Political Reality

What We Hope You Learned | S01E24 | Political Reality 17.06.2026 42min

Thank you for watching/listening to this season. We hope you find the show informative and will join us in Season 2

Season 1 Recap - What We Learned | S01E23 | Political Reality 11.06.2026 54min

Thanks for joining on this new endeavor.

How Does Democracy Score | S01E22 | Political Reality 03.06.2026 1t 1min

PREVIEW: Being in Congress | S01E21 | Political Reality 27.05.2026 10min

Full Episode https://www.patreon.com/posts/being-in-s01e21-159335999 Thanks to Derek Kilmer for joining us!

How to Talk Politics with Prof. Lindsey Cormack | Political Reality | S01E20 20.05.2026 59min

Prof. Cormack’s excellent book, How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It’s Up to You to Do It): https://howtoraiseacitizen.com/ Her DC Inbox searchable database of e-newsletters from members of Congress (well worth exploring): https://www.dcinbox.com/ More of her research and writing: https://www.lindseycormack.com/ Follow Prof. Cormack: https://www.instagram.com/howtoraiseacitizen/

PREVIEW: European Affective Polarization | S01E19 | Political Reality 14.05.2026 10min

🌍 Primary studies discussed in the episode: 1. 📄 Wagner, Markus (2024), “Affective polarization in Europe,” European Political Science Reviewhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-political-science-review/article/affective-polarization-in-europe/36BDBF804365FE0B350E610E9E7C714E 2. 📄 Boxell et al. (2024), “Cross-country trends in affective polarization,” The Review of Economics and Statisticshttps://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/106/2/557/109262/Cross-Country-Trends-in-Affective-Polarization 3. 📚 Reiljan, Andres (2025), “Affective polarization in Europe,” ch. 8 of the Handbook of Affective Polarizationhttps://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap-oa/book/9781035310609/chapter8.xml 📘 Handbook of Affective Polarizationhttps://www.elgaronline.com/edcollbook-oa/book/9781035310609/9781035310609.xml 4. 📄 Iyengar et al. (2012), “Affect, not ideology: A social identity perspective on polarization,” Public Opinion Quarterlyhttps://pcl.sites.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj22066/files/media/file/iyengar-poq-affect-not-ideology.pdf 5. 📄 Iyengar et al. (2019), “The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States,” Annual Review of Political Sciencehttps://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034 6. 📄 Druckman & Levy (2022), “Affective polarization in the American public,” ch. 18 of the Handbook on Politics and Public Opinionhttps://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781800379619/book-part-9781800379619-30.xml 7. 🎙️ And, of course, see our previous episode on this :).https://politicalrealitypodcast.com/videos/is-polarization-actually-a-problem-s01e05-teaser/ Finally, you may be surprised to see that Turkey is included as a European country. We were also surprised! While only 3% of Turkey’s landmass (or 15% of its population) is in Europe (the rest is considered to be in Asia), it is relatively standard practice in global measures to categorize it along with other European countries. For example, see also the latest Economist Intelligence Unit 2025 democracy index report:https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2025/ Or their Wikipedia page if you don’t feel like downloading it!:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index Turkey is also a NATO member, member of the Council of Europe, and an EU candidate (though negotiations are currently frozen), among other European memberships. Most importantly, it’s also part of Eurovision ;). All of that said, this is an excellent example of how the “simple” act of classification, never mind quantification, is an enduring challenge in political science! You could certainly imagine a valid case for analyzing, say, aggregate European data both with and without Turkey included (as well as Russia, and some others). 🧠 For a primer/refresher on affective polarization in general, see:🇹🇷 A quick note on Turkey and “Europe”

Damage to Science Under Trump | S01E18 | Political Reality 07.05.2026 1t 5min

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/nx-s1-5642965/what-cuts-to-research-under-trump-have-meant-for-science-in-2025⁠ ⁠https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-00088-9/index.html⁠ ⁠https://www.science.org/content/article/how-trump-administration-dismantling-science-u-s⁠ ⁠https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/opinion/doge-hiv-funding.html⁠ ⁠https://scienceimpacts.org⁠ ⁠https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts⁠

PREVIEW: Politicization of Science | S01E17 | Political Reality 29.04.2026 10min

https://www.patreon.com/posts/politicization-156907450

What would it take to solve homelessness in America? with Andrew Heaton! | S01E16 | Political Reality 22.04.2026 1t 4min

