You know that uncle whose political takes threaten to turn family gatherings into food fights? Don’t decline his Thanksgiving invitation just yet. When it comes to support for democracy, left and right in America are much closer than you might think.
As a historic US election approaches, both sides see each other as working to upend democracy. But it’s our assumptions about our political opponents – rather than their actual views – that drive polarization, according to new research. And if Democrats want to prove to voters on the fence that they’re acting in good faith, they might want to consider a surprising “grand gesture”.
The findings are featured in a megastudy published by the journal Science that tested 25 methods sourced from 400 people studying and working in politics to see which showed the most promise for preserving democracy and curtailing political animosity. One, developed by scholars at the University of California, Berkeley, rose to the top.
The idea came from an observation that Alia Braley, a PhD candidate who previously studied pro-democracy movements under autocracies, observed during the Trump administration: would-be authoritarians get supporters to tolerate democratic backsliding by convincing them that the other side is transgressing democratic norms.
“I wanted to find out how we can undo that,” Braley said.