We have all heard the hateful political rhetoric, much of it these days directed at migrants
coming over the southern U.S. border.
Is it bluster, as some apologists would say, or dangerously tipping toward political violence?
We turn to UW-Madison political scientist Nathan Kalmo, author of the book Radical American
Partisanship Mapping Violent Hostility.
And thanks for being here.
Thanks so much for having me.
So in your book you discuss what you call moral disengagement.
That is vilifying out groups, hyping the morality of in groups, minimizing harms and righteous
sense that justify aggressive means.
Is that what's happening here?
It is.
Yeah.
The language that we're hearing that's targeting migrants is dehumanizing, dehumanization is
a form of moral disengagement.
And what's dangerous about dehumanizing rhetoric is that it creates excuses for people to harm
groups that they dislike.
And so we see this historically, we see this cross-nationally, that marginalized groups
when they're targeted with dehumanizing language are more subject to various kinds
of harms, including violence against the community.
In your book, you say that hyper-political polarization doesn't diagnose the problem.
It disguises it.
What do you mean by that?
Yeah.
Dr. Lily Mason and I feel like the polarization framework that we often hear so much about
is really inappropriate when it's applied to these kinds of contexts.
The problem here isn't that we're divided.
It's what we're divided over.
And in particular, that one position in this case is a kind of racist hostility towards
migrants, towards people of color more broadly.
And that's just not one side versus the other side.
It's something that goes against some of the fundamental values of equality and freedom
in our country.
And so when we focus on polarization, it creates this false moral equivalent saying
that, or at least implying that both sides should find some middle ground and really
we shouldn't be compromising on matters that are about the equality and the humanity of
other people.
So we've all heard of the so-called replacement theory whereby current minority populations
will replace the majority white status holders in the U.S.
Is this the genesis of potential violent hostility?
Yes.
This false and racist conspiracy theory is quite dangerous because it creates a sense
of existential threat in people who have more of an us versus them mentality and feel
like diversity instead of being a strength for our country is a threat to them personally.
And this kind of conspiracy theory pushes people towards more extreme actions.
And again, it forms a kind of vilification that justifies in their minds that rationalizes
harming these groups, including sometimes engaging in violent threats or violent actions
as we're seeing in Ohio right now.
What cues are there from history about how ordinary citizens can be swept up in this?
Yeah.
This kind of thinking, these kinds of actions are unfortunately historically common.
This is the same kind of thinking in rhetoric that justified and perpetuated slavery and
Jim Crow in the United States.
It's the same kind of thinking of white supremacy that justified ethnic cleansing of Native Americans,
of excluding and discriminating against Catholic immigrants and Asian immigrants through our
history.
And so the danger is that on the one hand, it gets people to support policies of government
that are really harmful and discriminatory against people who should be treated with
humanity and equality.
And it can also mobilize people, especially when they feel like they don't have the kinds
of outcomes that they want through the political system to turn to violence.
And that violence can be perpetuated with or without the support of the broader government.
In the current kind of political electoral scape in terms of partisans, you say that partisans
of both stripes have this kind of feeling of the other as evil.
Yeah, so in our public opinion surveys, we measured extreme hostility.
We felt that previous scholarship had not fully mapped the levels of extreme hostility.
And so we asked about a number of forms of moral disengagement, including feeling like
the other side is evil.
Basically what we found starting in 2017 was about 40% of Democrats and Republicans had
that view of their political opponents.
That number has risen, at least among Republicans in the years since.
Last year, our survey showed about 60% of Republicans were endorsing this view that Democrats
are evil.
Still about 40% to 45% of Democrats were saying the same thing.
I think that's a worrisome level of political hostility.
But I think it's important to keep in mind the distinction between thinking of people
as evil and thinking of actions and ideas as evil.
And the distinction there is that while it's probably inappropriate to see people as being
wholly evil, there are certainly actions including racist violence that could barely be characterized
as evil.
And that should be condemned in pretty strong terms, if not evil.
All right.
Very interesting.
Nathan Kalamal, thank you so much.
Thanks so much for having me.
Sorry for the glitch at the start.
No, that's okay.
I'm sorry.
I'm for being nervous.
Oh, boy.
It's pretty depressing.
The one thing I also took away from your book though is that you're suggesting that this
is kind of upheaval.