What Drives Our Political Behavior
To understand the challenges of this moment, we need to be clear-eyed about the emotional dynamics of partisanship and the dangerous tendencies they’ve fostered—people who care more about their group winning than the greater good, or about policies that would help us all.
On a new episode of How to Save a Country, hosts Felicia Wong and Michael Tomasky welcome the perfect person to explain this phenomenon: Dr. Lilliana Mason, political scientist and co-author of Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy.
“Before the social sorting occurred, the status of our party was the only thing at risk in every election,” Dr. Mason says. “But now that we have all of these other important identities linked to the status of our party, every election feels like it's also about the status of our religious group and our racial group, and our culture and where we live, and who we grew up with.”
And later, Dr. Mason talks with Felicia and Michael about the threat of white supremacist and anti-democratic blocs, the importance of union participation as a tool for progress, and the need for truth-telling with compassion.
Listen now, and follow for new podcast episodes every Thursday.
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