In his victory speech in November, US President-elect Joe Biden promised to reach across the aisle, work with Republicans, and unite the country. Two months later, outgoing President Donald Trump still has not conceded, and some of his loyalists reportedly plan to vote against the counting of Electoral College votes this week. The effort won’t prevent Biden from being inaugurated this month, but it does demonstrate just how polarised the United States is – and the threat this poses to America’s democracy.
To be sure, the US Constitution has proved hardy over the last four years. Since the presidential election two months ago, Trump and his Republican allies have filed more than 50 lawsuits challenging the results. They have lost all of them, with even the Supreme Court – which Trump has packed with right-wing justices – ruling against them.
Nonetheless, the lengths to which Trump loyalists have been willing to go to for him, together with the support he still enjoys among voters, raise serious questions about the state of American society. After all, polarization in America today is not fueled by disagreement over, say, which tax policies would do the most good for Americans and their economy. Such debates are the lifeblood of democratic politics. But they seem to have been abandoned in favor of disputes over reality itself – with deadly consequences.
Consider the COVID-19 pandemic. From the beginning, Trump played down the severity of the coronavirus, despite knowing better. Moreover, he has repeatedly endorsed unproven treatments, while refusing to support the mandatory use of proven preventive measures, like mask wearing. Over 350,000 Americans have died.
Yet many of Trump’s supporters remain as loyal as ever. More than 74 million Americans voted for Trump in November, compared to 81 million for Biden. And, though Trump and his allies have put forward no evidence of electoral fraud, only one-quarter of Republicans say they trust the results of the recent vote.
Yet this should not be particularly surprising. From asserting that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election “completely and totally exonerated” him to claiming that water-conservation restrictions force people to flush their toilets 10-15 times instead of once, Trump’s go-to strategy throughout his political career has been simply to make things up. Republicans have willingly echoed his lies, and conservative media have amplified and built on them.
For the last four years, that job has fallen primarily to Fox News, Trump’s number one cheerleader and megaphone. More recently, however, Trump has lashed out at the network, which he believes has been insufficiently loyal in its election coverage, and embraced even more extreme outlets, such as Newsmax and One America News Network.
Such media allies could pave the way for a political comeback. Trump has already discussed running for president again in 2024, and there is speculation about his daughter Ivanka Trump’s political ambitions. But it doesn’t have to be a Trump who takes up the mantle of right-wing populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism in the US; a figure from outside the family could also emerge to fill this role, possibly much more deftly than Trump.
The best way to mitigate this risk is to close the cognitive gap that is distorting US political discourse, returning Americans to a shared reality. The question is how. After all, plenty of existing media outlets – including legacy newspapers like The Washington Post and The New York Times, as well as mainstream American television networks like CNN – already provide fact-based, data-driven journalism. Many simply don’t listen.
Instead, Trump and his supporters decry the “mainstream media” for pushing a “liberal agenda,” which includes, for example, recognising and exposing racial injustice and other forms of discrimination. But this approach is only as radical as democracy itself, and has contributed significantly to American social progress, particularly since the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Even so, a significant share of people – especially those who benefit from biased systems – will resist social progress, regardless of how strong a case the media make for it. And they will embrace political leaders and news sources that provide an alternate reality in which their position is rationalized, defended, and shared.
This is hardly a uniquely American phenomenon. In Japan, progress toward gender equality has been slow, despite the obvious benefits of increasing female labor-force participation amid rapid populating aging. Nearly eight years ago, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made policies aimed at reaping those benefits – dubbed “womenomics” – a pillar of his “Abenomics” strategy for economic revitalization. But Japan still has a long way to go, owing largely to social resistance.
Overcoming such resistance to progress – in the US, Japan, and elsewhere – will require not just information, but persuasion. Communication must be painstaking, non-threatening, and people-oriented, aimed not at telling people they are wrong, but at influencing how they perceive the issue.
