polarization 
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SOURCE: New Statesman
6/30/2022
Seeing Through America's "Crisis Industrial Complex"
by Nikhil Pal Singh
While the elite media class indulges in lurid fantasies of an armed breakup of the nation, those who live precarious or impoverished lives find themselves already enmeshed in a civil war; the real red/blue conflict is about who will control the infrastructure of repression built up over the last half century.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
5/18/2022
Historians Disagree with Alito: Roe Didn't Create Polarization
by Adam Serwer
The idea that the 1973 Roe decision created polarized politics around the Supreme Court ignores the decades-long backlash to Brown v. Board of Education and other decisions of the Warren Court and the contested politics of abortion before Roe.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
4/3/2022
Why Can't Mike DeWine Succeed as a Reasonable Republican?
The Ohio governor increasingly seems to fit a political mold of pragmatic conservatism that lacks a constituency in a polarized political environment driven by a radicalized Republican Party.
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SOURCE: Slate
1/17/2022
Imagining Another Civil War is a Lost Cause (But That's Not Stopping People)
by Richard Kreitner
Journalist Stephen Marche presents scenarios under which the historical tensions among groups of Americans could openly rupture, but reviewer Richard Kreitner thinks some are unlikely, and don't grapple with the way that American institutions are implicated in the crisis of democracy.
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SOURCE: WBUR
12/9/2021
Smithsonian's John Grinspan on Histories of Americans Fighting For Democracy
Do we need to tolerate a decline in civility in order to ensure the kind of democratic participation that will keep Americans invested in working within our institiutions?
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
11/9/2021
Colin Powell's Funeral: A Missed Opportunity for Unity
by Sarah J. Purcell
Since George Washington's death in 1799, Americans have used the funerals of prominent leaders as occasions to temporarily escape growing factional and partisan division.
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10/3/2021
A House Still Divided (Part 2)
by Walter G. Moss
There are signs that Americans can begin to resolve the fierce struggle underway about what kind of nation we will be.
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9/26/2021
A House Still Divided (Part 1)
by Walter G. Moss
The core of our polarization is a disagreement about what kind of country we will be – one dominated by Christian white men or one, in Frederick Douglass's words, "of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and of all creeds, and to men of no creeds."
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SOURCE: New York Times
9/13/2021
There’s a Very Good Reason ‘Washington Slept Here’
by Nathaniel Philbrick
"Today the phrase 'Washington slept here' is a historical joke, but during the two years of intermittent travel at the beginning of his presidency, all those nights spent in taverns and homes across the country were essential to establishing an enduring Union."
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SOURCE: New York Times
7/14/2021
‘Lean Into It. Lean Into the Culture War': Are Liberals Really Stoking Conflict?
by Thomas B. Edsall
Thomas Edsall argues that political science research on polarization undercuts recent liberal and centrist arguments that the left is responsible for the culture wars by pushing extreme identity politics.
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SOURCE: KAKE
6/28/2021
Ron Brownstein: What Manchin and Sinema Can Learn from Lincoln Republicans on Voting Rights
It's increasingly clear that the choice isn't between partisan and bipartisan legislation to protect voting rights, but between partisan legislation and none. But the 14th and 15th Amendments were themselves partisan.
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SOURCE: New York Times
6/11/2021
Is There a Way to Dial Down the Political Hatred?
by Molly Worthen
Are fanatical political opinions a refiguring of the need for spiritual meaning in a secular society? What are the prospects for dialogue and coexistence?
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5/16/2021
Historians' Perspective on Media Bias: Where it Came from, and What Can be Done?
by Walter G. Moss
Historical perspective shows that media bias is nothing new, but the stakes for democracy are high today. Can historians teach and practice better ways of reading and debating to fight polarization and misinformation?
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SOURCE: Washington Monthly
4/29/2021
Our Divisions Are Worse Than You Think
by Jonathan Zimmerman
American cable news has reverted to the partisan heyday of the 19th century press, making it difficult to argue issues from a shared basis in facts. The author suggests reading more and watching less.
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3/21/2021
"Freedom of the Press in Small-Town America"
by Robert W. Frizzell
A review of HNN contributor Steven Hochstadt's new book of collected op-ed essays written between 2009 and 2018. The writings of a liberal Long Island Jew in a small-town midwestern newspaper offer a lens onto the question of the cultural divide in contemporary America.
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3/7/2021
When Did America Stop Being Great?
by Nick Bryant
Nick Bryant began observing America as a 16 year old at the patriotic spectacle of the 1984 Olympics. His book traces the path from "Morning in America" to "American Carnage," fixing some blame but also seeking a way through.
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SOURCE: Crain's Chicago Business
2/21/2021
America's Churches are Now Polarized, Too
The Trump era has concentrated longstanding differences about the role of faith in American life and the obligations of the faithful to act in the world. During the McCarthy era, the Republican establishment pushed back against attacks on clergy by the far right. Will something similar happen today?
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SOURCE: FiveThirtyEight
2/8/2021
In America’s ‘Uncivil War,’ Republicans Are The Aggressors
Thomas Zimmer and Joanne Freeman represent historians among the scholars commenting on the asymetric polarization of American politics.
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SOURCE: New York Daily News
2/5/2021
What Lincoln Understood About Unity
by Harold Holzer
"The fact is, even the most eloquent calls for harmony seldom repair a house divided — not without the accompaniment of painful but unavoidable choices about national policy and purpose."
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/29/2021
When the Threat of Political Violence Is Real
by Joanne B. Freeman
Republican calls for unity refuse to claim responsibility and in some cases level the threat of further violence to bully colleagues out of holding Trump and his allies accountable for the Capitol riots of January 6. This is reminiscent of the climate of threat and violence in Congress in the 19th century ahead of the Civil War.
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