I take some of those points. I don't know the state or trend of polarization in other countries (only countries with two main parties would be of interest for this model, multi-party elections yield a different system). Though I maintain that one country is still an observation to be explained, requiring a hypothesis. I could also believe that donations or activism don't drive election performance.
But fundamentally, I think you're addressing an issue with my suboptimal framing of the puzzle, rather than the puzzle itself. I'm not really interested in the t...
I very much agree this is possible, if voters vote in primaries based on ideological proximity rather than electability. But then how come the national elections are close? Coincidence? And what would happen if a politician moved a bit more towards the center after winning the primaries?
This is an interesting explanation. But then how do you think voters enforce their views to make politicians more radical? Suppose there were general elections between two candidates, and then a voter's preferred candidate made his views more moderate to appeal to a larger audience. Would the voter not vote at all in these elections? Or would that politician just not pass the primaries? Otherwise, even if voters dislike it, a politician could still get elected while being less liked than they could have been by their party's voters, but importantly - win the elections.
Interesting. And how do you think they enforce this dislike of moderates? By not voting at all? By voting for the other party if it's more extreme? If they prefer extreme politicians but still vote for the politician closest to their views, the puzzle isn't solved.
Not sure I understand how this explains the polarization of politicians. What is preventing Biden from saying "Abortion is a state issue"? His tribe will still support him, but some fraction of the swing voters will find him more appealing. Couldn't it sway the elections in his favor? Why didn't he do it? Generally I don't see how tribalism is a challenge to the thesis.
That's interesting. I agree I glossed over many (most) parts where the parties agree (on general democratic principles, on capitalism in some form, on the order of magnitude of budget for many things) and focused on issues where they disagree.
But I think for my thesis, any remaining differences are a puzzle to be explained, and the perceptions that the parties differ is what drives the results. Since public debate focuses on issues where parties differ substantially, these should be the issues driving voting behavior - you can narrow down the model to thos...
Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
I agree that the normative parts were the weakest in the Book. There were other parts that I found weak, like how I think he caught the Moral Foundations and their ubiquitous presence well, but then made the error of thinking liberals don't use them (when in fact they use them a lot, certainly in today's climate, just with different in-groups, sanctified objects, etc.). An initial draft had a section about this. But in the spirit of Ruling Thinkers In, Not Out, I decided to let go of these in the review and focus on the pa...
Thanks!
I think you'll very much enjoy the part of the book about the hive switch, and psychedelics.
This is a very good point.