As a Democracy Works listener, you probably follow politics pretty closely. And many of the people in your life probably do, too. But what about everyone else? People who casually keep up with political news or maybe tune iit out entirely.
Scholars Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan argue that America might not be as polarized as we think because the media and political observers over-index on people who are deeply invested in politics at the expense of those who are not as engaged. They call this phenomenon "the other divide" and it's the subject of their most recent book. Krupnikov and Barry Ryan join us on the show this week to share their research on levels of political involvement and how it translates to media coverage.
As Candis Watts Smith says at the end of the episode, we hope that this conversation will inspire some epistemic humility.
Krupkniov is a professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan. Barry Ryan is associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. They are the authors of "The Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American Politics."
Episode Transcript
Chris Beem
From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University, I'm Chris Beem.
Candis Watts Smith
I'm Candis Watts Smith.
Jenna Spinelle
I'm Jenna Spinelle and welcome to Democracy Works. This week, we are talking with Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan. They're both at the University of Michigan. And they are the co authors of the book, The Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American politics. And the crux of this book is that they argue we should be paying more attention to people who do not follow politics all the time, or maybe are not as engaged as the folks listening to the show. So we're going to unpack all of that. But I think that there's a lot of ways that this divide that Jana and John describe translates into other parts of our lives, right? Like people can be fans of politics, the way that they're fans of sports teams, or musicians or any of these kinds of things. And Chris, I know you were sharing before a story about an Uber a trip you took recently that I think might fit in here.
Chris Beem
I'm a Bears fan. And there is not a Bears fan in the world who doesn't have an opinion on whether Justin field should continue as the quarterback of the bears, and I sent this over and, you know, I started chatting with this guy. And it just kind of quickly dawned on me that he is knowledge of professional football was just exponentially larger than mine. And he was talking about, you know, where different quarterbacks were in terms of their offensive scheme, and how much running versus passing and who their offensive coordinator was. Okay, you know, I'm failing this conversation, because this guy just knows so much more about it than I do. And I just, you know, I'm kind of used to being on the other foot when I'm at parties, and whatever, because I just know more about this stuff than most people do. And, and so it was a useful reminder that there's a lot of people who go through their lives, and they just don't have the time or the inclination to be as invested in the political world as, as we are. And by we, I mean, the three of us and all the people who listen to this podcast.
Candis Watts Smith
So I think this is an excellent analogy, in part because I am also a Bears fan, but by lineage. So I don't know who Justin fields is, and I don't care, I just want the bears to win. And so there's someone also on the spectrum of political knowledge that's like, things seem to be going okay, you know, so I think also what that analogy highlights is the way that politics itself is also framed around competition around who's on what team around who's making the biggest plays around horse races. And so there is a group of people who we might call political junkies that are very much so like fanatics. And then there are people who are casual wattwatchers, you know, who are listening to the news in our car. And then there's just some people who like in sports or like web sportsball, you know, don't know what's going on. I mean, I think the thing here is that the ramifications for focusing on the fanatics and politics is that they're cascading effects for our perceptions of what's important, how to understand issues, and even that kind of ever looming sense of political polarization on every single thing.
Jenna Spinelle
And I'm totally in the “what sportsball? ”camp, by the way, just putting that out there. So we're nicely represented
Chris Beem
Candis, we may want to talk about this in the second part, but you raise an interesting point for me, which is to say there's politically engaged, and then there's politically engaged, right. And there's some folks who go out for events, knock on doors, make phone calls give money, and so they are engaged. And then there's other people who look upon politics as in a way that is very similar to how a sports fan looks at sports. They want their team to win, and they follow it and they're looking for signs that their team is going to win. And they think about what Congress is going to do about the looming shutdown, and much the same way that Bears fan and think about what are we going to do with our new offensive coordinator?