1. 🎙️ Check out Andrew Heaton’s podcast and Substack, The Political Orphanagehttps://www.thepoliticalorphanage.com 2. ▶️ You can also find his podcast and other videos on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/@AndrewHeatonTPO 3. 📚 Here’s one of his many books: Tribalism is Dumbhttps://www.amazon.com/Tribalism-Dumb-Where-Came-about/dp/B0DJKSZP6J 4. 🎧 Here are some of his Political Orphanage episodes that are about homelessness: 🏚️ Homelessness, and our stupid solutions https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/homelessness-and-our-stupid-solutions/id1439837349?i=1000548447580 🦖 How Godzilla beat the housing crisis https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-godzilla-beat-the-housing-crisis/id1439837349?i=1000710268550&l=fr-FR 🏘️ The best tiny house village in America (an interview with Alan Graham, the founder of Community First! Village, an organization we discussed in the episode) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-tiny-house-village-in-america/id1439837349?i=1000549032659 🐶 We’ll watch your dog while you’re in rehab (an interview with Evan Taylor and Cindy Webb, who lead Pause for Paws, one of the organizations we talked about in the episode) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/well-watch-your-dog-while-youre-in-rehab/id1439837349?i=1000685060836 5. 🏡 More information about Community First! Villagehttps://mlf.org/community-first/ 6. 🐾 More information about Pause for Pawshttps://www.pause4pawsok.org 7. 🌐 Check out all of Andrew Heaton’s goings on:https://mightyheaton.com/ 8. 😂 You can also watch him in comedy videos about politics, like this one!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1z_xtOmgek

PREVIEW: Urban Rural Bias | S01E15 | Political Reality 15.04.2026 10min

Full Episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/155715368 1. 📚 Katherine J. Cramer, The Politics of Resentmenthttps://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo22879533.html 📝 a. Non-paywalled, non-scientific, but nevertheless helpful and short(!) student summary of a talk by Kathy about this work https://civic.mit.edu/index.html?p=1891.html 2. 📄 Katherine J. Cramer, “Putting inequality in its place: Rural consciousness and the power of perspective.”https://www.jstor.org/stable/23275431 🔬 a. Somewhat unrelated, and we didn’t actually mention this in the episode, but Katherine Cramer is also involved in a project at the MIT Center for Constructive Communication that might be of interest to our audience :) https://www.ccc.mit.edu 3. 📄 Nelson & Petsko, “Race and white rural consciousness”https://www.christopherpetsko.com/uploads/1/2/5/8/125868532/race-and-white-rural-consciousness.pdf 4. 📄 Trujillo & Crowley, “Symbolic versus material concerns of rural consciousness in the United States”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0962629822000725 5. 📄 Brown & Mettler, “Rural politics in the United States”https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-040623-114017 6. 📄 Brown & Mettler, “Sequential polarization: The development of the rural-urban political divide, 1976–2020”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/sequential-polarization-the-development-of-the-ruralurban-political-divide-19762020/ED2077E0263BC149FED8538CD9B27109 7. 🌐 Quick article summarizing some empirical trends between population density and vote sharehttps://stanfordmag.org/contents/the-urban-rural-divide 8. 📄 Kaufman, “Where are the values voters? Ideological constraint and stability among rural, suburban, and urban populations in the United States”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0743016721003259 📊 a. Relatedly, here’s a research report that underscores that urban, suburban, and rural areas are by no means monoliths https://globalaffairs.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/report_urban-rural-divide-us-foreign-policy_170524.pdf 📈 b. And here’s a Pew survey with similar findings https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/what-unites-and-divides-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ 9. 🤝 Braver Angels is an example of an organization working to increase conversations across political differences, including between urban and rural Americanshttps://braverangels.org 10. 📚 Lorrie Frasure-Yokley, Racial and ethnic politics in American suburbs (we touched on these themes a bit in our discussion of the suburbs, but certainly much more to cover in future episodes about racial and ethnic politics!)https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/racial-and-ethnic-politics-in-american-suburbs/8E23703D5C1E6DDA8D7AB7609C6C0E9F 🎤 a. Separately, here’s an interesting interview with Lorrie about the need for more high-quality data for research on this topic! https://politicalsciencenow.com/ucla-associate-professor-of-political-science-lorrie-frasure-yokley-shares-her-experiences-as-a-political-scientist-and-apsa-member/ 🏙️ b. For more on suburbs if you’re interested: Thomas Vicino is another political scientist whose body of research on the suburbs may be of interest, particularly his recent, “In what sense a post-suburban era?” in The Routledge Companion to the Suburbs https://thomasjvicino.com/research https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/89019656/9781315266442-4-libre.pdf

