I was walking to my dorm after class when I heard the news: Charlie Kirk, a well-known conservative political activist, was shot at Utah Valley University while speaking to students at an on-campus event. My heart dropped to my stomach. I paused for a second to scroll through the many articles, all of which were […]
Tag: Polarization
Cancellation to Compromise
Like it or not, we live in an age of “cancellation.” Any individual with a public presence can and will be held accountable for their decisions on social media. Rapper Kanye West’s infamous remarks on the Alex Jones Show and the immediate wave of backlash that followed is perhaps the most memorable example of recent […]
An Obscure, Harmful Foster Care Policy — And Professor Jill Berrick’s Fight to End It
Every year in the United States, roughly 250,000 children enter foster care. For these children, family separation is acutely traumatic and results in worse outcomes. They’re at higher risk of developing toxic stress, which increases the risk of disease and cognitive impairment well into adulthood. Compared with similarly situated children who are allowed to remain […]
America Isn’t Broken—But Our Leaders Need It To Be
Americans hate politics. Or at least, that’s how it seems. A Pew Research Center study from last fall found that over half of Americans (55%) are “always” angry at politics in our country. And further, when asked “What word would you use to describe U.S. politics?” some of the most popular responses were “divisive” “chaos” […]
The Case for Breaking Up Big Tech
The Big, the Bad, the Un-American… In 2020, New York Times writer Kashmir Hill set out to answer a salient question: how dependent are we on Big Tech? Working with a technologist, Hill designed a virtual private network that blocked all internet addresses controlled by tech’s five largest companies: Amazon, Google’s parent company Alphabet, Meta, […]
Rural America: The America That is Overlooked
“When I went into a Whole Foods for the first time, I was shocked at how nice a grocery store could be,” says Lauren, a current undergrad studying in New York City who was born and raised in Montana. They continue, “I don’t think that most people understand the extent of the divide between urban […]
The Polarization of Late Night Comedy
It is 2017, and Former Press Secretary Sean Spicer rolls a podium out onto the bright lights of the Emmys Awards Show stage in the midst of Stephen Colbert’s monologue. Spicer cheekily proclaims “this will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys — period — both in person and around the world.” Colbert looked […]
The Positives of Political Polarization
It’s no secret that Americans are extremely anxious about the current state of our political system. Our reasons for this are varied, but perhaps the most frequently discussed is the recent increase in political polarization, or the widening gap in ideology between opposing political viewpoints. Americans are more sharply divided ideologically than at any time […]
Did the Politicalization of the Supreme Court Start in California?
Where California goes, so goes the nation. We have all heard this statement, but the question is, is it true? In the case of the increasing politicization of the United States Supreme Court, this certainly seems to be the case. This story goes beyond Brett Kavanaugh and his sexual assault allegations and in fact, starts […]
Social Media’s Not the Problem, We Are.
“If only those with opposing political views were able to engage in conversation, overall animosity would decrease.” While good-natured and opportunistic, evidence consistently proves this theory wrong. There is a growing body of research in America that seeks to understand political polarization. Unsurprisingly, digital forms of communication are unhelpful. Examples abound. My personal favorite is […]