Biden cannot do this alone. It must be a bipartisan effort, led by America’s most senior political leaders. Fortunately, the latest COVID-19 relief package, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support despite Trump’s objections, offers reason for hope that this is possible. Whether such compromises will continue into Biden’s presidency remains to be seen.
Republicans and Democrats will never agree on everything, as well they shouldn’t: a vibrant democracy depends on spirited debate. But they should agree on empirical facts. Only then can they devise policies in good faith, find broadly beneficial compromises, and protect US democracy from would-be authoritarians eager to exploit Americans’ cognitive divide.
Koichi Hamada, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Yale, was a special adviser to Japan’s prime minister. This content is © Project Syndicate, 2020, and is here with permission.
89 Comments
This is the dilemma that for instance, the Bush clan foresaw. The Republicans so desperate in 2016 for power, were terrified that Trump would run as an independent and split off their vote. Now if Trump is still out and about, the same spectre looms for 2024. Like the good Dr Frankenstein, the Republicans have created their own monster, Trump is the rogue elephant in the elephant’s room.
The Republican Party needs to remove all congressmen/senators who have been in office for more than 15 years and bring fresh blood into the party. And they should initiate the Impeachment of Trump for obstruction of Congress and attempt to subver the Constitution. That would restore their credibility and may be Americans will warm up to them slowly.
Right...so the way to de-escalate the situation is to persecute the most popular sitting president in American history.
Let me run this scenario past you instead, put your pitch fork away then look at all his grievances in detail (despite what you've heard there are some valid ones there) it adds maybe a week or 2 to the election process and, if everyone is confident the processes were followed legally, then it will take the wind right out of his sails everything gets de-escalated (partly) and everyone can go about their business or is that too boring for you.
David4269,
"Is that too boring for you". What, amongst other things, you can't acknowledge is that NO PROCESS which didn't give Trump the result he wants, would satisfy him or his supporters. You are in effect saying that all the 78? lawsuits have been dismissed through a vast conspiracy which includes the Supreme Court. Now, the VP must be part of that conspiracy. is that what you truly believe?
I'm unsure what you're talking about, I'm saying some of the issues he raised have been raised for the last 30 years in America.
I think you've been reading too much into far-left conspiracy media about everything being a conspiracy.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any middle media anymore so I'd suggest you read through the court cases and underlying issues, especially in the PA lawsuit detailing the election process implemented by the state executive and changes for the 2020 election, they are unusual given their state election laws.
EDIT: edited for context.
It is time for the Republicans to gather behind Mike Pence and may be nominate him as their candidate for 2024.
He seems to have the guts to stand up to the task of defending the Constitution...
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/pence-national-guard/index…
You have got to be kidding. A man who refuses to work in the same room as a woman without some sort of escort. He would drag the States even further into the dark ages. If there is to be another Republican president in the near future, I would say Mitt Romney is the only one who has shown some sense through all of this
It appears some people have just got off a boat that has not had communication for months. It has been two months since the election and NOT ONE lawsuit was deemed fit out of 60 or so, including the supreme court, his own election cyber security guy , his own Attorney general etc etc ...all thrown out of court because NO EVIDENCE has been brought forward. DUMBTY supporters are following a mentally delusional dictator whose mind may have been for ever altered by the covid infection and the experimental drugs he was given. Of course his behavior is no different than 2015 or so, so whose to say. Such repetition of events explains why some people just don't have the cognitive ability to understand the most basic things.
Hi WaituaSmith, no, they haven't just got off the boat, it's cognitive dissonance. The facts don't tally with their beliefs, so they are choosing to disregard facts and bathe in confirmation bias from within their conspiracy-theory, alt right bubbles.
