Analysis of political polarization in the US

A recent research paper, A new measure of issue polarization using k-means clustering: US trends 1988–2024 and predictors of polarization across the world, describes results researchers got from trying to measure political polarization over time and across countries. Trying to assess political polarization has been messy and error-prone. This paper describes the use of a data collection and analysis method they call k-means clustering (KMC). KMC appears to afford a better way to assess what issues are dividing Americans so bitterly and thus threatening our democracy, rule of law and civil liberties.

In this paper, scientists tracked polarization over time and compared it across countries. Instead of relying on whether people call themselves "liberal" or "conservative," or "Democrat" or "Republican," the researchers used KMC, a computer algorithm. The algorithm looks at how people actually answer a wide range of policy questions, then sorts them into groups of like-minded people from the ground up, without any named political labels. Polarization was measured by separation (how far apart groups are in their views), cohesion (how much people within each group agree with one another), and size (groups sizes compared). That is new in analysis of political polarization. Clusters of issues were assessed in the groups, e.g., abortion, gun control, immigration, gender roles, social values, etc.

The results are interesting. First, KMC analysis found polarization increased in the USA from 1988 to 2024, driven almost completely by a period of rising separation between clusters of beliefs from 2008 to 2020. Data from across the world indicated that mass issue polarization is driven primarily by disagreement over cultural issues, but that varied according to each nation's Human Development Index (HDI), a measure of health (life expectancy at birth), education level (years of schooling) and standard of living (income). Since 1988, the US has been more highly polarized compared to high HDI countries.

Most of the increasing polarization came from the groups moving farther apart from each other on issues. not from people in each group becoming more uniform, or from one side growing much larger than the other.

Data analysis indicated that people's opinions become more "packaged" or clustered. In 1988, someone with right-leaning views on the economy didn't necessarily oppose abortion. Today, positions on different issues increasingly go together in a bundle. If you know someone's view on one topic, you can more reliably guess their views on many others. Interestingly, data analysis also indicated that some of American society was liberalizing, with the left-leaning cluster being significantly more socially liberal in 2024 than in 1988, while the right-leaning cluster was rather stable becoming only slightly more conservative.

What that data and analysis does not capture is radicalization of the right-leaning cluster. It is only slightly more conservative on the issues analyzed, immigration, taxes, gun regulations, social spending, etc. But support for radical right authoritarianism, e.g., supporting strong leaders breaking laws to set things right, or loss of respect for democratic norms and institutions, is a different political dimension than what this research paper analyzed. 

In other words, many or most conservatives (about half the country) generally hold about the same policy views they held in 2008 (abortion probably being an exception), but became more authoritarian in how they believe those policies should be implemented (another link). Meanwhile, about half of the US, more or less liberalized and retained their support for democracy and the rule of law.

A consciousness science update

A current SciAm article, Why consciousness is the hardest problem in science, summarizes the state of the art. In a nutshell, it's stuck. There are 29 theories but we don't have technology that's sophisticated and sensitive enough to detect enough in the staggering complexity of normal brain activity. We can't tell one theory from the other. Some of the theories are backed by no experimental evidence. A unifying experimental observation and consensus belief is that, whatever it is, consciousness is very complex and is grounded in diffuse brain activity. It can't yet be pinned down to small parts of the brain.

 

Two of the leading theories are the global workspace theory (GWT) and the integrated information theory (IIT, mentioned below).

Current thinking is that consciousness has three dimensions, all of which vary in a range of states from full off to on. The dimensions are described in the image below.

Philosophers and scientists still struggle to simply define consciousness without falling back on what it feels like to experience something. Philosophers call that “definition by pointing.” There is a way to measure an approximate degree of consciousness that expert consensus believes is real and clinically useful. The measure is called the perturbational complexity index or PCI. PCI is a crude measure of consciousness, but it reliably estimates someone’s status on the spectrum of consciousness. The SciAm article describes PCI like this:

It suggests that complexity is an important part of a conscious brain. In an awake or dreaming brain, diverse networks of neurons are in constant back-and-forth communication with one another. In this way, conscious brain activity is both differentiated (or rich in information) and integrated (forming one unified whole)—principles that Massimini borrowed from IIT, the theory that doesn’t begin with the brain. These interactions build up complexity, or what IIT theorists call a “cause-effect structure,” so that when you stimulate one part of a conscious brain, other parts respond.

But during dreamless sleep or when someone is under anesthesia, all that communication goes away. “Everything collapses,” Massimini says. “The cathedral falls apart.” Slow brain waves travel across the cortex as neurons cycle rhythmically between two electric states. In the “silent periods” between the waves, neurons enter what’s called a down state, in which they can’t respond to electric signals from their neighbors. This state is why there’s silence when you stimulate an unconscious brain with TMS: “No feedback, no unity, no complexity,” he says.

