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Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
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.
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.
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.
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
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."
Political Scientist Nathan Kalmoe has written a fascinating historical and political exploration of the connections between violence and partisanship before, during, and after the American Civil War. This book brings together work by historians and political scientists and straddles both disciplines in the examination of the way that partisan politics at the time of the Civil War also contributed to the rise and use of violence, and how this violence then fed back into partisan politics during this period. Kalmoe engaged a multi-method approach to the research, examining election returns, especially county-level returns during this time; he also integrated the census data from the time to map where voters lived and where soldiers were coming from when they became part of the military. Kalmoe dug deeply into the records about the soldiers (which have been digitized), learning about what happened to them, where they fought, and where they called home. Finally, in order to get a clear sense of the partisan divisions and the action and rhetoric of the party elite, he integrated content from local newspapers—these newspapers were often the media arms of particular political parties in cities and localities, and thus they directly reflected the thinking of the party leaders in those same cities and localities. Kalmoe noted that literacy rates were quite high during this time, which also makes the case for the usefulness of what these partisan newspapers were writing about and reflecting to their readership. With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines this violent period of American history, and Kalmoe is able to essentially measure how casualties effected voting and mass political behavior by using all of these historical sources to discern this data. By tracing these related behaviors, Kalmoe highlights some of the changes in attitude and approach that takes place in the two main political parties at the time. He finds that the northern Democrats shifted markedly from a pro-war stance earlier in the war to, in 1864, every northern Democratic newspaper taking an anti-war position. This is a rather dynamic change that takes place over a short time. During this same period, the northern Republican partisans were suffering significantly more losses, and they were even more committed to the war, as reflected in the newspapers and in the public events where speakers addressed the topic of the war. This pattern of war memory also continues in Reconstruction, as Republican states built monuments to remember the fallen, and as the regiments also wrote up their own histories, delineating the heroic deeds of those who were members of the respective regiments. This is a sophisticated and complex analysis of the connection between violence and partisan in an earlier era in the United States, when the Union and the Confederacy were moved to take up arms and to commit to violence in ways that were also directly related to the active political parties and partisan affiliation with those parties. In reading through With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War it hard not to see echoes and images of more recent political violence and the way that this more contemporary violence is also tied to partisanship. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj.
Political Scientist Nathan Kalmoe has written a fascinating historical and political exploration of the connections between violence and partisanship before, during, and after the American Civil War. This book brings together work by historians and political scientists and straddles both disciplines in the examination of the way that partisan politics at the time of the Civil War also contributed to the rise and use of violence, and how this violence then fed back into partisan politics during this period. Kalmoe engaged a multi-method approach to the research, examining election returns, especially county-level returns during this time; he also integrated the census data from the time to map where voters lived and where soldiers were coming from when they became part of the military. Kalmoe dug deeply into the records about the soldiers (which have been digitized), learning about what happened to them, where they fought, and where they called home. Finally, in order to get a clear sense of the partisan divisions and the action and rhetoric of the party elite, he integrated content from local newspapers—these newspapers were often the media arms of particular political parties in cities and localities, and thus they directly reflected the thinking of the party leaders in those same cities and localities. Kalmoe noted that literacy rates were quite high during this time, which also makes the case for the usefulness of what these partisan newspapers were writing about and reflecting to their readership. With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines this violent period of American history, and Kalmoe is able to essentially measure how casualties effected voting and mass political behavior by using all of these historical sources to discern this data. By tracing these related behaviors, Kalmoe highlights some of the changes in attitude and approach that takes place in the two main political parties at the time. He finds that the northern Democrats shifted markedly from a pro-war stance earlier in the war to, in 1864, every northern Democratic newspaper taking an anti-war position. This is a rather dynamic change that takes place over a short time. During this same period, the northern Republican partisans were suffering significantly more losses, and they were even more committed to the war, as reflected in the newspapers and in the public events where speakers addressed the topic of the war. This pattern of war memory also continues in Reconstruction, as Republican states built monuments to remember the fallen, and as the regiments also wrote up their own histories, delineating the heroic deeds of those who were members of the respective regiments. This is a sophisticated and complex analysis of the connection between violence and partisan in an earlier era in the United States, when the Union and the Confederacy were moved to take up arms and to commit to violence in ways that were also directly related to the active political parties and partisan affiliation with those parties. In reading through With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War it hard not to see echoes and images of more recent political violence and the way that this more contemporary violence is also tied to partisanship. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Political Scientist Nathan Kalmoe has written a fascinating historical and political exploration of the connections between violence and partisanship before, during, and after the American Civil War. This book brings together work by historians and political scientists and straddles both disciplines in the examination of the way that partisan politics at the time of the Civil War also contributed to the rise and use of violence, and how this violence then fed back into partisan politics during this period. Kalmoe engaged a multi-method approach to the research, examining election returns, especially county-level returns during this time; he also integrated the census data from the time to map where voters lived and where soldiers were coming from when they became part of the military. Kalmoe dug deeply into the records about the soldiers (which have been digitized), learning about what happened to them, where they fought, and where they called home. Finally, in order to get a clear sense of the partisan divisions and the action and rhetoric of the party elite, he integrated content from local newspapers—these newspapers were often the media arms of particular political parties in cities and localities, and thus they directly reflected the thinking of the party leaders in those same cities and localities. Kalmoe noted that literacy rates were quite high during this time, which also makes the case for the usefulness of what these partisan newspapers were writing about and reflecting to their readership. With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines this violent period of American history, and Kalmoe is able to essentially measure how casualties effected voting and mass political behavior by using all of these historical sources to discern this data. By tracing these related behaviors, Kalmoe highlights some of the changes in attitude and approach that takes place in the two main political parties at the time. He finds that the northern Democrats shifted markedly from a pro-war stance earlier in the war to, in 1864, every northern Democratic newspaper taking an anti-war position. This is a rather dynamic change that takes place over a short time. During this same period, the northern Republican partisans were suffering significantly more losses, and they were even more committed to the war, as reflected in the newspapers and in the public events where speakers addressed the topic of the war. This pattern of war memory also continues in Reconstruction, as Republican states built monuments to remember the fallen, and as the regiments also wrote up their own histories, delineating the heroic deeds of those who were members of the respective regiments. This is a sophisticated and complex analysis of the connection between violence and partisan in an earlier era in the United States, when the Union and the Confederacy were moved to take up arms and to commit to violence in ways that were also directly related to the active political parties and partisan affiliation with those parties. In reading through With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War it hard not to see echoes and images of more recent political violence and the way that this more contemporary violence is also tied to partisanship. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
Political Scientist Nathan Kalmoe has written a fascinating historical and political exploration of the connections between violence and partisanship before, during, and after the American Civil War. This book brings together work by historians and political scientists and straddles both disciplines in the examination of the way that partisan politics at the time of the Civil War also contributed to the rise and use of violence, and how this violence then fed back into partisan politics during this period. Kalmoe engaged a multi-method approach to the research, examining election returns, especially county-level returns during this time; he also integrated the census data from the time to map where voters lived and where soldiers were coming from when they became part of the military. Kalmoe dug deeply into the records about the soldiers (which have been digitized), learning about what happened to them, where they fought, and where they called home. Finally, in order to get a clear sense of the partisan divisions and the action and rhetoric of the party elite, he integrated content from local newspapers—these newspapers were often the media arms of particular political parties in cities and localities, and thus they directly reflected the thinking of the party leaders in those same cities and localities. Kalmoe noted that literacy rates were quite high during this time, which also makes the case for the usefulness of what these partisan newspapers were writing about and reflecting to their readership. With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines this violent period of American history, and Kalmoe is able to essentially measure how casualties effected voting and mass political behavior by using all of these historical sources to discern this data. By tracing these related behaviors, Kalmoe highlights some of the changes in attitude and approach that takes place in the two main political parties at the time. He finds that the northern Democrats shifted markedly from a pro-war stance earlier in the war to, in 1864, every northern Democratic newspaper taking an anti-war position. This is a rather dynamic change that takes place over a short time. During this same period, the northern Republican partisans were suffering significantly more losses, and they were even more committed to the war, as reflected in the newspapers and in the public events where speakers addressed the topic of the war. This pattern of war memory also continues in Reconstruction, as Republican states built monuments to remember the fallen, and as the regiments also wrote up their own histories, delineating the heroic deeds of those who were members of the respective regiments. This is a sophisticated and complex analysis of the connection between violence and partisan in an earlier era in the United States, when the Union and the Confederacy were moved to take up arms and to commit to violence in ways that were also directly related to the active political parties and partisan affiliation with those parties. In reading through With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War it hard not to see echoes and images of more recent political violence and the way that this more contemporary violence is also tied to partisanship. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
