
Is America at risk of following the path of failing nation-states? - _of
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/12/opinions/us-following-path-of-unstable-countries-sciutto/index.html
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Analemma_
I recommend Matthew Yglesias' "American democracy is doomed" [0] if you want
to explore this thesis without the abysmal writing standards of CNN online.

[0] [http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-
doome...](http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doomed)

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hga
I'm going to have to look at that in more detail, but I already see some
howlers, like implicitly claiming there was a low degree of political
polarization in the early FDR years. Sure, the Congress was relatively less
polarized, but there was great tension between it and FDR, and him and many
Democrats and Republicans "in the street" in general. I.e. guess who had a
much better chance of being allowed to grow food on their farms....

And what about the polarization between Republicans and Democrats when the
former came into existence and got Lincoln elected? 600,000 million dead in a
civil war, about as many in all our other wars combined.

A lot of people don't believe we really had the same system of government
during and after each of these men were president....

~~~
Analemma_
You should carefully read his definition of "polarization". It has an exact
meaning that is objectively measurable: it's how often individual politicians
vote against the majority vote of their party. It does _not_ refer to the
amount of animosity between the parties or the extremeness of their positions.
Part of his thesis is that these two measurements are now moving together, and
were not necessarily doing so before.

~~~
hga
I suppose I should, but in that case I think it's something of a redefinition
of the word and less than useful. Especially since you have to, for example,
factor in strength of party discipline methods. For example, expect a great
discontinuity when the Senate started being selected by popular vote instead
of by each state's legislature.

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getpost
This is rich. James Clapper says the rule of law is under assault, which is
true. He's a notable assailant! He hasn't been indicted for perjury, and the
CIA is spying on Senate oversight, for starters.