Candis Watts Smith
I think that's one of the important contributions that Jana and John's project makes, which is there are these people who are watching the news and looking on x and listening to Weird people on On tick tock and and and and checking, they have news, bling, bling bling booty call these notifications, notifications on their phone from all of these, you're looking at it on their wrist, on their phone, all of these things. And they may not actually be kind of participatory aside that. But we hear their voices so loudly. And they make their preferences. And their way of thinking about politics seemed like that's the only way that we should be thinking about politics and what issues are important. So on the one hand, they are not, not necessarily, right, I imagine that there's a overlap of the folks who are knocking on doors and giving donations and all of these things. But they are also influencing politics in the way that we engage with each other. And the way that we perceive what are the issues candidates should be talking about, and what the average American thinks about something, we get kind of out of whack. So it's not new, that there are just a few people who are deeply invested in politics. But Jana and John do help us to understand the consequences of giving, you know, almost undue attention to these folks and all of the drama that they bring.
Jenna Spinelle
Yanna and John do a good job of of expanding upon this framework that they've created and providing some of the data that they've gathered from the research and the surveys and things that went into this book. So let's go now to the interview. Jana Cooper cough and John Barry Ryan, welcome to democracy works. Thanks for joining us today.
John Barry Ryan
Thank you so much for having us.
Jenna Spinelle
So I have to say that your book, the other divide, really resonated with me, I am the only person in my immediate family who follows politics or pays attention to it. And you know that, that is a divide that you spent a lot of time in the book talking about, and that we will explore in this conversation. But to kick things off, I wonder if you could talk a bit about how you became interested in looking at people who don't follow politics, because it may be something similar in your lives, you know, your your friends, or family or people you interact with? Or what brought you to looking at this population in particular.
Yanna Krupnikov
I think part of it is along the lines of what you said, where we would read these stories about how America has these hopeless partisan divides. Because everyone is so wrapped up in their politics, and thinking to myself, Well, I'm a political science professor, I follow politics fairly regularly. I don't see myself in these people, these people seem like another level above where I'm at. And yet I know I'm above the average. So what's going on with all the people who are below me, which is probably the majority of the people so right, it's that sort of it was really about the way that in the news, but also in political science. I don't know if it's actually in the literature itself, but in the way political scientists would talk about the articles. You know, I mean, it's a standard political science problem is, there's a correlation. And you act as if that explains everything. And so anyway, so that's what we were sort of motivated by was this idea that like, well, this just doesn't seem to paint the picture of most people who we would know. And if it did, then that means we fall politics, less than we realize, which seems, which would seem off and weird.
Jenna Spinelle
And so in in the book as a way of kind of getting at these differing levels of involvement, you have three characters, Chip, Dale and Pete, I wonder if you could walk us through those archetypes and how much they pay attention or not to what happens in politics.
John Barry Ryan
We can think of these three characters, basically, in three ways. So we can think of Pete right. And let's say Pete is somebody who does not follow any politics, right? If we were to ask Pete, are you interested in politics? We would say never I never follow politics. I will never listen to any political news. I'm not interested in this at all right? And then we can think, once they have shipped chip, and let's say chip is somebody who, you know, watches the news, right? They might come home after work or you know, at night, turn on the news, check it out. They might check in during the day during an election, they might pay a little more attention because lots of things are going on. If we were to ask them like the standard interest question how interested in your politics, they might actually say, Yeah, I'm pretty interested if we might ask them, How often do you follow it? They might say, You know what? I I follow it pretty regularly. Right? They probably would not initiate a conversation about politics. But if somebody, let's say, started a conversation about politics, they might respond. They might know some things kind of differently from Pete, who might just sort of say, I don't have anything here. Yeah, I'm done with this conversation. Like I don't, we're not really going to talk about politics, right. And so it's really easy to distinguish between Pete and chip. But let's say we have like a third character who we named Dale. And Dale is asked, Are you interested in politics? I would also say, like chip, really interested in politics really follow it a whole lot. But Dale isn't just checking in, like during the 630 News, or maybe a couple of times a week on websites. Dale is checking in on politics, hourly, Dale is deliberately searching out political news. Dale is really looking for additional information. Dale is initiating conversations about politics. If Dale is on a flight, they'll buy by Wi Fi, and use that Wi Fi to check what is happening in the news and really kind of check in on politics. But the thing is, the standard interest question isn't actually really able to distinguish between Chippendale, even though those are two really, really different categories. We can tell they're both really kind of different from Pete. But we can tell the distinction amongst somebody who says they're interested checks in regular news, and somebody who's interested and is deeply deeply involved in checking in and politics. And that's kind of where our measure comes in. To that like, next level distinction.
