{"id":2471,"date":"2018-04-22T16:39:08","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T20:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/?p=2471"},"modified":"2018-04-22T16:39:08","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T20:39:08","slug":"is-it-possible-to-move-towards-depolarization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/2018\/04\/22\/is-it-possible-to-move-towards-depolarization\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it Possible to Move Towards Depolarization?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With current trends and the fact that our current party era is called the Polarization Era, our country continues to see increased political divide between democrats and republicans.\u00a0 <\/span>If we continue as it is now, this evolution will continue to increase polarization.\u00a0 <\/span>Furthermore, with stronger media presences and divided government, there is no one looking for solutions.\u00a0 <\/span>Rather, both parties are looking for ways to beat the other side, which will just continue to increase the divide.<\/span><\/p>\n

So how could this divide evolve in the other direction?\u00a0 <\/span>Historically, it has taken major catastrophes to bind our country.\u00a0 <\/span>As discussed in the chapter, the Democratic party became the clear majority because of the Great Depression, having most of America support the actions needed for healing the economy.\u00a0 <\/span>Although there still was the two party system, the country was bound together in the effort to fix the country.\u00a0 <\/span>Directly after, World War II improved the economy and at the same time, our entry into the war gave the entire country one unified goal.\u00a0 <\/span>These events suppressed political polarization.\u00a0 <\/span>However, recently, we have not had similar experiences.\u00a0 <\/span>9\/11 may have bound our country for a bit, but it created a war that led to disagreement and further polarization on ideology and the justification for the continued war.\u00a0 <\/span>This way of looking at minimizing polarization is irrational as we cannot create binding events, nor do we hope for negative happenings that we can bond over.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One possible way to start lessening the polarization is for there to be a new candidate that appeals to both parties.\u00a0 <\/span>Someone that may choose a side, but does not have enough on them to warrant scrutinization.\u00a0 <\/span>However, this too, is unlikely for two reasons.\u00a0 <\/span>First, with the current state of the media and fake news, unwarranted scrutinization will still occur and both sides will look for anyway to demonize the opposing candidate.\u00a0 <\/span>Second, both parties will not be looking to nominate a candidate who will pull people from the opposing party, rather they will look to continue with the polarization and choose the candidate who is most supported and best represents the party.\u00a0 <\/span>This, will no doubt, be someone the opposing side will not welcome.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think at this stage in the Polarization Era, it is unclear how it will evolve, other than increasing polarization, as has been trending.\u00a0 <\/span>We can hope for a solution sooner rather than later, but for now, especially with the highly controversial president we have today, we can expect to see polarization hold strong.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With current trends and the fact that our current party era is called the Polarization Era, our country continues to see increased political divide between democrats and republicans.\u00a0 If we continue as it is now, this evolution will continue to increase polarization.\u00a0 Furthermore, with stronger media presences and divided government, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3772,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40542,40540,68425],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1030am-section","category-culture-war","category-spring-2018","column","twocol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3772"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/introamgov-mcgowen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}