{"id":856242,"date":"2021-10-07T11:14:15","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T15:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=856242"},"modified":"2021-10-07T11:14:35","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T15:14:35","slug":"what-if-polarization-isnt-the-big-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/what-if-polarization-isnt-the-big-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"What If \u2018Polarization\u2019 Isn\u2019t The Big Problem?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhat-if-polarization-isnt-the-big-problem%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=856242&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/shapiro-graphic-scaled-1.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>This week, the University of Virginia Center for Politics released a poll surveying Americans\u2019 feelings about their political opponents. According to the poll, 80% of Biden voters and 84% of Trump voters believed that elected officials of the opposite party present a \u201cclear and present danger to American democracy\u201d; 78% of Biden voters believed that the Republican Party wanted to eliminate the influence of \u201cprogressive values\u201d in American life, while 87% of Trump voters believed that the Democrats wanted to eliminate \u201ctraditional values\u201d; 75% of Biden voters and 78% of Trump voters believed that the opposing party\u2019s supporters were a \u201cclear and present danger to the American way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These statistics are, of course, alarming. The popular theory these days is that willingness by both Democrats and Republicans to abandon democratic norms \u2014 election result acceptance, checks and balances, due process of law and all the rest \u2014 is purely the result of reactionary dislike. If you fear your neighbor is going to abuse the process, you\u2019d be a fool to stick to the process \u2014 and the more we dislike our neighbors, the more we fear that they\u2019ll take advantage of us.<\/p>\n<p data-slot-rendered-dynamic=\"true\">But is this theory correct? Is polarization actually the reason for increased willingness to ditch democratic norms?<\/p>\n<div id=\"content_btf_wrapper\" data-wrapper=\"content_btf\" data-nosnippet readability=\"97.816879476799\">According to a new study from political scientists David Broockman of the University of California, Berkeley, Joshua Kalla of Yale and Sean Westwood of Dartmouth, the answer is no. They write, \u201cWe find no evidence that an exogenous decrease in affective polarization causes a downstream decrease in opposition to democratic norms.\u201d In other words, Americans hating each other less does nearly nothing to reduce Americans\u2019 willingness to override democratic norms in order to achieve their goals.If polarization isn\u2019t driving the undermining of norms, what is? Perhaps the answer is that the reverse is actually occurring: As we\u2019ve abandoned democratic norms, we\u2019ve come to despise our neighbors.<\/p>\n<p data-slot-rendered-dynamic=\"true\">This makes a certain amount of logical and correlative sense. The Founding Fathers had a particular vision of human nature, believing human beings were capable of great things but were also rife with sin and corruption. Given the variability of human nature, epistemic humility \u2014 a recognition that human beings are often wrong \u2014 would be necessary. And that epistemic humility would translate into a desire for liberty. High-level government, in this view, would be hamstrung from cramming down a unitary form of virtue on a pluralistic society, at least; subsidiarity, in which local communities governed themselves while the federal government maintained certain basic norms, would be the proper approach. The federal government would be pitted against itself through checks and balances, creating obstacles that would necessitate broad agreement about use of power to legitimize such use of power.<\/p>\n<div id=\"content_2_btf_wrapper\" class=\"adunitwrapper content_btf_wrapper mv-size-300x250\" data-wrapper=\"content_2_btf\" data-nosnippet readability=\"90.658536585366\">Today, however, most Americans seem to instinctively recoil from this vision of human nature and its concomitant governmental approach. Instead, human beings are held to be entirely malleable creatures of circumstance who can be molded by a better system into their highest selves. Grant the \u201cright person\u201d with the \u201cright principles\u201d unending power, democratically or not, and watch virtue spring forth. The government isn\u2019t the problem, it\u2019s the solution.The problem with this, of course, is that we all have different ideas of the right person and the right principles. And once we have agreed that the government <i>ought <\/i>to have the ability to fix all our problems, anyone who stands in our way becomes a heretic. By abandoning the Founders\u2019 accurate characterization of human nature and the governmental structure embodied in the Constitution, we set ourselves up for polarization and rage.<\/p>\n<p data-slot-rendered-dynamic=\"true\">Perhaps the first step toward fixing our newfound dislike for democratic norms is to re-inculcate not love of neighbor, but understanding of human flaws, human foibles and the limits of human understanding. Perhaps we ought to start with some epistemic humility. From that source, perhaps a renewal of democratic norms <i>and <\/i>an embrace of our neighbors might spring.<\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i>member<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, the University of Virginia Center for Politics released a poll surveying Americans\u2019 feelings about their political opponents. According to the poll, 80% of Biden voters and 84% of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1891934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-856242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1891934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}