The SciAm article mentions the hostility that mainstream science still has for possible non-materialist explanations because that drifts into spiritualism/religion. After a massive study to failed to prove or disprove the leading IIT and GWT theories, some scientists got very upset. They publicly called IIT pseudoscience because they believed IIT strayed from materialism into dualism (spirituality or religion). SciAm writes:

 

An open letter calling IIT pseudoscience was published online in September 2023, signed by 124 researchers in or adjacent to the field. The argument focused less on the theory than on its coverage in the media, which the letter’s authors saw as credulous. The authors also took issue with the panpsychist implications of IIT, highlighting descriptions of it as unscientific and “magicalist.” “These bold claims threaten to delegitimize the scientific study of consciousness,” many of the authors wrote in a follow-up article.

The prospect that the field could lose its legitimacy hung over the fight. One side feared IIT’s reputation would drag consciousness science even further toward the fringes, and the other worried that publicly tarring one theory with a “pseudoscience” label would lead to the downfall of the entire field.

What a mess. Scientists still cannot even entertain the possibility of a partial non-physical or immaterial explanation for consciousness without the whole field getting in an uproar. Of course, the press, being the sensationalist, for profit beast it is, one can see why scientists worry about how the science related to IIT will be misunderstood and abused. 

The problem is that there could still be material things we know nothing about, can't even detect yet, that could be a part of consciousness. It is still possible that the immaterial has nothing to do with spirituality or religion, but is something still beyond our ability to detect and understand.

This tension between the immaterial (religious, spiritual) and the material does not seem likely to go away in the near term. We're stuck with it.

Lying & deceit: Moral Choice in Politics

In her 1999 book, Lying: Moral Choice in public and Private Life, moral philosopher Sissela Bok lays out an intelligent but simple analysis of the power and effect of lying and deceit in democracy and politics. By contrast with a democracy, the leader’s lies and deceit in authoritarian states don’t make much difference to average people. They have little to no power. They have to live under their leadership regardless of how morally depraved, reality-detached, cruel, bigoted, or corrupt it may be.

The image below is a tally PolitiFact’s assessment of 1,000 of Trump’s statements. That data makes clear why the topic of lying and deceit in democracy, is critically and urgently important in America today.

Bok’s basic argument is simple and rational. Specifically, when people have been deceived and they act on false beliefs, their power to decide how to act based on facts, truths and sound reasoning has been taken from them without their consent or knowledge. Common sense and contemporary research tell us that deceit is inherently authoritarian, therefore anti-democracy. (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4)

Also, Bok and some others assert that lying and deceit are almost always inherently immoral. Arguably, they are evil when actions by deceived people based on false beliefs lead to unnecessary harm or deaths. That argument is simple logic. A rock solid example of unnecessary harm and death from deceit is people who have been convinced by anti-vaccine liars and crackpots. Some of those deceived people refuse to get vaccinated against COVID or other infections. Some of them get infected and die. Some infect others who die. (link 5, link 6)

Finally, research and history both indicate that irrational emotional manipulation is the single most effective persuasion weapon that demagogues and authoritarians have in gaining power to deceive and destroy democracy. Fomenting fear, anger, and identity-based resentment constitutes the most powerful weapon demagogues have. It works by (1) suppressing conscious reasoning, (2) creating "winner-take-all" attention narrowing that excludes contrary evidence like actual facts, and (3) exploiting unconscious cognitive biases and heuristics that replace careful reasoning with visceral, emotional responses. (link 7, link 8, link 9, link 10)

Wikipedia describes demagoguery like this: The central feature of demagoguery is persuasion by means of passion, shutting down reasoned thinking and consideration of alternatives. Demagogues pander to passion, prejudice, bigotry, and ignorance, not facts and reason, because this is the most effective tool to exploit human beings.

Q1: Can a person reasonably believe that lies and deceit from Trump and MAGA elites are at least immoral, or even evil?

Q2: Are most rank and file Trump supporters immoral or evil, or are they mostly good people who have been deceived and manipulated, whereby deceit has absolved them of responsibility for their actions?

Who watches the Super Bore anyways?

 Worse - who watches the half-time show?

Not like Bruce Springsteen is gonna be playing during the half-time show, that might make it a worthwhile watch. 

It just ain't 2009 any more. 

Now you get someone who calls himself Bad Bunny?

Bad Bunny was crowned last year by Spotify as the most listened-to musical artist in the world.

Umm, ok, if they say so, never heard of him 😒

So, with that in mind, we need some real time AMERICAN music as an alternative:

• Kid Rock has been named as the headliner of Turning Point USA's conservative alternative to the Super Bowl LX halftime show.
• The organization co-founded by late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk previously said the event would be designed around "faith, family and freedom" and feature as a potential music genre "Anything in English."
• Bad Bunny's selection as this year's Super Bowl halftime performer sparked conservative backlash, for his choice of Spanish as the dominant language of his music and for his past criticisms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• https://ew.com/kid-rock-headlining-conservative-alternative-to-super-bowl-halftime-show-11897759
  

Well, ya might not like his politics, but at least it's ROCK 'N ROLL!