Jenna Spinelle
From what you were able to measure. How do these three archetypes map on to the American population? How many people are like chip? How many are like Dale, how many are like Pete?
Yanna Krupnikov
I mean, that's tough, right? In one way, because it's the measure we use is essentially a continuum of like 49 different points, right? So if you want to think about the way the distribution works, the people who are sort of the in the highest end, the people who would be sort of agreeing with every question we asked in terms of like a yes, politics is central to my life and politics should be central to your life to it depends on the survey, 15 20%, maybe 25%, the highest if we're going to really sort of stretch it on the low end, you're looking more at like 10 to 15%. Right. So if you figure that 20% are really high 15% are really low, that puts 65% in this sort of world in which it's sort of like well, either they think politics is important for them to follow, but not that important for you to follow, or they just are the same in or they're just sort of like, you should kind of follow up, but maybe not. Right? And so those are potentially conflating two different types of people. But at the same time, the various questions are so highly hang together so much that I'm not sure that you really noticing differences between these people, or rather that sort of like, well, that aspect of politics isn't that important, but this accent of politics is important, but it's not important for you to do it, I can do it on my own.
Jenna Spinelle
Were you able to glean anything about why people might not choose to engage? Is it out of frustration with what they perceive as the political system? Is it just because they're Yeah, there are other things that they would rather do to occupy their their time and attention? What are what are some of the reasons that, you know, people may actively choose not to seek out or follow political news and information?
John Barry Ryan
On that question, we can actually put together there's been kind of a rich area of research has actually been recent, and somewhat even post our book about these kinds of people and in their engagement with politics. And we can kind of take our work and and kind of intermix it with that. The first thing I often kind of like to point out is that in a lot of cases, being deeply involved is a tremendous amount of time. And it's not just a tremendous amount of time, it's a tremendous amount of flexible time, not everybody has the type of flexible time where they can actually check in what's happening, you know, online, or what's happening hourly on the news, right? So if we think about that structure, just literally the structure of a person's day, it is not necessarily a super active choice to sort of say, I'm pulling myself away from it. It's really just up constraints, daily constraints, right? You have a lot of things going on, you have your life, you might have a really difficult life. So you can't necessarily follow these things. I think that's part of why I think that as a result, the people who do spend a lot of time on politics Do follow politics come to Stan, we just talked about the archetypes, right? They come to represent, oh, this is what it means to be engaged with politics. And that seems kind of incredibly inaccessible. And it seems overwhelming. And it seems really difficult for somebody. And the more that we see those people, let's say, echoed by the media, the more we hear their voices, the more it becomes kind of something far away and something inaccessible. So I think that's one aspect of it. Recently, there's been a ton of work done really kind of these excellent surveys on news avoidance, for example, somebody like Ben tufts work on on news avoidance. And what you see there is that people are just kind of overwhelmed by the news. And news becomes something really difficult for them. So in a way, people come to avoid the news generally. So it's not necessarily just politics. But it's just that kind of every time you follow the news, you just see kind of horrible things happening around you, which is what the news avoidance work shows, when people are asked about it. This is kind of why they are following the news, then anything there is additional work on the fact that people might associate politics with difficulty and conflict. There's a great book by Taylor Carlson and Jamie subtle called what goes unsaid, and they essentially go into this idea that people are really fearful, essentially, to start discussing politics, they become really fearful to basically engage with political ideas. And I think all of this essentially starts to intermix, right? You see on the news, and you see these really, really political voices, you start to think to yourself, oh, this is what engaging in politics looks like. Those voices also often happen to care a lot about their particular political position. And so politics becomes overwhelming, it becomes something that's uncomfortable, and it'd become something that over time you don't necessarily want to engage with. And I think all these things basically, kind of create just this joint idea. I think one of the most more interesting things we find in our book is the survey where we asked people, why do people post about politics on social media? And the divide there think is really interesting, because the people who are deeply involved see these really altruistic motivations for posting about politics, which is that we're letting people know this, this thing is happening, like please know this thing is happening. Right. And I think that's truthful. I think they're truthful, altruistic motivation. And for people who aren't deeply involved, there's a tremendous amount of skepticism. They think that people are just posting about politics and just talking about politics, because they want to be right, because they want to share their political opinion, because they want to persuade someone. And I think that kind of emulates this idea of people disengaging from politics, in part because they don't necessarily think there's space for them there.
