http://www.psy.ohio-state.edu/petty/documents/2013PSPBClarkWegenerSawickiPettyBrinol.pdf
	When encountering persuasive messages, people can engage in many different strategies and rely on many different types of information as a basis for their opinions (for reviews, see Petty & Wegener, 1998; Wegener & Carlston, 2005). In the persuasion literature, a great deal of research has focused on the amount of processing motivation and ability as a key determinant of the different ways that influence can occur. However, even when motivation and ability are high (for example), different orientations at the time of message receipt could guide the way processing unfolds. With this in mind, the current research compares a focus on evaluating the merits of a persuasive message versus the merits of a persuasive source.

	For example, consider a citizen receiving a message about a highly relevant proposed policy at one of two different times: during the lead-up to an election or a year later. When receiving the appeal prior to voting, the citizen may likely process the advocacy as a way to evaluate the candidate. However, when receiving the message at a time when no decision about the politician is imminent (e.g., after the politi-cian is ensconced in the position), the citizen may be more likely to scrutinize it as a way to evaluate the policy itself. Thus, across these situations, evaluation of the policy would be used for different purposes. When focused on assessing the policy, the citizen may carefully consider the logic or cogency of the arguments as a means to form an attitude toward the policy. Conversely, during the lead-up to an election, the citi-zen may use their reactions to the arguments more as a way to infer traits that this politician possesses. Do these different processing foci hold different implications for persuasion by the message? If so, by what mechanism and under which cir-cumstances do such effects emerge? The current research examined these possibilities in light of the burgeoning litera-ture on the role of metacognition in persuasion.

https://hbr.org/2012/05/dont-like-the-message-maybe-it.html
	We all like to think we can evaluate information and arguments rationally, regardless of where they come from. But we don’t. As Yale Law School’s Dan Kahan, who has studied this stuff a lot, puts it:

    	People feel that it is safe to consider evidence with an open mind when they know that a knowledgeable member of their cultural community accepts it.

	When the information seems to be coming from or favoring the other side, all bets are off. Kahan again:

    	In a famous 1950s psychology experiment, researchers showed students from two Ivy League colleges a film of an American football game between their schools in which officials made a series of controversial decisions against one side. Asked to make their own assessments, students who attended the offending team’s college reported seeing half as many illegal plays as did students from the opposing institution.

	To which I can only add that, although I know nothing about the 1951 Dartmouth-Princeton game other than what I’ve read in the cited article, I’m confident that if anything the refs went far too easy on Dartmouth. I mean, those thugs gave Kazmaier a concussion! (Wow, how did you guess where I went to college?)

	Kahan is most concerned about scientific issues (climate change, HPV vaccines) where he thinks group identities get in the way of reasoned discussion. But the same tendencies can be seen in pretty much any case where there are conflicting opinions — which ought to make them of interest to anybody in a management or other decision-making role.


https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=952112098007005068096068025017103024031086037020053013069083084065096025112127100087055031099031027019034094127091116089006003033047002081054080084103118126119067051078064116013092126080107002008083092027065122028117122080115096124082077078009085&EXT=pdf
	Since then, a growing body of work has suggested that ordinary citizens react to scientific evidence on societal risks in much the same way. People endorse whichever position reinforces their connection to others with whom they share important commitments. As a result, public debate about science is strikingly polarized. The same groups who disagree on 'cultural issues' — abortion, same-sex marriage and school prayer — also disagree on whether climate change is real and on whether underground disposal of nuclear waste is safe.

	...

	A process that does account for this distinctive form of polarization is 'cultural cognition'. Cultural cognition refers to the influence of group values — ones relating to equality and authority, individualism and community — on risk perceptions and related beliefs2, 3. In ongoing research, Donald Braman at George Washington University Law School in Washington DC, Geoffrey Cohen at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, John Gastil at the University of Washington in Seattle, Paul Slovic at the University of Oregon in Eugene and I study the mental processes behind cultural cognition.

	...

	Cultural cognition also causes people to interpret new evidence in a biased way that reinforces their predispositions. As a result, groups with opposing values often become more polarized, not less, when exposed to scientifically sound information.

	...

	Of course, because most people aren't in a position to evaluate technical data for themselves, they tend to follow the lead of credible experts. But cultural cognition operates here too: the experts whom laypersons see as credible, we have found, are ones whom they perceive to share their values. This was the conclusion of a study we carried out of Americans' attitudes towards human-papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination for schoolgirls. This common, sexually transmitted virus is the leading cause of cervical cancer. The US government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended in 2006 that the vaccine be routinely administered to girls aged 11 or 12 — before they are likely to become exposed to the virus. That proposal has languished amid intense political controversy, with critics claiming that the vaccine causes harmful side effects and will increase unsafe sex among teens.

	To test how expert opinion affects this debate, we constructed arguments for and against mandatory vaccination and matched them with fictional male experts, whose appearance (besuited and grey-haired, for example, or denim-shirted and bearded) and publication titles were designed to make them look as if they had distinct cultural perspectives. When the expert who was perceived as hierarchical and individualistic criticized the CDC recommendation, people who shared those values and who were already predisposed to see the vaccine as risky became even more intensely opposed to it. Likewise, when the expert perceived as egalitarian and communitarian defended the vaccine as safe, people with egalitarian values became even more supportive of it. Yet when we inverted the expert-argument pairings, attributing support for mandatory vaccination to the hierarchical expert and opposition to the egalitarian one, people shifted their positions and polarization disappeared.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-007-9031-z
http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu%3A175973
	Survey research has demonstrated that citizens perceive ideological bias in television news, specifically with regard to CNN and Fox News Channel (FNC), which allegedly represent the liberal and conservative viewpoint, respectively. In this paper I argue that attaching the CNN and FNC labels to news stories sends an ideological cue to the viewer regarding the content of the story. Utilizing an experimental design that allows manipulation of the network attribution of actual FNC and CNN content, I am able to demonstrate that the CNN and FNC labels function as ideological signals to the viewer, with this signal being most pronounced among ideologues whose views are supposedly at odds with those attributed to the network.

	...

	There is a distinct possibility that the widespread view among citizens that FoxNews Channel and CNN are ideologically biased poses a substantial obstacle to informing the American public about politics. Perceiving a report from a specific news outlet as biased could raise cognitive roadblocks that prevent a citizen from properly acquiring and processing the information. Clearly, this circumstance raises many intriguing possibilities for research regarding information processing as it relates to television news. Therefore, the goal of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of information processing as it relates to information received from the televised news media.

	...

	The authors found that the majority of media outlets, including all shows studied on CNN, were liberally biased, and one of only two outlets they found to be conservatively biased was “Special Report with Brit Hume”, a staple of Fox News Channel’s nightly lineup.

	...

	However, with regard to the PIPA study, it has not been demonstrated that these war-related misperceptions can be directly tied to Fox News Channel reporting any of these falsehoods as fact, which casts doubt on whether these misperceptions are a resultof the active advancement of a pro-conservative agenda on the part of those at Fox News. Essentially, this study implies that a causal relationship exists when only a correlational relationship has been demonstrated (i.e. people who are misinformed, especially those misinformed in a pro-Bush direction, self-select as Fox News Channel viewers)

	...

	The theoretical underpinning for this study is derived from the findings of research done on the benefits and drawbacks of the use of heuristics by Kuklinski and Hurley (1994; see also Asch 1952, McGuire 1969, and Zaller 1992). Of particularinterest for this study is the phenomenon which is perhaps best characterized as the “messenger overwhelming the message”, wherein an ideological component (Joslyn and Ceccoli 1996; Entman 1989; Dalton, Beck, and Huckfeldt 1998) and source cues(Carmines and Kuklinski 1990; Mondak 1993a, 1993b) are combined in the evaluation of political messages. In their experiment, Kuklinski and Hurley (1994) analyzeddifferences in levels of support within the white and African-American communities forthe statement that “African-Americans must stop making excuses and rely much more on themselves to get ahead in society.” In this experiment, the message respondents received remained constant, while the messenger who delivered the message was manipulated. This statement was attributed to George Bush, Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, or no specific individual. If the content of the message is all that matters, then to whom the message is attributed should not have a significant influence on the interpretation of the message. However, if the messenger is having an effect, then there should be significant differences in the interpretation of the message based on the source to which that message is attributed.

	...

	The results of this study demonstrated that the interpretation of messages is often influenced by the recipient’s evaluation of the reputation of the individual who is providing the message. Even though the content of the message did not change, African-American respondents were much more accepting of this message when it came from the individual to whom they were closest politically (Jackson) than when it came from theindividual with whom they most disagreed politically (Bush). In addition, the race of the messenger was also found to have a profound impact on the interpretation of the message, as African-American respondents demonstrated substantially lower levels of anger in reaction to this statement when attributed to Jackson, Kennedy, or Thomas than when it was attributed to Bush. This research is supported by numerous subsequent studies that have reached similar conclusions (Druckman 2001; 2001b; 2001c; Guntherand Schmidt 2004).

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3mU2heR5IGgC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&ots=bBgi6LNnll&sig=601bY3iPaEbySzf_ELAW9WDC1e8#v=onepage&q&f=false
	"Why Americans Hate the Media and How It Matters"

Published 2011 or 2012

Chapter 1: "Why is Everyone Mad at the Mainstream Media?"

https://online.journalism.utexas.edu/2011/papers/Baek2011.pdf
	This study investigates the relationship between credibility and polarization for balanced versus partisan news sources. As credibility in news has been linked to news media use, and political polarization seems to be on the rise, this analysis of which types of news sources (balanced or partisan) relate to credibility perceptions and polarization scores reveals important information about the news credibility puzzle. A secondary analysis of NAES 2008 data reveals that thefindings are not cut and dry. The less respondents believed information from MSNBC, the more likely they were to have polarized views; the same was not true for those believing Fox News. Additionally, those whoexpressed less believability in the information from the New York Times, CNN, and broadcast television news were more likely to have polarized views. Implications and directions of future research are discussion.

So, suggesting that polarization could cause you to disbeleive sources viewed as partisan.

http://sites.sas.upenn.edu/mleven/files/book_precis.pdf
	Forty years ago, viewers who wanted to watch television news had few choices, and could only select among the major broadcast networks. All three network news broadcasts presented the events of the day in a neutral format, emphasizing reporting the facts without favoring any particular point of view. Today viewers have a much broader array of news choices, especially on cable television, and some of those cable channels offer a partisan take on the news.  Viewers can, therefore, choose to get their news from a source that aligns with their partisan and ideological outlook. Republicans and conservatives can watch programs on Fox News (like Hannity), while Democrats and liberals can watch programs on MSNBC (like The Rachel Maddow Show). Watching such shows, viewers hear an “echo” of their own beliefs, receive congenial messages and avoid counter-attitudinal ones.

	Partisan media programs have become increasingly popular in recent years and this trend has potentially important consequences. America’s constitutional system, with its multiple veto points and separation of powers, requires compromise and consensus. If citizens only hear one side of the issues, and avoid differing views, this may harden their beliefs and make them less willing to compromise with those representing the other side. When that happens, it becomes more difficult for the nation to come together and solve important problems. Our contemporary political discourse is filled with claims that Americans—both masses and elite—are increasingly unwilling to compromise, build a consensus, and find solutions. Do partisan media bear part of the blame for this division? Do partisan media make it more difficult to govern in contemporary America?  My book tackles these broad questions. In particular, I focus on partisan media’s effects on three broad areas—citizens’ issue positions, their attitudes toward the other party and willingness to compromise with them, and their voting behavior.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-011-9172-y
	As strategies for campaign political advertising become more complex, there remains much to learn about how ad characteristics shape voter reactions to political messages. Drawing from existing literature on source credibility, we expect ad sponsorship will have meaningful effects on voter reactions to political advertisements. We test this by using an original experiment, where we expose a sample of student and non-student participants to equivalent ads and vary only the paid sponsor disclaimer at the end of the message. The only thing that differs across stimuli is whether a political candidate, a known interest group, or an unknown interest group sponsors the advertisement. Following exposure to one of these ads, participants complete a posttest battery of questions measuring the persuasiveness of the message, source credibility, and message legitimacy. We find that ads sponsored by unknown interest groups are more persuasive than those sponsored by candidates or known interest groups, and persuasion is mediated by perceived credibility of the source. We conclude by discussing our findings and their implications for our understanding of contemporary campaigns.

----------------------------------

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcampbel/documents/AbramowitzJOP_001.pdf
"Is polarization a myth?"

	This article uses data from the American National Election Studies and national exit polls to test Fiorina's assertion that ideological polarization in the American public is a myth. Fiorina argues that twenty-first-century Americans, like the midtwentieth-century Americans described by Converse, "are not very well-informed about politics, do not hold many of their views very strongly, and are not ideological" (2006, 19). However, our evidence indicates that since the 1970s, ideological polarization has increased dramatically among the mass public in the United States as well as among political elites. There are now large differences in outlook between Democrats and Republicans, between red state voters and blue state voters, and between religious voters and secular voters. These divisions are not confined to a small minority of activists-they involve a large segment of the public and the deepest divisions are found among the most interested, informed, and active citizens. Moreover, contrary to Fiorina's suggestion that polarization turns off voters and depresses turnout, our evidence indicates that polarization energizes the electorate and stimulates political participation.

	...

	There is widespread agreement among scholars concerning the growing importance of ideological divisions at the elite level in American politics. There is much less agreement, however, about the signifi- cance of these divisions at the mass level. Some studies have found evidence that growing elite polarization has led to an increase in ideological awareness and polarization among the public (Abramowitz and Saunders 1998; Hetherington, 2001; Layman and Carsey 2002). However, other scholars, most notably Morris Fiorina and his collaborators, have argued that when it comes to the political beliefs of the mass public, very little has changed since the 1950s.

Interesting... it seems like there is both increased polarization and decreased polarization happening in the public simultaneously. There is a growing trend of independants, for example, among young people. IIRC 40% of the public are independant.s Meanwhile, it looks like those that are polarized have grown even more polarized.

