http://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8489065/politics-negative-partisanship-fear I'm generally not an Ezra Klein fan. He's a pretentious tool who's not as smart as he thinks he is. However, I think he pretty much nails this. The actual report he cites to is even more interesting if you have time to read it. http://stevenwwebster.com/research/all_politics_is_national.pdf
Couple those reports with the fears of the NSA watching everything and the IRS targeting opponents of the party in power. Beautiful, this country is.
The article nails why people vote the way they do; they vote out of fear. That's why probably 99% of political campaigns focus on demonetization of the other candidate. The goal isn't to give the voter something to vote for, but instead give the voter something to vote against. Looking ahead to the 2016 Presidential race, I think most anyone that is objective would admit Hillary Clinton is a self-serving, lying, opportunist unfit for public office. Having said that, many of these people will grudgingly vote for her because they fear what the Republican opponent stands for (corporate interests, slashing benefits, Wall Street, more wars, etc.). Of course, if elected, Hillary would do much the same as the Republican counterpart. But the point is, the American public vote out of fear.
Or more accurately, a lack of more disgust as in, I have less disgust for this one hence they get my vote. So by correlary; more disgust = more fear.
Fear or polarization? 2 sides of the same coin. The paper was very interesting but you need only look at the ratings and content of Fox News and liberal websites to see that fear mongering is driving our political discourse.
I think fear and polarization definitely go together and feed on each other. The more extreme Party A gets, the more Party B fears it. In addition, the more extreme Party B feels justified in being to counter the efforts and effects of Party A. Party A sees Party B's extremism, fears it, and feels the need to go even further. And the cycle continues on itself until you get where we are now - both parties pushing hard in opposite directions and scared to death of one another. I think the only want to stop the vicious cycle is for a silent middle of the road electorate to win an election. The problem is that middle of the road voters are rarely motivated to show up.
If I were a Republican I'd be called a RINO. I'm a white Christian unenthusiastic about Obama and HRC. I guess I fear Republicans more, but honestly in Texas they haven't yet screwed things up terribly, unless you have mentally ill family members or are disabled through a workplace accident.
Or you are a college student or parent with a kid in college, need to drive on the highways, pay property taxes, are a doctor who wants his bills paid promptly, get cheated by an insurance company, or are a victim of medical malpractice. . .
As I've posted on another thread, I fear Jade Helm less than a vampire takeover, but more than a Zombie Apocolypse. (A scientist convinced me that a zombie simply couldn't be energetic enough to cause much harm.) I think Vampires are entirely fictional, but scarier than the entirely fictional crap Alex Jones dreams up.
Is Jade Helm 15 still a thing or is there something else the fringe right has moved onto? The fringe left seems to be focused on oil drillers headed to Alaska but that could simply be a local-Seattle thing.
Michael Hayden attributed Jade Helm 15 to Russian bots. Furthermore, he claims that gave the Russians lots of confidence that they could influence US elections. Heck, Gov. Abbott activated the Texas National Guard to monitor the US military for fear of a conspiracy fueled theoretical planned takeover. Extremists are so easily duped.