Surprise: Voters Aren't More Polarized than Ever, Only Pols and Media Are

Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina says it's media and political elites who live in ideological bubbles, not regular Americans.
----
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz...
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason
Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes: https://goo.gl/az3a7a

Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
-----
"You have two parties in a heterogeneous country where people have all kinds of views," says Morris Fiorina, a political scientist at Stanford and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. "It's simply not enough to represent diversity in this country."

In his latest book, Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting, and Political Stalemate, Fiorina argues that Americans actually agree with each other on fundamental issues such as immigration, marriage equality, and pot legalization. The polarization we hear about is mostly restricted to political activists and media elites who mistake their own extreme views for those of the common people.

"Everybody worries about the average American being ensconced in a filter bubble," says Fiorina. "Most of the research suggests it's the elites who are in these filter bubbles...and have this biased view of the world."

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Fiorina to discuss ideological bubbles, why President Donald Trump is a fracture in the two-system, and whether more Americans are becoming true independents (short answer: yes).

Edited by Alexis Garcia. Cameras by Paul Detrick, Justin Monticello, and Zach Weissmueller.

Destination Unknown by Ugonna Onyekwe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) Source: https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music Artist: https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

Divider by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/divider/ Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/

Photo Credits: Jeff Malet/Newscom - Andy Katz/ZUMA Press/Newscom - Hugh Peterswald/ZUMA Press/Newscom - Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS/Newscom - Tom Rothenberg/ZUMA Press/Newscom - Alex Edelman/CNP/MEGA/Newscom - Chris Kleponis/SIPA/Newscom - Mark Kauzlarich/REUTERS/Newscom