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcampbel/documents/LaymanCarseyReview2006.pdf

	In recent years, however, those who have called for the American parties to bemore programmatic, cohesive, and ideologically distinct have begun to get theirwish. Perhaps the dominant theme in observations about contemporary party pol-itics is that the two major parties are growing increasingly “polarized,” with theRepublican Party moving in a conservative direction on nearly all major issues ofpublic policy while the Democratic Party stakes out consistently liberal ground.Washington Postreporter David Von Drehle (2004) argues, “From Congress tothe airwaves to the bestseller lists, American politics appears to be hardening intouncompromising camps.”New York Timescolumnist Paul Krugman (2002) con-tends, “Fundamental issues are at stake, and the parties are as far apart on thoseissues  as  they  ever  have  been.”  Commentator  George  F.  Will  (2004)  goes  onestep further, writing, “Never [has American] politics been more European, mean-ing organized around ideologically homogeneous parties.... [The 2004 election]continues—and very nearly completes—the process of producing a perfect overlapof America’s ideological and party parameters.”

	Such sentiments are not limited to journalists and pundits. A growing body of empirical research shows that the parties in government, particularly those in Congress, are each growing more homogeneous in their policy positions, while the differences between the two parties’ stands on major policy issues are expanding. Related to elite-level party divergence has been increasing ideological polarization among the parties’ mass identifiers and activist bases.

So the polarization of the masses followed the polarization of the "elites." Question is how did this happen and why.

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d-U2IzI2r5YC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=polarization+newt+gingrich&ots=iKGcWCqIOh&sig=Izks4KN0wMKp11-ZTX9sLdueaLE#v=onepage&q=polarization%20newt%20gingrich&f=false
	"The pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the rivalry that defined a generation"
I had thought this had something to do with it?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/20202306/abstract

http://ijr.com/2016/07/659949-i-asked-newt-gingrich-about-trump-and-russia-he-responded-by-bringing-up-obama-and-hillary/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/newt-gingrich-trump-would-reconsider-his-obligation-to-nato/
	"Newt Gingrich: NATO countries "ought to worry" about U.S. commitment"

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcampbel/documents/LaymanCarseyReview2006.pdf
so this is basically a review of the different theories as of 2002

----------------------------------

http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/publications/docs/workingpapers/2016/WP-16-14.pdf
	After an early foray into Soviet politics, Milton Lodge began a multi-decade effort to introduce political scientists to the theories, methods, and findings of social and cognitive psychologists. From early work on psycho-physiology, through pioneering research on schemata, to more recent investigations of motivated thinking, Lodge and his collaborators shaped how a generation of political scientiststhink about human reasoning. Lodge’s work is among the most psychologically sophisticated in political science, but it also is always distinctly political –attending to the political realities of over-time competition in anenvironmentwhere citizens have low levels of information. The culmination of this work has been a landmark theoretical advance –“motivated reasoning.”

	...

	An important aspect of this model is that, after updating theevaluation, the individual may forget the information that affected the evaluation. When asked to express their evaluation, people simply retrieve the evaluation counter without searching for the information on which it was based. Lodge et al (1989: 401) explain that the result may be “that people can often tell you 4how much they like or dislike a book, movie, candidate, or policy [because they maintain a running evaluation] but not be able to recount the specific whys and wherefores for their overall evaluation...” This is in sharp contrast to memory-based models where individuals do not maintain a running evaluation counter and instead base their evaluations on whateverinformation they happen to remember.

	In a series of experiments, Lodge and his colleaguesshow that participantswho engage in on-line processing base their evaluations on information that enters their evaluation counter (over time) more than the bits ofinformation that happen to be available in memory at the time the evaluation is rendered(e.g., Lodge et al. 1989, 1995, Lodge andMcGraw 1995).For example, a pro-choice, tough on crime voter may receive campaign information that a candidate supports abortion rights and strict federal crime laws. As a result, the voter accesses and updates his or her on-line evaluation of the candidate in a favorable direction, and then quickly forgets the candidate’s pro-choice and tough on crime stances (and restores the on-line evaluation in long-term memory). At a later point in time –when the voter needs to evaluate the candidate (e.g., cast a vote) –he or she simply retrieves the positive on-line evaluation and thus offers a favorable candidate evaluation, despite the fact that the votermay not recall the specific reasons for thepositive evaluation (i.e., the votermay not remember the candidate’s pro-choice or tough on crime stances). Thus, there may be no relationship between what the voter remembers and who the voter prefers, or the relationship may reflect post hocrationalizations.

Interesting--so Americans can remember that they like or dislike a candidate but not remember why (I find myself doing that a lot in general). This could further increase polarization I would guess, since voters won't necessarily be able to even remember how to back up the reasons they favor one candidate over another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
	The processes of motivated reasoning are a type of inferred justification strategy which is used to mitigate cognitive dissonance. When people form and cling to false beliefs despite overwhelming evidence, the phenomenon is labeled "motivated reasoning". In other words, "rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe."[2] This is "a form of implicit emotion regulation in which the brain converges on judgments that minimize negative and maximize positive affect states associated with threat to or attainment of motives."

----------------------------------

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/07/these-political-scientists-may-have-discovered-the-real-reason-u-s-politics-are-a-disaster/?utm_term=.342febd90a9b

	It's not just that these two trends of inequality and polarization are happening simultaneously. The researchers use statistical methods to eliminate other factors and show that a state's income inequality has a large, positive and causal effect on its political polarization. Furthermore, these results have increased in magnitude in recent years and seem to be concentrated in the states that are "reddest" by the end of the sample.

	In other words, growing inequality is a strong force pushing both parties farther from the center.

	The paper doesn't specifically say why this happens, except that politics gets more polarized with each election. It appears that people on either end of the economic spectrum have been developing even more different political preferences and electing people to represent those preferences.

	Interestingly, however, the study shows that inequality is affecting the two parties in different ways.

	First, the researchers find that Democrats as a whole have shifted farther to the left than the Republicans have to the right, with very liberal Democrats becoming even more liberal. But at the level of the state legislature, they find that ideology as a whole has shifted slightly to the right. The reason is that there has been a change in the partisan balance, with Republicans winning more seats from moderate Democrats over time.

	"As the Democrat party has shrunk nationally over the course of the last 15 years, the disproportionate effect has been the replacement of moderate Democrats with Republicans, and that has tended to happen most often in states with high levels of inequality, or where inequality is growing the fastest,” McCarty said.

how do they know it's not the other way around? It seems that the more Americans are distracted by partisan bickering and identity politics and such, the less they will remember the poor.

	This study offers evidence that inequality leads to political polarization. Though they have yet to produce definitive findings, the researchers also believe, as many others in their field do, that political polarization also in turn produces more inequality, creating a vicious feedback loop of inequality and polarized politics.

	How does that work? Not only are more conservative lawmakers less likely to favor redistribution, the political gridlock that results from having a more polarized system makes it harder to pass bills that might reduce income inequality, such as increasing the minimum wage, strengthening union bargaining power, or increasing redistribution through welfare, researchers say.

	The research suggests that political polarization is not just a product of gerrymandering, the way districts are drawn, or caused by features of the state political system, such as having closed partisan primaries, McCarty says.

	Instead, he argues that America's political polarization is a reflection of bigger, broader changes in the United States, in particular that the country has become much more diverse in terms of its economic, racial and ethnic makeup than it was in the 1950s. The diversity, unsurprisingly, has a direct impact on the political system, and we have yet to figure out how to repair the system to reflect a more diverse society, McCarty says.

	So what does this mean for average voters in the near term? For one, they should be skeptical of candidates who promise an easy fix to political dysfunction in Washington.

oh wow that sounds complicated...

	"These are deep, complicated problems, and people need to think big picture about what underlies them. They weren’t solved by electing Barack Obama, they’re probably not going to be solved by electing Donald Trump," McCarty says.

----------------------------------

http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/pub/Robison%20Mullinix%202016.pdf
	Elite polarization has reshaped American politics and is an increasingly salient aspect of news coverage within the United States. As a consequence, a burgeoning body of research attempts to unravel the effects of elite polarization on the mass public. However, we know very little about how polarization is communicated to the public by news media. We report the results of one of the first content analyses to delve into the nature of news coverage of elite polarization. We show that such coverage is pre- dominantly critical of polarization. Moreover, we show that unlike coverage of politics focused on individual politicians, coverage of elite polarization principally frames par- tisan divisions as rooted in the values of the parties rather than strategic concerns. We build on these novel findings with two survey experiments exploring the influence of these features of polarization news coverage on public attitudes. In our first study, we show that criticism of polarization leads partisans to more positively evaluate the argument offered by their non-preferred party, increases support for bi-partisanship, but ultimately does not change the extent to which partisans follow their party’s policy endorsements. In our second study, we show that Independents report significantly less political interest, trust, and efficacy when polarization is made salient and this is partic- ularly evident when a cause of polarization is mentioned. These studies have important implications for our understanding of the consequences of elite polarization—and how polarization is communicated—for public opinion and political behavior in democratic politics.

	...

	Second, we hypothesize that critical accounts of polarization will minimize the influ- ence of partisan-motivated reasoning (H2). Critical framings of polarization may mitigate partisan-motivated reasoning for a couple reasons. First, partisan-motivated reasoning is undermined when partisan endorsements are not perceived to be a reliable shortcut for making “accurate” evaluations (Lavine et al., 2012 ). Media accounts criticizing polariza- tion likely make negative considerations about political parties and their positions more cognitively accessible, thereby prompting skepticism about the reliability of party cues and a closer evaluation of the merits of competing arguments. Furthermore, criticisms of polar- ization may also reference some instances of partisan officials working across the aisle, which likely obfuscate the clarity of the party signal, making it more difficult to uncriti- cally follow the party line (Bolsen et al., 2014 ). If partisans are told all Republicans are on one side of an issue and all Democrats are on the other side (e.g., Druckman et al., 2013 ) the party cue is clear and strong. However, if partisans are informed of partisan divisions on an issue, but are also told that lawmakers have been and / or should be having meaningful discussions across party lines and finding areas of common ground, the party cues become slightly less clear. If criticisms of polarization reference instances of bipartisanship, this may also signal intra-party disagreement and conflict within one’s own party, and such types of conflict are known to increase attention to substantive information (Bolsen et al., 2014 ; Chong & Druckman, 2007a ).

	With respect to H2, we expect to observe two empirical results. First, an integral fea- ture of motivated reasoning is the propensity of individuals to counter-argue information that challenges prior attitudes (i.e., disconfirmation bias) which can be assessed by hav- ing people rate the effectiveness of arguments for and against a policy (Taber, Cann, & Kucsova, 2009 ).We hypothesize that criticisms of polarization will mitigate disconfirma- tion biases and promote more even-handed, and possibly more positive, evaluations of the out-party’s argument (H2a). If partisans are more supportive of bipartisanship and more even-handedly evaluate opposing arguments, we would also expect them to indicate less extreme support for their preferred party’s policy positions (H2b). That is, critical discus- sions of polarization will mitigate partisan-motivated reasoning (relative to contexts where such criticism is absent).

Some ideas on how to reduce polarization in this paper. Note that these should also reduce the influence of certain politicians, however.

http://web02.gonzaga.edu/comltheses/proquestftp/Thornal_gonzaga_0736M_10483.pdf
(from 2015)
	The increasing levels of political polarization in America have communication scholars, political scientists, and media pundits alike examiningthe causes of this trend, many of whom look to blame the proliferation of partisan media for this societal ill. An abundance of research exists on the effects of selective exposure to partisan media and the rise of political polarization in America today;thus, this thesis explores how partisan selective exposure and political polarization are related through a modified qualitative meta-analysis of existing research on these two topics. The social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and social comparison (Festinger, 1954) theories provide the theoretical framework for this study. Central to the relationship are four main themes: 1) Evidence suggests that partisan selective exposure contributes to political polarization; 2) American political elites are polarized; 3) Most Americans are tuned to something other than the news and thus, are not politically polarized by partisan media; 4) Politically engaged partisans, those who occupy the fringes of the American electorate and yet, wield immense political influence, are the most polarized by selective exposure to partisan media. The findings of this meta-analysis suggest that increased polarization of politically engaged partisans due to these factors has serious implications for our nation’s democratic processes. Further research is needed to explore the effects of a tuned out American electorate and how to re-engage them in a national political conversation.

Ok, so saying it's not the partisan news that's polarizing Americans. Suggesting fringe "politically engaged partisans" are the ones who have influence and are driving polarization, I guess through op-eds?

Ok so the paper is talking about "Echo Chambers," "Political Elites," and "Politically Engaged Partisans."

	The philosophical and ethical assumptions of this study are based on the works of John Stuart Mill and Aristotle. Grounded in the convictionthat sincere political discourse among disparate parties enlivens our democratic nation, Mill’s (1869) belief in an individual’s right to his own opinion against the “tyranny of the majority”(p. 13)is a philosophical truth assumedin this study. In his treatise On Liberty, Mill observes
		The “people”who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised....The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people. (p. 12
	Thus, he argues that it is imperative that the governing majority and society do not stifle individual opinions.

	...

	Polarizationof partisans and political elites. Levendusky’s (2013b) research also found evidence that partisan media contributed to attitudinal political polarization. However, his results demonstrated that partisan media does not cause moderates to become more politically polarized, but rather it makes those who are already polarized more extreme intheir views (Levendusky, 2013b). Research by Prior (2005/2013) and Mutz (2006) draws the same conclusion. Based on the analysis of five random national telephone surveys administered by the Pew Centerfor the People and the Press every two years between 1998 and 2006, Hollander (2008) suggests that due to the significant amount of choice in the media today, centristviewers are more inclined to consume entertainment media than news media; accordingly, “Once exposed to news content almost by default, these less partisan viewers and readers left behind a polarized news audience that resembles the ‘red state, blue state’ divide so often seen in recent U.S. presidentialelections” (p.33). Research by Bennett and Iyengar (2008) supports this as well; “The end result [of partisan selective exposure] will be a less informed and more polarized electorate, with the political communications game aimed at those who have largely tuned out” (p. 724).They claim, “For a growing majority of citizens, the news is less a habit than an afterthought” (Bennett & Iyengar, 2008, p. 723).

