Podcast appearances and mentions of lilliana mason

Political outcomes would be relatively simple to predict and understand if only people were well-informed, entirely rational, and perfectly self-interested. Alas, real human beings are messy, emotional, imperfect creatures, so a successful theory of politics has to account for these features. One phenomenon that has grown in recent years is an alignment of cultural differences with political ones, so that polarization becomes more entrenched and even violent. I talk with political scientist Lilliana Mason about how this has come to pass, and how democracy can deal with it.Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/02/17/305-lilliana-mason-on-polarization-and-political-psychology/Support Mindscape on Patreon.Lilliana Hall Mason received her Ph.D. in political psychology from Stony Brook University. She is currently an SNF Agora Institute Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity and co-author (with Nathan Kalmoe) of Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy.Web SiteHopkins web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsBlueskySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Americans are heading to the polls today to cast their vote charting the course of the country, amending state constitutions and deciding local issues like development in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The political scientists Dr. Lilliana Mason of the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Flavio Hickel, Jr. of Washington College join Midday with their perspectives. Plus, we are joined by some young voters in Baltimore. Myles Michelin, 24, shares his perspective as a Gen Z voter, while Tavian Nichols, 21, and Michiru Daniels, 19, talk about what it is like voting for the first time.Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Send us a textIn this episode of Speaking of…College of Charleston, we talk to Michael Lee, professor of communication and Director of the Civility Initiative. Lee has been an influential figure at the college since 2002, focusing on political communication. His research delves into political branding, identity, and strategic communication, earning him numerous awards. Lee is getting ready to launch season two of his podcast When We Disagree, which is focused on powerful, human stories about arguments, conflicts and disagreements.The podcast is a guest driven show, and Lee says the goal is “to have a bunch of people from various walks of life telling a bunch of stories about the conflicts they've had. The conflicts they've wanted to have and the conflicts they've deeply, deeply avoided.”Conflict is an embodied experience. “Think about how you feel during a conflict. Your blood pressure is rising, your brain is flooded with what some psychologists call the devil's cocktail, the combination of cortisol and adrenaline at the same moment," says Lee. "And so, the ways in which we can be mindful of how we show up during that embodied experience and the way it makes us feel can really help us navigate difficult conflicts in our lives.”The Civility Initiative was launched in 2023 and features panels, debates, speakers and workshops that promote communal engagement and healthy disagreement. Upcoming events include the film screening of UNDIVIDE US, a film about polarization and free speech. The film challenges the idea that citizens who disagree are not capable of civil conversation and demonstrates the truth that, even in our differences, the American experiment is still alive and well. Ben Klutsey, executive director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, stars in this film and will lead a Q&A discussion following the screening.Lee offers practical tips for navigating difficult conversations, particularly in the context of the impending election. He emphasizes the importance of curiosity, empathy, and the embodiment of communication as tools for navigating conflicts, especially in highly polarized environments.Resources from this episode:We Are Not One People: Secession and Separatism in American Politics Since 1776When We DisagreeCivility Initiative Events calendarUncivil Agreement, How Politics Became Our Identity by Lilliana Mason

Lies that immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio have inspired dozens of threats against the town, and toward Haitian-Americans across the nation. On this week's On the Media, hear how public acceptance of political violence has grown. Plus, how January 6 became a recruiting tool for one of the country's largest militias.[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone speaks with Macollvie Neel, special projects editor at The Haitian Times, to talk about the recent wave of rhetoric and threats aimed at the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, and why Neel and other reporters saw it coming. [13:29] Host Brooke Gladstone interviews Lilliana Mason, Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, about the growing acceptance of political violence in America, and the reasons behind it. [27:14]  Host Brooke Gladstone sits down with Matthew Dallek, a historian and professor of political management at George Washington University, to look at the history of political violence and presidential assassinations. [37:32] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Joshua Kaplan, reporter at ProPublica, about how one powerful, but largely unseen militia avoided scrutiny after January 6th. And why a day that led many members to quit, turned into a call to arms. Further reading:“Haitians in Springfield: A tale of Black immigration in ‘Anytown USA,'” by Macollvie J. Neel“How to Prevent a Spiral of Political Violence in America,” by Lilliana Mason“Radical American Partisanship,” by Nathan Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason“The Fading Line Between Rhetorical Extremism and Political Violence,” by Matthew Dallek“Political Violence May Be Un-American, but It Is Not Uncommon,” by Matthew Dallek and Robert Dallek“Armed and Underground: Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of an American Militia,” by Joshua Kaplan On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

At last night's debate, President Joe Biden missed his chance to reassure the country that he is not too impaired by age to hold the highest office in the land, and he squandered repeated opportunities to call out the former president's falsifications. Former President Donald Trump stuck tenaciously to falsehoods about the economy, abortion, drug prices, the insurrection, and the 2020 election. He framed almost every problem the country faces through the lens of immigration. By the end of the debate, they were arguing about their golf handicaps. Two analyst joins us to break down the night. Dr. Lilliana Mason is a political scientist on the faculty of the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Erin Doherty covers politics for Axios.Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

We learn techniques for working across the aisle without compromising our values from a Democratic politician in one of the most conservative states, Oklahoma. Link to episode transcript: https://tinyurl.com/w2a9a42p Episode summary: Trying to have a conversation with someone who has an opposing view can be exhausting. This week, we explore what it means to have productive discussions when we disagree. Democratic Oklahoma State Senator Jo Anna Dossett recounts her experience bridging political divides with Republican senators in her state with  active listening and self-compassion. Later, we hear from political science professor Lilliana Mason about the blurred line between personal and political identities, and how connecting with individuals on an emotional and social level can lead to more fruitful discussions than just focusing on facts. Today's guests: Jo Anna Dossett is an Oklahoma State Senator. Learn about Jo Anna Dossett: https://tinyurl.com/muxw7yvz Follow Jo Anna Dossett on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dossett4ok Follow Jo Anna Dossett on Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/293n98fc Follow Jo Anna Dossett on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/yc3mszhx Lilliana Mason is a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University. Learn about Lilliana Mason's work: https://tinyurl.com/w2hy6fhk Follow Lilliana Mason on Twitter: https://tinyurl.com/29sumyxb Resources from The Greater Good Science Center: Eight Keys to Bridging Our Differences: https://tinyurl.com/45ntehyp Four Lessons From Mediators for Bridging Differences: https://tinyurl.com/bdhf68te What Will It Take to Bridge Our Differences? https://tinyurl.com/3sua8uz5 Six Techniques to Help You Bridge Differences: https://tinyurl.com/ypsbycf4 15 Practices to Help Kids Bridge Differences: https://tinyurl.com/mvw4s649 More Resources on Bridging Differences TIME - How Americans Can Tackle Political Division Together: https://tinyurl.com/3phj6y7j APA - Healing the political divide: https://tinyurl.com/38kzvm5k BBC - Crossing Divides: What the research tells us: https://tinyurl.com/yahmwdth Stanford - How to Bridge Political Divides: https://tinyurl.com/yc7ha55p Tell us about your experiences and struggles bridging differences. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod. Help us share The Science of Happiness! Rate us on Spotify and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/d3mc7e6t

GUESTS:  Bob Savage Sr. and Micheal Alexander WTOL 11 recently reported how some local business leaders were “working to gather petitions to equalize mayoral and city council term limits.” According to a press release from BJ Fischer, the individuals feel that other cities in Ohio have benefited from the stability that having a mayor in office more than two terms can provide. The question would go before voters in November. Supporters say it would give voters the option to “choose stability.” GUEST Lilliana Mason - Johns Hopkins University - SNF Agora Institute What happened to the middle in politics? Lilliana Mason is a professor who specializes in Political Psychology. She has looked at the ways in which people have sorted themselves into the two parties on the basis of key identity characteristics like race and religion. Subscribe to WTOL 11 - https://bit.ly/32odAkM Connect with us on social media: Go 419 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Go419/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/wtol11/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/WTOL11Toledo/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/wtol11toledo/ WTOL 11 newsletter - https://wtol.com/email WTOL 11 Weather app - https://bit.ly/3o7ZNwO

2024 will be the world's biggest election year ever. From the United States to the UK, Taiwan to India, South Africa to Mexico, it's estimated countries representing nearly half the world's population will head to the polls in some form of election this year. But how much faith do people around the world still have in democracy?In South Africa this year's election will be a defining one. 40 years since a post-Apartheid electorate voted in Nelson Mandela, the nation is dogged by corruption and voter apathy with less than half expected to turn out. So are South Africans seeking an alternative to democracy and what might that be?Meanwhile in India there are some concerns the world's largest democracy is slipping into authoritarianism. Prime Minister Modi is a key player on the global stage with grand ambitions for India, but his premiership has been dogged by allegations of an anti-Muslim stance. So what does his continued popularity reveal about the state of democracy in a nation where over a billion people are eligible to vote in the general election?In some Western nations too, there is a palpable dissatisfaction with democracy. In the US, former President Trump's refusal to accept the 2020 election result led to the deadly attack on Congress – a sign for current leader Joe Biden that democracy is under threat, not just abroad but at home too.So as we enter a record-breaking year for elections, is democracy itself on the line?Shaun Ley is joined by:Ziyanda Stuurman, senior analyst for Africa at the Eurasia Group think-tank. Debasish Roy Chowdhury is a journalist and co-author of the book 'To Kill A Democracy: India's Passage To Despotism'. Lilliana Mason is associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and author of " Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity". Also featuring:Professor Steven Levitzsky from Harvard University in the US and author of 'How Democracies Die' Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, Oxford UniversityPhoto: Pro-Trump protesters wave banners outside the Capitol, Washington, January 6, 2021 Credit: REUTERS/Shannon StapletonProduced by Pandita Lorenz and Max Horberry

Once a year Matt and Sam take questions from listeners—and they always prove to be incredibly smart and interesting. This time around was no different, with questions that include such topics as: the crisis in Israel and Palestine, the influence of postliberal thinkers on the right, polarization and our political future, the state of the GOP, Willie Nelson, conservative art (and artists), and more!Sources:Joshua Leifer, "Toward a Humane Left," Dissent, Oct 12, 2023; read Gabriel Winant's reply, "On Mourning and Statehood," and Leifer's response to Winant herePatrick Deneen, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023)Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano (1952)Kurt Vonnegut, "Harrison Bergeron" (1961)Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (2018)Samuel L. Popkin, Crackup: The Republican Implosion and the Future of Presidential Politics (2021)Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats (2016)John Spong, "Daniel Lanois on Recording Willie Nelson's Landmark Album 'Teatro,'" Texas Monthly, June 2023Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins (1971)Suzanne Schneider, "Light Among the Nations," Jewish Currents, Sept 23, 2023Ellis Sandoz, Political Apocalypse: A Study of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor (1971)Mark C. Henrie, ed., Doomed Bourgeois in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman (2001) ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The Speaker drama is over (for now) – but who is Mike Johnson? His ascension is not only further evidence that the January 6 insurrectionists are now fully in charge of the House, but also a manifestation of how much the Republican Party is dominated by the interests and sensibilities of religious reactionaries. Johnson rejects the separation of church and state, he disdains pluralism, and he certainly doesn't like “democracy.”   We also discuss the role threats of violence played in this whole affair. The MAGA base wanted Jim Jordan – and threatened those who didn't support him. We talk about the surge of political violence from the Right, violent threats as a form of political communication, and the kind of political culture that has been established on the Right and is constantly being normalized not just by Donald Trump, but also by an inability and/or unwillingness of America's elected leaders and political institutions to hold the line. Does the fact that some Republicans publicly resisted these threats signal that this is about to change? We are skeptical: After all, even those Republicans who lamented the MAGA threats have not been willing to break with Trump or critically reflect on the escalating demonization of “the Left” that is animating the rise of rightwing violence.   Finally, we are taking a big-picture look at the state of the 2024 presidential race. On the Republican side, Trump's “legal troubles” have not hurt him – he is not only in a stronger position now than before he was first indicted, but also than at a comparable point in time before the 2016 election. What are the reasons for his hold over the Right, and what does this tell us about the field of Republican “challengers”? On the Democratic side, we discuss what to make of all the polling data that suggests a tough road ahead for Joe Biden – and why the conventional wisdom about the electoral effect of presidential approval rating and perceptions of the economy might not apply. We also discuss the question of Biden's age: There is a real issue here, as America's political elite is indeed significantly older than that of any other comparable democracy. But the mainstream media's fixation on the “Biden so old” trope also signals something else. Sources and Further Reading:   Annie Karni, “In Johnson, House Republicans Elevate One of Their Staunchest Conservatives,” NYT, October 25, 2023 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/us/politics/mike-johnson-house-speaker.html   “They Legitimized the Myth of a Stolen Election — and Reaped the Rewards,” NYT, October 3, 2022 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/politics/republican-election-objectors.html   Sarah Posner, “The Christian Legal Army Behind ‘Masterpiece Cakeshop,' The Nation, November 28, 2017 https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-christian-legal-army-behind-masterpiece-cakeshop/   Jamelle Bouie, “The Apotheosis of Jim Jordan Is a Sight to Behold,” NYT, October 17, 2023 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/opinion/jim-jordan-house-speaker.html   Ron Brownstein, “The Threat to Democracy Is Coming From Inside the U.S. House,” The Atlantic, October 18, 2023 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/10/us-house-democracy-threat-republican-speaker-race/675679/   Aaron Blake, “Threats couldn't save Jim Jordan. But Trump-era intimidation has had an impact,” WaPo, October 20, 2023 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/20/threats-havent-saved-jordan-trump-era-intimidation-has-had-an-impact/   “Threats to American Democracy Ahead of an Unprecedented Presidential Election,” PRRI, October 25, 2023 https://www.prri.org/research/threats-to-american-democracy-ahead-of-an-unprecedented-presidential-election/   Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason, “Threats as Political Communication,” Political Communication, October 18, 2023 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10584609.2023.2270539

The kingdom of God grow in the midst of the kingdoms of the world. The kingdom of God can be found in every country, consisting of those of every tribe, tongue, and nation. Think about the implications of this. Let's learn the politics of Jesus.The sermon today is titled "Not of This World." It is the second installment in our series "The Church Before The Watching World." The Scripture reading is from John 18:33-38 (ESV). Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on July 30, 2023. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under SERVE: Announcing the Kingdom.Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.Footnotes (Sources and References Used In Today's Podcast):Aristotle, Politics. [Note: Credit belong to Plato's Republic, on which Aristotle expanded].Epistle to Diognetus (New Advent).Christopher J. H. Wright, Here Are Your Gods: Faithful Discipleship in Idolatrous Times (Downers Grove: IVP, 2020).Jonathan Storment, “Carrying a Cross through Political Crossfire,” RenewOrg.Andrew Sullivan, “America's New Religions,” Intelligencer, Dec 7, 2018.Harvard's Cooperative Election Study.Bob Turner, “America's New Religion,” White Station Church of Christ Facebook post, March 24, 2021.The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: 1922-1939, Vol 1, ed. Norman H. Baynes (London: OUP, 1942), p.871.Joan E. Cashin, First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis' Civil War (HUP, 2006), p. 2Nathan P. Kalmoe & Lilliana Mason, “Lethal mass partisanship: Prevalence, correlates, & electoral contingencies,” APSA paper, 2018.Correction: Jeroboam (the son of Nebat) and Rehoboam were not brothers. My mistake! See 1 Kings 11:26.I'd love to connect with you!Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter)Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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. Today's guest is the perfect person to explain this phenomenon. Dr. Lilliana Mason is an expert in political psychology and group psychology, and the co-author of Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy.  As she's observed in her research, many of our political behaviors aren't rational or even individual. And that's because our political identities have become mega-identities. They don't just represent how we think government should work or what our policy preferences are; these identities now encompass where we go to church, where we went to school, our values, and our prejudices. “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. Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders. You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.

In this week's episode of Politics In Question, Julia and Lee join Brendan Nyhan, Lilliana Mason, Aziz Huq, and Jennifer Victor to discuss how America's system of winner-take-all congressional districts exacerbates the challenges its democracy faces. Nyhan is the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor, Department of Government, Dartmouth College. Mason is an SNF Agora Institute Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Huq is the Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. And Victor is an associate professor of political science at George Mason University's Schar School Policy and Government.

Air Date 12/6/2022 Today, we take a look at some of the factors driving hyper-partisanship in the US right now along with multiple arguments to not give up on the power of persuasion.  Be part of the show! Leave us a message at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com  Transcript BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Get AD FREE Shows and Bonus Content) BestOfTheLeft.com/HOLIDAY (BOTL GIFT GUIDE!) Join our Discord community! SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: What If We Don't Need To 'Fix' Polarization? - The NPR Politics Podcast - Air Date 3-20-21 NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben interviews Lilliana Mason, associate professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, about her book Uncivil Agreement. Ch. 2: Getting Past Polarization: Anand Giridharadas - Ideas - Air Date 11-23-22 The extremes are extreme in U.S. politics. But Anand Giridharadas and some other progressives are convinced that there are uncompromising approaches that can move up to 60 percent of voters to value democracy and human rights. Ch. 3: How to fix our polarized conversations (with Robb Willer) - How to Be a Better Human - Air Date 2-1-21 Is your family, community, or even your country more divided than ever? Today's guest Robb Willer is here to share some compelling insights on how we might bridge the ideological divide and offer some intuitive advice on ways to be more persuasive. Ch. 4: Can persuasion bridge the political divide? - Front Burner - Air Date 11-25-22 In his book, Giridharadas speaks with experts on reaching people — organizers, activists, politicians, cognitive scientists, and even a cult deprogrammer — and takes a critical look at his fellow American progressives. Ch. 5: Why We're So Polarized - The Truth of the Matter - Air Date 10-25-21 Johns Hopkins University professor Dr. Lillianna Mason joins the podcast for a discussion of political polarization in the U.S. and how politics have become central to the identities of many Americans across racial, religious and cultural lines. MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S) Ch. 6: An innovative polling model can move us past political polarization - The Future of Everything - Air Date 6-24-22 A Stanford professor explains how the deliberative polling model can get people to listen to one another and even compromise on some of society's most complex policy issues. FINAL COMMENTS Ch. 7: Final comments on hyper-partisanship in the ballot box MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions): Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr  Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent Activism Music: This Fickle World by Theo Bard (https://theobard.bandcamp.com/track/this-fickle-world) Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com Listen Anywhere! BestOfTheLeft.com/Listen Listen Anywhere! Follow at Twitter.com/BestOfTheLeft Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com

Chuck interviews political scientist Lilliana Mason on her books on partisan violence in the United States. We also introduce this week's Question from Hell!, and the weekly Hangover Cure. Producer Sebastian talks about why it's really better to not use the term "Kristallnacht" to talk about the pogroms against German Jews on November 9, 1938.

American politics seems more divided than ever. That division can lead to extreme views about political opponents, that they are evil or less than human.Hopkins political scientist Lilliana Mason says these attitudes can be a precursor to violence, like the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Her latest book, co-authored with Louisiana State professor Nathan Kalmoe, is “Radical American Partisanship.”How widespread is the acceptance of political violence? What are the consequences for democracy? Original airdate: 8.24.22See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

American politics seems more divided than ever. That division can lead to extreme views about political opponents, that they are evil or less than human. Hopkins political scientist Lilliana Mason says these attitudes can be a precursor to violence, like the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Her latest book, co-authored with Louisiana State professor Nathan Kalmoe, is “Radical American Partisanship.” How widespread is the acceptance of political violence? What are the consequences for democracy?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 1: OIL, GOLD, CRYPTO & FASCISM: HOW WE GOT HERE AND HOW TO FIX IT Dr. Lilliana Mason, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University is the author of two books that shine a light on why and how America is so divided politically, what it means, and what we might do about it. And her most recent book focuses on why Americans are increasingly willing to justify politically motivated violence. Her work is also instrumental for understanding how disinformation divides Americans into increasingly unruly social cliques. In this interview, we discuss the breadth of her work over the last several years, and what sorts of remedies we might pursue to make things better at both the national and local level. Keywords: political violence, radicalization, partisanship, dehumanization, othering, opinion polling, social sorting, messaging, communications, rights, abortion, Roe vs. Wade, cults, sociology, psychology.

Political violence is rising in the United States, with Republicans and Democrats divided along racial and ethnic lines that spurred massive bloodshed and democratic collapse earlier in the nation's history. The January 6, 2021 insurrection and the partisan responses that ensued are a vivid illustration of how deep these currents run. How did American politics become so divided that we cannot agree on how to categorize an attack on our own Capitol?In the new book Radical American Partisanship, Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe bring together four years of studying radicalism among ordinary American partisans. They draw on new evidence—as well as insights from history, psychology, and political science—to put our present partisan fractiousness in context and to explain broad patterns of political and social change. Mason joins us this week to discuss the findings and the rocky path toward making the United States a fully-realized multiracial democracy She is an associate professor of political science at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity.Additional InformationRadical  American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for DemocracyLilliana Mason on TwitterSNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins UniversityRelated EpisodesSore losers are bad for democracy

This conversation around the state of American democracy extends beyond the Trump years because there has been a slow breakdown of our political institutions that facilitate and support our Democracy.  We spoke with Charles Homans, writer for The New York Times Magazine, and Dr. Lilliana Mason, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and the SNF Agora Institute, and author of “Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity”  a discussion on the state of American Democracy and its future.

This conversation around the state of American democracy extends beyond the Trump years because there has been a slow breakdown of our political institutions that facilitate and support our Democracy.  We spoke with Charles Homans, writer for The New York Times Magazine, and Dr. Lilliana Mason, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and the SNF Agora Institute, and author of “Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity”  a discussion on the state of American Democracy and its future.

Over the course of Donald Trump's presidency, the far-right fringe became a surprisingly visible and influential force in American politics. Eruptions of extremist violence — including the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 and the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection — have made militant groups like the Proud Boys and conspiracy theories like QAnon into household names. On his popular cable news show, Tucker Carlson recently name-checked the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. And in a recent survey, nearly a third of Republicans agreed with the statement that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”The historian Kathleen Belew has spent her career studying political violence and the once-fringe ideas that now animate even right-of-center politics and news media. She is a co-editor of “A Field Guide to White Supremacy” and the author of “Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America,” which tells the story of how groups — including the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and Aryan Nations — coalesced into a radical white-power movement after the Vietnam War. These groups were united by a core set of beliefs about the threats of demographic change and governmental overreach, perceived hostility toward white Americans and the necessity of extra-political, often violent, action to achieve their aims.This is a conversation about how some of those ideas have seeped into mainstream Republican politics and what that could mean for the future of the party — and the country. It explores the radicalizing effects of Jan. 6, how irony and meme culture import far-right ideas into popular media, how warfare abroad can produce violence at home, why politics has started to feel apocalyptic across the spectrum, whether left-wing violence is as serious a threat as right-wing violence and more.Mentioned:Radical American Partisanship by Lilliana Mason and Nathan P. KalmoeMessengers of the Right by Nicole HemmerThe Hispanic Republican by Geraldo CadavaMothers of Massive Resistance by Elizabeth Gillespie McRaeBook Recommendations:Fortress America by Elaine Tyler MayFuture Home of the Living God by Louise ErdrichTiny You by Jennifer HollandThis episode is guest-hosted by Nicole Hemmer, a historian whose work focuses on right-wing media and American politics. She is an associate research scholar with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project at Columbia University and author of “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.” You can follow her on Twitter @PastPunditry. (Learn more about the other guest hosts during Ezra's parental leave here.)You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.

Months after the January 6th insurrection, surveys have shown the support for political violence has risen. On this episode of "Red, White, and Confused," I chat with Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe about their upcoming book, "Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, & the Consequences for Democracy."

One problem with the conversation around political polarization is that it can imply that polarization is a static, singular thing. That our divisions are fixed and unchanging. But that's not how it is at all. The dimensions of conflict change, and they change quickly. In the Obama era, Republicans mobilized against government spending and deficits but didn't think much about election administration. Now, a trillion-dollar infrastructure package has passed the Senate with bipartisan support, but the divisions over democracy and voting access are deep.Lilliana Mason is one of the political scientists I've learned the most from in recent years. Her 2018 book, “Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity,” is, in my view, one of the most important political books of the last decade. But it's been a tumultuous three and a half years since it was published. And Mason has continued to pump out important new work on political identity, how support for Donald Trump differs from that of other Republicans, when Democrats and Republicans believe political violence is justifiable and even necessary, and much more. And so I wanted to have Mason on the show to discuss how her thinking has changed in recent years and, in particular, which identities and interests she thinks are at the center of our political collisions today.Mentioned:Uncivil Agreement by Lilliana Mason"Who's At the Party? Group Sentiments, Knowledge and Partisan Identity" by John Victor Kane, Lilliana Mason and Julie Wronski"Activating Animus: The Uniquely Social Roots of Trump Support" by Lilliana Mason, Julie Wronski and John Victor Kane"Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization" by Shanto Iyengar and Sean J. WestwoodThe Sum of Us by Heather McGheeBook Recommendations:Reconstruction by Eric FonerBlack Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 by W. E. B. Du BoisChildren of Blood and Bone by Tomi AdeyemiThe City We Became by N. K. JemisinYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.

Tonight: Six months later, what we're learning about the institutional accomplices to the Trump insurrection, the enduring threat that keeps election law experts up at night, and why so many Americans are not letting go of the big lie. Then, how a climate denying billionaire is about to do to weather forecasts. And the absolute outrage of Team USA's decision to keep Sha'Carri Richardson from participating in the Olympics over marijuana use. Guests: Rep. Bennie Thompson, Rick Hasen, Lilliana Mason, David Rothkopf, Etan Thomas

By Walt HickeyWelcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.This week, I spoke to Joshua Darr, professor of political communication at Louisiana State University and an author of the new book Home Style Opinion: How Local Newspapers Can Slow Polarization. Here's what I wrote about it:The Desert Sun, a local newspaper serving Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, launched a fascinating project on their opinion page in June 2019 by dropping national politics from the opinion section and asking readers to contribute opinions about local issues. A new study comparing that paper to a similar paper, the Ventura County Star, which did not drop national politics, found reverberations across the community. While dropping national politics didn't stop polarization in the community, it did slow it. Further, in the month before the experiment less than a half of the op-eds and letters to the editor were about California issues, but in July that rose to 95 percent. Readers also really enjoyed it: online readership of op-eds doubled that July.The book is about a fascinating, once-in-a-lifetime natural experiment that has broad reverberations across the news industry and the world of American politics. Darr has spent his career exploring the impact that what we read in local news has on how we vote. In the summer of 2019, he and his colleagues heard about a fascinating experiment going on at The Desert Sun, and sprung into action to find out what happens when a local newspaper ignores national opinions. It's a very cool story that gets to the heart of what local news offers, and also why it's in danger.Darr can be found on Twitter and the book, Home Style Opinion: How Local Newspapers Can Slow Polarization, can be found wherever books are sold. This interview has been condensed and edited. You wrote a really fun book all about how opinion journalism reflects the communities that it's happening in. Do you want to get into what the experiment that you tracked with The Desert Sun was?In June of 2019, my co-author Johanna Dunaway — I wrote this with her and Matt Hitt of Colorado State, she's at Texas A&M — got a Google alert that somebody mentioned our names. It turned out that it was the executive editor of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, who was referencing a previous paper we'd written about when a local newspaper closes, polarization in that area goes up. We theorized that it was because people were reading more national news. She said, "Well, we have national stuff on our opinion page. So, why don't we just drop that?" So, they decided to drop all their national opinion content for a month. We were able to track that, and write this book, about not only how the content of that page changed and how local issues filled the void, but also how it changed the attitudes of people in that area. It was a really cool process.Let's actually just take a step back a little bit and talk about what you research. You mentioned an earlier study that you had done, focusing on what happens after local news dies out. Can you tell me a little bit about your research?I'm interested in local news, and what role that plays in people's political awareness and political opinions, particularly, because it's in such dire straits right now. It can't be overstated, the decline in local news that was already happening and then was accelerated by the COVID pandemic. That paper looked at areas where local newspapers closed and split-ticket voting, whether you were likely to vote for a Democrat at one level and a Republican at another. We found that in areas where a local newspaper closed, there were significantly less split-ticket voting, about 1.9 percent less. People were just voting straight party, up and down. That was, we thought, interesting. We weren't sure actually where to go next with the research agenda, but this experiment just sort of fell into our laps. We were very excited to be able to test what's basically the other side of that previous paper, which is, not just what happens when local news goes away, but what happens when it actually gets more local, when it actually strengthens in some ways, by providing more local stuff to people. Is that better?It's such a cool experiment design that, as you just kind of mentioned, seemed to fall into your lap. You guys really swept in quickly and managed to do some very cool stuff with it. Can you tell me a little bit about kind of how the experiment was carried out and what you were able to monitor?Sure. I have to give many thanks to the LSU Institutional Review Board for being very quick to approve this — you've got to get IRB approval before any sort of survey or experiment like this. Because we found out about it on June 8, 2019, and the experiment started on July 1. We had to get the surveys written and fielded with enough time to get the full 500 person sample before July began, and we just did get that done. That was very nice, we were very happy about that. As a political scientist, which we all are, you're trained to keep a very close eye out for natural experiments in the world, and this immediately struck us as one. It's the kind of thing where you just drop everything and get right to work on making sure you can measure something like this that's very cool.The basic design of the experiment was we surveyed people in Palm Springs in the zip codes where The Desert Sun circulated. Then we also surveyed people in Ventura, which is on the other side of LA, and is also served by a Gannett newspaper, the Ventura County Star. They didn't change at all in July. It's basically what we call a difference in differences model, where one area changed something, the other area didn't, and then we can compare how the attitudes in those areas changed over the course of July.That's really interesting. What precisely did this opinion page do?They dropped anything national politics, which meant dropping their national syndicated columnists, which were previously a pretty good chunk of their opinion page, one or two syndicated columns a day. Anything that mentioned President Trump, so that was quite a few letters, as you might imagine. People were writing in about Trump, and then those didn't get published in July. They warned people, but those didn't get published in July. And editorial cartoons, none of those either, about national politics. It was just California and the Coachella Valley around Palm Springs for the entire month. That meant more work for the opinion editor, quite frankly, because he had to be finding content to fill the pages, which meant soliciting the community. Whenever you have people that are writing in for the first time, that means you have to edit their work because they're not used to writing for newspapers. It was a good amount more work for the opinion editor at the time, but I think they were all glad they did it.You write about how there was a pretty considerable shift in the actual content, that something like 95 percent of it became California-focused.Before that we didn't really know what to expect in terms of either what the experiment would change or what they did before that. It turned out that, and I don't think this is unique to them, around half of the opinion page before that was focused on California state and local topics. There was quite a bit of other stuff and national politics. So, it went from 40 percent to right up around 95 percent, as you mentioned. It was at least a doubling of the amount of local content that was there. It was a very strong treatment as we would say, methodologically. Of course, the fact that Trump mentions dropped to zero was another part of that treatment, from about one third of all pieces to about zero.What moved into its place?This is, I think, where it gets to the uniqueness of Palm Springs, which is not your average community. It's got a large LGBTQ+ community. It's very interested in art and in architecture. Obviously in California, as a place where many people retire, they're very concerned with traffic and transportation. So, the letters to the editor about architectural preservation in particular went way through the roof. Over a quarter of all the letters to the editor in July were about preserving various architectural sites around the city. About another quarter was about the AHL minor league hockey affiliate of the Seattle Kraken, the new team that starting next year is going to be in Palm Springs. There were quite a few letters after that was announced saying, “is this going to increase our traffic because there's going to be a hockey arena downtown?” So, these were intensely local concerns. Not every community would experience a spike in arts and culture letters and in transportation, traffic letters, but that is what happened in Palm Springs.That's very cool. You also wrote about a little bit about how they also didn't see a drop off really in readership when it came to this shift.No, the opposite, actually. The online readership of opinion content that they tracked actually almost doubled in July. People were reading the stuff that came with the local opinion content. When you get local op-eds, they're not really from journalists, they're mostly from people writing in, whether it's business leaders or elected officials or people that are in charge of these local groups. For example, the architectural preservation groups that are around town, and so they're hearing from their neighbors. It de-professionalizes the newspaper and makes it more accessible, and readership went up. It's interesting as well, because it does make sense. Many, many folks are interested in national politics, but there's lots of folks in this country who are just kind of disengaged at the national level. I imagine in a state like California, which is fairly reliably one way or another during presidential elections, it's much the same way. But everybody's got an opinion about that new traffic light!I think it accentuates the value that local news provides in the marketplace, which is, you can get national opinion content literally anywhere all the time. You can't get those local perspectives on local issues. You get a sense of how complex some of these things are and the local ins and outs of it. The hockey arena is being built next to the Native American casino of the Agua Caliente tribe there in Palm Springs. So, you have just that one example of something that's like, oh it's Californians complaining about traffic. Well, really it gets into all of these community relationships with the Native American tribe and with ‘what does the downtown mean in an area that's kind of spread out, and around the whole Coachella Valley.' You get a real sense of the ins and outs and the complexities of a community by reading the letters to the editor and the op-eds for three months and coding them as I did.You weren't kidding, you were really into the Palm Springs community.Yeah, in a way I was. I've actually not been there.Really?Yeah! We were supposed to go in March 2020, which as you may have heard didn't work out for anybody to do anything. We had it all worked out. We were going to present our findings at a conference in San Diego and drive up to Palm Springs. So, now not only did I not get to take that trip, but I've written a book about a place I've never been. But I have read so much of their newspaper that I do feel like I've been there.You have a favorite columnist and everything?Yeah, I can talk about the newspaper like a local, no question.What was going on over in the control group?Over in Ventura? Well, that's the thing. They didn't change. So, whatever was going on there kept going on, which meant these national opinion columnists. It meant E.J. Dionne and Marc Thiessen and just people that are sort of either pro- or con- the administration. And you're just getting a lot of that national argumentation. And this was July 2019, so there was a lot of commentary about the very first Democratic presidential debates. There was a lot of talk about what are the Democrats doing, and can they beat Trump, and what's going on with immigration? And so it was very noticeable when that went away in Palm Springs. But in Ventura, it didn't. So, they just kept getting that same dosage of national conflict.You ran a second survey then, is that right?Yeah, we ran the first survey at the end of June, to try to end it before the treatment started in July. Then at the end of July into early August, we did the second wave and it was about 500 people in each city in each wave. So, I'll also thank LSU for helping to pay for that.That's a very large city-level survey. That's cool.It is, yeah. We worked with Qualtrics on that and they were very helpful in getting us the samples we needed. But, yeah, LSU, Texas A&M, University of Texas — we had a lot of help and we were very grateful for that. But you needed that size sample to detect these changes, and, like I said, when you see a natural experiment you drop everything and go for it.What were some of the changes that you noticed?We wanted to check into the effect of polarization here. We weren't really able to measure something that specific in the previous article, which was just split-ticket voting, but the effect of polarization is this idea that members of the two parties just don't like each other, and they rate the other side as more negative.In the content in previous months, it had been about 25 percent of pieces on the opinion page mentioned either the Democratic or the Republican party, in July that dropped to only one in 10. So, they just weren't talking about the parties as much, not even national politics, but just the parties at all. Maybe that's because California is kind of a one-party state, but either way there was just less of it. So did that affect the way people saw the other side? We were really interested in that. We were able to measure that before and after. And those are obviously pretty deeply held beliefs, how you feel about the other side. We measured it on what they call a feeling thermometer where you just say rate the other side from zero to 100. We found that there were differences between the communities after July.What happened?Among the kind of people that we might expect to be most attuned to this — the people who prefer to read the local newspaper, people who know more about politics, people who are more engaged in politics in Palm Springs — polarization slowed down for them. So, it didn't decrease, which we sort of expected. These are very, like I said, deeply held opinions and beliefs, but they did slow down relative to Ventura. Trump was holding rallies that were controversial, there was a Democratic primary going on, there was a lot happening in national politics. When Ventura kept getting that, polarization went up. It went up a little bit among those groups in Palm Springs, but not nearly as much, and so there was a statistically significant difference there. It slowed it down, and over the course of a month, when you only change two pages in a newspaper on a given day, we thought that was still a pretty powerful effect. It is interesting because you mentioned a lot of the issues moved to development. It is interesting to remind folks that there are polarizations in the world that are not simply left and right. Like NIMBY versus YIMBY and that kind of thing. And reminding that Democratic NIMBYs and Republican NIMBYs have things in common at times. It does seem interesting to kind of illustrate that you wouldn't necessarily change your entire worldview about that, but that might change exactly how strongly that is.No, I think so. And when you're talking about local news, you're emphasizing a different identity than if you're talking about party politics. If you lead with party politics, you're going to get people thinking like Democrats and Republicans. But if you lead with local news and local opinion and local concerns, like we found they did in July of 2019, you emphasize that local identity. We're both residents of the same area, we are both going to be affected by the traffic from this new arena, we both want to see this architectural landmark preserved. And it's a cross cutting identity in that parties, like you say Democrats and Republicans both, can both have that same identity. So, we draw on Lilliana Mason's work, she's a political scientist at the University of Maryland, for that concept. But when you emphasize local, you cut across party.Have they repeated the experiment since, or have you seen any interest in this kind of thing moving beyond this one wonderful summer in beautiful Palm Springs?The Trump-free July that Palm Springs had, no, they have not repeated it actually. Their experience is kind of a microcosm of what's happening in opinion journalism right now, which is that actually in late 2020 the opinion editor that ran this month-long experiment, took the buyout that was offered by Gannett, and so he's gone. Which was too bad because the fact that he'd been working for the newspaper for over 20 years, the fact that they had him was a major reason that they were able to do this thing. When you take a buyout, that position is gone. So, actually what the community did was start a nonprofit organization that allowed them to raise money to rehire a new opinion editor.The community decided, ‘we think this is a valuable thing that we need to have.' And the executive editor, Julie Makinen, led that charge and the community responded. They were able to just, I think in the last couple of weeks, hire a new opinion editor. You do need somebody on staff that can edit and solicit from the community and be in charge of something like this if you're going to do that. That's just sort of a luxury in most of these places now for local newspapers. If you can still have an opinion editor, you're doing all right, and so the strong get stronger here. If local newspapers invest in opinion journalism, they might be able to reap some of the rewards of doing something like this, but if they can't afford an opinion editor, which again, given the steep declines during the COVID era for local newspapers, they're just going to end up taking the cheaper content, which is national for the most part.Where do you see taking this kind of research moving forward? Clearly you have a really interesting result here, but what else interests you in the local news space or just the news space in general?Well, there's just so much happening. There's these bills in front of Congress right now about collective bargaining between local newspapers with Facebook and Google. There's just a lot of philanthropy in this space and these new nonprofit, local news organizations that are starting up, or state level news organizations. We actually found one of the important things in this study is California has a nonprofit service called CalMatters that produces state level columns and solicits op-eds about state politics and The Desert Sun really leaned on that organization's work in July. They took far more columns from CalMatters. In states that don't have that, it would be a lot harder to do something like this. So, we're interested in that nonprofit news space. We'd love to measure an area where philanthropists were investing in supporting nonprofit news, like starting a new newspaper or a newsletter in an area. Not just what happens if we change an existing source, but what happens if we start something new, do people latch onto that, is that something that could have similar effects? Because fundamentally local news is in a difficult spot right now, and if we're going to advocate for it, if we're going to think that it can have these kinds of good civic effects, we need some hard evidence to back that up. So, I think measuring experiments like this is part of that solution, and we'd like to be a part of that.Excellent. That's very, very cool. Where can folks find you and where can folks find your work?I'm on Twitter @JoshuaDarr, and joshuadarr.com is my website. And I'm here at LSU.Sweet. You got a local newspaper that you like?Oh yeah, The Advocate. It's actually sort of weird, they're now the dominant newspaper in the state. New Orleans is the bigger city, but The Advocate now is headquartered in Baton Rouge, but there's a New Orleans Advocate, they sort of took over that area. So, we actually have pretty good state politics coverage. And I will put in a plug for LSU, we send students to the capitol building to do real state capitol news reporting, and they often will get their stories placed in newspapers across the state. I think they placed something like 400 stories last year. So, we're doing our part here at LSU.That's great. That's good stuff. I like the Queens Daily Eagle. There's a lot of really great stuff out there.If you have anything you'd like to see in this Sunday special, shoot me an email. Comment below! Thanks for reading, and thanks so much for supporting Numlock.Thank you so much for becoming a paid subscriber! Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips, or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Get full access to Numlock News at www.numlock.com/subscribe

NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben interviews Lilliana Mason, associate professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, about her book Uncivil Agreement.Join the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group to participate in our next book club discussion.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at nprpolitics@npr.orgListen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.

What would you do if your political opponent shoveled your driveway? Search for ulterior motives? Give them cookies? You know something's wrong when you can't say thank you to some one who disagrees with you politically, and yet that's exactly what the https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-02-05/trumpite-neighbor-unity-capitol-attack (L.A. Times is publishing on its opinion page). In this episode, we look at why we hate our opponents, love winning, and value our tribe's success more than facts. But does this jive with what Jesus said about how to treat our enemies? Does it match Jesus' ethic of radical neighbor love, and bottomless forgiveness? Do you follow us on https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast (Twitter)? Now's a great time to start: https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast (@tmbtpodcast) Don't forget to follow https://twitter.com/keithsimon_ (Keith) and https://twitter.com/patrickkmiller_ (Patrick), too. Outline 0:15 - Follow our new https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast (Twitter) account @tmbtpodcast 0:35 - Polarization in the US 3:00 - https://tylerpaper.com/ap/commentary/virginia-heffernan-what-can-you-do-about-the-trumpites-next-door/article_27c12b12-e387-5952-b2d6-fd10ad55a403.html (Virginia Heffernan article) 14:20 - What does "unity" mean? 16:10 - Why are we so polarized, and how do we fix it?: 16:25 - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12031563-coming-apart (Coming Apart) by Charles Murray 19:35 - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36100653-uncivil-agreement (Uncivil Agreement) by Lilliana Mason 22:20 - Pros to political polarization and how the parties have evolved 26:00 - Two mega-identities: civil rights and religion (and a bonus identity) 28:50 - Why conflict arises: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24927662?seq=1 (Henri Tajfel study ) 33:10 - https://www.simplypsychology.org/robbers-cave.html (The Robbers Cave Experiment): tribalism 37:50 - Arguments over identities vs arguments over issues 39:50 - Living in isolation of your own tribe vs living in both worlds 45:50 - Antidote: seek people who disagree with you and listen 47:00 - Opportunity for leaders 48:45 - Use your imagination 50:50 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13.7&version=ESV (1 Corinthians 13.7): Love 51:15 - Subscribe. Rate. Share. Social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/) Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast (https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast) Passages 1 Corinthians 13.7: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13.7&version=ESV (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13.7&version=ESV) References Virginia Hefferman article ("Virginia Heffernan: What can you do about the Trumpites next door?" by Virginia Heffernan from Tyler Morning Telegraph): https://tylerpaper.com/ap/commentary/virginia-heffernan-what-can-you-do-about-the-trumpites-next-door/article_27c12b12-e387-5952-b2d6-fd10ad55a403.html (https://tylerpaper.com/ap/commentary/virginia-heffernan-what-can-you-do-about-the-trumpites-next-door/article_27c12b12-e387-5952-b2d6-fd10ad55a403.html) Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 by Charles Murray: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12031563-coming-apart (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12031563-coming-apart) Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by Lilliana Mason: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36100653-uncivil-agreement (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36100653-uncivil-agreement) Henri Tajfel study ("Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination" by Henri Tajfel from Scientific American): https://www.jstor.org/stable/24927662?seq=1 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/24927662?seq=1) The Robbers Cave Experiment by Dr. Saul McLeod from Simply Psychology: https://www.simplypsychology.org/robbers-cave.html... Support this podcast

Some Republican voters supported the January 6th storming of the capitol, raising fears that the U.S. will continue to escalate violent extremism, moving everyday partisans toward endorsement of violence against their political opponents. Nathan Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason find that partisanship leads a sizeable minority of Americans to support violence or wish harm on the other party's leaders and followers, especially after they lose elections. Drawing on survey experiments and history back to the American Civil War, they show the importance of messages in moving us over the brink or back from it.

Jay Van Bavel studies how our social identities shape the way we see ourselves and the people around us. He’s an associate professor of psychology at New York University. In an upcoming book, he and his colleague, Dominic Packer, present social identity theory. It’s a classic theory in social psychology that has inspired tons of research and continues to give insight into the modern world. At its root, it’s the idea that people often adopt an “us vs. them” mindset, which fuels lots of conflict between groups. In our conversation, Jay shares the basic tenets and controversies surrounding social identity theory and the direction his own research lab is going.For a quick overview of Social Identity Theory, featuring Dr. Van Bavel, you can check out this YouTube video [13:36] I made.Things we mention in this episode:Dominic Packer’s research on identity and dissent.The pioneering work of John Turner and Henri Tajfel and the development of social identity theory.Marilynn Brewer’s “Optimal Distinctiveness Theory”Jay’s research on how social identities affect our thought and behavior in domains like politics (e.g., Van Bavel & Pereira, 2018) and social media (Brady, Crockett, & Van Bavel, 2020).According to Facebook’s global creative director, Andrew Keller, the average person scrolls through 300 feet of mobile content a day.Lilliana Mason’s book (Uncivil Agreement) applying social identity to politics. Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/social-identities-with-jay-van-bavel/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

In the premiere episode of The Election Whisperer on The Cycle- On Substack the show’s first in audio-only format, Rachel recaps (as quickly as possible!) the months that have passed since the show went on hiatus. The post election period has been marked by the whole of the Republican Party enabling Trump’s democracy-destroying multiple coup attempts. Senator Josh Hawley has gone so far as to commit to “objecting” to Biden’s win on January 6th when the Senate meets to approve the Electoral College- a process that is a mere formality for the Senate, but will likely underwrite Hawley’s 2024 presidential bid. With bodies piling up by the hour from COVID and Biden being stonewalled by key agencies for the transition, tensions are mounting as the clock continues to tick down to January 20th.As such, Rachel brings an all-star team of political scientists onto the show-experts in political polarization perfectly suited for this moment. Their areas of expertise are negative partisanship and something called partisan schadenfreude. What is partisan schadenfreude? Put simply, it is the desire to harm or to see your political opponent harmed. Political scientists Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe argue that in America, polarization and hyperpartisanship have created a lethal mass partisanship- a negative partisanship that is so deeply negative, it has the potential to lead people to tolerate or committ themselves physical violence for partisan ends. Steven Webster, who along with fellow political scientist Alan Abramowitz introduced the concept of negative partisanship into the polarization and voting behavior literatures, also joins the conversation with a discussion of his new book, American Rage: How Anger Shapes Our Politics. A good time is had by all! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episodeSelected References:5:53 - See “This is why you get worked up about politics, according to science” (CNN, 2017)7:58 - Difficult Conversations by by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen11:04 - “According to Peter Ditto, a psychology professor and researcher who studies motivated reasoning and what he refers to as “hot cognition” - the interface between passion and reason,“People think that they think like scientists, But really they think like lawyers. Scientists don't care what the answer is: they look at the data and draw a conclusion, Lawyers know the conclusion they want to reach, then they harness a bunch of facts to support that conclusion.” And this is how we construct our political facts, whether we realize we’re doing it or not.” - For more on this, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and other cognitive biases see “When It Comes to Politics You’re Not As Rational As You Think” (University of California News, 2016) and “Cognitive Biases Cheat Sheet” from writer Buster Benson, author of Why Are We Yelling? The Art of Productive Disagreement14:42 - See “This Article Won’t Change Your Mind” (The Atlantic, 2019) or “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds” (James Clear)15:25 - See “Why Won’t They Listen?” (New York Times, 2012) and Jonathan Haidt interview with Tamler Sommers 17:49 - See “The Psychology Behind Why Politics Can Get So Heated — and How to Show Up Differently” (Healthline)18:29 - “Due to this overlapping of identities, political identity is now sometimes referred to as a mega identity. According to political psychologist and author Liliana Mason, people have a huge number of different group identities, any of which might seem the most salient at any given time. In general, the identity at the top of your mind at any given moment most likely will be the identity facing the most pressing threat. But over the past few decades, the parties have become increasingly aligned with other social identities including race, religion, and rural or urban location. And when these links start connecting our parties and other parts of our social identities, then all of this gets drawn into that one particular political competition. once these mega-identities get formed, we start to think of out-group partisans as quite different from us — not just in terms of their political views, but also racially, religiously, and with any number of overlapping categories. We feel ever more socially distant from these out-group members, which makes it easier to dehumanize them, to think about them with less generosity.” - See “As the Rhetoric Escalates: Talking with Liliana Mason” an interview with Lilliana Mason, political psychologist and author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity22:40 - The exact lyric is “Scotty liked all of the books that I recommended even if he didn't I wouldn't be offended........” in the song “Tire Swing” by Kimya Dawson, which appears on the Juno movie soundtrack20:54 - Social Identity Theory23:52 - “For people who pay attention to such things, New Haven is widely regarded as a pizza mecca, and is home to a few locations, most notably Pepe’s and Sally’s, that frequently appear on best pizza lists. Locals not only identify as being defenders of New Haven pizza, or more appropriately “apizza,” against other cities such as New York and Chicago, but also within New Haven everyone has a particular place that they argue is the best. For what it’s worth, and although I’ve certainly softened in my stance, I still happen to be a Pepe’s partisan, and won’t really argue unless you try to tell me that Modern is better.” For more on the New Haven pizza scene see Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana, and “The Definitive Guide to New Haven Pizza” (Eater, 2014)25:08 - See Negative Partisanship, “Negative Partisanship Explains Everything” (Politico, 2017), “How Hatred Came to Dominate American Politics” (FiveThirtyEight, 2020), and “The rise of negative partisanship and the nationalization of U.S. elections in the 21st century” (Electoral Studies, 2016)28:55 - See Dehumanization, “What Is Dehumanization Anyway?” (Psychology Today, 2018), “The 5 Steps of Dehumanization” (Psychology Today, 2018) and “Dehumanizing Always Starts With Language” (Brene Brown, 2018)30:48 - See “The Age of “Mega-Identity” Politics” (The Ezra Klein Show) - an interview with Lilliana Mason30:52 - Minimal Group Paradigm30:57 - See “Robbers Cave Experiment” (Simply Psychology) and “Revisiting Robbers Cave: The easy spontaneity of intergroup conflict” (Scientific American, 2012)43:08 - “Six of One - Obamacare vs. The Affordable Care Act” (2013  video clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live)44:00 - See “Party Over Policy: The Dominating Impact of Group Influence on Political Beliefs” by Jeffrey Cohen (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003)51:48 - “Don’t put too many onions in the sauce” (video clip from Goodfellas)55:52 - See “Teresa Bejan on Free Speech, Civility, and Toleration” (Episode 116 of the Mindscape Podcast) - an interview with Teresa Bejan, political scientist and author of Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration56:45 - See “Managing Conversations When You Disagree Politically” (American Psychological Association)This episode was recorded in October 2020The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

The past few decades have been a time of deep partisan animosity. On this week's On The Media, how we might move beyond the current polarization. Plus, how one man's obsession with organizing the natural world led him down a dark path.  1. Lilliana Mason [@lilymasonphd], political psychologist at the University of Maryland, on why our political landscape became so polarized, and where we might go from here. Listen. 2. Lulu Miller [@lmillernpr], author of Why Fish Don't Exist and co-host of WNYC's Radiolab, charts the quest of taxonomist David Starr Jordan to categorize the world. Listen.   Music: Songs of War - US Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps John's Book of Alleged Dances - Kronos Quartet Nocturne for Piano in B flat minor - Chopin Il Casanova di Federico Fellini Death Have Mercy/Breakaway - Regina Carter On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

President Trump’s effect on domestic policy in his first term has been modest and mostly reversible. The real impact of his blow-it-up style has been felt in the corrosion of an already poisonous political culture. How has his brand of anti-politics changed America? Trump supporters at one of his last rallies before election day and his former press secretary Sean Spicer tell us why he deserves re-election. Lilliana Mason of the University of Maryland explains how partisanship has become radicalised.John Prideaux, The Economist's US editor, hosts with New York bureau chief Charlotte Howard, and Jon Fasman, Washington correspondent.For access to The Economist’s print, digital and audio editions subscribe: economist.com/2020electionpod See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The past few decades have been a time of deep partisan animosity. On this week’s On The Media, how we might move beyond the current polarization. Plus, how one man’s obsession with organizing the natural world led him down a dark path.  1. Lilliana Mason [@lilymasonphd], political psychologist at the University of Maryland, on why our political landscape became so polarized, and where we might go from here. Listen. 2. Lulu Miller [@lmillernpr], author of Why Fish Don't Exist and co-host of WNYC's Radiolab, charts the quest of taxonomist David Starr Jordan to categorize the world. Listen.   Music: Songs of War - US Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps John’s Book of Alleged Dances - Kronos Quartet Nocturne for Piano in B flat minor - Chopin Il Casanova di Federico Fellini Death Have Mercy/Breakaway - Regina Carter

President Trump’s effect on domestic policy in his first term has been modest and mostly reversible. The real impact of his blow-it-up style has been felt in the corrosion of an already poisonous political culture. How has his brand of anti-politics changed America? Trump supporters at one of his last rallies before election day and his former press secretary Sean Spicer tell us why he deserves re-election. Lilliana Mason of the University of Maryland explains how partisanship has become radicalised.John Prideaux, The Economist's US editor, hosts with New York bureau chief Charlotte Howard, and Jon Fasman, Washington correspondent.For access to The Economist’s print, digital and audio editions subscribe: economist.com/2020electionpod  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

America’s fault lines were visible long before the pandemic started and recent protests against police brutality took place in cities and small towns across the country. Lilliana Mason is a political scientist at the University of Maryland, where she researches the nation’s stark ideological divide. Her book, “Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity,” digs into the ways in which identity fosters deep divisions and feelings of distrust between Democrats and Republicans, even in instances where they might have similar policy goals or ideas. She’s been thinking about those fault lines a lot in this moment and how public opinion is shifting. She joined MPR News host Kerri Miller Thursday.  Related Lilliana Mason on 'How Politics Became Our Identity' To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above. Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts , Spotify or RSS

Today it’s great to have the political psychologist Lilianna Mason on the podcast. Dr. Mason is associate professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (University of Chicago Press).Dr. Mason received her PhD in Political Psychology from Stony Brook University and her BA in Politics from Princeton University. Her research on partisan identity, partisan bias, social sorting, and American social polarization has been published in journals such as American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Political Behavior, and featured in media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and National Public Radio. 

Welcome to our first themed season, “With Friends Like These: Converts.” We’ve always been interested in why and how people change their minds about what they believe — mostly because it just doesn’t happen that often. Once we we make a choice about who we are or what we want to do, we start ignoring the evidence that might prove us wrong: that’s what “confirmation bias” is. Social psychologist Carol Tavris joins us to discuss the phenomenon, offer examples of it, and delve into the mystery of why some people seem capable of resisting the habit of rationalization and some people don’t. Further reading and sources: “Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me),” by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson Ezra Klein discusses confirmation bias and how the self-reinforcing effect of polarization this previous episode about his book, “Why We’re Polarized.” We discussed the ways we push each other into further and further away once we decide what we believe in this episode with Lilliana Mason, “When Ideology Is Identity”, about her book, “Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity.” One of the most influential accounts of extreme rationalization in action: “When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group the That Predicted the Destruction of the World,” which tells the story of a doomsday cult whose members’ certainty about their beliefs only increased after the apocalypse failed to occur.

Politics in the United States has long been dominated by two main groups – the Republicans and the Democrats – but, in recent decades, we’ve seen increasing divisiveness and conflict. Voters have become less concerned with what government does, and more interested in politicians they believe represent who they are. Lilliana Mason, assistant professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, and Marc Hetherington, professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, discuss what happens when politics gets personal. And they consider the consequences for our democracy.

If solidarity and the recognition of mutual self-interest are the keys to moving past our fractious moment, it can be hard to see how we'll get there. Anger and tribalism appear to be at an all-time high, creating political and societal rifts that seem unbridgeable. Indeed, it is hard to believe that only 70 years ago, the country was deemed by political scientists to be not polarized enough. In 1950, the American Political Science Association put out a report that suggested that the parties were not distinct enough and that it was making people's political decision making too difficult. Over the next few decades, they became distinct alright. Lilliana Mason is a political psychologist at the University of Maryland. When we spoke to her last fall, she told us that most people think they know exactly what each party stands for — leaving us with two camps that both seek to destroy the other.  On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

If solidarity and the recognition of mutual self-interest are the keys to moving past our fractious moment, it can be hard to see how we'll get there. Anger and tribalism appear to be at an all-time high, creating political and societal rifts that seem unbridgeable. Indeed, it is hard to believe that only 70 years ago, the country was deemed by political scientists to be not polarized enough. In 1950, the American Political Science Association put out a report that suggested that the parties were not distinct enough and that it was making people's political decision making too difficult. Over the next few decades, they became distinct alright. Lilliana Mason is a political psychologist at the University of Maryland. When we spoke to her last fall, she told us that most people think they know exactly what each party stands for — leaving us with two camps that both seek to destroy the other. 

Happy Thanksgiving! Please enjoy a re-air episode from April 2018 with Lilliana Mason. Yes, identity politics is breaking our country. But it’s not identity politics as we’re used to thinking about it. In Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity, Lilliana Mason traces the construction of our partisan “mega-identities”: identities that fuse party affiliation to ideology, race, religion, gender, sexuality, geography, and more. These mega-identities didn’t exist 50 or even 30 years ago, but now that they’re here, they change the way we see each other, the way we engage in politics, and the way politics absorbs other — previously non-political —spheres of our culture. In making her case, Mason offers one of the best primers I’ve read on how little it takes to activate a sense of group identity in human beings, and how far-reaching the cognitive and social implications are once that group identity takes hold. I don’t want to spoil our discussion here, but suffice to say that her recounting of the “minimal group paradigm” experiments is not to be missed. This is the kind of research that will change not just how you think about the world, but how you think about yourself. Mason’s book is, I think, one of the most important published this year, and this conversation gave me a lens on our political discord that I haven’t stopped thinking about since. If you want to understand the kind of identity politics that’s driving America in 2018, you should listen in. Books recommendations: Ideology in America by Christopher Ellis and James Stimson  Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi  The Power by Naomi Alderman My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com. Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David and Michael speak with University of Maryland political scientist Lilliana Mason, who drinks a Groove City Hefeweizen and shares her insights about political polarization in America. Did you know that the least informed voters are the ones most likely to be persuadable in an election? Did you know that Americans now fear their kids marrying someone from the opposite political party more than almost anything else? If you’re wondering how we got into this mess and maybe how we get out, this is your episode.

In this episode, we welcome Lilliana Mason on the program to discuss her new book, Uncivil Agreement, which focuses on the idea: “Our conflicts are over who we think we are, rather than reasoned differences of opinion.” Personally, I feel like this is just about the most important thing the social sciences are studying right now, and I think Mason is one of the its most brilliant scientists -- I promise, the insights you are about to hear will change the way you think about politics, tweeting, elections, and arguing with people on the other side of just about everything. -- Show Notes at: youarenotsosmart.com -- -- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmart -- SPONSORS • The Great Courses Plus: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart • Squarespace: www.squarespace.com/sosmart -- offer code: SOSMART See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Politics in the United States has long been dominated by two main groups – the Republicans and the Democrats – but, in recent decades, we’ve seen increasing divisiveness and conflict. Voters have become less concerned with what government does, and more interested in politicians they believe represent who they are. Lilliana Mason, assistant professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, and Marc Hetherington, professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, discuss what happens when politics gets personal. And they consider the consequences for our democracy.

