for - depolarizing politics - Democrats - why they lost to Trump - 2024 US elections - Why Trump won - Ananpour & Co. - interview - Michael Sandel - Why Trump won - Why the Democrats lost

Not anymore.

Protestant Paranoia: The American Protective Association Oath

In 1887, Henry F. Bowers founded the nativist American Protective Association (APA) in Clinton, Iowa. Bowers was a Mason, and he drew from its fraternal ritual—elaborate regalia, initiation ceremonies, and a secret oath—in organizing the APA. He also drew many Masons, an organization that barred Catholics. The organization quickly acquired an anti-union cast. Among other things, the APA claimed that the Catholic leader of the Knights, Terence V. Powderly, was part of a larger conspiracy against American institutions. Even so, the APA successfully recruited significant numbers of disaffected trade unionists in an era of economic hard times and the collapse of the Knights of Labor. This secret oath taken by members of the American Protective Association in the 1890s revealed the depth of Protestant distrust and fear of Catholics holding public office.

I do most solemnly promise and swear that I will always, to the utmost of my ability, labor, plead and wage a continuous warfare against ignorance and fanaticism; that I will use my utmost power to strike the shackles and chains of blind obedience to the Roman Catholic church from the hampered and bound consciences of a priest-ridden and church-oppressed people; that I will never allow any one, a member of the Roman Catholic church, to become a member of this order, I knowing him to be such; that I will use my influence to promote the interest of all Protestants everywhere in the world that I may be; that I will not employ a Roman Catholic in any capacity if I can procure the services of a Protestant.

I furthermore promise and swear that I will not aid in building or maintaining, by my resources, any Roman Catholic church or institution of their sect or creed whatsoever, but will do all in my power to retard and break down the power of the Pope, in this country or any other; that I will not enter into any controversy with a Roman Catholic upon the subject of this order, nor will I enter into any agreement with a Roman Catholic to strike or create a disturbance whereby the Catholic employes may undermine and substitute their Protestant co-workers; that in all grievances I will seek only Protestants and counsel with them to the exclusion of all Roman Catholics, and will not make known to them anything of any nature matured at such conferences.

I furthermore promise and swear that I will not countenance the nomination, in any caucus or convention, of a Roman Catholic for any office in the gift of the American people, and that I will not vote for, or counsel others to vote for, any Roman Catholic, but will vote only for a Protestant, so far as may lie in my power. Should there be two Roman Catholics on opposite tickets, I will erase the name on the ticket I vote; that I will at all times endeavor to place the political positions of this government in the hands of Protestants, to the entire exclusion of the Roman Catholic church, of the members thereof, and the mandate of the Pope.

To all of which I do most solemnly promise and swear, so help me God. Amen.

Source: "The Secret Oath of the American Protective Association, October 31, 1893," in Michael Williams, The Shadow of the Pope (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1932), 103–104. Reprinted in John Tracy Ellis, ed., Documents of American Catholic History (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1956), 500–501.

This suggests the misinformation sharing elites may influence whether followers become more extreme. There is little incentive not to stoke outrage as it improves engagement.

Estimated ideological extremity is associated with higher elite misinformation-exposure scores for estimated conservatives more so than estimated liberals.

Political ideology is estimated using accounts followed10. b Political ideology is estimated using domains shared30 (Red: conservative, blue: liberal). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Estimated ideological extremity is associated with higher language toxicity and moral outrage scores for estimated conservatives more so than estimated liberals.

The relationship between estimated political ideology and (a) language toxicity and (b) expressions of moral outrage. Extreme values are winsorized by 95% quantile for visualization purposes. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

In the co-share network, a cluster of websites shared more by conservatives is also shared more by users with higher misinformation exposure scores.

Nodes represent website domains shared by at least 20 users in our dataset and edges are weighted based on common users who shared them. a Separate colors represent different clusters of websites determined using community-detection algorithms29. b The intensity of the color of each node shows the average misinformation-exposure score of users who shared the website domain (darker = higher PolitiFact score). c Nodes’ color represents the average estimated ideology of the users who shared the website domain (red: conservative, blue: liberal). d The intensity of the color of each node shows the average use of language toxicity by users who shared the website domain (darker = higher use of toxic language). e The intensity of the color of each node shows the average expression of moral outrage by users who shared the website domain (darker = higher expression of moral outrage). Nodes are positioned using directed-force layout on the weighted network.