Political Scientist Nathan Kalmoe has written a fascinating historical and political exploration of the connections between violence and partisanship before, during, and after the American Civil War. This book brings together work by historians and political scientists and straddles both disciplines in the examination of the way that partisan politics at the time of the Civil War also contributed to the rise and use of violence, and how this violence then fed back into partisan politics during this period. Kalmoe engaged a multi-method approach to the research, examining election returns, especially county-level returns during this time; he also integrated the census data from the time to map where voters lived and where soldiers were coming from when they became part of the military. Kalmoe dug deeply into the records about the soldiers (which have been digitized), learning about what happened to them, where they fought, and where they called home. Finally, in order to get a clear sense of the partisan divisions and the action and rhetoric of the party elite, he integrated content from local newspapers—these newspapers were often the media arms of particular political parties in cities and localities, and thus they directly reflected the thinking of the party leaders in those same cities and localities. Kalmoe noted that literacy rates were quite high during this time, which also makes the case for the usefulness of what these partisan newspapers were writing about and reflecting to their readership. With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines this violent period of American history, and Kalmoe is able to essentially measure how casualties effected voting and mass political behavior by using all of these historical sources to discern this data. By tracing these related behaviors, Kalmoe highlights some of the changes in attitude and approach that takes place in the two main political parties at the time. He finds that the northern Democrats shifted markedly from a pro-war stance earlier in the war to, in 1864, every northern Democratic newspaper taking an anti-war position. This is a rather dynamic change that takes place over a short time. During this same period, the northern Republican partisans were suffering significantly more losses, and they were even more committed to the war, as reflected in the newspapers and in the public events where speakers addressed the topic of the war. This pattern of war memory also continues in Reconstruction, as Republican states built monuments to remember the fallen, and as the regiments also wrote up their own histories, delineating the heroic deeds of those who were members of the respective regiments. This is a sophisticated and complex analysis of the connection between violence and partisan in an earlier era in the United States, when the Union and the Confederacy were moved to take up arms and to commit to violence in ways that were also directly related to the active political parties and partisan affiliation with those parties. In reading through With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War it hard not to see echoes and images of more recent political violence and the way that this more contemporary violence is also tied to partisanship. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south
Political Scientist Nathan Kalmoe has written a fascinating historical and political exploration of the connections between violence and partisanship before, during, and after the American Civil War. This book brings together work by historians and political scientists and straddles both disciplines in the examination of the way that partisan politics at the time of the Civil War also contributed to the rise and use of violence, and how this violence then fed back into partisan politics during this period. Kalmoe engaged a multi-method approach to the research, examining election returns, especially county-level returns during this time; he also integrated the census data from the time to map where voters lived and where soldiers were coming from when they became part of the military. Kalmoe dug deeply into the records about the soldiers (which have been digitized), learning about what happened to them, where they fought, and where they called home. Finally, in order to get a clear sense of the partisan divisions and the action and rhetoric of the party elite, he integrated content from local newspapers—these newspapers were often the media arms of particular political parties in cities and localities, and thus they directly reflected the thinking of the party leaders in those same cities and localities. Kalmoe noted that literacy rates were quite high during this time, which also makes the case for the usefulness of what these partisan newspapers were writing about and reflecting to their readership. With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines this violent period of American history, and Kalmoe is able to essentially measure how casualties effected voting and mass political behavior by using all of these historical sources to discern this data. By tracing these related behaviors, Kalmoe highlights some of the changes in attitude and approach that takes place in the two main political parties at the time. He finds that the northern Democrats shifted markedly from a pro-war stance earlier in the war to, in 1864, every northern Democratic newspaper taking an anti-war position. This is a rather dynamic change that takes place over a short time. During this same period, the northern Republican partisans were suffering significantly more losses, and they were even more committed to the war, as reflected in the newspapers and in the public events where speakers addressed the topic of the war. This pattern of war memory also continues in Reconstruction, as Republican states built monuments to remember the fallen, and as the regiments also wrote up their own histories, delineating the heroic deeds of those who were members of the respective regiments. This is a sophisticated and complex analysis of the connection between violence and partisan in an earlier era in the United States, when the Union and the Confederacy were moved to take up arms and to commit to violence in ways that were also directly related to the active political parties and partisan affiliation with those parties. In reading through With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War it hard not to see echoes and images of more recent political violence and the way that this more contemporary violence is also tied to partisanship. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
