Uncivil Agreement Quotes

“Plenty of racial and anticommunist animosity existed, but these did not perfectly match partisan lines. Voters, therefore, could engage in social prejudice and vitriol, but this was decoupled from their political choices.”
― Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

“They sorted television programs by how popular they were with members of each party, listing the top twenty shows for Democratic and Republican viewers. Not a single network show appeared on both”
― Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

“The chief oppositions which occur in society are between individuals, sexes, ages, races, nationalities, sections, classes, political parties and religious sects. Several such may be in full swing at the same time, but the more numerous they are the less menacing is any one. Every species of conflict interferes with every other species in society at the same time, save only when their lines of cleavage coincide; in which case they reinforce one another. . . . A society, therefore, which is riven by a dozen oppositions along lines running in every direction, may actually be in less danger of being torn with violence or falling to pieces than one split along just one line. —Edward Alsworth Ross, The Principles of Sociology”
― Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

“The privileging of victory over the greater good is a natural outcome of even the most meaningless group label.”
― Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

“In 1944, Paul Lazarsfeld and his colleagues and, in 1960, Angus Campbell and his colleagues suggested that partisans who identify with groups associated with the opposing party would be less likely to vote (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1944; Campbell et al. 1960). Lipset ([1960] 1963) went so far as to call these cross-pressured voters “politically impotent,” suggesting that “the more pressures brought to bear on individuals or groups which operate in opposing directions, the more likely are prospective voters to withdraw from the situation by ‘losing interest’ and not making a choice” (211).”
― Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

“Robert Kagan, a prominent neoconservative, wrote in spring 2016, “Here is the other threat to liberty that Alexis de Tocqueville and the ancient philosophers warned about: that the people in a democracy, excited, angry and unconstrained, might run roughshod over even the institutions created to preserve their freedoms”
― Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

“More often than not, citizens do not choose which party to support based on policy opinion; they alter their policy opinion according to which party they support.”
― Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity