As someone who didn’t have much understanding about how the polarization between the two political parties occurred, I found this rose cafe seminar to be very helpful and informative. I found it shocking that the polarization of the two parties really emerged after the civil right act when people believed that there had to be a greater divide between the two parties. They had to better represent the beliefs of the American people. Also, I found it shocking that both the democratic and republican parties found themselves more to the far right and the far left when compared to other parties around the world. The polarization continues to progress with our current president and other political campaigns dividing the two parties more and more. I found it really fascinating that we are currently in a very detrimental political climate, but yet it seems like when I am with my friends we very rarely bring up conversations about politics. I always wondered as to what the reason for this was. I didn’t know if it was because everyone understands that political decisions just end up becoming very heated and since we all have to deal with stressful academic life, we don’t want to add more stress onto that with decisions on politics

Democracy constitutes itself on its own fragility: opening itself up towards the infinite threat of destruction that begins from within. Indeed, the greatest destructive forces are opened up by its very protection of its greatest values. While this paradoxical movement of democracy has rendered it a question with which philosophy continually engages, it certainly applies more broadly to our own political period of increased polarization (i.e., we often value free speech until it begins to discord with our beliefs). Most of the questions polarizing us most stem from how we can attend to the responsibility to preserve our democracy (as in where we locate the possibility of a “corruption”, a “contamination”, a “disruption”). It is striking how easily forgettable this point becomes in periods of high polarization. All arguments are reversible (whether we buy into its opposite or not). Nonetheless, it was really quite valuable to revisit questions of political campaigning, the role of social media and fallacious advertisements, and issues of gerrymandering. I was left with a few questions (To what degree do discussions of political campaigning and electioneering reassert groups of minorities as monolithic?), this was definitely a valuable discussion.

At this point in time, politics have become an unavoidable topic, so it’s important to learn how to properly discuss politics with others, particularly those with opposing viewpoints. Politics have become more polarized as time has gone on. I remember talking to my mom about polarization over the summer, and she mentioned that it’s much harder to talk about politics without starting a fight nowadays. When she was younger, families could have differing viewpoints, discuss them, and move on. However, it seems that now differing viewpoints tend to cause rifts in families more often than not. While in some cases these disagreements are completely justifiable because someone holds a viewpoint that is morally wrong (i.e. believing that one person deserves less respect and rights than others due to their skin color), there are also cases in which both parties refuse to civilly discuss a matter that should be discussed. It’s important for people to learn how to properly talk and listen to others in order for us to overcome political polarization. I remember listening to an NPR podcast where the host described a method of talking to people with differing views. Essentially, the goal is to explain your beliefs and values in terms of their beliefs and values. For example, instead of saying that you care about the environment because you think it’s important to take care of the earth and that it’s morally wrong to destroy the environment you might explain that you care about the environment because you care about your country and want to keep it beautiful and pristine for visitors and oncoming generations. While the host mentioned that there are times in which this method shouldn’t be used, such as when discussing racism or other objectively wrong problems, I think that this is a valuable method for everyone to learn in order to overcome polarization.

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to sit in on an intellectually stimulating conversation with Professor Kenneth Roberts as we discussed how to overcome polarization in America. He took us through the historical voting patterns of Republicans and Democrats, and surprisingly, Dems and Repubs have not always voted so unilaterally in the past. Another fact that he shared that was particularly troubling was the idea of “sports team” politics, in which many people have more hate for the opposite party than they have a love for their own party. Roberts then opened up the conversation, inviting us to talk about our experience with political polarization and how Americans or us, personally, can go about lessening this abhorrence that both parties seem to have for each other. One woman shared her experience, stating that when she was younger, during the holidays her family would fight with each other over their different political views, but now, her family doesn’t even discuss such views at all. I agreed with her in the respect that because politics has the ability to be a controversial topic, many people don’t have the desire to approach the topic in the first place. I, however, think it’s important to talk to people about different political views, as I think it would help us to understand that those who think differently than us are not necessarily “bad people.” Just last summer we learned that our close family friends had voted for President Trump of whom we are not supporters. Although that was a subject of contention for a brief moment, we didn’t cease being friends, and I think it helped to open both of our different perceptions.

