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America’s Big Political Problem Isn’t Polarization

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You can watch this episode of Right Now With Perry Bacon above or by following this show on YouTube or Substack. You can read a transcript here.

The term polarization is constantly used to describe American politics today by academics and journalists. Many in both fields cast their work as neutral, objective, and balanced. But a growing number of academics and journalists are arguing that notions of polarization and neutrality downplay the radicalism of today’s Republican Party and lead to misleading and inaccurate descriptions of American politics. One of them is Shannon McGregor, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill’s school of journalism and media. In the latest edition of Right Now, McGregor explains why media, academia, and philanthropy are fixated on defining polarization as the central problem in America, why that perspective is misguided, how neutrality and polarization feed into one another, and alternative approaches for both journalists and academics.