The Internal Struggle: How American Politics is Becoming its Own Enemy

[meadowslark]

Off topic, but....

With the experiences of a half century of voting (and many "principled" votes which in retrospect served neither the public nor my own good), I have to concur. And for the record, I am a FORMER Republican precinct person.

Vote! And honestly, this year I've got to encourage you to vote Kamala and down ticket Democrats.

made a beautiful google slides infographic in 60 seconds on why u should Fucking Vote