We were given a presentation about what else beyond just hacking and cyber attacks, two sort of buzzwords about technology and elections that breaks down our faith in the basic reliability in the voting process, that we should be worried about.  The event, Polarization in American Democracy brought to the fore a more basic premise that we citizens should be concerned about in terms of national elections.  Both hacking and cybersercurity, while a priority to beware of to instill voter trust in elections, is not the top priority.  Whateverwe believe our votes are going to count has been an ongoing struggle.  We have seen this struggle in court cases and local corruption all throughout the seventieth and into the twenty-first century.  Rather, the speakers argued that we need to think about the process of election administration.  Of course, there is the need to maintain the security of the vote.  Of course, after the elections of 2000, and the national attention of creating conditions to secure and make more consistent the mediums to vote, the election administration that regards this point has been understandably improved.  The speakers argued that there are threats to our trust in the voting system that extend beyond just cybersercurity.  Therefore, the question being asked today and given threats of cybersecurity is what does it take to secure an election againstforeign threats.  Because of the threat, social media is now in play in a way that it had not been before, the spread of information, of election fraud of ways to motivate distrust in the voting system strike at the heart of the administration of a fair elections.  Therefore, what the MIT-Caltech project did was try to figure out what would it require for us to think that a fair election was conducted.  Much of the work over the years that they have completed had to do with the aftermath of the 2000 elections and the lost votes given long lines, absentee ballots and folks feeling as though their votes would not count.  All told this cost the election two to four million votes in 2000, and the need therefore to address these three issues is paramount going into this next presidential election season.

Last Wednesday I was able to attend the rose cafe event on Overcoming Polarization in American Democracy. This was a very interesting talk about how political positions have continued to grow further and further apart to the point at where we are today which is highly polarized  and not at all productive. I think that what shocked me most about some of the information given was that we hadn’t turly had a left candidate or even party until Bernie Sanders came into the picture. Now I was never a Hillary Clinton fan, frankly the 2016 election was a trainwreck to say the least because both candidates were just not cutting it. Hillary had many other corruption matters (besides the email which were always highlighted for some reason) such as the matter surrounding a supposed rigging of the primary against Bernie. Trump was racist and a child. There was no good choice. But everyone always saw it as a far right, far left election when in reality (and even with Obama), when compared to the world these two parties were on the SAME side of the spectrum. This just shows how despite the way the media paints either party perhaps there isn’t much of difference between moderate candidates (Hillary and Biden now) and Republicans. I think this is a very important point for this upcoming election because we don’t want to make the same mistake again such as making Biden the nominee.

Furthermore, something else I think is extremely important in the conversations of today and in understanding why there is such a polarization in the country is the fact that many choose to inform themselves in perhaps the most close-minded way possible. Some people just watch Fox News and others just was CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc. This is highly unheathly and frankly it isn’t much informative. These main media sources have become propaganda sources that don’t really inform (and if they do they mislead with choice of words) but rather just give opinion and paint it as fact. This is not the way it should be. We should inform ourselves with both, not matter how irritating either might be and even more so we should look at it from an outside perspective as well. I watch RT News, which has gotten so much heat here for absolutely no reason. The media have said it is Russian propaganda and have smeared RT in a very misinformative way. In fact, I started watching RT News because I saw how many were hating on it which seemed suspicious to me. I will say that RT is perhaps the most unbiased and objective news source that I have come across. They give me the facts and JUST the facts, they don’t twist it in any way and this is perhaps why they are being hated on. The lies spread by the United States and other countries are called out on RT whereas silence or neglect are found in the other news sources.

