Red America vs. Blue America: Is This Really What We Want? (w/Robert Talisse)
Published on Jan 31, 2025, 12:00:00 AM
Total time: 00:44:27
Published on Jan 31, 2025, 12:00:00 AM
Total time: 00:44:27
America is separating into two nations with two different experiences of reality itself: Red America and Blue America.
As Robert Talisse, Vanderbilt University political theorist and today’s Utterly Moderate podcast guest, writes:
“[O]ur everyday social environments are increasingly segregated along partisan lines. It is no exaggeration to say that in the United States today, opposing partisans live in different social worlds. For example, liberals and conservatives live in different kinds of neighborhoods, shop at different stores, purchase different products, drive different vehicles, express different aesthetic preferences, work in different occupations, and form different kinds of family groups. They eat different foods. They understand words differently and even exhibit different patterns of pronunciation. The familiar narrative of ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states goes far deeper than geography. In the United States today, political affiliation is more of a lifestyle than an outlook on the purposes of government.”
Utterly Moderate host Lawrence Eppard has written about similar phenomena: the increasingly distinct epistemologies of left and right.
On this episode of Utterly Moderate, Eppard and Talisse discuss the troubling state of polarization in America today, and how each of us might better ourselves in order to better our democracy. Enjoy!
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Episode Audio:
The Utterly Moderate Podcast is the official podcast of Connors Institute for Nonpartisan Research and Civic Engagement at Shippensburg University.
The core mission of the Connors Institute is to disseminate high-quality nonpartisan information to the public.
Utterly Moderate is hosted by Lawrence Eppard, a researcher, university professor, and director of the Connors Institute. On each episode, Eppard is joined by a guest (or two or three!) who helps listeners understand important topics by focusing on just the weight of the empirical evidence and none of the unneeded opinions or political agendas. We are aggressively nonpartisan in our approach.
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