Trying to make sense of the rise of Trump

By Steve McIntosh

My new paper on the problem of hyper-partisan polarization was originally written in January 2016. But since then the Republican party has entered the throes of a historically significant meltdown which may actually solve the problem of polarization by severely crippling the right and handing political power to the left in the next election cycle. With the rise of Donald Trump, we have to ask: “who really knows anything anymore?” This paper, entitled Overcoming Polarization by Evolving Both Right and Left, has accordingly been revised to try to account for the current upheavals in American politics. However, regardless of how Trump fares in his bid for the presidency, the American right has now been permanently changed. And thus the question of what form the future of the right will take is more relevant than ever.

As I also argue in the paper, the future of the right is tied to the future evolution of the left. So this is a subject I try to unpack in the last segment of the paper. Thanks for having a look. And if you feel so moved, please leave on comment at the bottom of the paper’s main page on this website: http://www.culturalevolution.org/political-campaigns/political-polarization

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