Jenna Spinelle
So a good chunk of the book is dedicated to the media and, you know, the sources that journalists do and do not employ. You mentioned a minute ago, Jana, that the deeply involved are often echoed by the media. I know you talk a lot about journalists hanging out on Twitter all day, I'm not sure how well that specific piece of it holds up in the X era. But I think the underlying premise is still the same, you know, reporters consume a lot of political information and tend to surround themselves with others and look for sources, who also consume a lot of political information and can talk about things at this, you know, much deeper level, I wonder if you could just say more about how you think about the role that the media plays here and how it maybe builds on to to this divide that you're describing?
Yanna Krupnikov
One of the things we talked about in the book is that for journalists, there's this sort of difficult reality that they're trying to report on. Right. So let's just assume that an event happens in the world, and 90% of people's response to the events is purely a political, because it's not really a political event. It's some sort of maybe it's a sitcom, a new sitcom on TV, but 10% of the people, their reaction is purely political. Well, okay. That's a sizable portion of the public, it's a minority. And it seems like well, this is something to attune to, especially because for reporters who are on sort of a political beat. Okay, so we're gonna talk about that. The difficulty is what do you do with the other 90%? Because how do you feel a story that's just we talked to this person, and they didn't know what we were talking about, and we went to this other person and they had never heard of the thing. And so then we talked to a third person and they didn't know either. It's the same difficulty with reporting about air travel, you don't list all the planes that did not experience turbulence. Because what who wants to read that? And then, but it's even worse in some ways, because it's almost nonsensical to the people to say, hey, we just saw you decide to pull into the McDonald's of the Burger King. Why did Joe Biden make you do that? What I don't understand well, that's that's the thing. I'm, it turns out that Biden voters go to McDonald's and Trump voters number again, this is a made of stat do not quote that. You're I'm saying, right, that it that it's just it's so baffling to people that you've brought this up. And so you know, if you're sort of a good media consumer, you understand that when they report about a plane that hit into massive sudden, clear air turbulence. This is something that occurs, but it's not typically what occurs, it may frighten you in the moment, it may frighten you the next time you're on a plane and you feel a little bumps, Oh, it's coming. But you don't go through your life thinking that is what plane travel is like, the problem with politics is we have a harder time thinking, well, that's not what helps citizens react to politics. Because the people who are so into politics often want to cause turbulence on the flight. And so it's like for them, that's not just a thing that occasionally happens. That's the whole purpose of the thing, right, is to bring politics into these things where politics doesn't seem to actually belong. So it becomes a single like, well, yes, for all of us on the outside, who can just observe it, politics is separate from etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But it means if I become, you know, sort of Jana, say, if I come into the politics, then that's what's going to be and then, if I want to take the political angle of the story, I'm going to talk to the 10 to 20%. You know, and for some things, maybe it's a bit bigger, who have injected in viewer through a political lens. And I might say, but that's the important bit anyway, that was 70 80%. Who aren't into politics. I'm not writing about that, right? You know, just like if you're, again, if you're talking about a specific what you might call a cult, oftentimes sci fi show, you don't talk about the people who aren't fans of the show and don't write up. Here's the thing you the show you've never seen. And have you talked to all these people who never watched it. And so it is it is sort of difficult in that way. And so that's why we don't have solutions for journalists, because the solution is essentially, we'll just do poll based things. Okay, well, one, incredibly expensive to writing poll questions is hard. Three, if we increase the amount of polls, the non response problem will increase even more, for all you're gonna get as those people who used to be sort of the Vox Populi, explain to us how the world is mad at you, because your poll didn't always show them what they want to hear. So and that's oftentimes, since those are the those that's your that's your readership and viewership base. See, that's why I think we say in the book like this is we talk about, hey, things aren't as bad as you think in terms of the politic political divides, blah, blah, blah. But there are these bad things and there's no solutions do not there's no solutions.
