The Big Sort Quotes

“As people seek out the social settings they prefer—as they choose the group that makes them feel the most comfortable—the nation grows more politically segregated—and the benefit that ought to come with having a variety of opinions is lost to the righteousness that is the special entitlement of homogeneous groups.”
― Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded American is Tearing Us Apart

“like-minded, homogeneous groups squelch dissent, grow more extreme in their thinking, and ignore evidence that their positions are wrong. As a result, we now live in a giant feedback loop, hearing our own thoughts about what's right and wrong bounced back to us by the television shows we watch, the newspapers and books we read, the blogs we visit online, the sermons we hear, and the neighborhoods we live in.”
― Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded American is Tearing Us Apart

“After a few Republicans on the Houston city council supported the Democratic majority's proposal that stalled cars be towed immediately off the city's notoriously clotted freeways, local Republican officials promised retribution. 'We're not looking for council members who are going to go along and get along,' said Jared Woodfill, chairman of the Harris County Republican Party. 'We're looking for council members who are going to stand up for conservative values.' Surely, political ideology has teetered over some high cliff when towing can be described as a 'value.' What's next, a doctrine of potholes, the water pressure credo?”
― Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart

“Mixed company moderates; like-minded company polarizes. Heterogeneous communities restrain group excesses; homogeneous communities march toward the extremes.”
― Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart

“Majorities have their beliefs reinforced by seeing and hearing their inclinations locally repeated and enhanced. Self-reinforcing majorities grow larger, while isolated and dispirited minorities shrink. Majorities gain confidence in their opinions, which grow more extreme over time. As a result, misunderstanding between Republicans and Democrats grows as they seclude themselves.”
― Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded American is Tearing Us Apart

“Education is presumed to nurture an appreciation of diversity: the more schooling, the greater the respect for works of literature and art, different cultures, and various types of music. Certainly, well-educated Americans see themselves as worldly, nuanced, and comfortable with difference. Education also should make us curious about—even eager to hear—different political points of view. But it doesn’t. The more educated Americans become—and the richer—the less likely they are to discuss politics with those who have different points of view.”
― Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart

“The child-rearing scale also helped explain the steady migration of the white working class away from the Democratic Party. It showed that Evangelicals were largely strict fathers. And in 2004, voters who had attended graduate school had a strict father score on the four-question survey that was only half that of voters who hadn't graduated from high school. "Little wonder our politics today are polarized," Hetherington and Weiler concluded. "The values of Republicans and Democrats are very much at odds. We do not agree about the most fundamental of issues.”
― Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded American is Tearing Us Apart

“Over the last generation, however, these two moral syndromes emerged in families and then sorted into Republican and Democrat. In 1992, there was little difference between the parties on the child-rearing scale. By 2000, the differences were distinct, and by 2004 the gap had grown wide and deep. Answers to questions about child rearing, in fact, provided a better gauge of party affiliation than did income.* The parenting scale was also more closely aligned with "moral issues" than political orientation. Knowing whether a person was a nurturant parent or a strict father provided a better guide to his or her thinking about gay rights than knowing whether he or she was a liberal or a conservative, a Republican or a Democrat.”
― Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded American is Tearing Us Apart