A talk with political scientist Thomas Zeitzoff (www.zeitzoff.com), who has studied political conflicts. We talk about survey results that seem to show an increase in Americans’ willingness to think political violence is justified, and how that relates to our fears about future violent conflicts and “civil war” scenarios in America. Other topics discussed include: the psychology of polarization; the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the role of social media in that; the effects of social media on society in general. Links to this episode:
- iTunes (embedded below)
- Spotify
- Google Play
- YouTube
Resources related to or mentioned in our talk:
- The Twitter thread of Zeitzoff’s talked about in this episode
- Washington Post article mentioned in episode with quote from Zeitzoff
- Vox article ‘How does this end?’ discussed in episode
- One of many articles highlighting the survey that found an increase in Americans who think political violence can be justified
- A Twitter thread by Michael Bang Peterson about the role of social media in politics
- Interview examining question of how many Trump supporters actually believe the election was rigged
- One of Zeitzoff’s papers about social media effects on conflict