The Depolarizers

Stanford’s Polarization and Social Change Lab has been analyzing, testing and creating solutions for America’s polarized political climate. I sat down with Robb Willer, Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab and Co-Director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society to discuss ways to emerge out of the most toxic partisan polarization in America as well as how both parties can improve in the ways they speak to voters. 

Episode Four of The Depolarizers podcast features Didi Kuo, a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She oversees the program on American democracy and comparative perspective, which seeks to bridge academic and Policy Research on American democracy. She's the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: The Rise of Programmatic Politics in the United States and Britain.Kuo argues that political parties play a central role in the democratic process: the problem is polarization, not partisanship. Additionally, she makes that case that both parties have been weakened by candidate-centered politics. She argues that parties should be civic vehicles that prioritize the needs of individuals and help them transcend narrow interests.

The Trump era has seen a reduction in racial polarization, driven largely by an increase in education polarization. But with Trump’s core policy win being a massive tax cut for the wealthy, can Republicans really become the Working Class Party?Episode Three of The Depolarizers features guests Patrick Ruffini and Ruy Teixeira. Ruffini is a Republican pollster, author of Party of the People, and one of the country’s leading experts on political targeting, technology, and demography. Ruffini worked on Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign and has been a leader in the Republican Party’s shift to digital. Teixeira is a name you’ve probably heard mentioned on WelcomeStack, as he also leads popular centrist publication The Liberal Patriot. Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a political scientist who focuses on demographic political trends. He’s co-author of Where Have All the Democrats Gone?, which explores how Democrats are risking losses among key historical constituencies by catering too much to college-educated white voters.

Episode Two of The Depolarizers features The Lincoln Project co-founder Reed Galen and political scientist Eitan Hersh. Galen courageously left the Republican Party to help elect Biden in 2020. An alumnus of campaigns for John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger and George W. Bush, Galen is the quintessential example of a depolarizer. Hersh coined the term “political hobbyism” as part of his book, Politics is for Power. Political hobbyism, which refers to the rise of people who treat politics like a spectator sport, has played a role in fanning the flames for political polarization and mistrust. In this episode, we'll discuss in what scenarios Republicans support Democrats, how political hobbyism plays a role in polarization, and more.

It’s a complaint we hear endlessly about American politics: why is everything so polarized? Our new podcast series, The Depolarizers, discusses how we got here and, more importantly, how we get out of it. Our first episode features Matt Yglesias, writer of popular Substack publication Slow Boring and Sam Rosenfeld, author of two books about polarization (The Polarizers and his latest with Daniel Schlozman, The Hollow Parties). Rosenfeld’s book inspires the name of our podcast. In it, he introduces us to those who created America's polarization in the 20th Century, and why. Throughout this episode and our show, we’ll introduce you to the people working to effectively depolarize American politics. We hope you'll join us for the ride.Our recent essay in Democracy Journal introduces a number of the themes in our podcast. We recommend including it in your podcast journey.