I think the way one chooses to inform themselves says a lot about how they view the world. Being more open-minded in the way I inform myself has allowed me to hold conversations with people I don’t agree with in a peaceful and respectful manner. You must stay true to yourself and your beliefs but your beliefs shouldn’t invalidate others. Even more so, we must be factually prepared to talk about stuff, people nowadays see one news article (and perhaps don’t even read it) and then use that as their fact or arguement. People NEED to fully inform themselves on a topic (or at least enough to fathom credibility) to be able to have an insightful conversation about it.  Now of course, there are times where things are unacceptable such as with racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and others. No one should stay quiet with these but when gun control is the topic or maybe even abortion to some extent then we must listen because we will not be able to reach any consensus that moves us forward without respectful conversation.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a Rose Café session on the American political scene and how polarized the political parties have become in recent years. It was exciting to hear about something that I had always wondered about: the stances of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are so different now from the past, as party ideologies have shifted and people have consequently moved around from supporting one party to the other. The Republican Party used to be the party that originally stood by abolishing slavery, and the Democratic Party stood by beliefs of the “common man” and slavery. Economic politics from the past still mirror current beliefs, while the Republicans used to be much more socially liberal and the Democrats were economically liberal but socially conservative. These notions began to slowly change and supporters slowly moved from one political party to the other over time, as the Republican Party became much more socially conservative as well. I have read a book on how the Republican Party is much more polarized than the Democratic Party, and that many republican supporters tend to live in the suburbs and are consequently uneducated. It is amazing that these generalizations even exist in such a geographically diverse (and large scale) nation like the United States. From my perspective, it is highly disappointing that parties feel the obligation to stand in more polarizing stances because of how that is the only way to take in the “ultra-right wing” or “ultra-left wing” voter; most voters indeed remain neutral, just like how the political parties were back in the day. Getting the opportunity to hear about the political scene in the United States is a great way for all Cornell students to get a better understanding of America and its culture, no matter what discipline we study. I am looking forward to more of these opportunities in the future.

What is polarization? It is the splitting of ideas and ways of thinking.

During Rose Café in Professor Avery’s apartment, I had the chance to engage in a discussion and presentation about the state of democracy in America. We learned about the way that America’s democracy is becoming more and more divisive. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Americans tend to have stronger negative opinions about the opposing political party than positive feelings towards their own. This polarization has increased over time, and there are many factors contributing to it, such as news outlets and social media.

However, what I found most fascinating was that we had an engaging discussion together about what is tearing citizens apart politically. Together, we discussed causes of the problem and contributing factors. Together, we discussed examples prevalent in our world today. Together, we discussed possible solutions and suggestions for the future. Together certainly is greater than separate and through learning about our differences, I most importantly learned about the power of coming together.

Sitting down in Prof. Avery’s apartment I learnt much about American politics and the polarization that is occurring. As an Information Science student I am extremely interested in the effects of social media in polarizing American Politics.

A few hours before this talk, Twitter announced that they would ban all political advertisements. This action came after what all is happening with Facebook. Though the action by Twitter is radical, I do not know if it will be able to reduce American polarization. I believe that there needs to be a wide-spread active force to remove polarization from the community to make change. Although Twitter’s action are a move towards the positive we need more platforms to join the force to decrease polarization.

I was very interested in the Rose Cafe event I attended regarding polarization in U.S democracy. I feel as if it is easy for the general assumption about democracy to be that of equivocal fairness and collaboration. However, there are evident trends in the history of political stratification that prove otherwise. Particularly, based upon assessments made in the past, both Republicans and Democrats alike believe that the other “side” is fairly incompetent and even perhaps lazy (the perception widely held by Republicans against Democrats). Additionally, I was certainly surprised to learn about some of the statistics that were presented at this talk, especially those relating to political and racial differences. Specifically, I had not known that the liberal/democratic vote has not been largely constituted of whites in many years. Furthermore, it was also interesting to study the wide range of political views encompassed by radical and liberal thought, as there is a much more versatile spectrum than just the separation between Republican and Democratic ideology.

Growing up, I always found it a bit awkward seeing some of my close friends’ houses have political signs that differed from my house. At home, my parents would talk about how ridiculous the other party was.  I never brought up politics at my friends’ houses because I knew that it might bring up unnecessary conflict. Political discussion can be almost impossible, unless you are discussing politics with people that hold the same belief as you. From Professor Robert’s discussion, the survey he displayed showed that many Americans from each party (Republican and Democratic), found the other party “immoral” and “unintelligent”. I have observed that many people refuse to listen to other political ideologies or will simply see other beliefs as “wrong”. This attitude is an extremely big problem as it causes many Americans to only listen to certain news sources that are heavily biased. More importantly, however, this attitude prevents people from forming their own opinions, which creates a mob mentality.  To move forward,  it is necessary that people take an effort to educate themselves on other beliefs. I admit that it is very hard sometimes to listen to some of my relatives’ political beliefs, but making an effort to understand each side will help reduce the political polarization that is dividing America.

