Por Wayne Selcher. Conservative politicians and commentators with a wide audience have been encouraging a backlash of populist outrage, anti-intellectualism, mistrust of “experts,” and skepticism of the liberal establishment or privileged entrenched “elites” who are accused of “suppressing the truth” for their own self-interest. This distrust extends to and impacts public policy on election integrity, government trustworthiness and fairness, official corruption, the honesty of the mainstream media, and the relationship between science and public policy (including in public health and climate change), among other basic issues.

Por Wayne Selcher. This malady is so relevant and severe that Pew Research maintains a useful section with its surveys about political polarization in American politics. According to Gallup in January 2023, “Americans’ party preferences were evenly divided in 2022, with 45% of U.S. adults identifying as Republican or saying they were Republican-leaning independents, and 44% identifying as Democrats or saying they were Democratic-leaning independents.” A repudiation of the two-party system is implied in the fact that “since 2009, independent identification has grown and reached levels not seen before. Now, political independents (41%) greatly outnumber Republican (28%) and Democratic (28%) identifiers.” But many of the independents, although often seen as “swing voters,” tend to vote regularly for one party over the other. Each party also has its own internal factions and shifting intra-party coalitions. For example, persons of color who identify as Democrats are more conservative on some key social issues (including immigration, free trade, and abortion) than are the college-educated White liberals in the party.

Em parceria com o Observatório Político dos Estados Unidos (OPEU), o Boletim Lua Nova republica, em cinco partes, a análise do professor Wayne Selcher, de Elizabethtown College, sobre a erosão do consenso democrático nos Estados Unidos. Este texto é o primeiro de uma série para o OPEU sobre as notícias políticas nos Estados Unidos. O texto foi originalmente publicado em 29 de fevereiro de 2024, no site do OPEU.