This article is a few months old now, but I think itās an incredibly important area of research and something that explains a lot of why America is like it is and how red states stay red.
Excerpt,
A study I co-authored with fellow researcher Kevin Morris, published in December in the American Political Science Review, finds that traffic stops by police stops in Hillsborough County reduced voter turnout in 2014, 2016, and 2018 federal elections.
Our study compared the voter turnout of Hillsborough motorists who were stopped by police shortly before and after each election. Drawing on information about each personās turnout in past cycles, we found that these stops reduced the likelihood that a stopped individual turned out to vote by 1.8 percentage points on average. The effect held when accounting for characteristics like race, gender, party affiliation, past turnout, and prior traffic stops to improve our comparisons. The discouraging effect of stops was slightly higher in 2014 and 2018.
These results make clear that the collateral consequences of policingāincluding worsening outcomes for economic security, educational attainment, and healthāalso extend to political participation. If the communities who are most frequently subjected to policing are also discouraged from voting as a result, it could create a vicious feedback loop of political withdrawal.
Why would traffic stops make people less likely to show up to the polls? Past research has already established that the most disruptive forms of criminal legal contact, like arrest and incarceration, discourage people from voting. Our study shows that low-level police contact matters in the same way. If a traffic stop makes a motorist fear that the government will harm them, it can prompt a withdrawal from civic life that political scientists call āstrategic retreat.ā Motorists might worry that a routine traffic stop could escalate into police violence, a more common outcome for Black people in particular. Beyond justified fears of violent victimization, voters might also bristle at the perception of being targeted to raise revenue through excessive ticketing. Accordingly, if incarceration āteachesā would-be voters that their government is an alienating and harmful force in their lives, traffic stops could catalyze a similar form of ālearning.ā
Full study is available here, and hereās an archived thread from a dumb website where one of the research study authors answered questions.
The issue with the word fascism is that it only pertains to right leaning ideologies according to the dictionary definition. This provides liberal extremists a safe haven from negative labels as they feel free to force their views and silence opposition, which ironically seems to be what the definition of fascism SHOULD be, regardless of party
Leftists have a term for thatāred fascism. (Though plenty of people just use the left/right blind āauthoritarianism.ā) Also, I think you mean āleft extremistsā not āliberal extremists.ā āLiberals,ā in the American sense at least, are not left, and therefore couldnāt be the left counterpart to fascism. Plus, I donāt see Stalinism sweeping the globe, so I donāt see the need for equivalent terms.
Fascismās definition comes from its origins. Mussoliniās and Hitlerās parties were fundamentally right-wing, and so are their ideological descendents. Whether or not you like that, itās true.
In what ways were they right wing? I guess you donāt need to answer that, I can do my own research. Just seems like taking away guns and using propaganda to put everyone against a particular group seems like what the left is wanting to do in America today.
Modern day leftists are very āif youāre not with us, youāre against usā, and āanyone who is against us is anti-human and a stain on societyā.
All it takes is more time for the division to escalate and I could see Republican views being considered terrorism and grounds for going into a prison camp
Since sending you off to Google āown the libs fascismā wonāt do very much: The fourteen major elements of fascism identified by Umberto Eco in Ur-Fascism are here: https://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html Not sure how anyone could possibly misunderstand it being right wing. Was it the adherence to strict binary gender roles or the contempt for weakness that made you think it was leftist? /s
If you have a commonly accepted comprehensive definition of fascism you prefer, present it and we can discuss. Otherwise, hereās your answer.
Wow, maybe if I had read āOn Tyranny,ā by Timothy Snyder. Or āUr Fascism,ā by Umberto Eco, Iād know that left wing authoritarians share traits with the far right.