factional parties are the most correlated variables that lead to future conflicts.Researchers pointed out that elite differentiation and emotional polarization play a role in the civil war that broke out in other countries.To resolve the emotional polarization that may lead to the civil war, it is necessary to change the political system that the winner takes and reduce the political motivation of the political figures to intensify the emotional polarization.
Three weeks after the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the United States, Mike Johnson, a conservative Republican member of Louisiana, was elected as the new speaker.On October 3rd, the House of Representatives voted to dismiss McCarthy's speaker, making him the first Speaker of the House of Representatives in the history of the United States, and also caught the parliament in emptiness.This air rotation crisis highlights the serious political polarization phenomenon in the United States.This phenomenon has received widespread attention when Trump's 2016 president, and in his 2020s and the impact of Congress Mountain in January the following year, it is even more worrying that polarization politics has increased political violence.Go to civil war.
Johnson, who is not qualified, is a loyal supporter of Trump. He told the Washington Post in the Parliament's Democratic colleague Joe Neguse that Johnson was the "designer's designer tried to overthrow the results of the election in 2020 to overthrow the results of the election.one".The US presidential election is close, and Trump is interested in re -election. His supporter Johnson is also elected as the Speaker. It is curious whether US politics will be further extreme.
Political polarization and emotional polarization
As the name suggests, political polarization refers to the two extreme development from the middle of the political spectrum to the left and right. It can be divided into ideology (including public policy) and emotional polarization (including public policy);According to the subject of action, the degree of political elites and general voters are also different.
U.S. politics polarization began in Trump. Political elites' Congress crisis caused by polarization politics is not only today -John Andrew Boehner, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, in 2011.He also frequently suffered from the Right -Right Tea Party, and finally resigned from the Speaker in 2015.
As far as the entire Democratic and Republican parties are concerned, the civil rights bill in 1964 pushed the southern Democrats with strong ethnic bias to the Republican Party.It is sent to the Democratic Party; in contrast, the Republican Party is becoming more conservative, and the two parties are more ideological in ideology.
As far as political elites are concerned, since the 1980s, politicians with more and more extreme ideas have been running for public office, and they are more likely to obtain the party's support for the election, because "bright flags" are more likely to focus and be elected.This extreme phenomenon is particularly obvious in the right. According to statistics from Political Scholar Brookman, California, California, in 2013, the proportion of nominated candidates at the first -level Republican party in the county is a 10 -right candidate than a gentle candidate.The proportion of the Democratic Party to the extreme left is 2 to 1.Coupled with the election rules of the two parties and winners, in order to "safely on the base", the results are more likely to cause polarization of political stance.Election competition has created the extremes of political elites and Congress. According to the analysis of Rachel Kleinfeld, a scholar of the Carnegie International Peace Foundation, the Republican Party is far higher than that of the Democratic Party.
In fact, most voters of the two parties are not completely opposed to public policies. The two important scholars studying the phenomenon of political polarization -Professor Morris FIORINA and Matthew Levendusky (Matthew Levendusky) - It is found that although the party factions are different, in sensitive issues such as abortion, immigration, and gun control, the American people still have many common policy concepts.However, the polarization of Congress elites has allowed the two -party members to pay attention to issues that are more distinctive and extreme. For example, rightists concerned about immigration issues.
Interestingly, even if voters advocate the middle route in the policy, they will obey the claims of the political elite and go extreme.Katherine Schaeffer, a researcher at Petou Research Center, pointed out when studying the issue of gun control that only 18%of Republican members or Republican branches believe that the violence of guns is an important issue. In contrast, 73%of democratic parties or supporters have 73%.Think important.Although the policies on both sides overlapped a lot, only the Democratic Party had the motivation to put this issue on the agenda.
The competition between the two parties has caused the polarization of Congress and pushed the policy into a deadlock.On the other hand, emotional polarization is also an important reason for the confrontation of American politics.Emotional polarization mainly comes from dislikes and anxiety about hostile political parties, rather than affirming the positive positive of their own political parties.According to data from the National Election Research (ANES Study), since the 1980s, the dissatisfaction with the supporters of the two parties has increased slightly, but the negative perception of the enemy camp has risen straight.
Emotional polarization comes from stereotypes
Emotional polarization comes from the misunderstanding of the opponent's party, or it is a stereotype.For example, Democrats will feel that Republicans are rich white people, while Republicans feel that Democratic Party members support radical gender and ethnic policies.This stereotype deepened the disgust of each other.More importantly, each other will worry that each other will use radical methods to destroy the current democratic and political mechanism.This kind of anxiety may just be used to use violence and make a pre -system.
Some researchers will use laboratory methods to invite two -party supporters to dialogue and increase their understanding.This method can indeed reduce emotional polarization, but the effect is short; after getting out of the laboratory, the feeling of hate each other is gradually strengthening.The laboratory can control the cause, but there are too many variables in the real world, and under the existing political and economic and social structure, the individual's initiative is not high, and the actions are limited.Under the political of the two parties, if you do not want to rebel up the party, you can only persuade yourself to accept the claim of the political elite of the same party.
U.S. people summarize themselves into different political parties in accordance with policy preferences and ideology. In terms of political ideology, they are stacked with various identities such as race, religion, gender, region and culture.These multi -layered identifications make the party's disputes also become a social identity symbol. One of the layers of identity is offended, it is like the opponent's attack on the entire party.
In the process of emotional polarization, the media also played a role in helping the flames.Obama was the first US presidential candidate to introduce social media into election campaigns. In the 2016 campaign of Trump and Hillary, the role of social media was even more valued.However, studies have pointed out that the fastest emotional polarization is people over 65 years old.Basically, the heavy users of these people's non -social media are deeper by the extreme cable television, news websites or broadcasts, such as Newsmax, One American News, Fox News, and the Right Right Broadcast of 2021Program of Rush Limbaugy.
Emotional polarization itself does not directly lead to political violence, and violence also involves the psychological characteristics of some actors.However, emotional polarization causes the feeling of community is a very good packaging.Under extreme politics, the pampering and even encouragement of the political elite will increase political violence.In 2020, the Trump Group tried to overthrow the results of the election. It was an example. They used the unfair election to legitimate the act of fighting, so that the public felt that even if violence was used, it would not be punished, and it would even become a hero, which eventually caused the Capitol Mountain incident.In contrast, the rise of the new Nazi bald party in the 1980s, and the US militia movement in the United States in the 1990s. These violent groups were not recognized by most elites of the two parties.This restriction has not spread.
Will the United States of political extremes go to the civil war?
The Polital Instability Task Force, a US government -funded, studied cases in various countries that factional parties are the most correlated variables that lead to future conflicts.Barbara F.Walter, a scholar who studies the civil war, pointed out that elite differentiation and emotional polarization play a role in the outbreak of other countries.
Cleinfield of the Carnegie International Peace Foundation pointed out that in order to resolve the emotional polarization that may lead to the civil war, it is necessary to change the political system of the current winner and reduce political figures to increase emotional polarization politicsMotivation can increase citizen cohesion and strengthen American democracy.Obviously, these reforms are too late before the election next year. The crisis of the parliament of parliament shows that the United States is still seriously polarized. The United States is still facing political violence, and even accidentally transforms into a crisis of civil war.
The author is a columnist in Taiwan
