How did Congress get so polarized How did Congress get so polarized? By VIC FAZIO Credentials: Former US congressman, Fazio was a congressional and legislative consultant, He also sits on the Council on American Politics, bringing together leaders from across the nation to address issues facing the growth and enrichment of The Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University. Biases: Democrat – may affect his views “Our society is polarized for many reasons. Increasingly, we tend to live in enclaves of like-minded people. Other factors, like the churches we attend, the media we absorb, our workplace environments and even our schools contribute to a political culture with no center. As a result, redistricting has an easy time hardwiring the brand of representation in a vast majority of seats. And our weakened civic culture has exposed our political system to tremendous volatility in the aftermath of a shattering and lingering economic downturn.” The media is not making it much better either, only focusing on the failure and bashing Washington rather than covering what is truly causing these bills to go through. For instance that some of them truly need long discussions and through thought. It’s not just the parties op[posing eachother, but the public would find failure in Washington more interesting so that’s what the media puts out. This source allows me to argue that the reasons for a polarized congress and America can be attributed to us surrounding ourselves by like minded people, and the media encouraging this polarization and showing the failure in congress. Making the public distrust the process.

The top 10 reasons American politics are so broken By Jonathan Haidt and Sam Abrams Credentials: Jonathan Haidt- He was named one of the "top global thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine,[3] and one of the "top world thinkers" by Prospect magazine. He earned a BA in philosophy from Yale University in 1985, and a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. He then studied cultural psychology at the University of Chicago as a post-doctoral fellow. Sam Abrams- AB, Stanford University. AM, PhD, Harvard University. Research Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Faculty Fellow at Center for Advanced Social Science Research at NYU, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government Program on Inequality and Social Policy and affiliate of Harvard's Canada Program and Institute for Quantitative Social Science. ( undergraduate discipline: Politics) “There was once a time when Republican lawmakers counted a good number of liberals among them, and Democrats enjoyed the membership of many conservatives.” “As the differences between supporters of the two parties became ever more pervasive and ever more visible to the naked eye, it became easier to spot members of the other team and then dislike them for the way they live.” “Ethnic and racial distinctions are far from trivial, and many social scientists have noted that ethnic uniformity makes it easier for groups to reach agreement. The realignment of the parties has led to an increasing division by race, with the Republican Party becoming increasingly white.” “you see that the parties have come to represent not just diverging material interests but different kinds of people with different moral values and ways of living. As these divisions have intensified, Americans have come to hate the other party and its members more and more” “Democrats now really dislike the GOP and the people who support it. Republicans feel the same way about Democrats. The rising cross-partisan hostility injects partisan morality into more and more issues, and it puts pressure on lawmakers to not compromise.” “Successful politicians are often extraordinarily skilled socially, and those skills help in the difficult work of forging compromises. But when politicians don’t get to use those skills, the system breaks down. “ “Now Americans can choose from hundreds of partisan news sources, many of which care more about arousing emotions than hewing to journalistic standards. This proliferation of sources interacts with the most notorious problem in human cognition: the confirmation bias. People rarely seek out evidence on both sides before making a decision on moral and political matters. Rather, they begin with their initial belief and then seek out evidence to confirm it.” “As the costs of campaigns increased, politicians have become increasingly afraid of offending their party’s donors” This source allows me to argue that this increaswd partisanship is due to The two parties purified themselves ideologically, As politicians polarized, so did many Americans, The urban-rural divide grew into a gulf, reflecting diverging interests and values, Immigration was rising, leading to larger racial and ethnic divisions, The net effect of all these trends is that partisans dislike one another more intensely, rule changes and culture changes in Congress made it harder to maintain cross-party friendships, rule changes and culture changes in Congress made it harder to maintain cross-party friendships,As the costs of campaigns increased, politicians have become increasingly afraid of offending their party’s donors,