The Roots of Polarization: From the Racial Realignment to the Culture Wars

A Morse Bookmarks event featuring Neil O'Brian, assistant professor of political science at UO.
Note: audio quality is not up to our usual standards.
In the late twentieth century, gay rights, immigration, gun control, and abortion debates all burst onto the political scene, scrambling the parties and polarizing the electorate. Neil A. O’Brian traces the origins of today’s political divide on these issues to the 1960s when Democrats and Republicans split over civil rights. It was this partisan polarization over race, he argues, that subsequently shaped partisan fault lines on other culture war issues that persist to this day.
Neil O’Brian is an academic expert in U.S. politics with focus on public opinion, political parties and polarization. In May 2024, he was named a 2024 Andrew Carnegie Fellow.

[@Eriugena8]

looking forward to watching this. I recently have thought that the reason China and Russia are getting a lot of bang for their buck in US media, is because our politics have become so apparently simplified.
Our parties are so afraid of the wedge issues, but both are afraid of passing legislation, or even broaching, for instance protections of individuals vis-a-vis corporations, defense industry, special interest lobbies.
makes it easy for foreign analysts, black vs white, literally sometimes.

[@MattLaubach]

Audio is hard to hear. The speaker was not miked properly.

[@WayneMorseCenter]

Unfortunately we only had 10 minutes to set up for this talk, so we did our best!

[@ritornelloandrefrain]

@@WayneMorseCenter And thank you for that.
Very important content that's much appreciated.