Political Scientist Nathan Kalmoe has written a fascinating historical and political exploration of the connections between violence and partisanship before, during, and after the American Civil War. This book brings together work by historians and political scientists and straddles both disciplines in the examination of the way that partisan politics at the time of the Civil War also contributed to the rise and use of violence, and how this violence then fed back into partisan politics during this period. Kalmoe engaged a multi-method approach to the research, examining election returns, especially county-level returns during this time; he also integrated the census data from the time to map where voters lived and where soldiers were coming from when they became part of the military. Kalmoe dug deeply into the records about the soldiers (which have been digitized), learning about what happened to them, where they fought, and where they called home. Finally, in order to get a clear sense of the partisan divisions and the action and rhetoric of the party elite, he integrated content from local newspapers—these newspapers were often the media arms of particular political parties in cities and localities, and thus they directly reflected the thinking of the party leaders in those same cities and localities. Kalmoe noted that literacy rates were quite high during this time, which also makes the case for the usefulness of what these partisan newspapers were writing about and reflecting to their readership. With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines this violent period of American history, and Kalmoe is able to essentially measure how casualties effected voting and mass political behavior by using all of these historical sources to discern this data. By tracing these related behaviors, Kalmoe highlights some of the changes in attitude and approach that takes place in the two main political parties at the time. He finds that the northern Democrats shifted markedly from a pro-war stance earlier in the war to, in 1864, every northern Democratic newspaper taking an anti-war position. This is a rather dynamic change that takes place over a short time. During this same period, the northern Republican partisans were suffering significantly more losses, and they were even more committed to the war, as reflected in the newspapers and in the public events where speakers addressed the topic of the war. This pattern of war memory also continues in Reconstruction, as Republican states built monuments to remember the fallen, and as the regiments also wrote up their own histories, delineating the heroic deeds of those who were members of the respective regiments. This is a sophisticated and complex analysis of the connection between violence and partisan in an earlier era in the United States, when the Union and the Confederacy were moved to take up arms and to commit to violence in ways that were also directly related to the active political parties and partisan affiliation with those parties. In reading through With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War it hard not to see echoes and images of more recent political violence and the way that this more contemporary violence is also tied to partisanship. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
Political Scientist Nathan Kalmoe has written a fascinating historical and political exploration of the connections between violence and partisanship before, during, and after the American Civil War. This book brings together work by historians and political scientists and straddles both disciplines in the examination of the way that partisan politics at the time of the Civil War also contributed to the rise and use of violence, and how this violence then fed back into partisan politics during this period. Kalmoe engaged a multi-method approach to the research, examining election returns, especially county-level returns during this time; he also integrated the census data from the time to map where voters lived and where soldiers were coming from when they became part of the military. Kalmoe dug deeply into the records about the soldiers (which have been digitized), learning about what happened to them, where they fought, and where they called home. Finally, in order to get a clear sense of the partisan divisions and the action and rhetoric of the party elite, he integrated content from local newspapers—these newspapers were often the media arms of particular political parties in cities and localities, and thus they directly reflected the thinking of the party leaders in those same cities and localities. Kalmoe noted that literacy rates were quite high during this time, which also makes the case for the usefulness of what these partisan newspapers were writing about and reflecting to their readership. With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines this violent period of American history, and Kalmoe is able to essentially measure how casualties effected voting and mass political behavior by using all of these historical sources to discern this data. By tracing these related behaviors, Kalmoe highlights some of the changes in attitude and approach that takes place in the two main political parties at the time. He finds that the northern Democrats shifted markedly from a pro-war stance earlier in the war to, in 1864, every northern Democratic newspaper taking an anti-war position. This is a rather dynamic change that takes place over a short time. During this same period, the northern Republican partisans were suffering significantly more losses, and they were even more committed to the war, as reflected in the newspapers and in the public events where speakers addressed the topic of the war. This pattern of war memory also continues in Reconstruction, as Republican states built monuments to remember the fallen, and as the regiments also wrote up their own histories, delineating the heroic deeds of those who were members of the respective regiments. This is a sophisticated and complex analysis of the connection between violence and partisan in an earlier era in the United States, when the Union and the Confederacy were moved to take up arms and to commit to violence in ways that were also directly related to the active political parties and partisan affiliation with those parties. In reading through With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War it hard not to see echoes and images of more recent political violence and the way that this more contemporary violence is also tied to partisanship. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
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.