On Wednesday, I was fortunate enough to attend an event with Professor Ken Roberts to speak about the polarization of American Democracy. Being an engineer, it’s very hard for me to participate in such discussions about politics, history, etc. So, it was so nice to take a break and take it back to my high school history knowledge. Professor Roberts had many interesting points and graphs on his slideshow. In particular, the geographic separation of the democratic and republican parties was interesting. The fact that most republicans were in rural areas and democrats were in urban areas brings out many interesting debates. The electoral college debate was hit most by this figure. This map and the fact that during the 2016 election the popular vote was won by the democratic party. This may be considered a major flaw in the election process due to the overrepresentation of many states. Towards the end of the event, we discussed about how social media and technology has been affecting politics. As a Computer Science major, you wouldn’t think your actions could be directly tied to politics. However, through apps and social media platforms, politics is promoted and discussed widely on these platforms. Actually, Twitter had announced its ban on political advertisements on its platform that day. Once again, it was amazing to branch out of my strict science and math curriculum to discuss history and politics with a renowned professor.

In Wednesday’s Rose Café, we met Professor Kenneth Roberts, who teaches government here at Cornell, and discussed some very troubling developments regarding partisanship in America. For starters, we learned that even though many Americans only loosely affiliate with the party they vote for, they harbor deep antipathy towards the other party; voters are not being driven by their support for one party, but their disdain for another. This is compounded by the fact that a vast swath of the electorate believes that the other party is “a threat to the well-being of the country.” Partisanship amongst the people has and will continue to create a more partisan government, which prevents us from addressing many of the complex social problems Americans currently face.

We also discussed many of the causes of polarization, from primary elections to gerrymandering to partisan media. This was especially important, because if we want to solve a problem, we need to determine how it came to be. With this knowledge, we can act according to the exact nature of the problem in order to find a solution.

Today at professor Roberts’ talk about political divides, it reminded me a great deal of my background before coming to Cornell and the back and forth I participated in back in high school. Back in my hometown, I took a lot of political theory and political science classes. In one of these classes, we had a strong partisan divide, representative of the county I lived in. In the 2016 election, Suffolk County voted 55%-45% in favor of Trump and when he won the election, people came into class with Trump banners and celebrated the next day, yet, just as many came in crying. Leading up to, and for months after, the election, the class had two extremely strong democratic and two even stronger republican viewpoints constantly duking it out in class. Their debates would get so fiery that they eventually had such a disparity in views that they started attacking each other in class for non-political reasons. I hope to learn how to bridge their ever-increasingly radical viewpoints to come to a moderate compromise and prevent this extremely superfluous, uncalled for conflict.

With this lack of cohesiveness in my past  political settings, I am still not used to the idea of everyone having such a similar, liberal perspective on life and politics here at Cornell. With the lack of conflicting views marking a lack of differentiation and political conflict on campus, I found it so interesting that such a small percentage of people here have not experienced the world I did back in high school. While I believe in a healthy political debate, the ability to have a much more controlled environment with such a homogeneous population has its vast amount of benefits too. Whenever I notice political debate and forum in my classes, they end as quickly as they begin, with near-complete agreement on the idea of increased diversity, healthcare and other liberal policies needed to be further incorporated.

I attended this week’s house talk titled, “Overcoming Polarization in American Democracy”. Personally, I’m not big into politics and I often shy away from the subject. It was really interesting to learn how the two main political parties (republicans and democrats) have grown increasingly distant over the past couple centuries. In the 1800s, history shows that democrats and republicans were somewhat closer in their partisan, ideological and cultural identities. To some extent, they even overlapped. Today we saw that the republican party has veered off to the right side of the spectrum much, much more than the democratic party has veered off to the left. Being born in 2000, I’ve been surrounded with technology all of my life. The internet, laptops, phones, televisions, and every other piece of internet connected technology has the potential to influence us in several different ways. I think that it’s very easy to surround yourself with like-minded people, especially with the internet. Being able to associate oneself with a particular group brings a sense of belonging. Further than that, it’s very easy to propagate ideas within a group against other groups. This may be a reason why we’ve seen so much animosity between democrats and republicans. Technology has such a huge impact on us these days that sometimes we don’t even think about it, but we should definitely be more cognizant or we might blindly follow these influences.