Exposure to elite misinformation is associated with the use of toxic language and moral outrage.

Shown is the relationship between users’ misinformation-exposure scores and (a) the toxicity of the language used in their tweets, measured using the Google Jigsaw Perspective API27, and (b) the extent to which their tweets involved expressions of moral outrage, measured using the algorithm from ref. 28. Extreme values are winsorized by 95% quantile for visualization purposes. Small dots in the background show individual observations; large dots show the average value across bins of size 0.1, with size of dots proportional to the number of observations in each bin. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Exposure to elite misinformation is associated with sharing news from lower-quality outlets and with conservative estimated ideology.

Shown is the relationship between users’ misinformation-exposure scores and (a) the quality of the news outlets they shared content from, as rated by professional fact-checkers21, (b) the quality of the news outlets they shared content from, as rated by layperson crowds21, and (c) estimated political ideology, based on the ideology of the accounts they follow10. Small dots in the background show individual observations; large dots show the average value across bins of size 0.1, with size of dots proportional to the number of observations in each bin.

Notice that Twitter’s account purge significantly impacted misinformation spread worldwide: the proportion of low-credible domains in URLs retweeted from U.S. dropped from 14% to 7%. Finally, despite not having a list of low-credible domains in Russian, Russia is central in exporting potential misinformation in the vax rollout period, especially to Latin American countries. In these countries, the proportion of low-credible URLs coming from Russia increased from 1% in vax development to 18% in vax rollout periods (see Figure 8 (b), Appendix).

Bor, A., Jørgensen, F. J., & Petersen, M. B. (2021). The COVID-19 Pandemic Eroded System Support But Not Social Solidarity. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qjmct

Hicks, Brian M., D. Angus Clark, Catherine Vitro, Elizabeth Johnson, Hannah A. Roberts, Carter Sherman, and Mary M. Heitzeg. ‘Politics Can Be Bad for Your Health: Trumpism and COVID-19 Outcomes’. PsyArXiv, 17 February 2022. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/apuym.

Gregg Gonsalves. (2022, January 30). Once again ⁦@DouthatNYT⁩ misframes a debate for his own partisan goals. 1/ https://t.co/Hi7r4HcoAl [Tweet]. @gregggonsalves. https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1487772523420954625

Eric Feigl-Ding. (2022, January 17). Pandemic leadership matters. #COVID19 mortality per capita by state. 📍Public health is policy, policy is politics. 📍Human behavior is often driven by misinformation. 📍Misinformation is often driven by politics. 📍Politics can be changed by voting—Unless voters can’t. Https://t.co/pFkndQZrfr [Tweet]. @DrEricDing. https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1483181226815012867

Shoss, M., Hootegem, A. V., Selenko, E., & Witte, H. D. (2022). The Job Insecurity of Others: On the Role of Perceived National Job Insecurity During the COVID-19 Pandemic. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qhpu5

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 13). RT @CaulfieldTim: India, U.S. account for a quarter of #COVID19 #misinformation: @UAlberta study https://ualberta.ca/folio/2021/12/india-us-account-for-a-quarter-of-covid-19-misinformation-study.html “Misinformation s… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1470435900073168907

The articles I picked for my two picked was from CNN and the other was from the ny times. They both were very similar because they both were about how the US troops left Afghanistan after our 20 year war with them.

Gligorić, Vukašin, Allard Feddes, and Bertjan Doosje. ‘Political Bullshit Receptivity and Its Correlates: A Cross-Cultural Validation of the Concept’. PsyArXiv, 27 October 2020. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/u9pe3.

Democrats were already on the trajectory of losing blue-collar whites by the end of the 60s.

annotate

Public opinion matters.

Hillary Clinton: Not a Loose Cannon Shooting Verbal Spit Wads.

Strong (written) language. In the video, the paralanguage makes things sounds quite a bit more difficult. Fear of reprisals? Unwilling shift to clickbait?

Surprised by the US focus of this piece, from the start. But this phrase is particularly awkward, coming from a UK publication. Sounds a bit like people from the US coming to Canada and talking about “the country” in reference to our southerly neighbours. Feels strange, especially from those who teach here.

A “well-informed citizenry” require journalistic assistance. Which is why US elections are such a neat context to discuss literacy, public opinion, agency, representativeness, and populism.

Wow. Hadn't heard it put so bluntly before.