Nathan Kalmoe, Associate Professor of Political Communication at LSU, talks about his recent book With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War and its very relevant applications to the current political landscape. He also challenges some long-held myths about the war and especially Lincoln’s reelection in 1864.
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
Nathan Kalmoe is a political scientist at Louisiana State University. He studies public opinion and mass political behavior. In 2017 he co-authored the book, Neither Liberal nor Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public. In this episode, we talk about his research on how political ideology means different things to political leaders than to the general public, how lots of people tend to avoid describing themselves and liberal or conservative, but how they nevertheless seem perfectly comfortable identifying as Democrat or Republican.Things we mention in this episode:Early research and writing by Phillip Converse and Walter LippmanNathan's recent article in Political Psychology: "Uses and Abuses of Ideology in Political Psychology"Nathan's book with Donald Kinder: Neither Liberal nor Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American PublicHis upcoming book: With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil WarLearn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.
We end the year by remembering our favorite authors, books, and some of the titles. There were so many great books written this year that we had the fun of reading and talking to a few of the authors. Weve both been doing a lot of grading, so left out as many great books as we mentioned. Please do share your favorites on Twitter/Facebook with #poliscibooks2017. Here are several of the books we mentioned in this weeks podcast: * Josh Chafetz’s Congress’s Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers * Catherine Zuckert’s Machiavelli’s Politics * Brittany Cooper’s Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women * Brian Harrison and Melissa Michelson’s Listen We Need to Talk * David Kinder and Nathan Kalmoe’s Neither Liberal nor Conservative * Anna Law’s The Immigration Battle in American Courts * Alex Hertel-Fernandez’s Politics at Work * David Hopkins’s Red Fighting Blue * Jamila Michener’s Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We end the year by remembering our favorite authors, books, and some of the titles. There were so many great books written this year that we had the fun of reading and talking to a few of the authors. Weve both been doing a lot of grading, so left out as many great books as we mentioned. Please do share your favorites on Twitter/Facebook with #poliscibooks2017. Here are several of the books we mentioned in this weeks podcast: * Josh Chafetz’s Congress’s Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers * Catherine Zuckert’s Machiavelli’s Politics * Brittany Cooper’s Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women * Brian Harrison and Melissa Michelson’s Listen We Need to Talk * David Kinder and Nathan Kalmoe’s Neither Liberal nor Conservative * Anna Law’s The Immigration Battle in American Courts * Alex Hertel-Fernandez’s Politics at Work * David Hopkins’s Red Fighting Blue * Jamila Michener’s Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We end the year by remembering our favorite authors, books, and some of the titles. There were so many great books written this year that we had the fun of reading and talking to a few of the authors. Weve both been doing a lot of grading, so left out as many great books as we mentioned. Please do share your favorites on Twitter/Facebook with #poliscibooks2017. Here are several of the books we mentioned in this weeks podcast: * Josh Chafetz’s Congress’s Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers * Catherine Zuckert’s Machiavelli’s Politics * Brittany Cooper’s Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women * Brian Harrison and Melissa Michelson’s Listen We Need to Talk * David Kinder and Nathan Kalmoe’s Neither Liberal nor Conservative * Anna Law’s The Immigration Battle in American Courts * Alex Hertel-Fernandez’s Politics at Work * David Hopkins’s Red Fighting Blue * Jamila Michener’s Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As the nation reflected on 9-11, Jim Zogby says the right wing, aided by the media, unjustly stigmatized fellow Arab Americans. Political scientist Nathan Kalmoe says engaging in partisanship is easier for most Americans than thinking about issues. And editor Bob Cusack of The Hill newspaper talks with Bill Press about Hillary Clinton’s potentially divisive new book. Support the Show Are you tired of Tea Party Republicans and Rush Limbaugh dominating the airwaves? Do you want the facts you won't get on Fox -- or even on CNN? Then stay tuned. Jim Zogby Anti-Arab-and-Muslim discrimination was fanned by the right wing after 9-11 and aided by the mainstream media, says Jim Zogby. As a result, the views of these groups are now determined by which party you belong to. Nathan Kalmoe Surprising findings by political scientist Nathan Kalmoe – only 20 percent of Americans are engaged enough in politics to identify as either liberal or conservative. Bob Cusack Bill Press and editor Bob Cusack are concerned that Hillary’s new book will divide Democrats again. Jim Hightower Where can Congress find the money for Hurricane Harvey?