What do Duck Dynasty and The Family Guy have to do with US politics? And what happens when we so identify with a group that we want it to win, even when it's against our self-interest? Our guest, Dr. Lilliana Mason, explores the political impact of "in-group / out-group" dynamics in her book, Uncivil Politics: How Politics Became Our Identity. She uses social psychology to explain how both Republicans and Democrats have come to view politics through an emotional "us / them” lens, and how damaging this is to our political process that relies on negotiation, compromise, collaboration and cooperation -- not winning at all costs. © Copyright Original Music "Royal Flush Gang" by Composer Joel Goodman; Published by Oovra Music See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to the newest episode of the podcast formerly known as Watch.Read.Listen. In this long-delayed episode, David and Duane discuss the podcast's hiatus and the state of political discourse on social media, before eventually getting to the main topic: Thor:Ragnarok, Black Panther, and Avengers: Infinity War.   Things discussed in this episode: Podcasts taking the name of other podcasts Online political discourse and how everything is terrible The You are Not So Smart podcast episode with Lilliana Mason, author of Uncivil Agreement Taika Waititi's films Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology The title of Avengers IV (surprise, it's Endgame!)   The website has been changed to wrlpodcast.com. The email is still watchreadlistenpodcast at gmail dot com, and you can also check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

It's Friday. Sam rings like a bell wrapping up the year in news with NPR reporter Elise Hu and The Wall Street Journal film industry reporter Erich Schwartzel. Plus a call to professor Lilliana Mason about how politics and identity have become entwined. It's topped off with the best things that happened to listeners all year. Tweet @ NPRItsBeenAMin with feels.

Trying something new for the final episode of 2018! Vanderbilt University Professor Larry Bartels discusses his book, Democracy for Realists, with guest host and Governing Magazine writer John Buntin. Bartels also discusses what identity politics means and why politics today is more partisan than ever. (Scroll down for list of books mentioned) Topics by minute: 2:30 - "The Folk Theory of Democracy" 3:30 - How well informed are voters? 5:18 - Impact of the economy on voting behavior 7:40 - Thermostatic nature of American politics 11:13 - Voters blaming Presidents for natural disasters 14:20 - Are elections a game of musical chairs? 15:40 - Swing voters 17:05 - Partisanship as identity 18:30 - Religion and reinforcing identities 23:20 - Polarization 26:35 - Race and "collapse of liberalism" 29:21 - Shift beginning in 1964 31:15 - Racial backlash or "white southern identity?" 34:48 - Race and party affiliation post Obama 40:42 - Trump and the racialized lens 43:09 - What was most striking about Trump's campaign? 47:23 - How well do elections hold politicians accountable? 50:00 - Political engagement and groups contending for power 51:51 - Local elections and national partisanship 54:38 - Book recommendation Books Mentioned: -- "Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity" by Lilliana Mason -- "Ideology in America" by Christopher Ellis and James Stimson -- "Identity Crisis: the 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America" by Sides, Vavreck and Tesler -- "The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker" by Kathy Cramer -- "Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government" by Larry Bartels Nashville Sounding Board is a podcast dedicated to discussing social and political issues affecting Middle Tennessee. www.nashvillesoundingboard.com www.facebook.com/NashvilleSoundingBoard www.twitter.com/NashSoundBoard NSB is produced by Benjamin Eagles. Views expressed by Benjamin Eagles in this podcast and on social media are his alone and do not reflect the views of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. Interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Music by Craig Turner and Joe Halberstadt

Last week on our show, Bob spoke with Lilliana Mason, a University of Maryland political psychologist and author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity, about the reasons behind the tribalism and enmity that characterize our politics. The conversation covered a lot of ground, and much of it — including the political decisions that have shaped the two major parties over the past 50 years, as well as the distinct ways that Republicans and Democrats deploy partisan rage — didn't make it into our tightly packed show. But, it's too interesting and important to leave on the cutting room floor, so we're sharing it as this week's midterm edition podcast extra. Enjoy! On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

Lilliana Mason is professor of government and politics at the University of Marylandand author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. She joins On The Media's Bob Garfield to discuss how anger and tribal identity have gotten us to the current political moment, and how we might move past it.

    Rebekah Tromble: How to Combat Misinformation (Ep. 154) Leiden University's Rebekah Tromble joined Joe Miller to chat about ways to combat misinformation on social media.   Bio Rebekah Tromble (@RebekahKTromble) is an assistant professor in the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where she teaches and conducts research on media and politics, digital research methods and ethics, and computational social science. Dr. Tromble is deeply committed to understanding and promoting responsible and ethical uses of data and technology and has founded the Data in Democracy Initiative at Leiden University to pursue that commitment through teaching, research, and public outreach. Previously, she conducted extensive fieldwork in former Soviet Central Asia, where she focused on political discourses about Muslims and Islam. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Bloomington, and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Knox College.   Resources Rebekah Tromble Leiden University, Institute of Political Science Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by Lilliana Mason   News Roundup U.S. sanctions Russian and Chinese firms over North Korea The U.S. has sanctioned tech firms in Russia and China for funneling money to North Korea in violation of U.S. sanctions, by using fake social media profiles to solicit work from North Koreans. The sanctions target Yanbian Silverstar Network Technology Company, whose CEO is North Korean, and a Russian subsidiary called Volasys Silverstar. Arizona is investigating Google’s location data practices Arizona’s Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich has initiated an investigation into Google’s location data practices, according to The Washington Post. Google was accused recently of recording the location data of Android users even when the location setting was turned off. The company denies the allegation saying that it is transparent with users by giving them the option to toggle what gets collected and delete their location history. FCC stops review clock on T-Mobile/Sprint merger review The FCC has stopped the clock on its review of the proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint. Traditionally the FCC sets the clock at 180 days. But, citing the transaction’s complexity, the FCC paused the T-Mobile/Sprint review 60 days in. Trump has signed off on election interference sanctions President Trump has signed off on a set of sanctions against foreign actors who engage in election interference. The executive order gives federal law enforcement officials 90 days to review instances of potential interference and act on them if they determine that doing so would be necessary. Google under scrutiny for China plans Reuters reports that Google and its parent company Alphabet are under scrutiny by 16 lawmakers regarding its plans to expand into China. China has banned the company since 2010. In a letter, both liberal and conservative members of Congress asked Google how they would protect its users in light of China’s censorship laws. Google said that its ambitions in China are merely exploratory and not close to launching. Some 1,000 Google employees wrote a letter questioning Google about its ambitions in China. At least one research scientist has resigned in protest. European Union adopts draft copyright bill The European Union has adopted a draft copyright bill that would require tech companies to pay higher royalties to media companies for the right to host their content. Under the new law, publishers would have the right to negotiate payment for content posted on sites like YouTube. Tech giants would also have to pay “proportionate remuneration” to large media companies for hosting their content. Big tech is pushing back saying that keeping track of every piece of content would be unwieldy. CBS sets aside $120 million in severance for Les Moonves Finally, CBS wrote in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it is setting aside $120 million in severance for their departing CEO Les Moonves—but the company has a year to decide whether to let him go for cause. If they do, he’ll get nothing. This $120 million is down from an original severance amount of $238 million. Twelve women have accused Moonves of sexual misconduct, sexual assault, or sexual harassment. CBS will also be contributing $20 million to causes that support the #MeToo movement.

Political scientist Lilliana Mason of the University Maryland and author of Uncivil Agreement talks about the book with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Mason argues that political partisanship has become stronger in America in recent years because it aligns with other forms of community and identity. People are associating primarily with people who share their political views in their other social activities outside of politics. As a result, they encounter fewer people from the other side. The intensity of partisanship can even overcome ideology as partisans change their policy positions in their eagerness to be on the winning side. The conversation closes with a discussion of what might be done to improve political discourse in America.

In this episode, we welcome Lilliana Mason on the program to discuss her new book, Uncivil Agreement, which focuses on the idea: “Our conflicts are over who we think we are, rather than reasoned differences of opinion.” Personally, I feel like this is just about the most important thing the social sciences are studying right now, and I think Mason is one of the its most brilliant scientists - I promise, the insights you are about to hear will change the way you think about politics, tweeting, elections, and arguing with people on the other side of just about everything. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Several recent guests on New Books in Political Science have talked about the path to political polarization in the US, including Lilliana Mason, Dan and Dave Hopkins, and Sam Rosenfeld. The deep divides between the parties have an obvious geographic dimension, but what is the cause? What has allowed people to sort themselves into cities, suburbs, and rural areas of the country? Clayton Nall has an answer to these questions: highways. Nall has written  The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermine Cities (Cambridge University Press, 2018). In the book, Nall connects the federal programs to expand highway construction through the country to differences in political attitudes. In short, highways have contributed to sorting and polarization, allowing people to live and work much farther away than in the past. Using a variety of interesting sources of data, Nall also shows how this sorting has had different impacts on attitudes about transportation spending, with Republicans and Democrats holding distinct views on how federal money should support the physical connections between communities. 