	The political polarization of this small segment of the American populationis significant. Research by Prior (2013) revealed there is strong evidence for attitudinal polarization among the “most politically engaged, most partisan Americans” (p. 106). According to Prior (2013), “Ideologically one-sided news exposure may be largely confined to a small, activist segment of the population, but this segment has disproportionate political influence. Activists shape the political choices of the American public” (p. 123).  Research findings by Iyengar et al. (2012) demonstrate that citizens who are politically engaged are more polarized than the average citizen as well, and that the number of political activists has increased from an average of 5 percent in the last twenty years to an average of 8.5 percent over the course of the last two presidential elections (p. 414).

Great. So the only people who care about American politics are insane...

	Levendusky’s(2013b)research also supports the argument that though partisan media only reaches a small audience within the American population, its effects on American politics are broad due to this small audience’s high level of political engagement.Evidence providedby Dilliplane (2011) indicates that over time people who watched a greater proportion of politically likeminded news were increasingly more active in political campaigns than those who watched more politically dissimilar news (p. 299). Research by the Pew Research Center (2014a) on political polarization in the American public found that those with consistently ideological views –conservative or liberal –were far more likely to be politically engaged. Based on data gathered during a nationwide telephone survey of 10,000 Americans, researchers from the Pew Research Center (2014a) concluded, that consistent partisans have disproportionate influence on American politics because “they are more likely that those with mixed views to vote regularly and far more likely to donate to political campaigns and contact elected officials” (sec.1).

	...

	Mass polarization.Whileexisting research supports the claim that the polarizationof the American partisans and political elitesis caused, in part, by partisan selective exposure,it alsosuggests that partisan selective exposure is not causing the average American to become more politically polarized.Mutz (2006) categorically states, “Be that as it may, data demonstrating that selective exposure to media is responsible for mass polarization does not yet exist” (p. 229). According to evidence provided by Prior (2013), “most Americans remain politically moderate or indifferent, and their news exposure reveals nonideological patterns” (p. 122).Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope (2011) claim, “for better or for worse, we are truly the ‘so-so’ nation” (p. 165) and liken Americans to “the unfortunate citizens of somethird-world countries who try to stay out of the crossfire while left-wing guerrillas and right-wing death squads shoot at each other” (p. 8).

	...

	Further, Fiorinaet al. (2011)point out that as a result of both political parties moving further from the center, “voters will be less enthusiastic about their choices and about election outcomes than previously, but given a choice between two extremes, they can only elect an extremist” (p. 169). Hetherington (2009) argues that while elite polarization in America is indisputably strong, there is little evidence of mass polarization. Republicans and Democrats “achieved complete ideological separation” in the 109th Congress, a trend that has continued; thus, Hetherington (2009) concludes that the electorate is “increasingly well sorted” (p. 17), yet not ideologically polarized. Prior (2013) echoes this point, “Having more ideologically coherent parties to choose from does not make you more partisan, just as buying tofu when the store is out of meat does not make you a vegetarian” (p. 106).

	However, not all scholars are in agreement on this issue. While Abramowitz and Saunders (2008) acknowledge elite polarization exists, according to their study based on analysis of data from the American National Election Studies and national exit polls, they conclude, “the high level of ideological polarization evident among political elites in the United States reflects real divisions within the American electorate” (p. 554).

I was wondering if it was the other way around... you can see how some politicians (or by extension their operatives) say divisive things ("they are all Bush Republicans!" "That's just a conservative nothingburger!" "just another whining shrill liberal!") that prompt partisans to dismiss the other side. You can see them use generalizations and dehumanization toward this end.

	American political elites are increasingly polarized, as is evidenced by the complete ideological separation between Republicans and Democrats in Congress today. This is a widely accepted theme that emerged during the coding phase. There is little disagreement in the academic community over this dynamic ( Pew Research Center, 2014a; Prior, 2013; Stroud, 2011 ; Sunstein, 2007 ) ; however, evidence produced by this meta - analysis demonstrated there is disagreement over the nature of the relationship between partisan selective exposure and elite polarization. Levendusky’s (2013b) experiment results suggest that selective exposure to partisan media fuels elite polariza tion; however, Arceneaux, Johnson, and Cryderman (2013) argue that partisan selective exposure is a symptom of elite polarization. Stroud (2010, 2011) and Sunstein (2007) argue that media are the mouthpiece of the political elite and contribute to polarization among those who selectively choose news outlets based on their political predispositions. Based on evidence considered in this meta - analysis, the nature of the relationship is convoluted and requires further research.

Ok, so we don't really know for sure. The general idea of "media are the mouthpiece of the political elite" is what I suspect is going on today. Since research and surveys have indicated the "elite" are laregely out of touch and don't listen to the public, you would expect in general for the elite to be driving polarization in the public, and not the other way around. Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton are some documented historical examples of this.

	The American masses are tuned out.  There was no empirical evidence in any of the 17 sources of research included in this meta-analysis suggesting that the partisan selective exposure phenomenon contributes to mass politicalpolarization in the United States. Six studies addressed this specifically, and all concluded that the majority of Americans do not selectively expose themselves to likeminded news and, as a result, are not politically polarized by partisan media(Arceneaux & Johnson, 2010; Arceneaux, Johnson, & Cryderman, 2013; Bennett & Iyengar, 2008; LaCour, 2013; Mutz, 2006; Prior, 2013). All six studies acknowledge the partisan selective exposure phenomenon exists, but the results suggest that polarization due to partisan selective exposuredoes not occur at the mass level because its effects are limited due to the high-choice media environment of today. Most Americans are not choosing to watch a news program for its partisan slant; they are choosing not to watch at all (Arceneaux & Johnson, 2010; Arceneaux et al., 2013; Bennett & Iyengar, 2008; LaCour, 2013; Mutz, 2006; Prior, 2013).

So this is saying that echo chambers don't increase the number of polarized people, it just makes polarization worse (and reduces political participation).

	Partisan selective exposure and the polarization of politically engaged partisans.T hirteen research sources considered for this meta-analysis provide evidence that politically engaged partisans are more likely than the average American to engage in partisan selective exposure, and consequently, become more polarized for doing so (Arceneaux & Johnson, 2010; Bennett & Iyengar, 2008; Iyengar & Hahn, 2009; Lawrence, Sides, & Farrell, 2010; Levendusky, 2013a, 2013b; Mutz, 2006; Pew Research Center, 2014a, 2014b; Prior, 2013; Stroud, 2010, 2011; Sunstein, 2007; Taber & Lodge, 2006). This recurring theme is at the core of the relationship between partisan selective exposure and political polarization. It should be noted, however, that selective exposure to partisan media is one of many factors contributing to increasing political polarization within this population segment that comprises less than 20 percent of the American populace (Pew Research Center, 2014a).

20% of the population.

	Research by Levendusky (2013b) illustrates this theme through a series of original experiments that provideempirical evidence that partisan media polarize by taking “viewers who are already polarized and make them even more extreme” (p. 611-612). Levendusky (2013b) found that the effects of consuming likeminded partisan media were “concentrated among the more informed, engaged, and extreme segments of the populace who regularlywatch partisan media programs” (p. 620) that reinforced their political predispositions.

	In another case, Taber and Lodge (2006) found “substantial polarization among participants who processed information in a biased manner” (p. 765). The results from Taber and Lodge’s (2006) two experimental surveys demonstrated that people were most likely to seek out and accept likeminded information uncritically, whereas they were more critical and apt to offer counter arguments to contrarian information. This effect was greatest among those who held strong opinions and possessed a high level of political knowledge prior to the survey (p. 755).

	...

	Lawrence, Sides, and Farrell (2010) present a case that exemplifies this theme using a form of new media. Lawrence et al. (2010) argue that political blog readers epitomizethe politically engaged citizen, as they are partisan, politically involved,and “behave as highly motivated and politically interested citizens would be expected to behave: they tend to select political blogs that dovetail with their ideological views” (p. 149). Based on data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, Lawrence et al. (2010) found that 94 percent of political blog readers only read blogs that correspond with their political views and that “left-wing blog readers are overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic, and right-wing blog readers are overwhelmingly conservative and Republican” (p. 146-147). Consequently, Lawrence et al. (2010) infer that those engaging in partisan selective exposure in the political blogosphere are already polarized and only become more polarizedas a result of their consumption of political blogs.

Even more of a problem with fake news I'd imagine. So both "facts" and opinions are increasingly polarized now.

	Polarized partisans. The relationship between partisan selective exposure and political polarization is multi-faceted; however,the four main themes that emerged as a result of this study provide clarity as to how partisan selective exposure and political polarization are related.  The central theme identified by this study –partisan selective exposure has the greatest polarizing effect on politically engaged partisans –is the key to understanding this multi-faceted relationship. Partisan selective exposure contributes to political polarization in America by further polarizing politically engaged partisans, the small segment of the American electorate that chooses to watch partisan media. Research suggestsit is possible that political elites both influence partisan media as political opinion leaders and are influenced by the polarized politically engaged partisans to take extremeright wing or left wing positions.Thus, the web of partisan media influence is woven between politically engaged partisans and the political elites, both of which are small, but influential,segments of the American electorate.

Possibly explaining why they are found to be "out of touch." It's also disturbing that one would expect American politicians to be drawn from the "politically engaged partisans," meaning politicians in general will hold extreme views that are not held by society at large.

	Democratic implications. The findings of this meta-analysis do not suggest that the business of government will grind to a halt because of a partisan media-induced mass political polarization of the American electorate. Rather, the results paint an altogether different picture, but a grim one nonetheless. The high-choice media environment means that the American electorate misses out on the “common conversation about politics” (Arceneaux et al., 2013) that evening news broadcasts delivered in the past when the Fairness Doctrine demanded that all sides receive equitable airtime. Like Mill (1869) espoused, political debate over differing viewpointsis a crucial part of democracy. Therefore, the potential for the echo chamber effect caused by partisan selective exposure is not as much of a concern as is the reality that only the fringes of the American electorate are paying attention while the rest of America is tuned out. According to Prior (2013), “the main danger of this more partisan media environment is not the polarization of ordinary Americans but a growing disconnect between increasingly partisan activists and largely centrist and modestly involved masses” (p. 123). Like Aristotle, who spoke to the benefit of finding the Golden Mean, Prior speaks to the danger that lies in the extremes of political zealotry and political apathy.

	The implication is that while the rest of America is tuned to the latest reality television show, there is a small politically engaged segment of the population becoming increasingly polarized, in part by the partisan media, that has a sizable effect on how the country is run. This population segment is the most likely to donate to political campaigns, vote in primary elections, write letters to elected officials, and volunteer for political causes, all of which amplifies the effect of the opinions ofpolitically activeright wing and left wing partisans. (Pew Research Center, 2014a, 2014b). According to Levendusky (2013b), “even though the audience for partisan media is quite small, its effects on American politics are not” (p. 612).These politically engaged partisans contribute more to political polarization and gridlock in the U.S.than their numbers suggest and are detrimental to the consensus and compromise needed in a functional democracy. Mill’s (1869) observation made nearly 150 years ago reverberates today
		The “people”who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised....The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people. (p. 12)
	Thus, the challenges becomehow to engage the unengaged and bring back politics as a common conversation.

In other words: the loonies are running the nut-house. I'm not sure how much brining back the fairness doctrine for news media would help, since as she said a lot of it is due to the polarized blogosphere. (interesting that the public sees Congress as just as much or more polarized than the public: http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2016/03/congress-public-opinion-survey.shtml) (but the public at large, ~80% both sides, does see this as a problem and wants Congress to work together more https://www.issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/issue-one-ipsos-polling-june-2016.pdf)

	To listen to the pundits on Fox News or MSNBC, one might conclude that our nation seems to be facing a crisis of epic proportions when it comes to increasing polarization in American politics. Stories of political wrangling,legislative gridlock,and ensuing government shutdownsall receive ample coverage on cable news channelsand in other partisan media sources, like political blogs.Accordingly, one might deduce that American voters must be as polarized as the politicians they elect and that the partisan media plays aninfluential, polarizing role. However, based on the results of this modified meta-analysis, this only holds true for a small segment of the American electorate, the politically engaged partisans who make up less than 20 percent of the population. As for the rest of the American electorate, it is like Prior (2013) says, “Having more ideologically coherent parties to choose from does not make you more partisan, just as buying tofu when the store is out of meat does not make you a vegetarian” (p. 106).

	While the research examined as part of this study revealed that selective exposure to partisan media is not polarizing the American masses, the results are concerning on many levels. Partisan selective exposure contributes to the polarization of politically engaged partisans by reinforcing their views and causing them to become even more extreme(Levendusky, 2013b). It is not the sole polarizing factor; however, the polarization ofpolitically engaged partisans, due in part to partisan selective exposure, has serious implications for our nation’s democratic processes. Politically engaged partisans are powerfully influential in driving their respective parties and representatives toward theright and left ideological poles, as opposed to driving them toward the centerand political compromise. Because this population segment is politically active and more likely to get involved in political campaigns, vote in primary elections, donate money to a particular candidate, and write letters to elected officials(Pew Research Center, 2014a), its voices drown out those who are more centrist in nature.

	...

	The majority of the American electorate is centrist and values political compromise (Pew Research Center, 2014a); they are not ideological partisans. However, instead of adding their centrist voices to the national political conversation, research suggests they are mostly disengaged(Pew Research Center, 2014a). Research compiled in this modified meta-analysis suggests that given the high choice media environment of today, the majority of Americansare also not consuming partisan media, opting for entertainment media instead. And thus, as Mill (1869) forewarned, “The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people” (p. 12), which in this case means the politically engaged partisans who are increasingly polarized, in part, by partisan selective exposure. It will be a great challenge to re-engage the centrist voices of the American electorate in the high-choice, partisan media environment of today; however, it is a cause worthy of further research. Our democratic state needs centrist voices to encourage sincere political discourse and balance the politically engaged partisans who drive the Americanpolitical conversation to extremes.

