I remember coming back to the United States from a trip abroad right at the tail end of the saga over Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. It had been a work trip, so I hadn’t been following the testimonies of Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford very carefully. My plane touched down a few days before the final vote in the Senate, which ended up breaking on strict party lines, with...
The strongest version of this narrative is its diagnosis of negative partisanship as a corrosive force in American democracy, backed by historical trends, polling data, and institutional analysis. It credibly frames polarization not just as a cultural phenomenon but as a structural one, where electoral incentives and media ecosystems reward tribal loyalty over problem-solving. The comparison to Bosnia is provocative but grounded in Lipset’s work on democratic consensus, highlighting how value-ba...