1. Partisanship
Here is one of the nagging feelings that’s been in the back of my mind over the last few years:
We’ve developed a political culture in which one party has affirmative policy goals and the second party is committed mostly to making the first party angry. And this incentive system has created a market in which the first party campaigns on healthcare reform and infrastructure spending while the second party campaigns on performative cruelty.
Turns out there’s enough evidence here to support a scholarly article: “Partisan schadenfreude and candidate cruelty,” in the new issue of Political Psychology.
But the data is more nuanced than you might expect and presents a cautionary tale not just for one side, but for all of us. Especially when it comes to people like Joe the Plumber.
It’s going to be a bit of a ride; so let’s get to it.
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