Jenna Spinelle
So I mean, given what you've both been saying about how there are no immediate or obvious solutions for journalists, are there things that we as news consumers, maybe heavy news, consumers, or maybe news avoiders? Like are there things that people who are not journalists could or should be thinking about, especially as we head into another presidential election cycle?
Yanna Krupnikov
One thing is, especially for the heavy news, consumers, who are the ones who are most likely to want to whether they're friends or family wanted or not discuss politics with them. They also have to keep in mind audiences, and what is it that your people are interested in? And then maybe from a strategic persuasion standpoint, you have this sort of element of? Well, it's better to build bridges than to shadow people. Okay, fine. But even from just trying to understand the other person's point of view, right, one of the first things that you can come up with is not that they are liberal and conservative, or they're conservative, or liberal, or they're Democrat and Republican, above all that sort of stuff, just like, they're not following this stuff. There's a whole bunch of characters who they don't know, there's a new speaker of the house, they know that his name is something boring. That's it. They're not gonna go beyond that. And it's like, McCarthy was the guy, you know, they'll obviously know who the president is know who Trump is that those sorts of things. They're not ignorant, but they're not following every beat in every scandal. And so that's something to keep in mind and then also helps you understand why your arguments are potentially resonating for people who are less following the news. Well, you know, this becomes difficult because why aren't they following the news? Is it because they, you know, they'd be willing to but you're working too. jobs, you have kids, you're ill, whatever it is, okay? Go with God and do those things for people who are sort of like I'm avoiding the news, because it's all about conflict, that's going to be true if you're looking at national news and focusing on Congress and things like that. And then when you're talking about a political debate, that's, that's going to be true. And so the goal would then be to say, like, there's no need to be following all the time, are you able to keep up with sort of what's going on? And then more importantly, when you're thinking about how you're voting, when you're thinking about how the world works? Are you thinking about the way the world works in a certain way, because of certain values you have? And then I can give you facts that either support those values or refute it, and then the facts on that, right. So there isn't, we don't have to worry about the facts here. What information again, because that's not the point? Or alternatively, is it that you've misunderstood something? Right? So you get these things where it's like, oh, I'm supporting, you always get these quotes. I'm supporting this candidate because of their position on x. It's like, actually, you've reversed the candidates. Okay, well, that's something you should be making sure if something is that important to you, you're gonna base your entire vote on it, you actually locked down what's going on there. And so there's plenty of room for heuristics and quick decision making and shortcuts, but then also just sort of this element of, okay, if you really do care about something, and you had the time dedicate the time to understanding at least that aspect of it, you know, there actually are a lot of articles, if you search, the AP, just prints positions. They don't print, oh, we fight, you know that Oh, and then and then Trump said this, and that Biden said this, and then they fight each other. It literally is this, if elected, Donald Trump has said I will do XY and Z on this issue. If elected Joe Biden, I'll do XYZ, you can just read those statements. Now I understand that that's not selling off newspapers, or whatever the current version of that statement is, and not attracting eyeballs. But if you want to be informed that those things exist, and the great glory of the internet is you can find them very easily. And the news media does do that. It does it a lot more than anyone realizes it's just reason people don't realize this, because no one talks about those stories, because they're not that engaging. They're just purely facts. If you want the facts, they are there.
