Episode Transcript

Darragh Worland:

Welcome back to Is That a Fact?, brought to you by the nonprofit News Literacy Project. I’m your host, Darragh Worland.

If you follow the news, and even if you don’t follow the news, you’ve probably heard that the country is deeply divided on political issues. Since 1992, no presidential candidate has received more than 53% of the popular vote. In recent years, Congress has routinely been deadlocked over some of the country’s most pressing issues, including whether or not to impeach a sitting president, how much relief to offer during the pandemic, and even whether or not to increase the debt ceiling. So it’s easy to see how the narrative of polarization started to set in. But what’s going on in the capital is not necessarily reflected in the hearts of many Americans. In fact, when you take a step back, it turns out most of us are more moderate than this notion of extremes would suggest.

One of the most pervasive false narratives driving our country right now that we wanted to address this season is the one we all have about the so-called “other side.” We make a lot of assumptions about our political opponents. This is a phenomenon the organization More in Common calls “the perception gap” or the discrepancy between what we think the opposing party believes and what they actually believe.

In this episode, we set out to explore whether this narrative of polarization is the whole story or if there just might be a whole lot of nuance that we’re missing in our rush to judgment or our quick read of the headlines. To find out, we talked to the U.S. Director of More in Common, Dan Vallone, to discuss the organization’s fascinating and revealing research into the false beliefs Democrats and Republicans have about one another. Then we talked to former Republican member of Congress, Charlie Dent, about his experience on the Hill as a moderate representing the swing state of Pennsylvania

Finally, we bring the episode home with a conversation with the dean of Northwestern Medill School of Journalism, Charles Whittaker, who calls out the news media for playing up this “us versus them” narrative of political polarization and shares what schools like his are doing to encourage their students to take a new approach. First, we turn to Dan Vallone, the U.S. director of More in Common. Thanks for joining us today, Dan. Can you start by telling us a little bit about More in Common? What is it? What do you do?

Dan Vallone:

Sure, happy to. So More in Common is a research civic nonprofit. We study the forces that pull societies apart. Then we work with partners to try and build healthier, more inclusive societies that are resilient to “us versus them” polarization and division. So we try and do deep studies of public sentiment and attitude to try and understand where there might be unexpected or overlooked areas of commonality, and where there are opportunities to build on that to foster communities that bring people together across lines of difference.

Darragh Worland:

So you were founded in 2016-17. What was it that prompted the founding of More in Common?

Dan Vallone:

It was a number of different factors happening kind of across the globe as well, where there was an increased rise in “us versus them “sentiment. In particular, there was a lot of othering or divisive kind of actors trying to target particular groups, oftentimes migrants as well as others. There was also a lot of internal division, increasingly evident in lots of lots of countries across the globe, America, UK, France and Germany, where it seemed harder and harder for people to actually work together. It seemed increasingly to be  the case that groups viewed each other not just as political opponents, but as enemies to be defeated. So when that kind of rhetoric started to appear more frequently in politics and in media, that led a number of our co-founders to come together and say, “We need to understand what’s happening. We need to bring new research to see where there are opportunities to reduce some of the toxicity we see in our politics and culture,” and started that process of launching More in Common. Then we launched in the U.S. with a report in 2018 called Hidden Tribes: A study of America’s polarized landscape.

Darragh Worland:

So I know the Hidden Tribes work fits into the Perception Gap quiz. That’s what I want to talk to you about today, specifically, this Perception Gap report and quiz, which I think is so fascinating because it gets at the heart of the polarization in our country. Can you tell us about the Perception Gap quiz and then the report findings that came out of that?

Dan Vallone:

In 2019, we published a report in the U.S. called Perception Gap. What we did is, we still did a national survey, and we asked Americans about their views on a set of issues. Then we asked them what they thought their political opponents felt about a set of issues. So what we were able to do is basically ask Democrats what they thought Republicans believed about a set of issues, all of which were kind of high profile. Then we actually asked Republicans, “What do you believe on these issues?” We contrasted what Republicans actually believed with what Democrats thought they believed to create this perception gap, which is the measure of the degree to which we overstate the extremity of our political opponents.

Darragh Worland:

So what was the top line finding of the Perception Gap study?

Dan Vallone:

The top line finding is that both Democrats and Republicans imagine that almost twice as many people on the other side hold extreme views relative to the number who actually do in reality. So, for example, Democrats and Republicans both believe that roughly 55% of their political opponents hold extreme views. But in reality, only about 30% actually do. By extreme views, we mean views that are further on some sort of relevant scale, away from the average or kind of median point.

Darragh Worland:

What were some of the most surprising examples of the perception gaps?

Dan Vallone:

Sure. So for example, we asked Democrats, “What percentage of Republicans still believe that racism still exists in America?” Democrats estimated the average estimate was approximately half. So about 51% of Republicans still believe that racism still exists in America. In fact, 79% of Republicans in our survey said that they believe racism still exists in America. So that is a perception gap of 28 perception points. On the opposite side, for example, we asked Republicans, “What percentage of Democrats do you believe think that law-abiding citizens should have the right to bear firearms?” Republicans estimated that only 44% of Democrats hold that belief. In our survey, we found that 68% of Democrats believe that law-abiding citizens should have the right to bear firearms. That’s a perception gap of 24 percentage points. Those are just examples that we found interesting in understanding that the degree to which we misunderstand our political opposites.

We asked Republicans, “What percentage of Democrats do you believe that we should not abolish ICE?” Republicans estimated that only 40% of Democrats felt that we should not abolish ICE, when in fact, our survey found 53% of Democrats feel that we should not abolish ICE. So a perception gap of 13 percentage points. But you can see that there are issues that are identity-based, right? So this isn’t necessarily about what is the best solution for healthcare costs in America. There’s definitely probably a perception gap there as well. But it’s probably much smaller and more manageable because it is not activating the same kind of emotional response that issues that are much more rooted in people’s definition of what it means to be American…. immigration, race, policing, patriotism, all evoke.