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http://people.psych.ucsb.edu/sherman/david/van-boven-judd-sherman-2012.pdf
	What influences perceptions of political polarization? The authors examine the polarization of people’s own political attitudes as a source of perceived polarization: Individuals with more extreme partisan attitudes perceive greater polarization than individuals with less extreme partisan attitudes. This “polar- ization projection” was demonstrated in 3 studies in which people estimated the distribution of others’ political attitudes: one study with a nationally representative sample concerning the 2008 presidential election, and 2 studies concerning university students evaluating a policy regarding scarce resource allocation. These studies demonstrate that polarization projection occurs simultaneously with and independently of simple projection, the tendency to assume that others share one’s partisan political attitudes. Polarization projection may occur partly because people assume that others engage in similar attitudinal processes as the self, such as extensive thought and emotional arousal. The projection of various attitudinal processes was demonstrated in a study concerning health care reform policies. Further supporting this explanation, polarization projection increased when people introspected about their own attitudinal processes, which increased the accessibility of those processes. Implications for perceptions of partisanship, social judgment, and civic behavior are discussed.

----------------------------------

America has a well-docmented problem with political polarization. It appears that today's politicians have a perverse incentive to ignore this problem, or even actively encourage it, in order to secure more power for themselves. Note how, for example, the effect of "the messanger overwhelming the message" makes it harder for a politician's flaws to be recognized by their "tribe," making it easier for them to hold sway over at least their polarized portion of the public. You can see this effect with both Hillary Clinton and Trump today.

http://www.academia.edu/download/31484481/Stroud_2010_JOC_Polarization_and_PSE.pdf
	Polarization, the strengthening of one’s original position or attitude, has received much scholarly attention. There is little disagreement in the scholarly literature that political elites have become increasingly polarized over the past several decades (Fiorina, Abrams, & Pope, 2005; Jacobson, 2003). Whether patterns of polarization in the mass public resemble elite polarization, however, is an issue that truly polarizes academics (see Nivola & Brady, 2006). Some claim that the public has become increasingly polarized (e.g., Jacobson, 2003) whereas others argue that it has not (e.g., Fiorina et al., 2005). An analysis of the media may play an important role in mediating this debate. After all, the media are the primary way in which elite opinions are transmitted to the public. Those selecting media outlets that cohere with their political leanings may be particularly likely to adopt elites’ polarized attitudes. Indeed, Mutz (2006) notes that although partisan selective exposure should lead partisans to ‘‘polarize further in the direction of their original views, this consequence is not yet well documented’’ (p. 227). Accordingly, this study first evaluates whether engaging in partisan selective exposure contributes to political polarization before turning to an evaluation of the reverse causal direction.

So again, they are not completely sure how much it is an effect of elite opinions affecting the public or the other way around. I guess it's a bit of both: elites are selected from the "politically engaged partisans," who can in turn polarize the public by having their messages broadcast to the public via the media.

Still, it seems like the "elites" aren't necessarily political idealouges. For instance, Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl, and seems to be more centrist than most on the left except when it's politically expediant to do otherwise. In other words, it doesn't appear that she believes what she says. Still, she drives polarization with some of her rhetoric ("that's a republican nothingburger!" "what a basket of deplorables!") and contributes to it anyway.

So how many politicians are actually socipaths and how can you tell?
https://www.quora.com/Are-the-most-successful-politicians-sociopaths-Why

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/the-startling-accuracy-of-referring-to-politicians-as-psychopaths/260517/
	Psychopathy is a psychological condition based on well-established diagnostic criteria, which include lack of remorse and empathy, a sense of grandiosity, superficial charm, conning and manipulative behavior, and refusal to take responsibility for one's actions, among others. Psychopaths are not all the same; particular aspects may predominate in different people. And, although some psychopaths are violent men (and women) with long criminal histories, not all are. It's important to understand that psychopathic behavior and affect exist on a continuum; there are those who fall into the grey area between "normal" people and true psychopaths.

	The question, then, is whether it is reasonable to believe that people with serious abnormalities in the way they interact with the world can be found running for (and winning) office. However unsettling as this may be, the answer seems to be yes. It's possible for psychopaths to be found anywhere -- including city hall or Washington, D.C. Remember, psychopaths are not delusional or psychotic; in fact, two of the hallmarks of psychopathy are a calculating mind and a seemingly easy charm.

	In his landmark book on psychopathy, The Mask of Sanity, researcher Hervey Cleckley theorized that some people with the core attributes of psychopathy -- egocentricity, lack of remorse, superficial charm -- could be found in nearly every walk of life and at every level, including politics. Robert Hare, perhaps the leading expert on the disorder and the person who developed the most commonly used test for diagnosing psychopathy, has noted that psychopaths generally have a heightened need for power and prestige -- exactly the type of urges that make politics an attractive calling.

e.g. how Hillary Clinton cared about being the first woman president waaayyy too much, refusing to drop-out and multiple points where a normal person would (wikileaks, FBI, fainting). You can also see this a bit in Donald Trump refusing to drop out after his pussy-grab video, even though most of the GOP disowned him.

	There is more at work than just the drive to seek office, though; psychopaths may have some peculiar talents for it, as well. Research has shown that disorder may confer certain advantages that make psychopaths particularly suited to a life on the public stage and able to handle high-pressure situations: psychopaths score low on measures of stress reactivity, anxiety and depression, and high on measures of competitive achievement, positive impressions on first encounters, and fearlessness. Sound like the description of a successful politician and leader?

On the other hand they have some less than ideal characteristics. For example, having a conscience would be nice. Self-deception behavior could keep them out of touch. And manipulative behavior could increase political polarization, and give them power to lead their country to ruin without the public being an effective check for their behavior.

	Doubtless, it's easier to see some leaders as psychopaths than it is others. Presumably, no one would dispute the notion that Hitler and Stalin were psychopaths at the extreme end of the spectrum: completely unconstrained by empathy or guilt and willing to say or do anything to accomplish their goals. This, though, reinforces the perception of psychopaths as out-of-control madmen who are evil to the core. Might there be other, more mainstream political leaders who have psychopathic traits but fall closer to the "normal" range? Some have certainly thought so.

	In 2003, neuropsychologist Paul Brok argued that Prime Minister Tony Blair was a "plausible psychopath" who was ruthlessly ambitious, egocentric, and manipulative. Respected psychologist and researcher David Lykken has written:

    	If we can believe his biographer, Robert Caro [...] Lyndon Johnson exemplified this syndrome. He was relatively fearless, shameless, abusive of his wife and underlings, and willing to do or say almost anything required to attain his ends.

     In any event, the idea that a psychopath could reach the heights of power is nothing new. Over a century ago, famed American philosopher and psychologist William James said, "When superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce [...] in the same individual, we have the best possible conditions for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries." Perhaps, then, that's the key; it's the combination of other talents with certain elements of psychopathy that can make an effective leader.

	Which brings us back to those currently tossing about the label of psychopath -- ironically, some of them may not be denigrating the candidates as much as they suppose.

https://thinkprogress.org/dirty-tricks-traffic-studies-and-why-sociopaths-flourish-in-politics-b69c3253ec67#.678cvhbgm

	“Is it wrong that I’m smiling?” one Chris Christie staffer asked another after closing a major bridge to punish a town whose Mayor didn’t endorse the New Jersey Governor’s reelection bid. “No,” the other aide wrote back. This is what passes for a “traffic study” in the Christie administration, apparently.

	If the aides’ discussion strikes you as a horrifying way to talk about a decision that hurts thousands of people, you’re not alone: that’s one of the reasons this scandal seems to be so devastating for Chris Christie’s political future. It plays into the House of Cards stereotype about politicians and political operatives, that they care about power above all else, including the welfare of their constituents.

	As it turns out, this stereotype has some basis in fact. According to solid psychological research and theory, politicians often end up possessing qualities common in sociopaths — or simply are sociopaths themselves. And while it’s not possible to identify the psychology behind the actions of Christie or his staff, the sheer callousness of their rhetoric presents a good opportunity to examine whether political leaders and operatives more broadly have an empathy problem. The answer appears to be yes.

	Sociopathy, a term that’s generally interchangeable with psychopathy, is not a form of insanity. It’s a spectrum of personality types classically centering on narcissistic self-importance, a willingness to manipulate others and the charm to do it effectively, and a perpetual habit of deflecting blame when their self-interested actions cause harm to others. This all stems from a basic lack of conscience, the defining trait of the sociopath.

which explains a lot in the world today...

	The typical profile of a sociopath certainly suggests they’d flourish in politics. “Robert Hare, perhaps the leading expert on the disorder and the person who developed the most commonly used test for diagnosing psychopathy, has noted that psychopaths generally have a heightened need for power and prestige,” James Silver reported in the Atlantic, “exactly the type of urges that make politics an attractive calling.” Silver also notes that other typical sociopath traits, including fearlessness and strong competitive drives, make sociopaths likely to not only enter politics, but succeed in it.

	The “politicians are sociopaths” theory is obviously hard to test. It’s not like political leaders are lining up outside psychologists’ offices and, even if they were, they wouldn’t hand their evaluations over to the New York Times. But there’s some suggestive evidence that people on the psychopath spectrum do well in public office. In 2012, a group of psychologists evaluated every President from Washington to Bush II using “psychopathy trait estimates derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president.” They found that presidents tended to have the psychopath’s characteristic fearlessness and low anxiety levels — traits that appear to help Presidents, but also might cause them to make reckless decisions that hurt other people’s lives.

	...

	Luckily, presidents don’t appear to share the sociopath’s penchant for “impulsive antisocial behavior.” But that doesn’t get politicians in general off the hook: the general view among psychologists appear to be that sociopaths are over-represented in politics.

	“Politicians are more likely than people in the general population to be sociopaths,” Dr. Martha Stout, an eminent sociopathy researcher formerly of Harvard Medical School, told the Huffington Post. “I think you would find no expert in the field of sociopathy/psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder who would dispute this.”

	So the Onion’s coverage of the 2012 presidential debates — “Nation Tunes In To See Which Sociopath More Likable This Time” — may well have some basis in fact. If so, then it shouldn’t be a surprise when some politicians and political operatives abuse their power to help themselves. That’s what people like them do.

	...

	Now, one possible response to this diagnosis is to shrink the power that politicians have. The smaller the government, the refrain goes, the fewer the opportunities the sociopaths have to abuse their power.

	This reaction is silly for all sorts of reasons. For one thing, the fact that politicians are more likely to be sociopaths than the ordinary citizen does not mean that all, or even a large minority, of politicians are sociopaths. For another, the fact that some politicians have a particular personality disorder doesn’t answer any of the most important questions about whether government programs on-balance do good. Sociopathy has little to do with whether, for instance, food stamps effectively reduce poverty or public health care saves more lives than private insurance.

It's interesting that ThinkProgress would plug this while trying to calm concerns about sociopaths in politics.

	But perhaps the simplest reason small government won’t solve the psychopath problem (at least, as it relates to economic governance) is that the private sector is worse. The state’s role in the economy, to a certain degree, trades off with private enterprise’s: if New Jersey didn’t control the George Washington Bridge, the George Washington Corporation would.

	And sociopaths love corporate life, particularly at the management levels. One paper examining a sizable sample of business folk found that percentage of sociopaths in the corporate world is 3.5 times higher than in the general population. Another study of 346 white-collar workers found that the percentage of corporate sociopaths increased as you go up the corporate ladder. That’s consistent with the reasons why politicians tend to be sociopaths: corporate leaders have lots of power over others and arguably even less need for empathy and conscience than politicians. “A smart sociopath can avoid prison and find other, less conspicuous ways to satisfy his or her lust for dominating and controlling others, and what better way than through politics and big business?” Dr. Stout asks rhetorically.

In other words: sociopaths run the world!

	And that’s the real lesson here: One of the best cures to bad leaders may very well be political democracy. In the midst of the bridge scandal, Chris Christie is facing a hostile press, forced to answer for his actions and the actions of his staff. Any sociopathic would-be politicians watching at home would have shuddered at the spectacle; while they may not care about how their actions harm other people, they very much do care about being able to hold on to their positions of power. A system that actually holds people accountable to the broader conscience of society may be one of the best ways to keep conscienceless people in check.

Although that doesn't work so well when everybody is either polarized or apathetic. (I think it's accurate to think of our system of checks and balances and democracy as a safegaurd against sociopaths in power. You can also see how that's broken by money in politics.)

I think we need fewer sociopaths in government and leadership positions, and a public keen on telling when someone is a sociopath and calling them out. The world will not run very well if everybody in power only cares about themselves, and there are no checks and balances on their power. An engaged and objective public is key to checking their power, or--even better--keeping them out of power.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/how-to-spot-a-sociopath-hint-it-could-be-you.html
	In her book, Thomas writes that she loathed her father, never cried when he beat her with his belt, and that “the first recurring dream I can remember was about killing him with my bare hands.” He’s not the only person she’s fantasized about murdering. Thomas describes becoming consumed by a desire to stalk down and strangle a D.C. Metro worker who scolded her for using a closed elevator, as well as a teenage attempt to drown a baby opossum when she could have rescued it from the pool it had fallen into.

	But Thomas isn’t an actual killer—and she and other researchers emphasize that most sociopaths aren’t killers either. Instead, Thomas says her favorite preferred sociopathic pastime is “ruining people.” Her book details the time she has spent going out of her way to toy with other people’s emotions. “I know my heart is blacker and colder than most people’s; maybe that’s why it’s tempting to break theirs,” she writes.

	...

	Stephanie Mullins-Sweatt, an assistant psychology professor at Oklahoma State University, has done research on so-called successful sociopaths—i.e., those who aren’t imprisoned. “If someone is on the extreme end of the spectrum, that’s bad, we want to limit their damage to society,” Sweatt says. “But I wouldn’t necessarily say that if someone is an extreme psychopath they are going to kill someone.”