Political science professor Nathan Kalmoe reveals that people vote based not on policy questions but on party, as if supporting their favorite sports team. Law professor James Forman Junior talks about the crisis in the criminal justice system and how every element of law enforcement passes the buck. And political author Jon Allen talks with Bill Press about Trump and North Korea.. Support the Show Are you tired of Tea Party Republicans and Rush Limbaugh dominating the airwaves? Do you want the facts you won't get on Fox -- or even on CNN? Then stay tuned. Nathan Kalmoe Professor Nathan Kalmoe explains what we think we already knew – people nowadays vote based on party identification and group identity rather than on what they believe. James Forman Junior There are plenty of villains in a system in which 7 million people are under criminal justice supervision, but law professor James Forman Junior says they aren’t just Nixon, Reagan, and Sessions, but all of us. Jon Allen Bill Press interviews Jon Allen, author of “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign.” Jim Hightower Who'll help America's hard-hit gold miners?
Nathan Kalmoe and Donald Kinder are the authors of Neither Liberal or Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Kalmoe is an assistant professor of political communication at Louisiana State University and Kinder is the Philip E. Converse Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan. Neither Liberal or Conservative looks straightly at what we have known in the past about ideology and the formation of ideology. Kalmoe and Kinder take up the seminal research of Phillip Converse on “ideological innocence.” What they find largely supports this historic finding that Americans are not that ideological. Several decades later, most of the country remains innocent of ideology. With the exception of some highly engaged and informed individuals, partisanship remains the central organizing feature of political life and identification for most Americans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nathan Kalmoe and Donald Kinder are the authors of Neither Liberal or Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Kalmoe is an assistant professor of political communication at Louisiana State University and Kinder is the Philip E. Converse Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan. Neither Liberal or Conservative looks straightly at what we have known in the past about ideology and the formation of ideology. Kalmoe and Kinder take up the seminal research of Phillip Converse on “ideological innocence.” What they find largely supports this historic finding that Americans are not that ideological. Several decades later, most of the country remains innocent of ideology. With the exception of some highly engaged and informed individuals, partisanship remains the central organizing feature of political life and identification for most Americans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nathan Kalmoe and Donald Kinder are the authors of Neither Liberal or Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Kalmoe is an assistant professor of political communication at Louisiana State University and Kinder is the Philip E. Converse Distinguished University Professor at the University of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nathan Kalmoe and Donald Kinder are the authors of Neither Liberal or Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Kalmoe is an assistant professor of political communication at Louisiana State University and Kinder is the Philip E. Converse Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan. Neither Liberal or Conservative looks straightly at what we have known in the past about ideology and the formation of ideology. Kalmoe and Kinder take up the seminal research of Phillip Converse on “ideological innocence.” What they find largely supports this historic finding that Americans are not that ideological. Several decades later, most of the country remains innocent of ideology. With the exception of some highly engaged and informed individuals, partisanship remains the central organizing feature of political life and identification for most Americans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nathan Kalmoe and Donald Kinder are the authors of Neither Liberal or Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Kalmoe is an assistant professor of political communication at Louisiana State University and Kinder is the Philip E. Converse Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan. Neither Liberal or Conservative looks straightly at what we have known in the past about ideology and the formation of ideology. Kalmoe and Kinder take up the seminal research of Phillip Converse on “ideological innocence.” What they find largely supports this historic finding that Americans are not that ideological. Several decades later, most of the country remains innocent of ideology. With the exception of some highly engaged and informed individuals, partisanship remains the central organizing feature of political life and identification for most Americans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices