Welcome to this throwback edition of the award-winning Best of Left podcast, where we remember

the past and choose to repeat it.

Today's episode was originally published on September 11, 2018.

I chose to revisit it this week in light of the first Republican presidential debate

and in preparation for the months ahead.

Since our political divide has continued, there's never a bad time to press and up our political

engagement tactics and gain strategies on speaking to people we disagree strongly.

While we all get to decide where to use our energy, chances are that with the 2024 election closing in slowly,

you'll be in a situation where these tactics might serve you well.

Sources for today include Ted Talks, You Are Not So Smart, Big Think, and Progressive Face Things.

So you probably have the sense, as most people do, that polarization is getting worse in our country.

That the divide between the left and the right is as bad as it's been in really any of our lifetimes.

But you might also reasonably wonder if research backs up your intuition.

And in a nutshell, the answer is, sadly, yes.

In study after study, we find that liberals and conservatives have grown further apart.

They increasingly walled themselves off in these ideological silos, consuming different news,

talking only to like-minded others, and more and more choosing to live in different parts of the country.

And I think that most alarming of all of it is seeing this rising animosity on both sides.

Liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, more and more, they just don't like one another.

You see it in many different ways.

They don't want to befriend one another, they don't want to date one another.

If they do, if they find out, they find each other less attractive.

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