I used to be a regular in these comments until they were overrun by Covid-denying, Trump-worshipping Zero-Hedge Koolaid guzzling brain washed men. There is no point presenting facts to them, no point reasoning with them, they have been radicalised. The same people who were ranting about Swedish herd immunity (how did that work out guys?) are the same people who will rant about how the vaccines (that might actually end this pandemic) are part of some grand pedo Democrat conspiracy that only Trump can save us from. They won't see reason because reason involves them actually admitting they were wrong, admitting that they chose to let their darkest fears get the better of them and falling for the exciting hyperbole of demigoguery for comfort. And that's despite having the privilege and luck of living in the country recognised as having one of, if not, the best Covid response. Of course they also hate Jacinda and constantly deride her, even though her leadership is undoubtedly one of the reasons Kiwis are the envy of the world. These Covidiots would rather have an old, deluded, egotystical angry boomer like Trump leading their narrative, despite his disastrous leadership in the pandemic, than accept young, female, moderate, consensus politician like Jacinda (who is currently ACTUALLY one of the most popular politicians in the world).
Nope! Sorry but it just depresses me too much to see grown ass men, with previously decent brains, spout mindless brain washed alt-right covid-denying nonsense. I used to respect some of them and it gives me the weltschmertz. It was like watching a slow motion car crash over the last few years and you could see it happening. First they are posting links to ZeroHedge, next they are repeating memes from QAnon and then by the time Covid arrived... they were already too far gone and they genuinely propagated the belief that it was no worse than flu and that Sweden herd immunity was a spiffy idea. And now here we are, 10 months into the pandemic, nearly 2 million dead despite all the lockdowns and restrictions and their new heroes are undermining democracy and defiling the Capitol, I can't even with those guys.
Maybe if you read the publicly available court details behind the news you'd understand what’s going on instead of getting told what to think.
I used to read Zerohedge a few years ago but these days they’re just as incoherent as the rest of the media.
Don't you get tired of living in your own echo chamber?
I'm not sure who you're talking about but the meta game here is academically interesting while I'm on holiday, I'm already getting bored of the subject though so I'll probably be gone soon and you can go back to your bubble.
If I have to, next time, I'll definitely make a user called David and try to integrate those two numbers into my account so you can say "hi" though ;)
Not really, I was speaking to your incoherent rant about some sort of Trump conspiracy by I'm unsure who, I think you're blaming boomers or is it white people today maybe tomorrow it'll be all males who knows...
EDIT: Sorry, I might have come across as either dismissive or harsh above but reality is often much more nuanced than a simple good vs bad.
A trick you can use is that, when you find yourself surrounded by people saying the same thing you should test your logical foundations using information that is as objective as possible.
A sure sign something is wrong is the severity of the push back you receive when trying to empathize with your opposition both internally and from other people, for humans this behavior is old as.
There are a lot of bold assumptions there. You are a new account so know nothing of my political persuasion, wider knowledge base or stance on anything. And my comments won't be incoherent to anyone who knows the other regular commentators on here over the past several years. Or what they claimed at the beginning of the pandemic (vs what has actually played out). Or the many conspiracy theories they have shared on here, that have already been disproved.
Agreed. I wonder if the odious Newt Gingrich was watching today's debacle on Capitol Hill? Extreme partisanship and using his office as a pulpit was seeded during his time as Speaker. Plenty of overlap between the parties before that. When I lived in the US during the Reagan era, our local congressman - Democrat Speaker Tip O'Neill - regularly played golf with Gerald Ford. O'Neill outed Gingrich gesticulating to an empty chamber after hours when they brought TV cameras into the House for the first time.
My thought is that the US problem is that it is a two-party state. More parties means a far less chance for the bipartisan dysfunction we see in the US. If Trump, Rand Paul or some other Republican forms a far-right/libertarian party, similar to ACT here in NZ, my only hope would be the liberal Democrats also break away from their establishment centrists. The US needs real diversity of choice in its politics - as that is the only way they will manage to blunt/blur the present dichotomy of power.