Alliances with Prof Paul Poast | S01E14 | Political Reality 08.04.2026 54min

1. 📄 Downs et al. (2009), “Is the good news about compliance good news about cooperation?”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/is-the-good-news-about-compliance-good-news-about-cooperation/636DE333F8E1EC944825DDBFD81BE294 2. 📄 Von Stein (2005), “Do treaties constrain or screen? Selection bias and treaty compliance”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/do-treaties-constrain-or-screen-selection-bias-and-treaty-compliance/99619F321DE63766D626E19155D69C35 3. 📄 Morrow (2000), “Alliances: Why write them down?”https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.polisci.3.1.63 4. 🌍 Wendt (1992), “Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics”https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706858 🧠 a. Brief description of constructivism https://www.e-ir.info/2020/05/19/a-brief-overview-of-alexander-wendts-constructivism/ 🤓 b. What’s that? You wanted even more on constructivism? https://institutes.abu.edu.ng/idr/public/assets/docs/Constructivism%20and%20International%20Relations%20%20Alexander%20Wendt%20and%20his%20Critics%20(The%20New%20International%20Relations)%20(%20PDFDrive%20).pdf 5. 📊 Major dataset on military alliances by Prof. Brett Ashley Leeds (whose work we also discussed)http://www.atopdata.orghttps://leeds.rice.edu/research/ 6. 📰 Paul’s weekly columns for the World Politics Reviewhttps://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/author/paul-poast-2920/ 7. 📚 One of Paul’s (several, excellent) books, Arguing about Allianceshttps://www.paulpoast.com/arguing-about-alliances 8. 🌐 Recent-ish article in the Atlantic by Paul, “Not a world war but a world at war” (we didn’t talk about this specifically in the episode, but it’s a great writeup)https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/11/conflicts-around-the-world-peak/676029/ 9. 🔗 Paul’s websitehttps://www.paulpoast.com/ 10. 💼 Follow Paul on LinkedIn – he posts regular commentary on international relations events as they unfoldhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-poast-83550b79/https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7446569050081710080/?originTrackingId=bnCSJxFBZsvkuC7Xqvk9nw%3D%3D

PREVIEW: What does it take to change a mind | Political Reality | S01E13 02.04.2026 10min

1. 🚪 Broockman and Kalla, “Durably reducing transphobia: A field experiment on door-to-door canvassing” (the excellent paper that’s a great model for field experiments on this topic)https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aad9713 🧠 a. In general, Joshua Kalla and David Broockman’s work (joint and separate) is worth checking out, both on political persuasion and other topics (mostly connected to political attitudes one way or another). https://joshuakalla.com/research/ https://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/person/david-edward-broockman 🧪 b. I particularly recommend their work as great examples of using experiments in political science 👂 c. Some of the remaining open questions about the role of listening in political persuasion conversations are discussed thoughtfully here. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2421982122 2. ⚠️ The retracted paper we mentioned and a brief article about the retraction. Even more gory details about the retraction. 📄 Paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1256151 📰 Article: https://www.science.org/content/article/science-retracts-gay-marriage-paper-without-agreement-lead-author-lacour 🔍 More details: https://retractionwatch.com/2025/06/06/same-sex-marriage-retraction-political-science-study-lacour-green-broockman-kalla/ 📚 a. The more senior coauthor on the retracted paper is quite prolific on persuasion specifically in the context of political campaigns and also recently in the context of AI; his other work has not been retracted as far as we know! https://donaldgreen.com 3. 📊 A comprehensive recent overview of the state of the research on persuasion, including what we don’t know and why some of the pieces don’t quite fit together stillhttps://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051120-110428 4. 🌱 Broader, more background review paper on where political preferences come from in the first place and what affects them. (We didn’t talk about this specifically, I just think it’s interesting and helpful — and reflects earlier thinking that shaped much of the more recent research.)https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.polisci.3.1.1 5. 💻 Experiment on reducing antisemitism, measured in terms of online browsing behavior after an interventionhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-experimental-political-science/article/combating-hateful-attitudes-and-online-browsing-behavior-the-case-of-antisemitism/05E860416F9D0B7EFEFA0AABDB88C33D 6. 📰 We may have cited him in other episodes, but Adam Berinsky’s work on combatting misinformation is always in the background whenever we talk about media, misinformation, social media, changing minds – anything along that theme – and is always worth a look.https://berinsky.mit.edu/published-papers/#overlay-context=research