Darragh Worland:

Well, those issues and the fact that they are such emotional hot button issues… can you talk a little bit about how social media can distort or maybe exaggerate the perception gap? Because I think this is really interesting because I think we have the impression that the conversations that happen on social media are the cultural conversation. This is the defining cultural conversation. Your study really shows that this is actually not the cultural conversation. It’s really a conversation happening between extremists of each party, right?

Dan Vallone:

It’s a very narrow slice of the population. They’re very unrepresentative of the country in very important ways. So particularly on the perception gap, what we found is those who shared political content online had a perception gap, not quite, but almost twice as large as those who didn’t. Right? So if you are sharing political content online, on social media, odds are that you have a dramatically more extreme view of those who disagree with you politically than those who don’t share political content online. What we also found, and this was from The New York Times in 2019, and I think it was April, the Times published an article that used our data from Hidden Tribes  … The headline of the article was something like, “Democrats on Twitter are not representative Democrats.”

What they did is they went in, and they just showed how people who share political content on Twitter and who are Democrats were on average, much more likely to be white, much more likely to have a higher education, much more likely to be higher income-earning relative to your median Democrat. I think that there was a quote that surfaced subsequently in the 2020 and 2020 campaign. I forget who and what the source was, but basically one of the people in Joe Biden’s campaign said that one of things they did was turn off Twitter. Just recognize that the conversation on Twitter is not the conversation that is actually happening among most Americans. If we think Twitter is representative, we really might build very distorted strategies for how do we engage certain groups and what we do, both as communities, as political groups, etcetera.

Darragh Worland:

So in reading that piece of your study, which I thought was really interesting, the piece about social media, i it also occurred to me that what often happens is the news media sees what’s surfacing  on social media, what’s bubbling to the surface, picks it up, and then amplifies it further. Right? Which reinforces and amplifies this idea that this is the cultural conversation. It’s sort of creating a feedback loop. Then that becomes a conversation on social media. Then it just continues.

Dan Vallone:

Yes, totally. Totally agree. It is.

Darragh Worland:

That’s not a question. It’s an exasperated statement. So I do want to touch on news, although obviously led the question a little bit already here. But one of the other disturbing findings of the study is that those who consume more news media have a wider perception gap because quality journalism should really help us all become better decision makers. It shouldn’t widen our misperceptions of each other. So what do you think is at play, when we see that the perception gap is growing bigger for people who are consuming more news media?

Dan Vallone:

So I’m sharing that belief that this journalism plays a huge role in a healthy democracy and in allowing our communities to solve problems together, to identify problems, to make progress together, so I very much appreciate the need for this, for us to address some of these issues. I think that the causal factors are probably complex because I think on the one hand, what we probably see is that individuals who consume a lot of news are also individuals who are more likely to be politically active, and who are also individuals who are more likely to be higher educated, higher income-earning. So there’s a certain degree to which it may not be the case that, “I read media X so I believe Y about people who disagree politically” versus like, “I’m a person who is politically involved. So I also consume a lot of news, so I’m going to report a higher political perception gap and higher news consumption.” That’s one thing happening. I think another thing happening is that what you kind of led off with, which is where social media is used by mainstream media as a source, as a like voice, and increasingly as perhaps the dominant voice, where what people are tweeting or sharing on Facebook is framed as the contours of a debate or representative of particular groups. That’s very true for political groups, but not exclusively political groups as well. I think the final thing that is also happening is a nationalization of media as well. So this is in one level, the slow but painful collapse or degradation or shrinking of local media, like genuinely, authentically, locally owned, locally sourced, local news.

The fact is that social media, again, makes everything national seem local, like local issues are repositioned and reframed as a national thing. So I think the debates themselves from which people are deriving their opinions about politics tend to be national, where it is a 50-50 split. So we are prone to see larger gaps then would exist if we could see the voices and opinions of, say, members of a state legislature or even more so like members of a local city council or a town council, etcetera.

Darragh Worland:

So I took the perception gap quiz that is on the website and found that my perception gap is 8%. On average, those who have my same political beliefs have a perception gap of closer to 19%. So what does this say about me?

Dan Vallone:

There’s two other really important relationships that we also found that are notable, and they’re different between folks who identify as Democrats and folks who identify as Republicans. What we found among folks who identified as Democrats is that as their education level increased, the size of their perception gap increased as well. So someone with a postdoc degree and who identified as a Democrat had a significantly larger perception gap relative to a Democrat who had a high school diploma. One thing that we found also is as education level increased, the number of friends that Democrats had who had different political views dropped. Among conservatives, we didn’t see that same finding. So as education levels increased, there wasn’t necessarily a noticeable change in perception gaps. Social circles seemed pretty consistent across education levels. Media consumption was what we found tracked with perception gap. So as people consumed more media and news, particularly from more conservative leaning outlets, the magnitude of that perception gap increased.

Darragh Worland:

So interesting. I want to go back to the education piece because I think this is so disheartening in a way.  I think we tend to think of education as the solution to a lot of societal ills.

Dan Vallone:

So we also had a whole section in the report about education. We started that section with basically what you said, that education is looked to as a solution for a number of things and also is often talked about as a way for us to overcome polarization. It might be a way to educate ourselves more about a number of issues. This underscores that there’s some psychological and sociological dynamics there. I think there’s a few things that we can do. There’s lots of work already underway, your organization being one of them, who are trying to help stimulate new programs and initiatives at various educational institutions. So this is not purely a college campus thing, though that’s where most of the attention gets drawn to. But it’s everything through K-12 and beyond as well.