	John Edens, a psychology professor at Texas A&M, evaluated Thomas when her literary agent suggested she get diagnosed before turning her blog, SociopathWorld.com, into a book. It’s extremely rare for a sociopath to seek a clinical evaluation without a court order, and women are especially subject to misdiagnosis because of the lack of research on the disorder outside the prison system. So Edens had to use a variety of tests—including a screening version of the Hare PCL-R—before coming to the conclusion that she is, in fact, a sociopath. And while he’s confident in his diagnosis, he argues that “saying someone is a psychopath or not is drawing a bit of an arbitrary line in the sand,” suggesting that all people likely possess a certain amount of sociopathic traits, some just more pronounced than others.

	So how do you solve a problem like a sociopath? While hardened inmates are required to undergo cognitive behavioral therapy to learn how not to end up back in jail, there’s virtually no known treatment for ruthless, manipulative, law-abiding citizens who lack empathy. And, really, should there be? These are traits that are often attributed to success, from the soldier who can come back from the frontlines without PTSD to the top surgeon who may lack in bedside manner but will save a life no matter the cost and the Wall Street investor willing to make a major gamble for a momentous reward. Thomas says she advises any potential sociopath who contacts her through her website against getting diagnosed, warning that, with no treatment available outside of prison therapy, the only real benefit of knowing is peace of mind—if that.

	In lieu of therapy, Thomas has discovered some alternatives to treatment. For one, she credits Mormonism, specifically its doctrine that anyone can change and its required social engagements, with keeping her on track. Her blog is also therapeutic. By posting and responding daily to articles on sociopathy, she’s essentially forced to analyze her own behavior and decisions on a regular basis.

	...

	And by engaging with her potentially sociopathic readers, Thomas has found a subculture of similarly antisocial people with whom she can play her favorite manipulative games without destroying friendships. After all, as Sweatt put it, sociopaths are mostly “problematic in terms of the stress they cause other people.”

I guess sociopaths just really like manipulating people?

	Lauren, who asked not to use her real name to protect Thomas’s identity, was the first person to suggest Thomas might be a sociopath. While interning together one summer during law school, Thomas admitted to studying other people’s behavior for clues on how to act and expressed frustration over a friend whose close family member had died. Thomas wasn’t distraught or upset that she couldn’t do anything to make the situation better—she was annoyed that her friend had become less fun and entertaining to be around. When she read the book, Lauren was shocked to learn of the cruel games Thomas had played with other people and relieved that she had never been the target of her friend’s manipulation. Living in different cities and maintaining a mostly intellectual relationship has allowed the two to stay friends. But if Thomas ever tried to “ruin” Lauren like she has others, Lauren says she’d have to cut her out of her life.

	“She certainly isn’t someone I’d call crying after a breakup ... but I grew up gay in a conservative place and I know what it’s like to be rejected for who you are,” said Lauren. “Her ultimate goal is to be out as a sociopath, accepted by society and not vilified. I can relate to that.”

We can accept them in society, but maybe not in politics...

	Thomas says that every two to three years she experiences what she calls a “life destruction,” the periodic dissolution of a job and or relationships caused by one too many lies or manipulations. It was after one of these episodes in 2008 that Thomas started the blog, deciding for the first time to look inward for the source of her problems. Now, the reaction to her book is making her wonder if she may be going through yet another life destruction right now.

	“I thought about the fact that this could happen before writing the book, but I hoped it wouldn’t,” she said. “I thought the book might open up other avenues, so if this did happen I would have greater success. It was a calculated risk and right now it looks bad, like I miscalculated.” But, true to sociopathic form, Thomas displayed a disregard for consequences. “Unlike before, I’m fine if this is a period of self-destruction because I don’t think I did anything wrong this time.”

"I don’t think I did anything wrong"

https://lfb.org/no-matter-who-wins-a-sociopath-is-elected/
	"no matter who wins, a sociopath is elected"

	...

	And so, this election season, remember that it’s become “a psychic impossibility for a gentleman to hold office under the Federal Union,” as Mencken wrote. Democracy makes it possible for the demagogue to inflame the childish imagination of the masses, “by virtue of his talent for nonsense.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11679045/How-to-master-the-art-of-political-manipulation.html

	Nowadays, Lord Dobbs is charming company, revelling in the role of raconteur. But in his heyday during Lady Thatcher’s administration, he was, he says, known as “Westminster’s baby-faced hitman”.

	“Why? Well, I had to do some dirty work. You had to move people around, you had to fire one or two – some very good friends who I’d worked with for many years. Politics is much like life, sometimes you tell light lies for a greater need. In politics sometimes you tell dark lies for the same thing.”

I think it's important for the public to know what these dark lies are and how they work.

	 A few weeks later, while on holiday with his (now former) wife, Lord Dobbs wrote the first two letters of House of Cards - a literal and metaphorical “F. U” - which he turned into the initials of his literary protagonist.

	The row, he says, was ostensibly over party advertising, but the crux of it ran far deeper: the inability of once-great leaders to relinquish power. “She was a prime minister who had gone beyond her sell by date, it had taken many more years than most, but when it comes down to it, every prime minister (Stanley Baldwin and Harold Macmillan aside) that you can think of has had to be thrown out. They never know when to go.”

	This, then, may be the first rule of politics, and certainly one which Frank Underwood adheres to: when you grab hold of power, never let it go. The second? Never be afraid of an untruth. As Underwood says, “the road to power is paved with hypocrisy”.

Hence why we risk civil war (if not now then in the long run) unless people keep their wits about them.

	Another characteristic which, according to Lord Dobbs, unites those at the top, is to never, on any account, be nice. “Do you have to lie and screw other people?” he asks. “The answer to that is actually, yes. Politics is not about honesty and openness and truth, it’s about getting things done. The reason why Margaret Thatcher was elected and re-elected again is not because she was warm and kind and cuddly. It’s because she had a pair of hob-nailed boots and she knew how to use them.”

	But perhaps, he says, the most distinguishing characteristic of all, and one that people cannot learn but must instead have boiling deep within them, is the desire for greatness. “There is, in great people, a worm turning inside,” he says. “That comes often through pain or something else.”

https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/erikvoeten/files/2011/10/practicemanipulation.pdf
	Stories abound in which savvy politicians or activists strategically engineer a situation to their own advantage; leaving their less accomplished opponents to lick their wounds. It should not be contentious to suggest that the ability of leaders to skillfully manipulate their environments matters for the outcomes we care about ininternational politics. It is much trickier to systematically study such political manipulation, coined “heresthetics” by William Riker. As Riker writes:
		Heresthetics is an art, not a science. There is no set of scientific laws thatcan be more or less mechanically applied to generate successful strategies. Instead, the novice heresthetician must learn by practice how to go about managing and manipulating and maneuvering to get the decisions he orshe wants. Practice is, however, difficult to engage in, especially since onemust win often enough to become a political leader before one has much opportunity to practice.

Interesting. TODO: read

I suspect elites use polarization (and apathy?) to maintain more power for themselves, and encourage polarization in order to have supporters who are more supportive of them and less critically minded.

http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/pub/Druckman%20Peterson%20Slothuus%20APSR%202013.pdf
	Competition is a defining element of democracy. One of the most noteworthy events over the last quarter-century in U.S. politics is the change in the nature of elite party competition: The parties have become increasingly polarized. Scholars and pundits actively debate how these elite patterns influence polarization among the public (e.g., have citizens also become more ideologically polarized?). Yet, few have addressed what we see as perhaps more fundamental questions: Has elite polarization altered the way citizens arrive at their policy opinions in the first place and, if so, in what ways? We address these questions with a theory and two survey experiments (on the issues of drilling and immigration). We find stark evidence that polarized environments fundamentally change how citizens make decisions. Specifically, polarization intensifies the impact of party endorsements on opinions, decreases the impact of substantive information and, perhaps ironically, stimulates greater confidence in those—less substantively grounded—opinions. We discuss the implications for public opinion formation and the nature of democratic competition.

Greater confidence in less grounded opinions. Again, sounds like a problem...

	We theorize and find, with two experiments on immigration and energy, that elite polarization dramatically changes the ways citizens form opinions. This change occurs because polarization stimulates partisan motivated reasoning, which in turn generates decision making that relies more on partisan endorsements and less on substantive arguments.

	...

	Framing

	We operationalize “arguments” as directional issue or emphasis frames. Few topics have been studied as extensively in the field of political communication (e.g., Chong and Druckman 2011; n.d.). Frames refer to alternative conceptualizations of an issue or event. A framing effect occurs when “in the course of describing an issue or event, a speaker’s emphasis on a subset of potentially relevant considerations causes individu- als to focus on these considerations when constructing their opinions” (Druckman and Nelson 2003, 730). An oft-cited example is that if a speaker describes a hate group rally in terms of free speech, then the audience will subsequently base its opinions about the rally on free speech considerations and support the right to rally. In contrast, if the speaker uses a public safety frame, the audience will base its opinions on public safety considerations and oppose the rally (Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997).

you see this one a lot I think? e.g. "Freedom and free speech is important! that's why corporations should be able to give unlimited money to politicians. Don't you care about freedom?"

	Even though most frames enter political discourse via political actors (e.g., parties, interest groups), most framing studies have provided study respondents with either unattributed frames or frames attributed to a news organization. Only a few studies have explored how frames from parties influence citizens. The modal finding of these studies is that party source does matter. For example, Slothuus (2010) reports that, when parties switch frames, their members follow (also see Nichol- son 2011), although not blindly because partisans also incorporate their own preexisting values. Slothuus and de Vreese (2010) find that party-sponsored frames have greater influence on issues where the parties conflict. These studies, however, do not explore competitive framing environments or vary frame strength (or the substance of distinct arguments more generally), and they do not directly account for different partisan en- vironments (e.g., polarized or not).

	...

	He continues, noting that “in political debate, cues and frames al- most always appear together: Party elites rarely take a position without trying to frame it in a way that will garner support for it” (511).

I think abortion is a good visibile example of this. Republicans frame being anti-abortion in terms of morality and saving lives, Democrats frame being pro-abortion in terms of women's rights and freedom of choice.

	To address how partisan polarization affects the relative influence of party cues and substantive arguments on opinion formation, we draw on the theory of partisan motivated reasoning. 3 Motivated reasoning refers to the tendency to seek out information that confirms prior beliefs (i.e., a confirmation bias), view evidence consistent with prior opinions as stronger or more effective (i.e., a prior attitude effect), and spend more time arguing and dismissing evidence inconsistent with prior opinions, regardless of objective accuracy (i.e., a disconfirmation bias). 4 These biases influence the reception of new information and may lead individuals to “reason” their way to a desired conclusion.

Like how that CNN video shows how for some Trump supporters, no matter what information they are presented with, they always eventually conclude that Trump is great.

	In short, partisan motivated reasoning theory suggests that partisans will view their party’s frame as more effective than a frame not sponsored by their party or a frame sponsored by the other party. This theory also suggests that partisans will more likely be moved by their own party’s frame, regardless of its strength. This leads to two hypotheses. (In our hypotheses, it is less interesting to examine when an individual’s own party offers a strong frame because in that case both pieces of information—the party sponsor and the frame strength—push in the same direction.)

		Hypothesis 2 : When partisans receive a frame, regardless of its strength, sponsored by their party and a conflicting frame, regardless of its strength, sponsored by the other party, they will view their own party’s frame as more effective and the other party’s frame as less effective.

		Hypothesis 3 : When partisans receive a frame, regardless of its strength, sponsored by their party and a conflicting frame, regardless of its strength, sponsored by the other party, they will be more likely to move in the direction of their party’s frame than in the direction of the other party’s frame. 6

	A number of factors moderate partisan motivated reasoning, including motivation itself. When individuals are highly motivated to form accurate opinions, they tend to focus on substance regardless of their partisanship and/or prior opinions (e.g., Kunda 1990, 485; also see Nir 2011; Prior 2007). Even so, most evidence to date suggests that, on political issues, individuals generally lack such motivation and instead fall back on partisan motivated reasoning when interpreting new information. Taber and Lodge (2006, 767) conclude, “despite our best efforts to promote the even-handed treatment of policy arguments in our studies, we find consistent evidence of directional partisan bias ... .Our participants may have tried to be evenhanded, but they found it impossible to be fair-minded.”

Or, as Yuri Bezmenov put it: no new information can change their minds. Also note that if opposing parties have completely different frames on an issue, they won't even have common ground on which to debate it. You can see for example how futile it is for Republicans and Democrats to debate abortion (e.g. if Republicans see being anti-abortion as saving lives, no argument would get them to budge--saving lives is too important, regardless of whether they really are saving lives or not).

	That said, one factor that does moderate partisan reasoning is the strength of partisan identity—those who possess strong partisan identities are more inclined to base their assessments of frames entirely on their partisan priors. In contrast, weaker partisans are less skewed by their identities and are more likely to respond to content. Lavine, Johnston, and Steenbergen (2012) present substantial evidence of this weakening effect, concluding that partisan “ambivalence undercuts the judgmental confidence that citizens typically derive from partisan cues, [and] they should turn away from these perceptual anchors and pay more attention to the particulars” (chapter 5: 2; also see Druck- man, Fein, and Leeper 2012; Redlawsk 2002; Taber and Lodge 2006).

So there is hope.

	The evidence presented by Lavine, Johnston, and Steenbergen (2012) suggests that, when a stimulus prompts partisan ambivalence, motivated reasoning should vitiate and a focus on the substance of the frame should increase. The stimulus we focus on is elite partisan polarization (as mentioned, elite polar- ization is a measurement concept distinct from citizen polarization; see Fiorina and Abrams 2008). We follow convention and define elite polarization as having “two components: the ideological distance between the parties, and the ideological homogeneity of each party” (Levendusky 2010, 118). As party elites polarize and that polarization is relayed to citizens, partisans should become less ambivalent about (i.e., more sure of) their own party identity. This is the type of dynamic uncovered by Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes (2012) who find that negative campaigning between parties, which stems from increased polarization, is “an especially important contextual factor that heightens the salience of partisan identity.”

