Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Spectatorization of American Politics | Lefty Parent

The Spectatorization of American Politics | Lefty Parent:

The Spectatorization of American Politics

Interesting juxtaposition between two pieces from this past week, “Americans’ Political Views Not So Far Apart” from LiveScience.com and “Yes, Washington is in fact more partisan now” from The Signal. The first looks at polling since 1970 that purports to show no growing ideological divide between people in the U.S. The second shows just the opposite, but among U.S. politicians. If you believe these two statistical snapshots, there is a growing ideological split among our elected representatives, that is not also reflected among the people they represent!

From the analysis of 40 years of polling results called out in the first piece “Americans’ Political Views Not So Far Apart”

Political polarization among the public has barely budged at all over the past 40 years, according