The SAVE act, Voter ID laws, and turnout in America | Political Reality | S01E12 25.03.2026 36min

https://politicalrealitypodcast.com Show Notes for Voter ID Ep. 📄 Riker and Ordeshook, “A Theory of the Calculus of Voting” (paper where the key equation came from):https://www.jstor.org/stable/1953324 ⚡ World’s briefest summary of the above:https://adambrown.info/p/notes/riker_and_ordeshook_a_theory_of_the_calculus_of_voting 📊 Meta-study of papers that built from this earlier work (alas, it’s behind a paywall, I’m sorry):https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379412001527 📚 “Classic” (2008 lol cry) review of research on convenience voting:https://www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fulltext/pl/11/1/annurev.polisci.11.053006.190912.pdf?expires=1774472398&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=4CCCEB2034EED20DCF150C7F87AD6286 ➕ plus some specific papers (there are lots more out there but this is a decent start): 🧠 People with greater political knowledge are more likely to use convenience voting: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17457289.2020.1814308 ⚖️ Convenience voting can exacerbate socioeconomic biases in composition of voters: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.mit.edu/dist/9/583/files/2026/01/perverseconsequences_2005.pdf 📬 Voting by mail increases turnout but does so differently across groups: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.mit.edu/dist/9/583/files/2026/01/whovotesbymail_2001.pdf 🏛️ Background on the SAVE act: 🔎 https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/five-things-to-know-about-the-save-act/ 📰 https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/9-things-to-know-about-the-proposed-save-america-act ⚠️ https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/new-save-act-bills-would-still-block-millions-americans-voting 📜 The SAVE act itself:https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text 🗺️ Voter ID laws by state:https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state ⚖️ Discussion of the constitutionality and legality of the SAVE act:https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/03/the-supreme-court-and-voting-identification/ 💸 Discussion of the poll tax issue regarding the SAVE act:https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5757040-save-act-voter-id-debate/

PREVIEW: Gerrymandering: Mutually Artificial Democracy | Political Reality | S01E11 18.03.2026 10min

Show Notes Coming Soon

Cutting through the fog of war in Iran | Political Reality | S01E10 12.03.2026 52min

📰 Reporting on extent to which 2025 US strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckglxwp5x03o ⚛️ Details about Iran’s uranium enriched to 60%: https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2026-03/us-war-iran-new-and-lingering-nuclear-risks 📄 March 2026 Congressional report about Iran’s nuclear capabilities: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12665 ☢️ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reporting on Iran’s nuclear activities and uranium stockpiles: https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iran/iaea-and-iran-iaea-board-reports 🛰️ Satellite imagery of the Feb. 28, 2026, school strike in Iran: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/world/middleeast/iran-school-us-strikes-naval-base.html 🚀 Evidence that the school was struck by a US Tomahawk cruise missile: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/world/middleeast/iran-minab-school-strike.html 📺 Reporter Jeremy Vine correcting himself about the dancing video: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tv/article-15616555/jeremy-vine-alan-partridge-iran-blunder-channel-5.html 🤖 Examples of AI-generated war videos and photos: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg8wvz427vo 🐦 Example of a “shallowfake” posted on X: https://x.com/TehranTimes79/status/2027766149862117731? 🎬 Examples of “hype” videos shared by the US government: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/07/trump-iran-hype-videos 🔍 BBC verify: https://www.bbc.com/news/bbcverify

PREVIEW: Which came first? The Media or The Message | Media Divides | S01E09 04.03.2026 9min

Full info on https://www.patreon.com/posts/152180612

How Parties Learn... if at all with Prof. Seth Masket | Political Reality | S01E08 26.02.2026 41min

More about Seth & his work: https://www.sethmasket.com Seth’s book Learning from Loss: The Democrats 2016-2020 Preview of Seth’s new book (coming summer 2026): The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders Subscribe to his (excellent) Substack, Tusk Follow him on Instagram and Bluesky (he’s @smotus most places)

PREVIEW: Can we vote our way out of this? | Voting Systems | S01E07 | Political Reality 18.02.2026 9min