My sister (who lives and votes in the US) really wished that Bernie Sanders had broken away when he was denied/lost the Dem ticket. Not all Democrats support Biden, just as not all Republicans support Trump - but they are all too worried about re-election to run under some other banner. Hoping that changes.
Very wishful thinking this. Attempts for a Third Party candidate have failed in the past. The lobbyists are happy with just 2 parties to corrupt and don't want to spread their money around smaller parties. Money makes American Politics go around and the less people to share the better.
Crikey Pocket aces, do a bit of research. Watch poor old Joe reading his autocues and not realising he is not meant to actually say, "end of message". Just pitiful. As his his whole presidential candidacy. He is a shuffling example of how Alzheimer's deteriorates one. As US will find out over the next four years.
I am surprised people haven't realised it was a Biden v Harris election.
The two oldies on the ticket were just to keep the party faithful happy.
USA has a minimum age to run for presidency, perhaps it is time they look at a maximum age now as well. Starting what is probably one of the highest stress jobs on the planet in your mid to late 70s is just idiotic.
Got to agree with you. I think many people see this and Bidens age. However, DUMBTY lost the election more than Biden won it. People were just sick of the disgusting and divisive rhetoric with an agenda to achieve absolutely nothing good for the people, only to enrich DUMBTY himself and his pathetic and equally disgusting criminal cronies. The MAJORITY, was just sick of it.
You know there are Trumpets in these comments who actually believe that Biden's stutter is fake news though right? Telling them to do research, won't help because their "research" is Breitbart, Zerohedge, QAnon et al. They have drunk the koolaid so deep that they think *you* are sheeple and they are the super clever, in the know, shamans of truth.
Trump sends America in to meltdown! BBC Pro-Trump protesters storm the US Capitol building. The good news is that the Democrats now have control over the Senate.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55568131
One result will surely be to see the Rebuplican party split in two-the Trump party and the remnents of the GOP.
if so, that would mean that they each field candidates at the next election and that would surely help the Democrat cause, would it not?
Could this go further and see some states secede from the Union?
iThe Democrats too are painted into a bit of a corner re 2024. Biden says he is for only one term and given his age, shouldn’t change his mind. Harris as Vice President is an unknown quantity presidentially at the least. The democrats in the end fell back on Biden simply because they couldn’t raise up a better alternative, one that was electable. There does not appear to be a forerunner of presidential calibre within their ranks, presently. Believe the Republicans will now regroup. Stalwart contenders such as Romney, Jeb Bush, even Rubio will come to the fore, a return to normalcy in other words. But yes the spectre of Trump, if he is still buoyant four years from now, then that will be more than a monkey wrench in the works. He may have to be nobbled?
And just how could the media 'leave him alone' in office? What sort of job would they have been doing if they didn't reoprt on his constant stream of lies and invective? Of his unwillingness to investigate Russian meddling in the campaigns? His unswerving desire to dismantle environmental protections? his abuse of power? His nepotism?
Nahh The tech giants have already hit the mute button on Trump. Twitter has locked President Trump's account for 12 hours. It has also warned that future violations of integrity or threat policies "will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account".
Donald Trump's message to protesters as they attacked the US Capitol has been taken down by Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/election-us-2020-55558355
It is time for the Republicans to gather behind Mike Pence and may be nominate him as their candidate for 2024.
He seems to have the guts to stand up to the task of defending the Constitution...
https://edition.cnn.com/.../pence-national-guard/index.html
Your comment "...And they will embrace political leaders and news sources that provide an alternate reality in which their position is rationalized, defended, and shared..." - cuts both ways.
The best arguments for Trump were made by the behavior of his opponents, this hysteria about him would be comical if it wasn't so dangerous.
You were told to hate Trump and his supporters for 5 years, it was drummed into you, to not question it and that anyone who questions this should be taught the error of their ways, this is great as a marketing strategy and for click bait but terrible for a democracy.
You, as a reported, and some media agencies, decided to ignore things like facts and reality just as much as the Trump team have and it's lead to this situation.
