How does this idea square with elections in the United States? Consider pollsters; their job is to make specific predictions based on understood methods using data gathered with also understood methods.
Despite what was either fraud or tremendous incompetence in the last Presidential election cycle on the part of ideological pollsters, and the high degree of public attention paid to it, polarization has not meaningfully decreased in any way I can observe.
I therefore expect that making the candidates generate specific predictions would have little overall effect on polarization.
The deal’s supporters forecast that it would stop (or at least delay) Iran from fielding a nuclear weapon, would increase security for the United States and Israel and would underscore American leadership.
Or maybe they don't particularly care about Iran getting nuclear weapons, or they are actually in favor of Iran getting nuclear weapons, but they can't say it loud since it is politically unacceptable in the US to hold such beliefs.
The title seems so deliberately alliterative it's hard to see why it doesn't have "prevent" (or perhaps "postpone" or "palliate") in place of "counter".
There are plenty of issues where "precise predictions" are available, yet the polarization is as bad as ever, such as drugs, birth control, gun control and taxes. So no, facts are no match for ideology.
There are plenty of issues where "precise predictions" are available, yet the polarization is as bad as ever, such as drugs, birth control, gun control and taxes.
The fact that statistics exist doesn't mean that "precise predictions exist". It especially doesn't mean that stakeholders in the debate engage in the action of engaging in prediction making.
What kind of contextually-relevant "precise predictions" are there for e.g. gun control? Or taxes?
The prediction expert Philip Tetlock writes in New York Times on the power of precise predictions to counter political polarization. Note the similarity to Robin Hanson's futarchy idea.