Is this the most polarized time in U.S. political history?

[pbrower2a]

Now this is what I call polarization:



1860.

Blue -- Abraham Lincoln.
Red -- Stephen Douglas
Yellow -- John Bell
Green -- John Breckinridge
Gray -- South Carolina had already seceded.

White -- not yet states.

[dead0man]

If you want to discuss extremist activity, it is now suppressed more effectively.

indeed.  The FBI is much better now at this kind of thing than they were in the 70s.  Which is why there is less of it.

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Indeed.  Bombings were a daily occurrence in the 70s.  We didn't forget about them, we never paid attention to them in the first place....which is really weird considering where we're at now.  cite

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Trump is horrible (and worse, dangerous in a hundred different ways), that we agree on.  I know the last bit is probably just conventional wisdom in your circles, it sounds a bit too conspiracy..ey...for me.

[darklordoftech]

John Adams' supporters claimed that Jefferson was dead and that Jefferson wanted to legalize rape.

[pbrower2a]

If you want to discuss extremist activity, it is now suppressed more effectively.

indeed.  The FBI is much better now at this kind of thing than they were in the 70s.  Which is why there is less of it.

The Feds got Ted Kaczynski, the last hurrah of a terrorist era of bombing associated with anything like the New Left. What it learned from his string of bombings has enabled law enforcement to strike earlier.  It can examine the bomb and its packaging themselves for chemical traces, and probably traces of DNA.

Extremists are still offensive and ruthless -- and contemptuous of the ordinary decencies of most of us. 

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Indeed.  Bombings were a daily occurrence in the 70s.  We didn't forget about them, we never paid attention to them in the first place....which is really weird considering where we're at now.  cite

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...and let us not forget the outrage that Americans had of bombings associated with the Far Right in the early 1960s, including most infamously that of the Eighth Street Baptist Church in "Bombingham", Alabama. It took years for the killers to be caught.

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Trump is horrible (and worse, dangerous in a hundred different ways), that we agree on.  I know the last bit is probably just conventional wisdom in your circles, it sounds a bit too conspiracy..ey...for me.
[/quote]

Conspiracies usually fail. Someone slips up, bragging about the power of the conspirators to shape events. Maybe someone slips up, has a bit too much to drink, and starts giving up knowledge that only the conspirators know.  Maybe one of the participants makes a deathbed  admission out of fear of going to Hell for a horrible act. This explains why hitman conspiracies usually fail, whether in the fiction of Double Indemnity (great movie -- see it if you never have!) or the reality of the downfall of Rae Carruth.

The larger the number of people in a conspiracy, the more likely is the failure of the conspiracy and especially the breakdown of the secrecy necessary for hiding the culpability of the participants. Innocent people who hear something about a disgusting crime talk to the authorities.

[Reaganfan]

It is the most polarized since the '60s and social media and saturation of communication has greatly amplified our exposure to it.  Think about it.  Before 1995 all of your information about the goings on in the world came from TV news, newspapers, and in-person or telephone conversation.

People don't realize the magnitude of change.  It hasn't necessarily made us more violently polarized... but more sensitive to political happenings.  It used to be that politicians could make backroom compromises and it would be reported on TV and then time would pass until the next thing happened.  Now the reaction is instant.  And even if we forget the event itself, we are reminded to be angry.

I remember being so fascinated by this mother and 10yo daughter when I was around that age who were visiting from Maine and talked about how if "daddy didn't do this or that", then mom would take his magazines and newspapers away (I believe Time was mentioned as one).  Those were his window to the world.  Printed paper that arrived in the mail.  Sometimes embargoed by mom.

With the exception of 2001-2003 time period, this polarization has been really bad since Bush vs. Gore. I wish Bush or Gore would have won decisive, large victories. The cloud of "illegitimacy" over the 2000 election started a chain reaction we've never recovered from.

[Fuzzy Bear]

It is the most polarized since the '60s and social media and saturation of communication has greatly amplified our exposure to it.  Think about it.  Before 1995 all of your information about the goings on in the world came from TV news, newspapers, and in-person or telephone conversation.

People don't realize the magnitude of change.  It hasn't necessarily made us more violently polarized... but more sensitive to political happenings.  It used to be that politicians could make backroom compromises and it would be reported on TV and then time would pass until the next thing happened.  Now the reaction is instant.  And even if we forget the event itself, we are reminded to be angry.

I remember being so fascinated by this mother and 10yo daughter when I was around that age who were visiting from Maine and talked about how if "daddy didn't do this or that", then mom would take his magazines and newspapers away (I believe Time was mentioned as one).  Those were his window to the world.  Printed paper that arrived in the mail.  Sometimes embargoed by mom.

With the exception of 2001-2003 time period, this polarization has been really bad since Bush vs. Gore. I wish Bush or Gore would have won decisive, large victories. The cloud of "illegitimacy" over the 2000 election started a chain reaction we've never recovered from.

The reason for that is that Bush's brother was Governor of Florida.  He could have cleared the way for an honest hand count of every ballot in Florida, but he did not do so.  And it was his Secretary of State (an elected official, but an elected official whose position was about to become appointive) that certified the vote count.

This is why the "illegitimate" issue doesn't surround Trump as it did Bush.  Trump lost the popular vote by a far larger margin, but he clearly won the EV fair and square.  Bush 43 can't really say this about 2000, not now, and not ever at this point.

[Ye We Can]

John Adams' supporters claimed that Jefferson was dead and that Jefferson wanted to legalize rape.

Oh yeah, and then Jefferson's supporters called Adams a hermaphrodite.

Let's also not forget that a bunch of states quite literally canceled their general elections for president in 1800 and had the electors picked via state legislature in order to make sure the other party had no chance of winning.


There's also the sad story of constant personal attacks on Andrew Jackson's wife in 1828 that basically drove her to death right after the election-Jackson loathed Adams and the opposition for the rest of his life because of it.

[anvi]

I heard some historian giving a talk about his book once claim that, in the late '40's or so, when a certain farmer heard that one of his older sons had voted for FDR, he threw that son out of the house.  There were the riots and bombings of the '60's and '70's too.  The political rhetoric of the 1800's tended to be incredibly personally nasty.  So, I don't think I would call this the most polarised time in U.S. history.  Still, the polarisation now definitely sucks, and the fact that our current president is acting as polarizer-in-chief really aggravates things.

[dead0man]

Conspiracies usually fail.

do they?  I suspect they fade away when everybody that believes in them dies.  Look at JFK.  I'm old and that happened a decade before I was born and there are people younger than my children that know it's a conspiracy.
 Conspiracies don't fail, the get morphed into whatever the crazy person pushing it needs them to be morphed into.

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which conspiracies ended any of these ways?

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indeed, which is why it's (virtually) impossible for an entity as big as the United States Federal govt to kill the sitting President, hide UFOs in the desert or on purpose allow a bunch of religious nut balls to fly planes into buildings.

[Badger]

John Adams' supporters claimed that Jefferson was dead and that Jefferson wanted to legalize rape.

Oh yeah, and then Jefferson's supporters called Adams a hermaphrodite.

Let's also not forget that a bunch of states quite literally canceled their general elections for president in 1800 and had the electors picked via state legislature in order to make sure the other party had no chance of winning.


There's also the sad story of constant personal attacks on Andrew Jackson's wife in 1828 that basically drove her to death right after the election-Jackson loathed Adams and the opposition for the rest of his life because of it.

Okay, so we can say that, at best, polarization is as bad as it's ever been in over 200 years in this country. Still alarming