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Read other letters about this article
I'm not automatically set against Sunstein's thesis, and was looking forward to hearing more about the social science data he was referring to. After reading the interview, I have to say I'm mostly (but not wholly) disappointed in what he had to say.
The analysis of judges was interesting, but is Sunstein really making a link between the changes in political leanings of men and women who are expected to uphold the rule of law -- and dittoheads?
While it's refreshing to hear Sunstein unequivocally call the nascent slime campaign against Hillary for what it is, he can't point to a similar figure on the right who is slimed by the left.
Now, I agree that there are some political issues on which people reasonably can take right and left views, and argue their positions on the merits. And his point about the left being in an echo chamber merits examination. (I wonder though ... Sunstein repeatedly pushes the "they both do it" narrative without quantifying the degree either side 'does it'. Are left and right equally insular? It should be possible to put numbers to this sort of thing.)
But my real gripe is that, in case after case, the mainstream right acts in bad faith, something you simply don't see in the mainstream left. This is seen most starkly in science policy, since science resists the kind of postmodern slippage of meaning that the right revels in. Evolution/creationism, global warming, abortion, sex education, homosexuality -- you name it, the right argues by creating alternative facts (junkscience.com, Steve Milloy, Africa Fighting Malaria, and so on and so forth), while the left argues by defending what scientists say (yes, it's called a consensus). If Sunstein has his way and the needle is threaded in the middle of these two sides, then science is ultimately debased by such false centrism.
And that is a crying shame.
I still think the social science research may have something interesting to tell us about the divide between liberals and conservatives (e.g. Altemeyer's research extended into liberals would be fascinating I think). But I'm doubtful this book is such a text.
