The Entire Series on Political Polarization

Jul 23, 2022

John’s Newsletter

Political Polarization: Part One

I learned the preamble to the constitution in seventh grade history class. Not only was it covered as a topic in class, but the teacher would regularly get frustrated by the class’s lack of attention. When her frustration got to be too much, she ordered us to take out a piece of paper and write out the preamble to the constitution ten or twenty times. S…

2 years ago · 1 like · 2 comments · John Hawthorne

John’s Newsletter

Political Polarization: Part Two

This is the second installment of my series on political polarization. You can read the first here. I’ve worked out a plan for the next couple of weeks. The dates might shift slightly depending on life circumstances, but here is the structure of the series…

2 years ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · John Hawthorne

John’s Newsletter

Political Polarization: Part Three

In this third newsletter on political polarization, I want to start with a fascinating chapter in Tom Nichol’s Our Own Worst Enemy. Nichols reports on research that political scientist Edward Banfield conducted in a small Italian village in the 1950s. Here is a telling paragraph…

2 years ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · John Hawthorne

John’s Newsletter

Political Polarization (4): Don't Believe What They Tell You

Shortly after we were married in the late 1970s, my wife got a job doing soil analysis for a farm consulting firm. The owners would travel to huge farms and collect samples, which my wife would analyze to determine Ph and phosphorus levels. These would get turned into maps to tell the farm owners how to best treat their crops. A few months after she sta…

2 years ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · John Hawthorne

John’s Newsletter

Political Polarization (5): The End of the World as We Know It

It was a striking moment for me. I was watching the February 2016 New Hampshire Republican Presidential Debate (proof that I am, indeed, a political junkie!). Senator Marco Rubio had prepared a line he used multiple times during the event. He said, …

2 years ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · John Hawthorne

John’s Newsletter

Political Polarization (6): Real America vs. The Woke Mob

A little more than a month after being selected as John McCain’s 2008 running mate, Sarah Palin made her Real America speech at a North Carolina fundraiser. According to a Washington Post article at the time, Palin said: “We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe" -- here the audience interrupted Palin with applause an…

2 years ago · 4 likes · 1 comment · John Hawthorne

John’s Newsletter

Political Polarization (7): Polarization is the Business Model

As I’ve worked my way through this series on political polarization over the last three weeks, I’ve looked at a variety of characteristics of people that help them take rigid positions and not make space for others. I’ve looked at how we read history, the media we consume, tribalism, identity, catastrophism, and geography. Over the last 15 years, we’ve …

2 years ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · John Hawthorne

John’s Newsletter

Political Polarization (8): Searching for Solutions

Throughout this series, I’ve explored the various ways in which our political world seems hopelessly divided. The January 6th hearings have suggested that there are ways of pursuing truth in the face of lies. And yet it also points out how deeply entrenched our divisions are…

2 years ago · 4 comments · John Hawthorne

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