Trumps election was cathartic and necessary, you could have predicted someone like Trump and Boris in 2008 when populist uprisings started to kick off, which were another response for a series of events you could probably trace back to the end of WW2.
You can also predict that, because of the massive support Trump received this election, it hasn't stopped yet.
Opponents of the Trump presidency have set the standard for behavior during his presidency so I think his supporters will take what has happened politically, through the media and through protests as a template to escalate things further during the Biden presidency in the same spirit that far-left media and political organizations have.
Put another way, Biden will, in all likelihood, receive the same treatment that Trump has received the only difference being Biden is better at hiding his behavior than Trump ever was, After all, isn't the art of hiding your true intentions what being a good politician is all about.
With Trump you saw him warts and all but, with career politicians, you see a carefully crafted persona.
In a press conference while still seeking the GOP nomination, Trump responded to a question from a senior media personality that he would not be expecting to have a good relationship with the press. Trump responded with something like “exactly right.” I thought that was refreshingly honest and demonstrated strength in independence. But Trump has undone himself regardless of his relationship with the media. No one forced him to say bleach would prevent CV19, according to him and nobody else, NZ was in desperate strife with rampant CV19 and four years worth of other inane utterances. It is hardly dignified behaviour befitting of a president.You simply cannot remain credible if you keep on blurting out falsehoods and fantasies, nobody anywhere can. After not too long ordinary folk will just not swallow extraordinary behaviour and the grandstanding of it, let alone on a daily basis.
The Republican Party needs to remove all congressmen/senators who have been in office for more than 15 years and bring fresh blood into the party. And they should initiate the Impeachment of Trump for obstruction of Congress and attempt to subver the Constitution. That would restore their credibility and may be Americans will warm up to them slowly.
This is the same as your other comment so my reply is the same:
Right...so the way to de-escalate the situation is to persecute the most popular sitting president in American history.
Let me run this scenario past you instead, put your pitch fork away then look at all his grievances in detail (despite what you've heard there are some valid ones there) it adds maybe a week or 2 to the election process and, if everyone is confident the processes were followed legally, then it will take the wind right out of his sails everything gets de-escalated (partly) and everyone can go about their business or is that too boring for you.
Well, he had what nearly 2 months to establish his case (Remember he was running the country, when he was not playing golf or spending time at Mar a Lago) and he could have unearthed all the irregularities with the administrative machinery he had. Even the Justices were not believing his allegations. Why give him two more weeks and thwart the process set by the Constitution ? Is he above the Constitution, he swore to protect ?
Well, again if you look at the cases you'll see they were dismissed on technicalities.
For example a case brought by the Trump campaign in one of the states before the election was dismissed because Trump had not suffered a injury then, after the election, the same case was dismissed because Trump had waited to long to raise the case and should have raised it 12 months before.
In another case the claims seemed incoherent and their points seemed straight out of the X-files.
Guess which case was reported in the media and which case was ignored?
Put another way none of the election cases have gotten to the point where evidence was looked at in their court system so you can't say there is evidence for or against their case just a lot of hearsay which is pure fuel for far-left/right conspiracy nonsense by everyone.
Just because you only read about the fringe cases that never had a chance in your media bubble doesn't mean all cases were the same.
Trump had a point somewhere there, about identification of voters.
The Americans don't know how many illegal aliens are there and they know how many attempts have been made to interfere in the elections there.
It is therefore vitally necessary to make sure that only eligible voters cast their ballots.
They have to work out a uniform system for the entire country. High time some reforms are considered and introduced.
May be that is the takeaway from all this ugly drama ?
David
“ . . let’s look at his grievances. . .”
“ . . . It will take the wind out of his sails . . . “
You serious?
Of his 62 court cases 61 have been thrown out (in one the judge order a very minor action which had no significance on the result).