This explains a lot

	Similarly, Dancey and Goren (2010, 686) explain, “When partisan elites debate an issue and the news media cover it, partisan predispositions are activated in the minds of citizens and subsequently constrain their policy preferences.” Nicholson (2012, 52, 55) states, “In the American political system, one’s political identity typically means one’s partisan identity (see Green, Palmquist, and Schickler 2002), especially in an era of partisan polarization ... . In an environment characterized by intergroup disagreement, the desire to seek difference with the outgroup will likely be strong.” 7 And Levendusky (2010, 114–15) adds, “When elites are polarized, they send voters clearer signals about where they stand on the issues of the day. ... As voters follow these party cues on multiple issues, they begin to hold more consistent attitudes.” In sum, under conditions of polarization, partisan identification becomes stronger and less ambivalent, leading to increased motivated reasoning (and stronger party cue effects); see Nicholson (2012, 54–5) for further psychological discussion. 8 We should thus see stronger motivated reasoning effects in the polarized conditions than in the non-polarized environment.

In other words: this election made us all retarded.

	Our final hypothesis concerns the importance that a respondent attributes to his or her updated opinion after receiving the frame. When individuals engage in motivated reasoning, their goal is to confirm an opinion they already hold (Taber and Lodge 2006). They therefore view new information as bolstering their prior opinion, and this added evidence boosts the importance of that opinion to them (e.g., via increased confidence in the opinion).

It's really frustrating.

	Hypothesis 6: Partisans will view their opinions as increasingly important when receiving a frame with their partisan sponsor (versus a frame without their partisan sponsor) and, even more so, when this occurs in polarized conditions.

	...

	We observed very different results in the partisan polarization conditions. We found that partisans always evaluated the frames endorsed by their party as signif- icantly stronger, regardless of the policy issue. Thus, polarization seems to spark motivated reasoning, and people clearly evaluate frames differently in the pres- ence of polarization.

This looks like the "messanger overwhelming the message" effect again. Could explain why Hillary's compatriots say things like "just another republican attack!" or Donna Brazille said "Your conclusions are false becuase my emails were released by the Russians!" It's like framing the message as coming from a messanger they can attack is all they know how to do.

	In sum, these frame evaluation dynamics demonstrated that partisan polarization influences both the extent to which citizens rely on substantive information and party cues when forming policy opinions and how citizens process substantive arguments. Participants from both parties evaluated the stronger frame as more persuasive in conditions without a party endorsement, and they also did so, largely, in a low-polarization environment when the strong frame is matched with a weak frame. Partisan polarization altered the argument evaluation process, however, with strong frames rated as ineffective in polarized conditions if they did not receive an endorsement from the individual’s own party. In these same polarized conditions, half-hearted evaluations of weak frames turned into enthusiastic evaluations if the frame received an endorsement by the individual’s party. These findings further emphasize that partisan polarization is a crucial condition for how citizens respond to competing sides in policy debates. It is also evidence of partisan motivated reasoning whereby a salient partisan identity colors argument evaluation. Party endorsements, particularly under conditions of polarization, do not appear to simply serve as cues people follow. Instead, cues seem to shape how the public views arguments put forth by different sides.

	...

	In short, not only does a polarized environment increase partisan motived reasoning—and decrease reliance on substance—but it also causes people to view their opinions as more important. Attitude importance, in turn, has been shown to affect a variety of behaviors such as willingness to persuade others or otherwise take action on behalf of an issue (Visser et al. 2006). In the long term, overconfidence may speak to the stability of political parties in general (Johnson and Fowler 2011), which may be of concern: Polarized parties lead to more confidence in opinions; that is, people consider them more important—even though these opinions are less substantively grounded (i.e., confidence is one dimension of attitude importance). This is a neglected consequence of partisan polarization.

I'm sure it wasn't neglected by the Russians. (I wonder if they read this paper?)

	We find that, in the absence of party endorsements, the strength of the arguments/frames in play drives opinions (e.g., Chong and Druckman 2007). Moreover, frame strength continues to play this role in non- polarized conditions, overwhelming the influence of party cues on attitudes (e.g., Bullock 2011; Nicholson 2011). Party cues only begin to exert influence in non- polarized competitive environments when the parties offer equally strong arguments and individuals then turn to something other than substance for guidance. This suggests a lexicographical psychology in which individuals turn to a primary piece of information and follow it when it is definitive. If it lacks clarity, however, they turn to secondary information, in this case party endorsements.

	...

	A polarized environment causes this order of priority to apparently shift, such that a strengthened partisan identity causes party endorsements to carry the day. Unlike the no-cue and non-polarized conditions, partisans in a polarized environment follow their party regardless of the type or strength of the argument the party makes (also see Slothuus and de Vreese 2010). Moreover, when individuals engage in strong partisan motivated reasoning, they develop increased confidence in their opinions. This means they are less likely to consider alternative positions and more likely to take action based on their opinion (e.g., attempt to persuade others; Visser et al. 2006). In short, elite polarization fundamentally changes the manner in which citizens make decisions.

Would it help for people to, at least, identify as "moderate republicans" or "moderate democrats"? I would have thought most partisans identify that way though.

Also it is concerning that elites have more influence in a polarized environment.

	Our results raise a number of normative questions. Previous work on motivated reasoning has emphasized the negative implications it holds for the quality of public preferences. Following this line of thought, our findings of increased motivated reasoning in polarized environments indicate lower quality opinions in these conditions. For example, Lavine, Johnston, and Steenbergen (2012) state that motivated reasoning “raises deeply troubling questions about political representation ... how can an electorate possibly reward or punish an incumbent party if it holds grossly distorted views of political conditions? And how can it elect leaders who will pursue desired policy reform in the face of widespread misperception about where leaders stand, what the policy status quo is, and what the central elements and likely consequences of proposed reform are?” (chapter 5: 6; also see Jerit 2009). Moreover, partisan motived reasoning, as is made clear by Chong and Druckman (2010), Druckman and Leeper (2012a), and Druckman et al. (2012), can lead to dogmatic adherence to a prior opinion to the point of extreme inflexibility and intolerance. Viewed from this perspective, our study provides another example of the normatively undesirable outcomes of motivated reasoning, this time with polarization ultimately to blame for triggering motivated reasoning. In polarized conditions citizens turn to partisan biases and ignore arguments that they otherwise consider to be “strong.”


http://www.academia.edu/641515/The_Logic_of_Manipulation_33_Techniques_of_Romanian_Political_Manipulation_Logica_manipularii._33_de_tehnici_de_manipulare_politica_romaneasca_Editura_C.H.Beck_Bucuresti_2010

	An initial approximation of the structure of the act of social communication that belongs to the category of  manipulation actions reveals the following compounds:
	1.Sender, Message, Receiver.
		A Sender S formulates a message M addressed to the receiver R;
	2.Purpose, the Sender’s Interest.
		The Sender aims achieving a PURPOSE – for example,obtaining a social behaviour that is desirable in the terms of his own interest;
	3.Communication pathology.
		The Receiver doesn’t know at least one of the components of the actof social communication – either S’s real interest, or his purpose, or his identity;
	4.Effects.
		The Receiver reacts in a manner desired by the Sender.
	5.The illusion of freedom of decision.
		The Receiver is convinced that the decision taken within thecommunication situation created or administered by S was freely taken.
	6.The social act of manipulative communication develops in negative ethical circumstances, any manipulation including lies, without stopping here.

	Besides, the compound “negative ethical circumstances” is the fundamental element for the distinction “normal” – “pathological” communication. One and the same act of manipulative social communication becomes communication-persuasionif the “defects” of the communication mechanisms are removed: (a)all these components – Sender, Purpose, interest, desirable behaviour – are or can become transparent if the Sender wants this; (b) the unidirectional relation takes the form of an interaction related to real dialogue,in which neither the sender, nor the receiver construct significations – messages composed of words andactions that differ from the ones openly stated.

This is interesting. On pg. 16 they have a list of political manipulation techniques.

A bit wordy though

http://listverse.com/2015/08/21/10-ways-organizations-manipulated-social-media-for-political-agendas/

Interesting things here. Information war really is everywhere it looks like.

I just want a list of documented techniques politicians use.

http://www.mymcmedia.org/trainings-for-the-aspiring-political-operative/

	Trainings for the Aspiring Political Operative

	IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY

	NEVER TOO YOUNG TO START

lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation

	According to Simon,[2] manipulators exploit the following vulnerabilities that may exist in victims:
		naïveté - victim finds it too hard to accept the idea that some people are cunning, devious and ruthless or is "in denial" if he or she is being victimized.

	...

	Manipulative behavior is also common to narcissists, who use manipulation to obtain power and narcissistic supply.

----------------------------------

http://connections-qj.org/article/beyond-propaganda-soviet-active-measures-putins-russia

a good summary?

----------------------------------

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/12/how_russia_hacked_american_voters.html

	No one familiar with Russian operations is particularly surprised by this approach. It’s called information warfare, and its goal is to employ disinformation to manipulate a target population into making choices it might not otherwise make. I spent two decades as an information-warfare officer in the United States Navy, and it’s common knowledge in military and intelligence circles that deception, propaganda, and psychological operations are hallmarks of Russian doctrine. So on Sunday when Sen. Claire McCaskill called Russia’s intervention in the election “a form of warfare,” this is exactly what she meant.

	How’d they do it? Basically, by doxxing the Democrats and unleashing fake news. Russia was behind the stories that dominated our headlines, both real and fabricated, for several weeks leading up to the election. In doing so, it bet that casting further doubt on Clinton’s honesty and character while also polluting the information environment with false stories would affect the decisions of enough voters to increase Trump’s chances. It wagered that in a close election, perhaps it could be the difference.

----------------------------------

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political)

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/sociology/contemporary-mass-media/the-role-and-influence-of-mass-media

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2010-12-20/political-power-social-media
	On January 17, 2001, during the impeachment trial of Philippine President Joseph Estrada, loyalists in the Philippine Congress voted to set aside key evidence against him. Less than two hours after the decision was announced, thousands of Filipinos, angry that their corrupt president might be let off the hook, converged on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major crossroads in Manila. The protest was arranged, in part, by forwarded text messages reading, "Go 2 EDSA. Wear blk." The crowd quickly swelled, and in the next few days, over a million people arrived, choking traffic in downtown Manila.

	The public's ability to coordinate such a massive and rapid response -- close to seven million text messages were sent that week -- so alarmed the country's legislators that they reversed course and allowed the evidence to be presented. Estrada's fate was sealed; by January 20, he was gone. The event marked the first time that social media had helped force out a national leader. Estrada himself blamed "the text-messaging generation" for his downfall.

http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=polisci_honproj

http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/saul-alinskys-12-rules-for-radicals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_senior_thesis

----------------------------------

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/310387-poll-gop-voters-softening-views-on-wikileaks-russia
https://twitter.com/williamjordann/status/809069737879674888/photo/1

The bifurcation there is fascinating. Huge spikes while dems is pushed even lower, and the difference in support flips right around the election too. The most clear cut evidence for polarization I've seen so far.

You can see dips and spikes throughout the campaign (could you line these up with campaign events?)

Similar deal for "friend or foe" graph. Interesting that in 2011, most dems thought he was a friend and most Republicans thought he was an foe, and now the majority overall thinks he is a foe. It appears Putin has pissed-off his only friends.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vladimir-putin-popularity-republicans_us_58518a3ce4b092f08686bd6e

	Much like President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, 9 in 10 Republicans describe Putin as a strong leader. Nonetheless, about 7 in 10 say they’re confident in Trump’s ability to “handle Russia.” By contrast, only 28 percent of Republicans say they have confidence in the CIA.

	Despite this, 58 percent of Americans overall believe Russia is unfriendly or an enemy to the U.S. That number drops slightly to 52 percent among Republicans and 56 percent among declared Trump voters.

	...

	Among Americans who believe the Russian government is responsible for hacking into the DNC, 68 percent believe the motive was to help elect Trump, according to the YouGov/Economist poll. Another 25 percent believe the purpose was to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.

----------------------------------

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/5ivg4v/are_anonymous_sources_enough_for_accusing_putin/dbb914d/

	Russian playbook :"Non Linear War" was written by a Putin advisor. In summary, the objective is more than having one side fighting against another side. The objective is to turn sub-groups against sub-groups which will result in mass confusion. This chaos will lead to in-fighting and eventually your enemy will be crippled from the inside out. This is when you gain power and influence by helping to "settle" the dispute. The objective is not to win the war. The objective is to gain power and influence that will ultimately benefit Russia. Sound familiar ?

interesting... you kindof see that with like Trump being more centrist?

Russia creates a problem, then tries to get Trump to "solve" it in a way that benefits Russia and makes Trump the leader. Seems to be a pattern in this election?

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/05/how-putin-is-reinventing-warfare/

----------------------------------

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/gop-russia-putin-support-232714

	But there’s another aspect to the affinity between some Republicans and Putin.

	Putin has fashioned himself as a defender of traditional values around the world, something that has a particular appeal to the socially conservative elements of the Republican Party. He’s actively pushed anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion legislation in his country. Just this week, the Russian government prevented the UN Security Council, in their statement about outgoing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, from praising the Korean’s promotion of LGBTQ rights during his time in office.


----------------------------------

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/12/19/how-trump-used-incredible-power-rejection-to-win-white-house.html

actually so far this sounds pretty accurate.

a pretty good article

	In battles, whether with sports or presidential elections, if you have to bet on one side, always bet on the fearless side.

^^

----------------------------------

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/single-greatest-force-american-politics-partisanship-n698186

bringing out the issue of partisanship

----------------------------------

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/12/are-we-new-era-espionage/133932/

	“Here, you have an information campaign that’s now pitting the CIA against the FBI, Democrats against Republicans, even Republicans against Republicans. This is perfection. Perfection!” exclaimed Houghton. “It’s just right out of the playbook.”