So the first is, one, trying to find ways to bring people together in ideologically diverse settings. Right? So let’s derive our assumptions about those who disagree with us politically from actual relationships, and not pull it from media or news or social media, but from knowing somebody who holds that particular political viewpoint and having talked to them or heard them express their views. I think that the second is fostering more intellectual curiosity and empathy. I mean, in addition to motivated reasoning, there’s other also nudges, psychological nudges that we know can work, whether it’s perspective taking or building greater empathy for those who have different viewpoints, or… if I have a personal checklist, it might be probing my own assumptions about why I feel Group X holds this viewpoint and building that in as a routine when I think about politics, for example. Just thinking about how we now maybe start getting into changing or affecting, influencing what social media highlights, right? Typically, social media platforms are primed to elevate extreme viewpoints because that’s what gets traction, and it’s not at all representative of what the media viewpoint might be.

Darragh Worland:

Okay. So your study measured this perception gap. Public survey data, such as the Pew Research Center study that’s done annually, shows the country is increasingly polarizing, getting more so every year. In your Perception Gap study, I think the finding was we think 55% of the population holds extreme views, right?

Dan Vallone:

Right.

Darragh Worland:

But in actual fact, only 30% do. So is the polarization an issue of perception or is the country actually polarized, which is what the Pew Research Center data shows?

Dan Vallone:

It’s a great question. I would say the answer is both. There is a deep political division in the country. Hard to place the exact percentage, but it is reasonable to think a third of the country holds very strong political identities. They are in opposition to some other segment of the country. There’s very little overlap. That has been worsening over time. I think where the perception comes into play is that we think that describes the entire country. We think that basically 100% of Americans are somehow located on one of two ideological poles, and that’s very much not the case. Most Americans are closer to an ideological … not a middle, they’re inconsistent. They hold liberal views on this, conservative views on this. Many folks are not politically engaged at all, probably 40% of the country really doesn’t vote. So it’s hard to fully understand where they fall on an ideological spectrum. But they’re definitely not one of the two ideological poles. So the distance between the poles in America is significant. It is the sharpest polarization of any of the countries that are more commonly studied. Yet the degree to which that describes the majority of the population is significantly exaggerated in America.

Darragh Worland:

So it’s not just perception, it is reality. It’s just the perception is worse than reality. That’s correct. Yes. So it’s a false-ish narrative. It’s not a false narrative.

Dan Vallone:

Yes, that’s right. It is a perception feeds into the reality, right? So are the vehicles to become engaged politically, the news and information channels that increasingly are polarizing vehicles. So it’s harder to find spaces where you might become civically engaged and not be pulled into seeing another group of Americans as extreme in their views. So it is again, the perception is worse than the reality. The perception is, I think, also contributing to a worsening of reality.

Darragh Worland:

Right. So if we can become aware that our perception is worse than the reality, can we at least stand a fighting chance of entering the conversation in such a way that we can find common ground, or we can find that we have more in common, to use your organization’s name?

Dan Vallone:

I think that that certainly is a hope that we have as an organization, that if we can realize the extent to which we might be misunderstanding reality, at the very least, can we engender some curiosity and drive to get to know people, to drive our assumptions and views from actual relationships and from people who hold those viewpoints. Again, you might end up still very divided with those individuals. You might disagree with them very strongly. But hopefully, it is a much more realistic assessment of the degree to which you differ. Through conversation, you might also discover that there are things that you share. That you could possibly could work together on improving something in your community or at the appropriate level, even while you disagree on most issues. We did a study in 2020 where we asked [people] about views towards the media and whether they felt as though certain media outlets looked down on people like them. We found as one might expect, a pretty sharp political divide. So for example, folks who identify as liberal feeling as though an outlet like Fox News looks down on them, or is judgmental towards them. Folks who have a conservative orientation feeling that way towards like the New York Times. So I think part of the challenge that we are wrestling with is, “How do we build credibility? “Because it can be through transparency of an explaining process, like, “What is the distinction between commentary and op-eds versus hard news?” “What is the fact-checking process that a media outlet goes through?” At the same time, in parallel, we need efforts that also build that sense of objective solidarity.

Darragh Worland:

So we’ve been talking about, is ultimately these false narratives that we have, liberals have or Democrats have, about Republicans and that Republicans have about Democrats. What is that risk here? What’s the consequence of this? Why does it matter?

Dan Vallone:

I think there’s several consequences that we see happening and that could get worse. So one is a willingness to support or endorse fairly extreme behavior, actions and conduct by one’s own political side. Because as we view the other side as more extreme, we also in the report talk about how the larger your perception got, the more likely you are to make a judgmental kind of characterization of those who disagree with you politically. We know from other studies that we increasingly see our political opposites as threats. So, perception gaps can help fuel a willingness to endorse candidates or political actions that are extreme because it is in response to a perceived threat that may have some real basis, but is also predicated upon a perception gap. So, willingness to tolerate extremity on one’s own side is a consequence that perception gaps may be contributing to:

The second is it impairs our ability to engage others if we believe that the average Democrat or Republican is extreme [and] makes us much less likely to want to try and reach out because we feel like we’re going to be judged, or that we are already judging them, and say, “What’s the point?” But it precludes a lot of opportunities to actually try and find ways to solve problems, make progress together because we never get to see that common ground. We never get to see that there’s lots of people, lots of places where we can actually work together to advance that. I think those are two of the more worst- case consequences that we see playing out in that perception gaps may be contributing to. There are others, but those are the ones that we are certainly most attentive to.

Darragh Worland:

Okay. So, in the Perception Gap report, this paragraph really stood out to me because it’s striking, and it ends with the word “die.”:  “Why does this matter? Because when Democrats and Republicans believe their opponents hold extreme views, they become more threatened by each other. They start seeing each other as enemies and start believing they need to win at all costs. They make excuses for their own side cheating and breaking the rules to beat the other side. As our public debates become more hateful, many in the exhausted majority tune out altogether. This is how countries fall into a cycle of deepening polarization, and how democracies die.” So that sounds really dire to me. It sounds like a major warning. Can you talk about the “democracies die” part?

Dan Vallone:

Yeah, it is dire. We’re conscious of the severity of what we were just describing. So I think in some ways, a pluralistic democracy where people have diversity of backgrounds and orientations depends upon our willingness to acknowledge the validity of their existence, at the very least of those who have different backgrounds and perspectives in us. Really, in order for democracy to work, there’s validity to viewpoints that differ from our own. Even if we might not agree with our political opposites on any number of issues, that there is value in having a diversity of opinion and perspectives, like democracies depend upon that. If we become increasingly divided into two camps that view each other as threats that cannot be tolerated, then we will see increased support for actions which ultimately undo the basic foundations of democracy. We see this. We have seen patterns of this through history, where authoritarians rise up in these kinds of conditions because they’re willing to champion one side against the other. So America is not there yet, where we know we have many strong safeguards throughout this country. There is the exhausted majority, which is this undertapped pool of the population that are not interested in continuing down pathways of division. There are very real risks that our country faces around that scenario.

Darragh Worland:

Next, we turn to a former member of Congress, Charlie Dent, for his perspective on life as a moderate on the Hill. Thanks for joining me today, Charlie. How long did you serve in Congress?

Charlie Dent:

Nearly 14 years, seven terms.

Darragh Worland:

So you were first elected in 2004?

Charlie Dent:

That’s correct.

Darragh Worland:

So would you say Congress was less sharply divided then, and you were more able to work on bills on a bipartisan basis back then?

Charlie Dent:

Well, there were always divisions. There was always partisanship. In fact, my observation when I first arrived in Washington was that I came from the [Pennsylvania] State Capitol. I thought that Harrisburg, Pennsylvania could be a painfully pragmatic place. There was no deal that couldn’t be cut. They were pragmatic, almost at times transactional. In Washington, on the other hand, I thought was excruciatingly ideological. The truth is that the Harrisburg looks a lot more like Washington, and Washington has gotten worse. But in D.C. I came in during the second term of the Bush administration when he won reelection, George W. Bush. I found that we could at least get the basics done. That we could pass appropriations bills. We didn’t have these never-ending, high stakes right to the edge of the cliff moments on debt ceilings, 75-day continuing resolutions to fund the government come September 30^th budget agreements, we didn’t have that level of difficulty back then that we did really since I’d say probably 2011.

Darragh Worland:

Well, when you served, did you think the news media was fair to you? Did you think your local media and national news outlets did a good job of keeping your constituents well informed about your work?

Charlie Dent:

Yeah, I think at times I think they tried to. But what I often felt was that the media picks its favorite topic  and they stay on it. Sometimes they do what’s easy, and there’s a narrative out there they keep covering it. I guess maybe they should do more on other policies that may not rate as well, I guess is what I’m saying. That’s more probably more in the TV side. But what changed, though, is local media. When I first ran for office, for me, local media was everything. I mean, that’s where I lived and died. Then, as local media became less interested in what we were doing in Washington, they were focusing more on local issues. Of course, with all the cutbacks and all the electronic news and who was buying newspapers and all that, they were struggling financially. They weren’t as strong as they used to be. Then I’d learned that it took me a while to figure out that I really had to focus much more on these national news sites and news sources. I wasn’t going to be able to disseminate messages in local media to the extent I wanted to. Frankly, I could broadcast things better. Truth be told, at least Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” Well, nobody believes that anymore. In fact, you can make a case that well, much of local politics is now national. So everything seems to become much more nationalized. So to the extent that you as an elected official, you’re getting in some national publications and national networks like CNN and others. It was probably beneficial because you might end up speaking to a lot of constituents anyway.

Darragh Worland:

Do you feel that the media further entrenched this polarization between the parties or do you feel like that was already there, or do you feel like there’s one fed the other?

Charlie Dent:

Yeah. Look, I do think because we have so much media out there, and much of it, a significant amount of it is fairly partisan, that people have found new sources that reaffirm their existing opinions or biases. I suspect they don’t change the channel a whole lot or go to a different site. Again, what are we calling media here? I mean, it’s like everything. Is it talk radio? Maybe I’m part of the problem here. I’m conflating things now. But I used to sometimes comment to my colleagues, “We take them a bill in the House. The power, at least on the right, and I suspect is true on the left now or more true on the left than it had been. But on the right anyway these talk radio guys or these cable news folks on Fox at night,  O’Reilly or Hannity or Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, these people can generate calls to your office and contacts. I think a lot of members, and I used to tell them, “Don’t for a second think that opinion represents the whole district to the whole country.” You have to think those guys have a business model, and it’s market share. I don’t know what percentage of market share they need to make a gazillion dollars. So that’s their math. How do they build that market share? John Boehner, I think talked about this quite a bit in his book. I’ve talked with John about it at times as well, that these guys need to stoke anger. Nobody’s ever going to congratulate us when we had a Republican house and Democratic President Obama. They’re not going to give you a pat in the back and say, “Didn’t those guys do a great job on that piece of legislation that build a bipartisan coalition to do X?”

Darragh Worland:

Yeah.

Charlie Dent:

No.

Darragh Worland:

Boring.

Charlie Dent:

They’re going to say, “No. Capitulation, surrender, sellouts.” I mean, this would drive Boehner crazy. So these guys that were basically telling Republican voters around the country, they’ll go, “Call John Boehner, tell him to stop surrendering.” I mean, this is what you’re dealing with. See, our math in Congress was 50% plus one. Now in the Senate we sometimes needed 60% or 60 votes. But that was our math, we had to put together a coalition. So our math as legislators was very different than the math of those folks who are out there who are trying to drive clicks, ratings, eyeballs, market share. I mean, that’s where they are. We have to understand it.

Darragh Worland:

It’s so interesting comparing to-

Charlie Dent:

They’ve monetized it. They’ve monetized, in this case, conservative politics. On the left, the same thing is happening. I understand the right better than I do the left. But same things happening on the left.

Darragh Worland:

But it’s so interesting what you’re saying about the math because I never saw it that way. But you don’t need 50% of the country in order to make a profit as a news media organization. What you’re saying in terms of your math as a legislator is so different. This ties into exactly our conversation with Dan Vallone. So I want to bring it back to that because as you know, we spoke to Dan Vallone of More in Common. They surveyed Americans on 10 different issues. So he told us that their top-line finding was that Democrats and Republicans imagine almost twice as many of their political opponents hold extreme views than they actually do. So for instance, on immigration, Democrats thought most Republicans were opposed to it, like just flat out opposed to it. When in fact, Republicans actually do support immigration that’s properly supervised, controlled. There’s some guardrails around it. Republicans believe most Democrats were not proud to be Americans and don’t support the police when that’s not true at all either. So why do you believe those misperceptions developed about the other party? I wonder if that ties back to what you’re saying about this math that they’re doing in these partisan outlets.

Charlie Dent:

Because it’s easy. I think those two examples you cited, Democrats with police and Republicans on immigration, are great examples. I think you’re right. That most Republicans support lawful legal immigration, that it should be managed, should be controlled, shouldn’t be an open border, should be a secure border. Look, I think most of them recognize that their parents or their ancestors came from somewhere else. So there’s a certain sympathy. But they don’t like to see mayhem on the southern border, tens of thousands of people from Haiti, coming through Mexico, living under a bridge in Del Rio. Nobody really likes that image or thinks that’s right. It’s a humanitarian problem. Don’t get me wrong, but it’s not what we should be experiencing. But I think you’re right, there’s a more nuanced position on the Republican side, just on the Democratic side, I would agree. That most Democrats don’t want to defund the police. The problem for the Democrats is they have a group of pretty extreme elements. I think one of the congressmen recently still said, “Defund the police.” So what will happen is then the conservative media, the talk radio guys, they’ll point to that member and say, “See, listen to this Democrat.” They’ll amplify that voice, even though I think that voice is probably in the minority. Democrats haven’t done themselves any favors because where this is all happening of course has been in a lot of Democratic controlled cities where there have been defund police movements. So I don’t believe for a second that most Americans dislike the police. I certainly don’t believe they want to defund the police. I think most kind of feel like, “Hey, the police are there for a reason. We call them. There are problems. We can reform it. But by and large, they’re good. Then the same thing on the on the immigration side. There are nativists on the Republican side who say very unkind things about people who don’t look like them, who are coming into this country. The left will amplify those voices and say, “Yeah, look at that guy. Yeah, he’s a bigot. He’s a nativist, he’s a white supremacist or whatever.” They’ve kind of tried to conflate all the others on the right or Republicans with those very extreme views. So both sides do it. Now Republicans are bashing all Democrats as defund the police folks when they all are not. Some are. But in same way on the on the right, where some are nativists and bigoted. But clearly, I would say most are not.

Darragh Worland:

When you say that Democrats or Republicans are doing this, are you saying Congress, members of Congress are doing this?

Charlie Dent:

I’m talking more about the partisan, the loud voices out there. Whether they be in social media, cable news, talk radio, these are the people who are really … They’re ginning up the anger? Yeah, there’s lots to be angry about defunding the police. Yeah, there’s a lot to be angry about what’s happening on the border when you hear a horrible story about somebody in the country unlawfully or illegally commits serious crimes. It’s really easy to go out there and talk about those issues, and you’ll probably drive some pretty good ratings. But I think what happens is we end up then painting with … I think a lot of people end up painting with too broad of a brush because of the information they’re getting. They’re hearing the most extreme and the worst cases. They’re not hearing all that balance and nuance that we’ve just discussed.

Darragh Worland:

Yeah. Then what do you think is the consequence of that?

Charlie Dent:

Well, I think it leads to the further the divisiveness, the tribalism that we’re witnessing in this country. I would also argue to that it seems like politics in this country is not only tribal, but it’s situational. What I always like to say about that is, and I see it all the time with Republicans and Democrats in Congress, if my guy does something, it’s right and just. If your guy does the same thing a couple years later, it’s a human rights violation. There’s always been a certain amount of hypocrisy in politics. I get it, and dysfunction. In fact, there’s sometimes some fun in dysfunction, just to watch it. But we’ve taken the fun out of this function. The hypocrisy at times has gotten to really high levels. I think a lot of people can’t see it in themselves. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. We all know that. But I try to stay as consistent as I can in my own beliefs and value systems. I’m not going to change them because we have a new president or because of some other external factor. I mean, if I change my view or my position, it’s because of new knowledge or some intervening facts or circumstances that might force me to change.

Darragh Worland:

Well, I want to talk about the personal toll that this environment in Congress had on you or the professional toll. I’m sure the two are probably kind of blended together at a certain point when you’ve been in Congress for a while. But what was it like trying to function in that environment?

Charlie Dent:

It’s funny, my first few terms in office, I got elected in 2004, I had a few seminal moments that nearly affected me as a congressman. The financial crisis of 2008 and voting for the Troubled Asset Relief Program that became law. I learned then that at some point, we just can’t yell and scream and point fingers. At some point, you actually have to do something, especially if there’s a crisis like that. Just doing nothing was not an option. I realized, too, that there were members both on the right and the left who just didn’t want to act, even though they knew we had to. But who wanted to go in there and rescue the financial services system? I mean, nobody really liked the idea of trying to shore up all the banks. But I said, “But it was much more than the banks.” I mean, this is going to cascade and cause problems everywhere. So we just couldn’t ignore this problem. Yes, I don’t like the optics of going in there and helping restore solvency at the banks. But the alternative was unthinkable at that point. Now, runs on banks, massive unemployment, loss of credit for everybody… I mean, it would have been disastrous. I said, “I had to vote for this.” Even though there are people who I thought who were in much safer political positions, I was in a very competitive district.

Charlie Dent:

Obama won my district by 13 points. I won by 18, coincidentally. But I said at some point, “You have to put the fear out of your mind.” I’ve always said this, “There are too many people down there who operate out of fear. They’re afraid of their constituents or the leaders of the parties are afraid of their own members, they’re worried about a rearguard action and the bases are very well represented, not the center right, the center left, it’s the bases.” So these leaders will tack to the bases. They have to protect their flanks. I came to the realization in 2013 at the time of the government shutdown, just leading up to it, that I had to become more vocal. I didn’t want Ted Cruz to define me because I was completely opposed to what he was doing. Then I realized that, and I told our leadership at the time, I said, “You know what, I’m going to be a much more vocal person now.” Because they have to, need to hear a different narrative.

Darragh Worland:

So you stepped down from your seat in, was it 2018.

Charlie Dent:

’18.

Darragh Worland:

’18. So why did you do that?

Charlie Dent:

Well, because I had made a decision. Let’s go back to 2016. I was never on the Trump train, obviously. I just knew I was never going to be able to get there. A lot of people are in the same place with me. But I meant it, though. I said, “I’m not going to be able to get there. I’m not going to pretend that this is okay. I’m not going this buy this line that if you’re just kind of quiet about it, ignore it, you be all right.” That hasn’t worked very well. I just said, “I can go do other things and have a nice life or I can sit here and keep trying to put my head through the wall every day.” I probably came to a realization somewhere around May, that I probably wouldn’t be running again. Then I said to my family and to my staff to keep quiet. But I said I’ll make an announcement after Labor Day of 2017, that I won’t run again.

Darragh Worland:

Do you think that says something about what kind of members of Congress that we’re going to be getting representing the country at this point? Because are we in a situation where we’re only going to be getting extremist, members of Congress who are representing the most extreme views in Congress now, other than moderates like yourself?

Charlie Dent:

I fear that’s the case. In fact, both on the right and the left. I mean, look what’s happening on the Democratic side, look at all the primaries coming out, these justice Democrats are coming after all sorts of more pragmatic Democrats or centered-left Democrats. They’re facing enormous pressure from their left flank. On the Republican side, just look what’s happened to the 10 house impeachment folks. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are great examples. There was a time I thought the job of the Republican leaders was to marginalize the more fringe elements of their members.

Now they’re trying to marginalize Cheney and Kinzinger, who are thoughtful leaders. I’m not saying they’re moderate. Kinzinger may be a little more moderate than Cheney, but they’re thoughtful, principled people. They were actually some of the more fringe elements in the House GOP conference, trying to force Cheney and Kinzinger out of the conference, out of the Republican conference.

Darragh Worland:

Yeah. For my final question, I just want to ask you about this recent Washington Post piece called, “Why is Washington so dysfunctional?”, which gets at the heart of what we’re talking about. You talked about how members of Congress tacked to their bases, which you also just said here, you used the same expression, tack to their bases rather than to the center where compromise is possible. This tacking to their bases, why do you think they’re tacking to their bases? What does it mean to tack to the base?

Charlie Dent:

Because it’s safer there. In other words, stay with the herd. I mean, go with the herd. In other words, when they tack to their base, they move closer to their base because that’s the political safety. That’s where the incentive is for them. They represent safe seats by and large. Their elections are won or lost in the primaries. So they can’t get outflanked. So they need to stay close to the base. There are fewer people who were like me who represented swing districts. Again, we’re back to the math. I used to have to explain to some folks that to win as a Republican in my district, I needed to get 85, 90% of the Republican vote. I needed over half the independents and close to 30% of the Democrats in order to win. That’s the math. I would say to them, “How do I win by just being a partisan jerk, just mimicking Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity?

Darragh Worland:

So tacking to your base would not work?

Charlie Dent:

It wouldn’t work.

Darragh Worland:

In your district. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Charlie Dent:

Swing voters matter to me. Those are the people, politically, I was always looking at. How do I make sure I can keep that center- left to center-right voter voting for me? That’s where the numbers were. So how do you do that? But for many members, there is no political reward for seeking consensus or compromise. I mean, there’s not the reward there. In fact, it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous. To be fair, all members have primary pressures, regardless of what district you’re in.

Darragh Worland:

Finally, we speak to dean of the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, Charles Whitaker, for his take on the media’s role in stoking this narrative of polarization.

Darragh Worland:

Thanks so much for joining me today, Dean Whitaker.

Charles Whitaker:

Happy to be here.

Darragh Worland:

Can you just tell me what your role as dean of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism is?

Charles Whitaker:

I like to say being a dean is like being the CEO of a small company. So I am responsible for everything from hiring to budget management to fundraising. I am the Chief Curricular Officer and much to my chagrin, the face of the school.

Darragh Worland:

Before you joined Northwestern, you had roles in different newsrooms. Can you tell us a little bit about what you did there?

Charles Whitaker:

Yeah. So I’m a Northwestern/Medill alumnus. Right out of Medill, I went to work for the Miami Herald in the Northeast Dade Bureau, covering small municipalities and suburban education in Northeast Dade. From there, I went to the Louisville Times, which was the afternoon paper of the Louisville Courier Journal. I was on something called the enterprise features staff, where the charge of the enterprise feature staff was to cover the changing faces of Louisville, Kentucky. But I also was the deputy features editor and the backup critic to a lot of the arts writers there as well. So I actually wound up covering ballet and theater while I was in Louisville as well. Then I went to Ebony Magazine, which is where I spent the bulk of my career. I was there for almost 11 years. I left as a senior editor. But that just meant I was a roving reporter covering a wide variety of cultural, political and social issues for Ebony.

Darragh Worland:

So it’s fair to say that in the course of your career, you’ve thought a lot about how to prioritize the news, what’s important, how to decide whether something is newsworthy. Can you talk a little bit about that process?