Full Episode https://www.patreon.com/posts/can-we-vote-our-151099132 https://patreon.com/politicalreality Further Reading & Resources on Voting Theory 📘 1. Kenneth Arrow's amazing 1951 book, Social Choice and Individual Values: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300179316/social-choice-and-individual-values/ a. A good writeup of the basics of the math if you don't want to buy a book: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arrows-theorem/ 🧠 2. Arrow's 1950 paper introducing the idea (this paper is magnificent and you simply must read it): https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/256963 a. Non-paywalled version: https://www.stat.uchicago.edu/~lekheng/meetings/mathofranking/ref/arrow.pdf 🔄 3. A nice primer on Condorcet's Paradox: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/14-75-political-economy-and-economic-development-fall-2012/a9fd8e5ab75a325016094e6bbe625b2a_MIT14_75F12_Lec12.pdf a. Even more on the math of voting systems: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voting-methods/ 🗳️ 4. Early work on approval voting by Steve Brams, a leading thinker on it: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/approval-voting/7CE5DEEE235794B0B12F76ADAE621482 a. Video of Brams talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZiS3U7EG0M b. Uh oh! It's a video from forever ago of Andrea interviewing Brams about approval voting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAlxoW8WLX4 🏛️ 5. Some prominent advocacy groups on voting system reform: a. Approval voting: https://electionscience.org/ b. Ranked-choice voting: https://fairvote.org/ 🎓 6. Political science professor Lindsey Cormack speaking (admittedly briefly in these clips) about some tradeoffs around Ranked-Choice Voting (sneak preview, she'll be a guest on the show in the not-so-distant future; her instagram @howtoraiseacitizen is also a great resource on civics, politics, and current events (e.g., the SAVE act; more on that soon, too)): a. https://www.instagram.com/p/DLGXzYVMOyX/?hl=en b. https://www.instagram.com/p/DLPkrogss5K/?hl=en

Fascism comes to America, it is wrapped in the flag w/ Prof. Tom Pepinsky | S01E06 12.02.2026 1t 9min

https://politicalrealitypodcast.com Follow Tom: Tom Pepinsky’s website with links to his research & books: https://tompepinsky.com Tom’s blog: https://tompepinsky.com/blog His substack: https://tompepinsky.substack.com/ Selected books and peer-reviewed works by Tom relevant to this episode: Recent paper on authoritarianism: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13510347.2020.1775589 Recent paper on voting in authoritarian vs. democratic systems: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/voting-in-authoritarian-elections/1C066CD75F6F070930181135B288F632 Book on global challenges to democracy: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/global-challenges-to-democracy/C50D0AC769FF0AA2C62DA9337F2C03E6 Covid paper we briefly referenced: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249596 Book based on his research on partisanship and Covid: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691218991/pandemic-politics Selected essays by Tom relevant to this episode: Preventing a slide into authoritarianism in the US: https://www.vox.com/politics/477317/donald-trumps-ego-democracy-authoritarianism Crucial characteristics of fascism: https://tompepinsky.com/2017/01/03/berman-on-fascism/ An absolutely fantastic “mini syllabus” on how to make sense of the Trump administration through a comparative political science lens: https://tompepinsky.com/2016/12/21/comparative-politics-and-the-trump-administration/ US’s lost leadership in East Asia: https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/11/02/a-united-states-that-is-disintegrating-and-no-longer-a-leader-in-asia/ Life in authoritarian states: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/9/14207302/authoritarian-states-boring-tolerable-fascism-trump Working papers by Tom relevant to this episode: Democratic backsliding: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5363315 Biased learning from elections: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/q9zpm_v2 Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism

PREVIEW: Is Polarization actually a problem? | Political Reality | S01E05 04.02.2026 9min

Full Audio episode available on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/posts/is-polarization-149962215 Full Video episode available on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/posts/149974348 Many of the empirical trends mentioned come from the (still a favorite!) American National Election Studies dataset: Party identity (including strength of party identity) Affective polarization (specifically shown here as the gap between attitudes towards in-group and out-group ideologies) Trust in government index Public opinion on LGBTQ laws Public opinion on abortion Public opinion on government spending The observation of “party sorting” was initially made by political scientists Morris Fiorina. It’s most extensively written about in his book Unstable Majorities, but you can read some other writings here and here. For further reading, see also Matthew Levendusky’s book The Partisan Sort A fantastic overview of the research on affective polarization is in this review article An interesting example of a recent application of using affective polarization to make sense of public opinion during Covid is here (we didn’t reference it; I just think it’s cool — and it’s a preview of our guest for the next episode!). I also wrote about all this in The Daily Beast, though I did not write the headline and would never actually sound that confident about anything.