Jenna Spinelle
If my colleague and co host Chris beam was here, he would probably say something along the lines of well, as citizens in a democracy, we have an obligation or duty to pay attention to what's happening, at least in some degree, especially now when, you know, it seems like there's a lot of talk about how democracy itself will be on the ballot this November, which maybe is also a framing problem that like you were talking about before. But that's a whole separate conversation. But I guess the concern is that we're going to like sleep, walk into democratic erosion or you know, something along those lines, that these things are going to happen. Because some number of people are not paying attention or not paying enough attention. What would you say to a claim like that, or this idea that democracy requires at least a certain amount of participation or involvement from everyone in order to be successful?
John Barry Ryan
I mean, the the issue is like, and this is an us movies, quoting person, lots filmic fee from 50-70 years ago, right? The people, if somebody ends democracy, the person who is owning democracy is somebody who is deeply involved, or at least at a minimum cares a lot. Right? And that sort of thing of, well, I care so much, it's so important that I get my way, which may be a selfish motivation, but maybe also sort of selfish slash altruistic, maybe it's even not even selfish, just sort of like, this role will be better. And the only way we can have this world is if all you people stop making decisions and getting in the way of my things. And that could be purely as it often isn't sort of, historically, you know, in a lot of dictatorships, Kings shifts, and by my get by making the, my way, I mean, literally my way you give me all my money, all the food, and I get all the power, etc, etc. But it could also be, I'm going to stifle dissent. I'm going to favor these groups, for whatever reasons, etcetera, etcetera, right. So, the barrels and last really funny thing is like, you know, this sort of idea that interest comes with its problems, you know, when we're talking about motivated reasoning, the likelihood of even following conspiracy theories, right, a lot of that is more located in the people who are knowledgeable, the people who are following maybe to, because of self selection, maybe to justify the positions you hold, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So there's the question of do individuals have some sort of obligation to know what's going on? Well, yeah, probably. What is the threshold of that? Well, that's something more could debate point where you sort of fall back on is it's the distribution that matters. You can't have a world in which nobody is so involved that they fall into authoritarian mindset sometime, because then then probably nothing gets done. Right? You need those people to go out there and push some ideas and have everybody else say, all right, but you gotta calm down. That's a good point you brought up, but we'll get you got calmed down, we got to figure out the solution here. But you can't have everybody like that. And you can't have everybody where this sort of like, I don't know, I don't know who the president is, and very few people like that. But I don't really know who the speaker of the house is either. The Schumer guy, I've heard of him no clue. Right. And so it is about that sort of that sort of balance that distribution. And again, right. The other thing that we always also come back to in the book a lot is, there are other things besides politics, that also matter. You know, and so we got to make sure that there's space for all art that's just for entertainment, or child rearing or teaching that is just sort of like, here's how to count and you know, how people can be safe and that sort of thing you don't. And so making sure there's space for those things, I think is also important.
Yanna Krupnikov
I just want to be fair to those folks who aren't deeply involved, right? When we're talking about the bulk of the people who aren't deeply involved. They do know, kind of key facts of the day. It's not that the deeply involved are the only ones who are paying attention and fulfilling the civic duty and everyone else knows nothing. It's that the deeply involved are going beyond to this next level. So those folks that we're at that John says 60 to 70%, they do know things, right, they they are kind of following up on what's happening. They're just not doing it hourly, they're just not necessarily constantly talking about it. So the idea here is not the difference in people who are paying attention and people who are paying none. It's people who are paying a next level of attention to politics.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's fair. Thank you for pointing that out. We will link to all of those scholars and and projects that you mentioned, as well as to your book, the other divide in the show notes. I hope our listeners will pick it up was a very eye opening, read. And I think it is well worth perusing, especially in an election year. So Jana, and John, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today.
John Barry Ryan
Thank you for having us.