Charles Whitaker:

Certainly anyone who goes to journalism school and anyone who starts as a young reporter is indoctrinated, if you will, in the conventions of the field. One of those conventions is determining what’s the story, right? So there are these seven principles about what makes a story: conflict, controversy, something that’s unusual proximity to the audience, things that tug at the heartstrings of the audience, those are the general ideas and ideals behind what makes a story.

Darragh Worland:

Let’s just talk a little bit about the business side of news and how those barriers are constructed between the editorial side and the business side.

Charles Whitaker:

I would say with the rise of journalism schools, the establishment of new standards and conventions, there was this belief that there should be this wall between editorial and advertising. I will say that in my early days as a reporter, not once did I hear that the publisher was concerned about us ruffling business feathers and losing advertising because of a story that we were doing. But that has eroded somewhat over the years. There are many of us who are very concerned about that erosion today, especially as the business model has changed, as advertising has moved away from legacy media and legacy media is struggling for a new model in the effort to retain those advertisers who do remain with legacy media. There are more and more concessions made to those advertisers. The nature of the magazine business was, I was much more aware of advertising than I ever was as a newspaper reporter. In magazines, it is not uncommon to create a new column that will be adjacent to an ad because it’s advertising friendly or to decide to for you do these product listings. It’s not uncommon to make sure that an advertiser is included in those products.

Darragh Worland:

Right. So my next question is, do you, as the dean … Okay, tell me what you teach your students. I’m really glad to hear that.

Charles Whitaker:

One of the reasons we talk about the business model a lot now is because the old business model is broken. We tell our students, “It is going to be incumbent upon you to find the new business model. The only way we will do that is if you understand what the old business model was and what models we’re currently wrestling with, what’s good and bad about the current models, so that you will be able to go out and help us chart a new course for this industry.” So we talk a lot about the business.

Darragh Worland:

We really want to talk about polarization in the country, whether or not the country really is as polarized as studies show and we’re hearing, because as you know, we did this interview with Dan Vallone from More in Common. Their research has shown that the country is maybe not as polarized as the media may give the impression of the country being, or perhaps, and this is where things get a little murky, because I think we know that the country is polarized and studies show this. However, the perception of just how extreme one’s political opponent might be is greater than the reality.

Charles Whitaker:

I think we have to separate this by issue.

Darragh Worland:

Please do.

Charles Whitaker:

For one thing, political polarization, it’s an abstract concept. It really depends on what you mean. Are we talking about the divide between Democrats and Republicans? Are we talking about, really, the political parties, which are pretty far apart and are making the country ungovernable, right?

Darragh Worland:

The hard reality, and it’s hard to say. Yeah.

Charles Whitaker:

It is. That’s right. But I think you’re right. As you dig into certain issues, the gap narrows. It’s sort of the way people think about politics in general. They say, “Oh, I hate politics. I hate all politicians. But I love my congressman or I love my so and so…” Fill in the blank, right? So again, as you get more local, and you sometimes move away from the big social issues, the gaps narrow. But there’s no question. Anyone who says there’s that we are not polarized is really not paying attention because if you think about the response to the efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID, that is a pretty potent example of how polarized the country is, and how depending upon the news that you consume and how you identify, you process and respond to appeals differently. So there’s absolute polarization. But you certainly can dig deeper and find areas where there’s common ground, just wrestling with those big issues really does paralyze the country. It keeps us from being able to work on things like climate change. There are ways in in which quote-unquote, “liberals” can appeal to say, the farmers who are having a very difficult time because of climate change and help them to see, and who may identify as conservative/Republican and help them to see, “Here’s the vested interest that you have been working with us on this issue.” There are ways in which we can talk about the opioid crisis or we can talk about the prison industrial complex, that actually, if we dig deeper into the issue and meet people where they are, we can find common ground. But there is vested interest at the top and in politics in maintaining that divide because it makes it easier to run. If you don’t have to talk issues, if you really just make this the Hatfield and McCoy feud, and it’s us against them. That’s what Donald Trump did so brilliantly, was really eliminate any discussion about issues and really make this about us versus them.

Darragh Worland:

Last year, Ezra Klein published a book called Why We’re Polarized and an excerpt of that book that covers a broad range of why he believes we’re polarized. So including things like our personal identities, the business side of news, which we’ve been talking about, how conflict draws attention, which we’ve also been talking about, the news media’s role in this because of the judgments they make about what to cover and what not to cover, things like Hillary Clinton’s emails. He wrote this, “When we’re going for retweets or when our main form of audience feedback is coming from highly partisan social media users, it subtly but importantly warps our news judgment. It changes who we cover, and what stories we chase. When we cover politics in a more polarized way, anticipating or absorbing the tastes of a more polarized audience, we create a more polarized political reality.” So do you agree that the influence of social media in particular can be a factor for editors in deciding what to cover?

Charles Whitaker:

I certainly think we are chasing clicks and retweets. There’s no question that social media has had a profound, and in many ways, damaging impact on news judgment. Right? It now is really what will garner the most eyeballs? Again, as Ezra says and has been demonstrated, we get eyeballs through outrage, through grievance, through anger, through the horse race. “Who’s up and who’s down?” Again, that’s not nuanced. That’s uncertainty. That’s not context. That’s really simple and facile. It doesn’t help. Now, there’s something of a chicken and egg debate here. Did media start this or did they simply pick up on what was driving, learning how social media operates and saying, “Oh, this is the ballpark we’re playing in. These are the rules, and we are in a fight for survival. So we’ve got to play by those rules if we want to survive.” I mean, that that’s probably me providing excuses for media. Maybe, but I don’t know that I lay this at media’s feet in terms of starting this. But that’s the world in which we live. The question is now, how do we change those? How do we res-socialize audiences? How do we get them away from turning to those outrageous things that simply get their blood boiling and make them want to click and retweet them on to things that, again, are more nuanced, that help them get a better understanding of the world in which they live. But it also doesn’t help that we don’t have … There’s no shared trusted media anymore. Right? We can’t agree upon a set of facts because our reading habits are so polarized.

