But starting just after World War II, America’s community/membership mind-set gave way to an individualistic/autonomy mind-set. The idea was that individuals should be liberated to live as they chose, so long as they didn’t interfere with the rights of others.
By 1981, the pollster Daniel Yankelovich noticed the effects: “Throughout most of this century Americans believed that self-denial made sense, sacrificing made sense, obeying the rules made sense, subordinating oneself to the institution made sense. But now doubts have set in, and Americans now believe that the old giving/getting compact needlessly restricts the individual while advancing the power of large institutions … who use the power to enhance their own interests at the expense of the public.”
.. Partisanship becomes a preconscious lens through which people see the world.
They report being optimistic or pessimistic depending on whether their team is in power. They become unrealistic. Trump voters don’t seem to realize how unelectable their man is because they hang out with people like themselves.
.. If we’re going to salvage our politics, we probably have to shrink politics, and nurture the thick local membership web that politics rests within. We probably have to scale back the culture of autonomy that was appropriate for the 1960s but that has since gone too far.
American Anger: It’s Not the Economy. It’s the Other Party.
Data on the nation’s economic recovery, people’s reactions to current economic conditions and their overall sense of satisfaction with life doesn’t suggest Americans are angry.
.. The increasing alignment between party and racial attitudes goes back to the early 1990s. The Pew Values Survey asks people whether they agree that “we should make every effort to improve the position of minorities, even if it means giving them preferential treatment.
.. Democrats are now much more supportive (52 percent) of efforts to improve racial equality than they were a few decades ago, while the views of Republicans have been largely unchanged (12 percent agree).
.. But recent work by Stanford University’s Shanto Iyengar and his co-authors shows something else has been brewing in the electorate: a growing hostilitytoward members of the opposite party. This enmity, they argue, percolates into opinions about everyday life.
.. Partisans, for example, are now more concerned that their son or daughter might marry someone of the opposite party (compared with Britain today and the United States in 1960). They also found that partisans are surprisingly willing to discriminate against people who are not members of their political party.
.. Disagreements between people about nominations for the Academy Awards, for example, may now become emotional as well as political if they involve racial attitudes because of the sorting of these attitudes by party and the contempt people feel for the other side.
Mitch McConnell’s Stance in Confirmation Fight Could Help and Hurt G.O.P.
Mr. McConnell’s strategic affront — announcing just hours after Justice Scalia’s death that he would refuse to even consider a replacement — was presaged by other Republican moves over the last two years. A week ago, the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees said the president’s budget director should not be allowed to testify at their budget hearings, a move without modern precedent. Last year, Senate Republicans dragged out the confirmation of Attorney General Loretta Lynch for more than 150 days.
At the heart of nearly every major policy battle between the White House and congressional Republicans has been the contention by conservatives that Mr. Obama does not respect the Constitution, almost ensuring advance contempt for any nomination he would make.
.. Democrats were quick to criticize Mr. McConnell’s decision.
“McConnell’s precipitous action is reminiscent of his statement in 2010 that his prime goal was to prevent Mr. Obama’s re-election,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. “Obama hadn’t presented his proposals for the upcoming Congress; now he hasn’t named a nominee for the court.
How Fox News Changed American Media and Political
In August 1987, under pressure from Ronald Reagan’s drive for deregulation, the FCC abolished the fairness doctrine. A local radio broadcaster in Sacramento, California, named Rush Limbaugh quickly recognized the opportunity this afforded. A strong conservative, he realized that he could now do an entire show consisting of nothing but controversial opinions, without the burden of offering equal time to other views.
.. Limbaugh’s move was fortuitous. At the exact moment he launched his show, the AM band on the radio dial was essentially dying. Since the late 1960s, music programming and listeners had deserted AM radio in droves. The FM dial provided a better signal and could broadcast in stereo, which became increasingly important as musical styles changed. Unable to compete by broadcasting music, AM stations searched for alternative programming. Talk proved to be very viable. Soon there were talkers across the AM dial, many expressing a conservative viewpoint.
.. Studies show that Fox viewers have a distinct set of political attitudes and voting patterns that are as much anti-liberal as they are conservative.
.. Fox is not really about politics….Rather, it’s about having a chip on your shoulder; it’s about us versus them, insiders versus outsiders, phonies versus nonphonies, and, in a clever piece of postmodernism, established media against insurgent media.