Several recent guests on New Books in Political Science have talked about the path to political polarization in the US, including Lilliana Mason, Dan and Dave Hopkins, and Sam Rosenfeld. The deep divides between the parties have an obvious geographic dimension, but what is the cause? What has allowed people to sort themselves into cities, suburbs, and rural areas of the country? Clayton Nall has an answer to these questions: highways. Nall has written  The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermine Cities (Cambridge University Press, 2018). In the book, Nall connects the federal programs to expand highway construction through the country to differences in political attitudes. In short, highways have contributed to sorting and polarization, allowing people to live and work much farther away than in the past. Using a variety of interesting sources of data, Nall also shows how this sorting has had different impacts on attitudes about transportation spending, with Republicans and Democrats holding distinct views on how federal money should support the physical connections between communities.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Several recent guests on New Books in Political Science have talked about the path to political polarization in the US, including Lilliana Mason, Dan and Dave Hopkins, and Sam Rosenfeld. The deep divides between the parties have an obvious geographic dimension, but what is the cause? What has allowed people to sort themselves into cities, suburbs, and rural areas of the country? Clayton Nall has an answer to these questions: highways. Nall has written  The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermine Cities (Cambridge University Press, 2018). In the book, Nall connects the federal programs to expand highway construction through the country to differences in political attitudes. In short, highways have contributed to sorting and polarization, allowing people to live and work much farther away than in the past. Using a variety of interesting sources of data, Nall also shows how this sorting has had different impacts on attitudes about transportation spending, with Republicans and Democrats holding distinct views on how federal money should support the physical connections between communities.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Several recent guests on New Books in Political Science have talked about the path to political polarization in the US, including Lilliana Mason, Dan and Dave Hopkins, and Sam Rosenfeld. The deep divides between the parties have an obvious geographic dimension, but what is the cause? What has allowed people to sort themselves into cities, suburbs, and rural areas of the country? Clayton Nall has an answer to these questions: highways. Nall has written  The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermine Cities (Cambridge University Press, 2018). In the book, Nall connects the federal programs to expand highway construction through the country to differences in political attitudes. In short, highways have contributed to sorting and polarization, allowing people to live and work much farther away than in the past. Using a variety of interesting sources of data, Nall also shows how this sorting has had different impacts on attitudes about transportation spending, with Republicans and Democrats holding distinct views on how federal money should support the physical connections between communities.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Several recent guests on New Books in Political Science have talked about the path to political polarization in the US, including Lilliana Mason, Dan and Dave Hopkins, and Sam Rosenfeld. The deep divides between the parties have an obvious geographic dimension, but what is the cause? What has allowed people to sort themselves into cities, suburbs, and rural areas of the country? Clayton Nall has an answer to these questions: highways. Nall has written  The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermine Cities (Cambridge University Press, 2018). In the book, Nall connects the federal programs to expand highway construction through the country to differences in political attitudes. In short, highways have contributed to sorting and polarization, allowing people to live and work much farther away than in the past. Using a variety of interesting sources of data, Nall also shows how this sorting has had different impacts on attitudes about transportation spending, with Republicans and Democrats holding distinct views on how federal money should support the physical connections between communities.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Several recent guests on New Books in Political Science have talked about the path to political polarization in the US, including Lilliana Mason, Dan and Dave Hopkins, and Sam Rosenfeld. The deep divides between the parties have an obvious geographic dimension, but what is the cause? What has allowed people to sort themselves into cities, suburbs, and rural areas of the country? Clayton Nall has an answer to these questions: highways. Nall has written  The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermine Cities (Cambridge University Press, 2018). In the book, Nall connects the federal programs to expand highway construction through the country to differences in political attitudes. In short, highways have contributed to sorting and polarization, allowing people to live and work much farther away than in the past. Using a variety of interesting sources of data, Nall also shows how this sorting has had different impacts on attitudes about transportation spending, with Republicans and Democrats holding distinct views on how federal money should support the physical connections between communities.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Several recent guests on New Books in Political Science have talked about the path to political polarization in the US, including Lilliana Mason, Dan and Dave Hopkins, and Sam Rosenfeld. The deep divides between the parties have an obvious geographic dimension, but what is the cause? What has allowed people to sort themselves into cities, suburbs, and rural areas of the country? Clayton Nall has an answer to these questions: highways. Nall has written  The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermine Cities (Cambridge University Press, 2018). In the book, Nall connects the federal programs to expand highway construction through the country to differences in political attitudes. In short, highways have contributed to sorting and polarization, allowing people to live and work much farther away than in the past. Using a variety of interesting sources of data, Nall also shows how this sorting has had different impacts on attitudes about transportation spending, with Republicans and Democrats holding distinct views on how federal money should support the physical connections between communities.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the latest episode of “Deconstructed,” IVN Principal Political Analyst TJ O’Hara talks with Dr. Lilliana Mason, author of the book "Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity" and assistant professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. Dr. Mason deconstructs political polarization in America and the behavioral impact it is having on our nation.

This week, Ana (@anamariecox) welcomed Lilliana Mason (@LilyMasonPhD), an assistant professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland and the author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity, to the show. They talked about Lilliana’s research into the power of partisan identity, and how it affects people’s daily behavior as well as the difference in manifestation between Democrats and Republicans. After probing the issue itself, they dove into the problems that it poses, as well as potential solutions. You can find Lilliana’s book here. Get in touch with us on Twitter at @crooked_friends, or email us at withfriendslikepod@gmail.com. Thank you to our sponsors! Try a 7-day free trial at texture.com/friends. Go to stamps.com, click the radio microphone at the top and enter FRIENDS for up to $55 in free postage, a digital scale and a 4-week trial. Get free shipping on your first order when you go to everlane.com/friends.

On The Gist, the inaugural edition of “whoah there, girl!” Political parties are like people: They grow and change, their values shift, and sometimes they become downright belligerent. Lilliana Mason says America’s two political parties are in the middle of a shift, and it won’t be over anytime soon: “What happened to conservative southern Democrats after the Civil Rights Act passed? They didn’t like it. … It took an entire generation for conservative Southern Democrats to become Republicans.” Mason is the author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. In the Spiel, “angel moms” deserve sympathy, but they’re being used.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On The Gist, the inaugural edition of “whoah there, girl!” Political parties are like people: They grow and change, their values shift, and sometimes they become downright belligerent. Lilliana Mason says America’s two political parties are in the middle of a shift, and it won’t be over anytime soon: “What happened to conservative southern Democrats after the Civil Rights Act passed? They didn’t like it. … It took an entire generation for conservative Southern Democrats to become Republicans.” Mason is the author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. In the Spiel, “angel moms” deserve sympathy, but they’re being used.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recent debates about partisan polarization have focused primarily on ideology and policy views. In Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (University of Chicago Press, 2018), social identity moves to the center of how to think about the differences that divide the country. Instead of alignment of just party and ideology, recent social sorting has resulted in an array of social identities grouping together within each party. The consequence of this sorting is strong in-group bias and extreme emotional response to electoral outcomes. Uncivil Agreement is written by Lilliana Mason. Mason is assistant professor of political science at the University of Maryland, College Park. Mason combines analysis of historic survey data on elections and novel social experiments. What she discovers is a new dimension of the polarization debate, and one that has few obvious solutions. As she notes throughout the book, this is worrisome for the democracy and the responsiveness of parties to the electorate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recent debates about partisan polarization have focused primarily on ideology and policy views. In Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (University of Chicago Press, 2018), social identity moves to the center of how to think about the differences that divide the country. Instead of alignment of just party and ideology, recent social sorting has resulted in an array of social identities grouping together within each party. The consequence of this sorting is strong in-group bias and extreme emotional response to electoral outcomes. Uncivil Agreement is written by Lilliana Mason. Mason is assistant professor of political science at the University of Maryland, College Park. Mason combines analysis of historic survey data on elections and novel social experiments. What she discovers is a new dimension of the polarization debate, and one that has few obvious solutions. As she notes throughout the book, this is worrisome for the democracy and the responsiveness of parties to the electorate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recent debates about partisan polarization have focused primarily on ideology and policy views. In Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (University of Chicago Press, 2018), social identity moves to the center of how to think about the differences that divide the country. Instead of alignment of just party and ideology, recent social sorting has resulted in an array of social identities grouping together within each party. The consequence of this sorting is strong in-group bias and extreme emotional response to electoral outcomes. Uncivil Agreement is written by Lilliana Mason. Mason is assistant professor of political science at the University of Maryland, College Park. Mason combines analysis of historic survey data on elections and novel social experiments. What she discovers is a new dimension of the polarization debate, and one that has few obvious solutions. As she notes throughout the book, this is worrisome for the democracy and the responsiveness of parties to the electorate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recent debates about partisan polarization have focused primarily on ideology and policy views. In Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (University of Chicago Press, 2018), social identity moves to the center of how to think about the differences that divide the country. Instead of alignment of just party and ideology, recent social sorting has resulted in an array of social identities grouping together within each party. The consequence of this sorting is strong in-group bias and extreme emotional response to electoral outcomes. Uncivil Agreement is written by Lilliana Mason. Mason is assistant professor of political science at the University of Maryland, College Park. Mason combines analysis of historic survey data on elections and novel social experiments. What she discovers is a new dimension of the polarization debate, and one that has few obvious solutions. As she notes throughout the book, this is worrisome for the democracy and the responsiveness of parties to the electorate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yes, identity politics is breaking our country. But it’s not identity politics as we’re used to thinking about it.  In Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity, Lilliana Mason traces the construction of our partisan “mega-identities”: identities that fuse party affiliation to ideology, race, religion, gender, sexuality, geography, and more. These mega-identities didn’t exist 50 or even 30 years ago, but now that they’re here, they change the way we see each other, the way we engage in politics, and the way politics absorbs other — previously non-political —spheres of our culture. In making her case, Mason offers one of the best primers I’ve read on how little it takes to activate a sense of group identity in human beings, and how far-reaching the cognitive and social implications are once that group identity takes hold. I don’t want to spoil our discussion here, but suffice to say that her recounting of the “minimal group paradigm” experiments is not to be missed. This is the kind of research that will change not just how you think about the world, but how you think about yourself.  Mason’s book is, I think, one of the most important published this year, and this conversation gave me a lens on our political discord that I haven’t stopped thinking about since. If you want to understand the kind of identity politics that’s driving America in 2018, you should listen in.  Books: Ideology in America by Christopher Ellis and James Stimson  Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi  The Power by Naomi Alderman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Monday Morning Quarterback is a person who passes judgement on and criticizes something after the event (theOxford Dictionary).We take a look at the Sunday talk shows and much more WBRN Radio . bostonred.org El lunes por la mañana El mariscal de campo es una persona que juzga y critica algo después del evento (el Diccionario Oxford).Echamos un vistazo a los programas dominicales y mucho más. bostonred.org  In Memorial of Jerry Pippin 1939-2015   Ideologues without Issues: The Polarizing Consequences of Ideological Identities   Lilliana Mason https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/82/suppl_1/280/4951269?guestAccessKey=ccb478a8-84ee-4dda-ae29-b3ffde16f893