Darragh Worland:

So that “us versus them “narrative is really the false narrative. Can you talk a little bit more about that and the harm that that’s causing?

Charles Whitaker:

It’s easy to demonize people who you don’t know, people whose travails you don’t understand. We as a media, because we are not good at nuanced context or uncertainty, have not done a particularly good job at helping people to understand the other. Because we are such a separated and segregated society, by race, by socioeconomic status, by education, it’s easy for us, many of us to burrow into our echo chambers [and] not come into contact with people whose experiences are different than ours. When you do that, it’s very, very easy to demonize people. Then it’s easy for the big institutions, whether it’s the media or politics, to paint in those broad brushstrokes and continue the “us versus them” conflict that again, makes the country ungovernable. I tell people the democratization of media by digital is on the one hand, a wonderful thing. There are no more gatekeepers. Everyone can sort of produce content and push it out there. But when you get to curate your own media, you wind up curating your own facts as well. Then again, we can come together to collectively agree upon a set of facts. You can say the sky is blue, I can say the sky is green. I can just burrow deeper into the set of media that says the sky is green and come to believe that whole with my fiber and being. I don’t know how we get back to a point of if we will ever be able to get to a point of shared facts, media that we all trust and agree upon. Because until we can get there, this polarization is going to continue.

Darragh Worland:

So you said something that I find troubling, particularly as a former journalist myself, is that the media is not good at nuance, context and uncertainty. I wrote that down because those three words are words that we use at the News Literacy Project routinely. So much of what’s going on in our world right now requires nuance and a nuanced understanding. We also live in uncertain times. I think this uncertainty is also what fuels conspiracy theories and conspiratorial thinking, and we talk a lot about that as well. In context, obviously, taking things out of context can drive a lot of misinformation. So if media is not good at this, yikes, where does that leave us? Can the media be better at it?

Charles Whitaker:

So I think it’s hard to do in daily reporting. It was one of the things, so I admit … No, I didn’t say I love my time in daily. Being in daily reporting was very important for my development as a reporter because it enabled, it taught me to gather information quickly, and to synthesize it, and to push it out. But I was always unnerved by the fact that I didn’t have time for nuance. The way we construct stories, particularly daily stories, the easy narrative is the horse race, who’s winning and who’s losing. The easy narrative is who’s good and who’s bad. The easy narrative is, “This is the answer,” not, “We don’t know the answer and we’re still struggling to find the answers.” This is the answer, and that’s the way we report. Right? There’s a good guy and a bad guy, there’s a winner, there’s a loser. Here’s the answer. Here’s the fix. We’ve got to find ways. We struggle with this as a journalism school, but we’re talking about it all the time, how to teach reporters to report and lean into the uncertainty a bit. We actually don’t know. People are really struggling to figure this out. Yes, this bad thing happened, and there may be some bad people who are behind that. But maybe it was the unintended consequence of something good that someone was trying to do. Here’s how we got here. That’s the context. Right? Here’s how we got to this point. But when you’re cranking things out really quickly, it doesn’t leave time for that analysis. It doesn’t leave time for that kind of plumbing of the issues. Again, we rely on the facile narrative devices that we have used for a century now. We rely on the inverted pyramid.

Darragh Worland:

There’s a formula.

Charles Whitaker:

There’s a formula.

Darragh Worland:

Yeah, there’s a formula.

Charles Whitaker:

We rely on it, and it isn’t serving us well. Now, on the other hand, part of our job is just to engage people. Not only are we not good at nuance, context and uncertainty, people don’t like it. Right? They also want those answers that they want them to be concrete and specific. It’s maddening to them that there are not really hard and fast answers. We just continue, and they will turn away and look for the certainty and the heroes and the villains in the story. That’s the story that they will find most compelling.

Darragh Worland:

And someone else will serve it to them.

Charles Whitaker:

And someone else. We’re in a difficult time. It’s an exciting time, I love talking about it and thinking about it. My struggle is we’re talking about it … Again, talking about echo chambers. We’re talking about it amongst ourselves. We’re not talking about it publicly, bringing the public into that discussion and helping them to understand what we’re wrestling with. So part of my mission, I say, as journalism schools, we can’t just train the next generation of journalists. We’ve got to turn to training the public as well. We’ve got to do more media literacy. Again we can’t just be inward-looking. We’ve got to be outward-looking in a different way than we ever have before.

Darragh Worland:

Right. We want the public to be engaged in this conversation with the news media, demanding better of the news media.

Charles Whitaker:

Be willing to sit with better news and accept and appreciate better news. Again, because as you said, someone else is going to serve them what they want. H ow do we shift their attention away from that to this thing that will make better citizens and a better society?

Darragh Worland:

I don’t envy this next generation. But I think that that’s something that you can build into kids from a young age.

Charles Whitaker:

I worry about them, but I think we are at a moment in time for a reset. In some ways, I think that we are starting to have these conversations. It gives us an opportunity to really engage and just sort of recalibrate the way our education and the way we’re talking about media and media framing. Again, so I’m excited. I’m worried, but I’m also excited about … I think the prospects are great if we all roll our sleeves up and do our part.

Darragh Worland:

Thanks for listening. In our next episode, we’ll continue our exploration of false narratives by examining those built up around immigrants and immigration in this country. Look for it on November 10th.

Is that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit, helping educators, students and the general public become news-literate so they can be active consumers of news and information, and equal and engaged participants in a democracy. I’m your host, Darragh Worland. Our executive producer is Mike Webb. Our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Bush. To learn more about the News Literacy Project, go to NewsLit.org and follow us on social media.