	...

	“U.S. officials I’ve spoken to are cautious of responding ‘in kind,’ for instance by revealing embarrassing details of where Russian officials place their dirty money,” wrote Corera, the security correspondent, in an email. “The fear is that doing this might establish a new norm that this kind of activity is now fair game.”

----------------------------------

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/04/vladimir-putin-polls-better-with-republicans-than-obama-does-thats-not-unprecedented/?utm_term=.c9ffcef27285

republicans aren't all putin bots and polarization is a problem

----------------------------------

http://www.thehill.com/homenews/senate/312687-senate-dems-introduce-bill-to-create-commission-on-russia-hacking

politicizing Russia's hacking?

----------------------------------

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-07-09/news/mn-22423_1_boris-yeltsin

	Perhaps the most troubling moment in their adventure came when it appeared some of Yeltsin's advisors in the Kremlin were trying to convince him to cancel the election.

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/10/news/mn-20957

	For more than a decade, Tatyana Dyachenko worked at the famous Salyut design bureau, plotting trajectories for the communications satellites and the Mir space station. In 1994, she took a post at an obscure bank that specialized in trading in gems and precious metals. But these jobs were merely preparation for her true calling: helping her father govern Russia.

	Today, the reclusive 39-year-old mathematician is widely viewed as the power behind the Kremlin throne. Officially, she is on the government payroll as the "image-maker" of her ailing father, President Boris N. Yeltsin. The part she plays, however, is much broader.

	Of all Yeltsin's aides and advisors, Dyachenko alone has unlimited access to him. She has an office in the Kremlin--and lives with the president at his country estate outside Moscow. In a nation where men have long dominated political life, she serves as the president's eyes and ears, and as an intermediary for top officials seeking presidential action. When Yeltsin is ill or tired--which is much of the time--she is said to act in his name.

Funny seeing the parallels

	Dyachenko, described by those who know her as modest and charming, rarely appears in public and almost never grants interviews. She has maintained a strict silence in the face of mounting accusations that the Yeltsin family has stashed millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts and acquired property abroad.

	...

	Her rise from working mom to unofficial regent mirrors Russia's deterioration over the last eight years as it has reverted from a budding democracy to a land of corruption and poverty.

	...

	Today, former Kremlin aides paint a grim picture of an isolated, detached president who devotes only a few minutes a day to government affairs. The pro-democracy advocates of his early presidency are long gone, and he seldom meets with outsiders. His tiny circle of advisors, these former aides say, is more concerned with personal business interests than with matters of public policy.

	...

	"Several years ago, you couldn't imagine in a bad dream that a simple girl from a provincial town would be running state affairs, making important decisions and sacking prime ministers one after another," said Pavel I. Voshchanov, a former Yeltsin press secretary. "Our legislators don't do anything about it--not that they can or want to. All this creates a strong sense of doom, a feeling that our democracy died before actually being born."

----------------------------------

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/16/social-media-creates-group-think.html
	In his book, "The Filter Bubble," Eli Pariser suggests technology is causing a bubble to form around each of us – preventing us from knowing opposing views, and worse, stopping us from knowing other views may even exists. And this is not just something plaguing Millennials.

	Before the internet and iPhones, and before Facebook used more sophisticated algorithms, political discourse took place in coffee shops and in local town papers, citizens could simply skip over an op-ed headline they didn't want to read – but at least they knew it existed.

	Now, in an age where my Google search results are different than yours, Facebook is only likely to show content that validates your existing beliefs – because, it wants you to click, like and share.

	Rarely am I exposed to the other side without seeking it out, so in my world, the world, hates Trump.
...
	In his book, Pariser urges engineers and designers at major tech companies like Google and Facebook to write code in a way that forces users to be exposed to other thoughts and beliefs that may even challenge their existing opinions. Of course, we'd ideally seek out other opinions ourselves, but it can be hard to even begin when a simple Google search is already tailored to your political views. And I have to think makers of new products would love the chance to use that more inclusive technology in hopes of shaking up existing brand loyalties.

	Until we see those changes, what can I do to break out of my online intellectual bubble? I'll start with not 'unfriending' my cousin on Facebook.

http://townhall.com/columnists/davidstokes/2009/02/01/bipartisanship_or_groupthink
	Could the current call for bipartisanship really be little more than the glorification of something quite detrimental to effective governance?

	I’m talking about groupthink.

	As President Obama and his new administration grapple with the complex issues before them, and try to find traction dealing with a surprisingly feisty, if not recalcitrant, Republican minority in Congress, they would do well to look in depth at the age of Camelot.  But they should study the fall of 1962, not the spring of 1961.

	President John F. Kennedy learned a thing or two from the Bay of Pigs fiasco – an early failure for his administration.  What he learned, he then applied when faced with Soviet missiles in Castro’s Cuba 18 months later.  He listened to many different points of view – and tempered his approach based on what he was hearing.

	Of course, I realize that the analogy falls short as completely relevant to the workings of partisan politics, but there is a basic idea that rings true.  In scripture we are told: “in the multitude of counselors there is safety.”  The best policies are those forged out of the give and take – the “iron sharpening iron” - of contrary opinions.  And the iron doesn’t get sharp without sparks flying.

	The wisdom we need is usually in those sparks.

	Back in 1977, Janis observed that groupthink is indicated when there are illusions of invulnerability, the kind that are created when a particular policy or point of view is not help up to contrary and critical analysis.  Also, unquestioned belief in the morality or superiority of the group making the decision breeds groupthink.

	The tendency to stereotype those who oppose is also a sign that groupthink is hovering around, as is the practice of rationalizing warnings.  The bottom line is that groupthink yields flawed fruit.  It leads to bad decisions, sometimes even catastrophic ones.

	Groupthink is an equal opportunity problem.  It is not reserved solely for democrats, republicans, or independents.  It rears its ugly head any time a group takes over, or gets comfortable in power, and loses the capacity for objectivity.  And when there is a “we won/it’s our turn” mindset, groupthink is usually in the air.  It is a most subtle and self-deceptive toxin.

Brenan says:

	Others say the problem could be fixed by encouraging citizens to deliberate together. They believe getting random groups of Americans together to talk about politics will cause them to resolve their differences, become informed, and reach agreement. However, political scientists have been conducting large number of experiments testing how deliberation works. Even though the researchers in question almost always want deliberation to “fix” democracy, in general, they tend to find that it makes things worse, not better.

http://www.princeton.edu/~talim/mendelberg%20-%20deliberative%20citizen.pdf

	And the more doubtful one is that citizens are competent to handle matters of politics, the less enthusiastic one tends to be about citizen deliberation.

So the purpose of citizen deliberation is what exactly? So they can learn more and become more informed? But it could also make them hate each other more.

Stokes says deliberation helps leaders and decision makers, specifically. But voters are decision makers when they vote.

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump-avik-roy

	Normally, Goldwater’s defeat is spun as a story of triumph: how the conservative movement eventually righted the ship of an unprincipled GOP. But according to Roy, it’s the first act of a tragedy.

	“Goldwater’s nomination in 1964 was a historical disaster for the conservative movement,” Roy tells me, “because for the ensuing decades, it identified Democrats as the party of civil rights and Republicans as the party opposed to civil rights.”

So historical mistakes have created more group-think in dems and republicans. Since democrats think they are high-and-mighty for being "the party of civil rights," and some republicans could be in denial that they aren't, it increases group-think.

Internet echo-chambers also increase group-think.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/how-politics-breaks-our-brains-and-how-we-can-put-them-back-together/453315/
	The NYU team is trying to show that our brains are hardwired for partisanship and how that skews our perceptions in public life. Research at NYU and elsewhere is underscoring just how blind the "us-versus-them" mind-set can make people when they try to process new political information. Once this partisanship mentality kicks in, the brain almost automatically pre-filters facts—even noncontroversial ones—that offend our political sensibilities.

	"Once you trip this wire, this trigger, this cue, that you are a part of 'us-versus-them,' it's almost like the whole brain becomes re-coordinated in how it views people," says Jay Van Bavel, the leader of NYU's Social Perception and Evaluation Lab.

	Our tendency toward partisanship is likely the result of evolution—forming groups is how prehistoric humans survived. That's helpful when trying to master an unforgiving environment with Stone Age technology. It's less so when trying to foster a functional democracy.

	Congressional hearings are hearings in name only—opportunities for politicians to grandstand rather than talk with each other. And the political discussion, even among those well versed in the issues, largely exists in parallel red and blue universes, mental spheres with few or no common facts to serve as starting points.

	...

	But rather than despair, many political-psychology researchers see their results as reason for hope, and they raise a tantalizing prospect: With enough understanding of what exactly makes us so vulnerable to partisanship, can we reshape our political environment to access the better angels of our neurological nature?

	...

	Before I see the first group, the American flag flashes, and I'm told I'm looking at my countrymen. Before the second, a Russian flag appears. These are faces of Russians.

	As I try to assess which faces have a soul behind them, a dark facet of partisan psychology surfaces. If the face belongs to a team member—in my case, an American—I'm more likely to assign them humanity. I'm less inclined to do the same for Russians.

It's always the Russians

	Team members also have less sympathy for those on the other side, and even experience pleasure while reading about their pain.

	...

	People who score high on system justification tend to be patriotic and defenders of the status quo. Those who score low tend to be the rebels. So far, with 100 participants, Van Bavel's group is finding meaningful differences between the brains of high system-justifiers and low system-justifiers.

Interesting. So liberals and conservatives brains are different too.

	Even if we all worked from the same set of facts, and even if we all understood those facts perfectly, differences of opinion would—and should—remain. Those opinions are not the problem. The trouble is when we're so blinded by our partisanship that it overrides reason—and research suggests that is happening all the time.

	...

	But even giving Democrats that information did not increase the accuracy of their responses. Ramirez's study asked some participants the following question: "The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows unemployment has increased by 4.6 percent since 2008. Would you say that the level of unemployment in this country has gotten better, stayed the same, or gotten worse since Barack Obama was elected President?"

	Clearly, the answer is in the sentence that immediately precedes the question. But the mention of Obama launched a partisan mental process that led many astray: Nearly 60 percent of Democrats said unemployment had lessened since Obama's election.

	...

	The question, then, is how to amplify that unbiased processing to overcome the partisan blindness.

	Nothing worked. One of the interventions—the pamphlet explaining the lack of evidence—actually made anti-vaccination parents even less inclined to vaccinate. "Some of the conclusions of that research people find pretty depressing," Nyhan says. "Myself included."

	...

	Throughout the election cycle, Nyhan and Reifler logged the politicians' PolitiFact ratings (from "true" to "pants on fire"). They also had a research assistant comb through the media coverage of each legislator, searching for critical stories. The results, pending publication in the American Journal of Political Science, were limited but promising. Overall, only a very few legislators—27 out of 1,169—were called out on lies. But of those 27, only five had received the threatening letter—less than a third. That's reason enough to research the idea further. "This study was a first step," Nyhan says.

	"Human psychology isn't going to change," he says. "The factors that make people vulnerable to misinformation aren't going to change. But the incentives facing elites can change, and we can design institutions that function better or worse under polarization and that do a better or worse job at providing incentives to make accurate statements."

So e.g. politifact is one institution that could help reverse this problem (on the other hand the internet can help make it worse.)

	Of course, a mass "pay Americans to pay more attention to facts" campaign isn't happening. So the question, then, is how do we get people to be more objective, without throwing money at them?

	Jimmy Carter discovered one answer during the 1978 peace negotiations between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The talks were on the brink of collapsing in their final hours, and the prime minister was prepared to walk. That's when Carter directed his secretary to find out all the names of Begin's grandchildren. Carter autographed photos for them and personally gave them to the Israeli leader. "He had taken a blood oath that he would never dismantle an Israeli settlement," Carter later recalled in an interview. "He looked at those eight photographs and tears began to run down his cheeks—and mine—as he read the names."

	A few minutes later, Begin was back at the negotiating table. By appealing to a nonpolitical idea Begin cared about—his family—Carter was able to bring him to a place where he could bend.

	...

	Just two days before the election, Binning assembled 110 self-identified Republicans and Democrats—60 Rs and 50 Ds—to watch a recording of a recent debate between Obama and Republican nominee John McCain. Before they viewed the debate, however, one group of participants was given a list of nonpolitical values such as "social skills" and "creativity," and then asked to write briefly about an instance when their own behavior had embodied one of those values. (The other group also wrote about nonpolitical values, but they were asked to write about how those might be important to other people, not about their personal experiences.)

	By having one group write about nonpolitical experiences, Binning wanted to get participants thinking of themselves as individuals rather than partisans. The idea was that affirming the human identity would make people would feel more receptive to ideas that didn't align with their worldview.

	It worked. When Binning asked the participants to judge the candidates' performances, members of that group were more likely than those in the other to give a favorable rating to the opposition candidate.

	"It's not like all of a sudden I say, 'Well, yeah, McCain actually won the debate,' " he explains, "but we might say, 'Well, yeah, Obama, I think he did have some good points, but McCain may have had some other good points as well. I don't need to just blindly embrace Obama.' "

	Which seems like the ideal way to converse about politics, right? And it wasn't a one-time effect. Ten days after the election, Binning asked the Republicans in the group what type of president they thought Obama would be. Those who had been part of the group that wrote personally about nonpolitical values before watching the debate were significantly more optimistic about the Obama presidency.

So being introspective about values helps people become less partisan?

	Talia Stroud is trying to take that step. As the director of the Engaging News project at the University of Texas (Austin), she leads a research group with the goal of making the Internet more civil for politics. "It's unbelievably difficult," she says.

	...

	One way to start, her research suggests, is to reevaluate the "like" button, a common feature on comment threads. In the context of a political-news article, "liking" a comment or a post could activate us-versus-them thinking. "Liking" something means you associate with it. It reminds people of their partisanship. "So we did a study where we manipulated whether it was a 'like' button or a 'respect' button," Stroud says. She found that people were more willing to express "respect" for arguments that ran counter to their own.

	...

	Katz, who is also a former U.S. ambassador to Portugal, joined with other community members to create the Village Square, which hosts events where the public is invited to discuss ongoing issues with experts and activists. Incivility and non-truths are not tolerated. During debates, the Village Square employs fact checkers to keep people in line. "So people couldn't make s--t up," Katz says. There's also a civility bell: If people start yelling, the bell is rung to remind them of their better nature.

	For the first meeting, 175 people showed up. Now the Village Square is running 20 programs a year in Tallahassee, and it has expanded into St. Petersburg, Kansas City, and Sacramento. In Tallahassee, city officials ask the Village Square to host public forums on divisive issues.

	...

	Katz and his fellow organizers are relying on people finding a common humanity, and in so doing, he is playing to one of the brain's great strengths: The same tribal cognitive processes that make it easy to turn people against one another can also be harnessed to bring them together.

	When people consider themselves to be part of the same team, be it as Village Square participants, as fellow Americans, or even—one might dream—as fellow members of Congress, they do a much better job of dropping their combative stance and processing the world through a less partisan lens.

	And we make those identity jumps all the time, as our brains are wired to let us do.

	Sometimes, in the middle of his red team/blue team exercise, Van Bavel will switch a participant from one group to the other. "We say, 'Listen, there's been a mistake, you're actually on the other team,' " he says. "And the moment we do, we completely reverse their empathy. Suddenly, they care about everybody who is in their new in-group."

	Suddenly, they see the other side.


http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/10/the-dance-of-the-dunces-trump-clinton-election-republican-democrat/

	Trump owes his victory to the uninformed. But it’s not just Trump. Political scientists have been studying what voters know and how they think for well over 65 years. The results are frightening. Voters generally know who the president is but not much else. They don’t know which party controls Congress, what Congress has done recently, whether the economy is getting better or worse (or by how much). In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, most voters knew Al Gore was more liberal than George W. Bush, but significantly less than half knew that Gore was more supportive of abortion rights, more supportive of welfare-state programs, favored a higher degree of aid to blacks, or was more supportive of environmental regulation.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/01/10/polarization-we-can-live-with-partisan-warfare-is-the-problem/?utm_term=.61193e78c554

	    I have been studying party polarization in Congress for more than a decade. The more I study it, the more I question that it is the root cause of what it is that Americans hate about Congress. Pundits and political scientists alike point to party polarization as the culprit for all sorts of congressional ills. I, too, have contributed to this chorus bemoaning party polarization. But increasingly, I’ve come to think that our problem today isn’t just polarization in Congress; it’s the related but more serious problem of political warfare.

	...

	        For some time, I’ve had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is much too much partisanship and not enough progress; too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous national challenge, the people’s business is not getting done… I love working for the people of Indiana. I love helping our citizens make the most of their lives. But I do not love Congress.

	...

	    ...political warfare is more combative in nature and requires more than what can be revealed in voting patterns on the Senate floor. The warfare dimension taps into the strategies that go beyond defeating your opponents to humiliating them, go beyond questioning your opponents’ judgment to questioning their motives, and go beyond fighting the good legislative fight to destroying the institution and the legislative process. Partisan warfare serves electoral goals, not legislative goals.

	http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440067/blind-partisanship-hurts-american-politics

	    ...One reviewer began his assessment of the book by asserting that Blumenthal is a man of profound, intense, deeply devoted religious faith — and the core of that faith is that everything that is good in the world comes from the Democratic party.

	    Over the years, we’ve seen more and more Americans adopting that faith or its mirror image, the idea that all good comes from the Republican party. It’s not a formal religion, but partisan devotion so deeply affects its adherents’ thinking, morality, actions, and reactions to world events that it might as well be a religion.

	    Each passing political cycle makes it a little clearer that partisan faith has nothing to do with policies and issues.

	...

	    This is what drives the ludicrous double standards and hypocrisy we see in most of our public political debates. We need to get money out of politics because of the Koch Brothers, but Tom Steyer’s big-spending environmental-advocacy campaigns and union-funded attack ads are righteous. Obama declared it was “unpatriotic” for George W. Bush to run up the debt by $4 trillion in eight years, but understandable that he ran up the debt by $9 trillion during his own presidency.

	...

	    Ultimately, what far too many people in politics believe is that the other party is just the bad guys, the embodiment of all flaws of human nature and every kind of sin, to be defeated at all costs. Period. The exact same traits are interpreted completely differently based upon partisan affiliation. The other side is greedy, selfish, and miserly; my side is thrifty and determined to avoid waste. Their side is dumb and can’t understand details; my side is focused on the big picture and doesn’t get bogged down in the weeds. The other side is a bunch of warmongers; my side won’t compromise on protecting innocent lives. The other side is a bunch of simple-minded jingoist nationalists; my side is a steel-spined band of patriots. Their side is a freak show, the worst of humanity, a “basket of deplorables”; my side has passionate grassroots with loveable eccentricities. Their side is incompetent; my side makes innocent, harmless mistakes.

	    If a person’s true answer to every question is, “Whatever benefits my party the most, even if it contradicts what I said last cycle, or last year, or yesterday,” the conversation grows stale quickly. In this light, it’s hard to blame voters for disengaging themselves from politics. If the passionate partisans don’t take their positions all that seriously, why should anyone else?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/how-republics-end.html

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http://www.upenn.edu/president/meet-president/Mindsets-Political-Compromise
	Political compromise is difficult in American democracy even though no one doubts it is necessary. It is difficult for many reasons, including the recent increase in political polarization that has been widely criticized. We argue that the resistance to compromise cannot be fully appreciated without understanding its source in the democratic process itself, especially as conducted in the U.S. The incursion of campaigning into governing in American democracy--the so called "permanent campaign"--encourages political attitudes and arguments that make compromise more difficult. These constitute what we call the uncompromising mindset, characterized by politicians' standing on principle and mistrusting opponents. This mindset is conducive to campaigning, but not to governing, because it stands in the way of necessary change and thereby biases the democratic process in favor of the status quo. The uncompromising mindset can be kept in check by an opposite cluster of attitudes and arguments--the compromising mindset--that inclines politicians to adapt their principles and respect their opponents. This mindset is more appropriate for governing, because it enables politicians more readily to recognize and act on opportunities for desirable compromise. We explore the dynamics of these mindsets by examining the processes that led to the compromises on tax reform in 1986 and health care reform in 2010.

	...

	Even politicians with the appropriate mindsets need institutional support to succeed in democratic politics. Institutional reforms are therefore an important complement to recognizing the difficulty created by the dominance of campaigning over governing for democratic compromise.64 Useful institutional reforms, for example, would significantly decrease the political incentives of continually raising money from special interests and increase those of collaborating across partisan and other factional lines. Yet major institutional change that would make a significant difference itself requires compromise, and the leaders who would bring it about will themselves have to set their minds to it.

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http://www.interpretermag.com/the-menace-of-unreality-how-the-kremlin-weaponizes-information-culture-and-money/

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russia-s-active-measures-are-back-with-a-vengeance

http://neweasterneurope.eu/articles-and-commentary/2211-russia-s-information-techniques-in-europe-a-new-strategy
	active measures enabled the Kremlin to skillfully use high-level political corruption to penetrate state-led networks connecting power elites of two countries on economic and policy matters.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article118026863.html
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/as-more-money-flows-into-campaigns-americans-worry-about-its-influence/
	Americans of different political persuasions may not agree on much, but one thing they do agree on is that money has a greater – and mostly negative – influence on politics than ever before. Among liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, large majorities favor limits on campaign spending and say the high cost of campaigning discourages many good candidates from running for president.

----------------------------------

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/how-politics-breaks-our-brains-and-how-we-can-put-them-back-together/453315/

	(Colleagues joked that I might want to keep my test results to myself if I wanted to continue working as a nonpartisan journalist in Washington. But—for the record—I'm a lab-certified moderate: "Yeah, you were right in the heart of the distribution, not only in the terms of your system-justification tendencies but also your amygdala volume is very healthy," Van Bavel tells me the day after, laughing.)

----------------------------------

http://people.howstuffworks.com/propaganda.htm
http://classroom.synonym.com/propaganda-techniques-elections-9133.html
http://www.heretical.com/miscellx/language.html
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/war_peace/media/hpropaganda.html
http://propaganda.mrdonn.org/techniques.html
	To protect yourself against the techniques of propaganda, three good questions to ask yourself are:

    	Who does this benefit?
    	Why did they do that?
    	According to whom?

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/1964:fourteen-propaganda-techniques-fox-news-uses-to-brainwash-americans
http://www.corson.org/archives/campaigns/pe2012_06.htm
http://www.teapartytribune.com/2012/05/12/the-handbook-of-political-manipulation/

http://trungtamwto.vn/sites/default/files/wto/3-Lobbying%20The_Art_of_Political_Persuasion.PDF

https://www.distilled.net/blog/reputation/political-reputation-management/
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/08/the-mediaglyph.html
http://www.indeed.com/q-Political-Communications-jobs.html

www.intellectbooks.co.uk/File:download,id=668/9781841501635.192.pdf
ON THE DARK SIDE OF DEMOCRACY

Introduction
Economic globalization and market liberalization have challenged national
politics and political imaginaries during the last 20 years. With the rise of the
market liberalization and market-oriented policies the faith of the nation state
has become a matter of intense discussions (e.g. Hirst and Thompson, 1996;
Strange, 1996; Habermas, 1999; Hardt and Negri, 2000).
In the new globalized condition, states are seen as competing on the
‘hypermobile’ capital (Warf, 1999) and tackling the increasing power of the
multinational corporations as transnational multinationals and international
finance capital have become increasingly influential in politics (Schmidt, 1995;
Sklair, 2002). The state has been seen to evolve to a competition state (Cerny,
1990: 220–47) or an entrepreneurial state (Harvey, 1989: 178; Warf, 1999: 239),
which tries to appear as an appealing place for investments by lowering taxes,
providing cheap, flexible, or skilful labor, industrial sites or parks. The new global
condition for the state and national democracies has been labelled for instance as
flexible capitalism (Harvey, 1989, 2001), supermodernity (Auge, 1995) or
hyperglobalization (Hay, 2004: 520).

With regard to democracy, the greatest worry has perhaps been whether a
progressive separation of power from politics will take place (e.g. Bauman, 1999:
24–31, 120; Habermas, 1999). These worries have been enhanced by the problems
of politics and public communication (Blumler, 1995; Franklin, 2004; Louw, 2005).
These processes might mean that representative democracy and its institutions
are weakening. Or to be a little more cautious, at least it seems like the scope
and spaces of democratic politics and processes are currently under negotiation
due to the processes of globalization (e.g. McNair, 2000; Dahlgren, 2001).

The aim here is to examine the role of journalism in these processes. As it is
well known, journalism has a crucial role to play in modern mass democracies.
Journalism offers information on political issues, gives an opportunity to bring
up new political issues, creates opportunities for an ongoing dialogue and acts
as a watchdog of the decision-makers. Moreover journalism contains a view of
the world, a social cosmology or a political imaginary by which our societies and
life are imagined (Anderson, 1983; Gonzaléz-Veléz, 2002; Taylor, 2004: 50). As
Benedict Anderson (1983: 14–49) has pointed out, modern polities are to a
certain extent imagined communities. Polities and political life are maintained
through public arenas where the citizens of the polity do not actually meet, but
rather imagine themselves belonging to a common community. Journalism can
thus be understood as an imaginative exercise, which formulates social and
political imaginaries. Modern polities are imagined through the endless stream
of everyday journalistic texts; by the news, articles, columns, comments, and
leaders which describe, analyze, interpret, debate, and contest the political.
Historically, journalism has had a particularly central role in building up
national imaginaries by having tight connections with national imaginaries and
democracies. As the global economy has been liberalized and the premises of the
nation state have been questioned, journalism has a role to play in this process as
well. As political imaginaries are changing and globalized political imaginaries
are created (Cameron and Palan, 2004), it can be assumed that these global
imaginaries are reflected also in journalism and, moreover, that journalism has a
role in their construction.

...

From the point of the democracy, the political imaginary of the FT has a
questionable element in its cynicism towards politics, voters, and democracy. The
FT’s journalism seems to contribute to the anti-political vein of the trans-national
economy, undermining the principles of democracy (Kantola, 2001). The FT
seems to have a master plan of politics, a pre-ordained ‘black box’ of economic
reform that must be implemented in any case. The political imaginary of the FT
journalism is thus dominated by economism – a strong belief that societal and
political issues are economic issues and can be solved by economic solutions.
This imaginary is based on an antithetical position towards the democratic
polis: the imaginary of the economic machine, which needs to be run according
to clear rules and which needs to be controlled by strong leaders; not by politics,
a diversity of opinions and heteronomy but rather by a unity of opinions. The
paradox is that this system of preordained order is promoted in the name of
liberalism, freedom, and democracy. Thus one could say that the political
imaginary of FT’s financial journalism has a flavour of hypocrisy: democracy
hailed in principle but belittled in practice.

At the same time, the FT seems to construct a globalizing deterritorialized
elite space in the public sphere. What is left is a deterrorialized language not linked
to any specific place. National and local circumstances are transformed into an
‘environment’ or a home base, which needs to be developed from the point of the
view of global capital as sites of production and consumption. Thus democracy,
elections and voters become troublesome when representing logics and ideas that
might harass the advance of the capital. Globalizing capitalism, or as Marc Augé
(1995) says, supermodernity, develops abstract notions, which bypass the local
histories and reformulate local spaces as sites of production. There is less
special meaning attached to a space. A space can be characterized by more general
qualifications, which may be standardized and applicable to other spaces as well.
As this unifying and deterritorialized language is loosing its links with everyday
reality and local circumstances, it is used primarily for governing spaces with a
globalized imaginary of productivism, which belittles the local polities and
democracies as nuisances for the inevitable advance of the global economy.