This Week in Polarization

This week…same as last week. And the week before. And the week before. The goal of exciting bases, pointing fingers and characterizing the “other” take precedence over finding common ground, resolving differences and finding solutions.

This week…in a sobering reminder of the very real costs of the dysfunction of polarization, we bury a few more men, women and children as our ”leaders” go about exciting their bases and pointing fingers rather than resolving differences and finding solutions.

In today’s polarized environment, arguing about celebrating our nation’s independence — a time when we usually pull together — seems normal.

This week… same as last week. And the week before. And the week before… Depending on your perspective, comparing the two sides of the “debate” may seem like false equivalency. But

In today’s polarized environment, arguing about celebrating our nation’s independence — a time when we usually pull together — seems normal.

In today’s polarized environment, arguing about celebrating our nation’s independence — a time when we usually pull together — seems normal.

Deranged, monstrous, power grabbing, anti-American, violent rapists. That, according to the week’s political analysis, is who is running our country. What more needs be said?

The strategy of “motivating the base” rather than “persuading the undecideds” is being urged.

Who could have predicted the National Inquirer would become our nation’s model for political discourse?

Burning the (other guy’s) house down is tempting. But fire is not so easy to contain.

If you see polarization as the gateway drug to authoritarianism, you don’t have to look hard to be worried.

This week offers a wonderful textbook case for one of the favorite technique of polarization: Instead of arguing the pros or cons of a controversial issue with the goal of working toward resolution, cynically use—indeed, supercharge— that issue to bash the other side.

How did accusations of fascism get to fashionable?

It looks like it will be quite a contest . . . for who can stoop the lowest.

They generate money, clicks, attention, votes. What’s hard to understand is why so many fall for them, and don’t recognize the damage they do.

Was it because it was the Easter/Passover week of hope and renewal? Or maybe the pent up pop of the release of the Mueller report?

This week…we learned that “they”  support hate…accept pedophilia…are attacking a life saving program…are responsible for the college admissions scandal…suck up to Big Pharma…are trying to miscarry justice…are a warped version

There is a sometimes subtle but important difference between inciting and informing, persuading and enflaming, convincing and stoking.

This week . . . April may not prove to be the cruelest month. But I’m sure it won’t be for lack of trying.

While the right is brimming with accusations of “the left,” the left tends to point more and more not to ”the right,” but to specific individuals on the right.

This week the polarizing technique of accusing the other side of hypocrisy and lying, rather than arguing against the substance of what they want to accomplish seemed to dominate.

This week it seems like a good time, for obvious reasons, to recall some of James Madison’s renowned Federalist #10 warnings about the danger to freedom of factions.

This week seems like a good moment to untangle a common confusion the undercuts the efforts to depolarize our politics: The confusion between civility and neutrality.

Rational, focused disagreements over serious issues seems like a distant dream. Perhaps it’s time for a campaign to Make American Adult Again.

This week . . . with President Trump’s declaration of emergency it got serious.

Hope that as the Presidential election season gains steam, the variety of candidates and complexity of issues will actually begin to move the debate to realistic discussion.

Thank goodness there are no real problems, issues, threats, worries facing our nation. Otherwise the emptiness of the current political debate would be really something to worry about.

For an exhilarating few days of breathless finger pointing, “the smirk” captured even more of the polarizer’s angry attention than “the shutdown.”

The infantile faceoffs that make up the daily news is causing some to stop and actually think about not just what their opponents are saying, but what they themselves are saying.

Perhaps some other tactics will be explored.