Of the 2 Supreme Court Cases - stacked withTrump appointees - were thrown out, one for Trump a very embarrassing one sentence rebuke.
We have had up to three recounts by hand with no change.
All election officials many of whom are Republicans and, in some such as Barr are Trump appointees, all have unanimously rejected any irregularity despite at least once instance of bullying and intimidation.
David, you are sounding really desperate; one more time, one more, one more . . . . and as for the numerous previous occasions if that isn’t successful, one more time, one more time.
David you are sucked in by Trump’s rhetoric and in denial of the multitude times his claims have been rejected by the courts, Supreme Court and election officials including Republican officials. Even in the current Senate and Congress certification process, a significant number (about a third to a half) of Republicans are not supporting the claims rather considering them baseless.
I'm unsure where your hysteria is coming from but the office should be respected and people should do their jobs.
I'm indifferent to Trump and his supporters but very interested in the moral and ethical knots people will tie themselves into to justify objectively objectionable behavior on both sides.
EDIT: edited for clarity.
printer...I think we just have to take the comments section on all sites as entertainment. I don't know about you, but I have found this site to be full of foreign infiltrators from china, russia and iran etc....as much as twitter, facebook, fox entertainment, newsmax. are etc etc etc. I think it would be an awesome idea to discontinue the comments section. I think this social media crap is so detrimental to a mature society, from teenage bullying up to the incoherent ramblings of Dumbster supporters and the Dumbster himself, conspiracy theorists and just downright dangerous loonies.
People go on about free speech. People using social platforms should have to pass some sort of psychological exam before opening an account. Obviously the dumbster therefore would never have been able to have a twitter account and not been able to cause so much damage to the free world. You don't need social media to have free speech. It would just force people who want to be heard to go through much more stringent channels which would help sort out the loonies and force them to legitimise their comments.
MSN, Yahoo finance, Google sites, and hundreds of media sites have shut down their comments section because of the unproductive hate and conspiracy vitriol that is spewed forth under cover of pseudonyms, (and necessarily so, due to internet trolls and other loonies and psycopaths out there).
In the case of the Dumbster having his twitter and facebook accounts shut down....its a start of responsibility. They are privately owned companies and can shut out anyone for abuse of their platform when they see easily proved lies and disinformation being spewed forth on an hourly basis. An opinion is one thing. Outright lies and hate are not conducive to any platform for the progression of society. Our enemies are using these platforms to sow discontent throughout the world. America is a shining example of it dividing the people where many of them don't have the education, time or ability to look at more than one conspiracy site such as fox in order to get a rounded view of things.
lt would all be laughable entertainment if it was not so seriously a problem.
Anyone who says US problems are going to be sorted by Joe Biden has either done zero research, or has done the research and is pushing a narrative totally unbased on Joe's history. Then one finds out that Koichi is a Japanese government ecomomics advisor, and works for Yale university. That is when the little credibility he has goes down the drain. A classic case of TDS carried on by lazy news gatherers.
The longterm outlook for the Republicans is not good , if they don't change.Minority populations are growing , white is stagnant. Urbanisation means Their rural base is a dwindling %, exposed to liberal thinking. Easterners moving to Western / southern states to retire, Changing the demographics. They will be down to the Midwest and the bible belt (minus Georgia) as true red states by 2024.
yes , there are conservative Latino and conservative blacks, but the majority are democrat.
Even in the midwest, the urban / rural split is severe. Rural 70-70 % Republican , urban 50-60% democratic. If you look at Georgia's results , it was 80 % of urban to Democrat, 80 % of rural to Republican . Such a split has to be of concern.
Yes and those rural people who are overwhelmingly republican rant on about socialism all the time. Then go collect their farm subsidies (which have doubled since DUMBTY started his tariff tit for tat with China), their social security, their unemployment, their federal stimulus payments, their Medicare subsidies etc, etc, etc...ALL a form of socialist policies designed to help the average person.
Cracks me up.
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