One Nation, Two Realities

Abstract

Abstract Is climate change real? Does racism still determine who gets ahead? Is sexuality innate? Do immigration and free trade help or hurt the economy? Does gun control reduce violence? Are false convictions common? On these and many other basic questions of fact, Americans are deeply divided. How did this happen? What does it mean? And is there anything we can do about it? Drawing upon several years of original survey data and experiments, Marietta and Barker reach a number of enlightening and provocative conclusions. Among them is that dueling fact perceptions are not so much a result of hyper-partisanship or media propaganda as they are of simple value differences and deepening distrust of authorities. The educated—on both the Left and Right—carry the biggest guns and are the quickest to draw. These duels foster social contempt—even in the workplace—and they warp the electorate. And finally, the remedies that have been proposed don’t seem to holster many weapons; in fact, they add bullets to the chamber in some cases. Marietta and Barker’s pessimistic conclusions will challenge idealistic reformers.

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