Chris Beem
So Candis, I wanted to get back to that the idea that there's something almost forever, thus about this argument. And there's something distinctive and new about it as well. I mean, you know, on the one hand from going back, as far as America goes back, there are people who were just too damn busy to focus on politics, right? I mean, they were working six days a week, 10 hours a day, you know, when I was, I had three kids under the age of 10. And I would listen to NPR on the way to work on the way home, and that was it. And I think none of that is particularly new. It wasn't I didn't care, but I just didn't have the it was not possible for me to be invested in the way that you know, I am now. And I think the other thing that that brings to my mind is that it speaks to the power of Retired Americans, because they're not in that position. They do have time and flexible time. And you know, many of them have some disposable income. So it makes sense that given the way the system kind of works, and who it listens to, that those folks would have, you know, an outsized impact on politics. And you know, we see that over and over and over. Right. And so that's not new. But I do think that there is, well, first of all, you have a completely different media environment. Yeah. And that's a big one. And then the other thing is that, you know, okay, maybe people aren't all as polarized as the most polarized of us are. But at the same time, our society is deeply polarized. And so I wonder if that makes an impact as well, in terms of like, you know, it raises the stakes when we're talking about these little things, or comparatively little policy fights, because everything is kind of on a knife edge. And there's so much emnity right. I mean, it's not just that, you know, I'd rather that Republican wins. It's that if the Democrats win America, as we know it is going to end and vice versa, right. Democrats say the same thing. And so I think in that in both of those senses, the differences are important. And, you know, I guess I wish they would have said more about that.
Candis Watts Smith
I think you're exactly right that yes, there have always been people who are more invested in politics and others, but the ramifications and the speed at which a certain group of people's ideas, attitudes, preferences are spread and amplified is just a lot faster we're in a more segregated is that the fractionalized media environment? And just like you're saying that the choices are not quite Tweedledee, Tweedledum in the way that they were in the 1950s and 60s, right, that was something that the American Political Science Association, you know, said to America, about American politics is that we don't actually really have our choices really aren't that different. And now, because a small group of folks who are you know, having a lot to say in primaries, the fact that primary is a verb, that means that you are ousted by the person who is more extreme than you suggests, right, that the choices that are made available for the people who are in the middle are actually more extreme, and the stakes are higher.
Chris Beem
I'm going to the question that Jen asked for me in the interview, and I'm like, Well, I think that's a good question. It is not the same. Now, in terms of our I understand that not everybody cares. And I understand that people have good reasons, that they can't devote as much attention to politics as they, as they might want to, or as others think they should get that I understand that I respect it. But I also think it is my own feeling is that this is a crisis. And that democracy is indeed on the ballot in 2024. And so if you care at all about our politics, our society, the legitimacy of you, checking out or not being as engaged as you might be, becomes, I think, less legitimate. I guess that's what I would say. And I say it with trepidation, because I know it makes me makes me sound like a scold. But if it's true, as I think it is that the stakes in this election are existential, that I want to encourage all Americans to take that reality series.
Candis Watts Smith
I think one of the things that perhaps is we're taking away is that for political junkies are the people who are listening to the show, and once like it is to recognize that their very strong feelings and preferences aren't, in fact, necessarily representative of the American population. And if those people who are political junkies are also people who are junkies for democracy, then they would have to think about what the ramifications are for the quality of our democracy and the extent to which what we're doing here they're loud voices represents the values and the interests of our society. Right, for better or worse, right. There are times when maybe it's not awesome when the majority's preferences are made the law plan or whatever. But I think that there's something to be said about, maybe we don't actually have a great idea about what the average American thinks about anything based on watching the news and perusing social media and talking to your political junkie friends in your echo chamber. I don't know maybe it might inspire some epistemic community.
Chris Beem
I think you're right. This is an interesting and important reminder of what the body politic really looks like, and how that matters, in terms of how we conduct ourselves democratically, and how we understand ourselves as an as a political society. So it's worth your attention if you find those things important. So for Democracy Works, I'm Chris Beem.
Candis Watts Smith
And I'm Candis Watts Smith. Thank you for listening.