In one of our focus groups, a bunch of young people in North Carolina, mostly probably like

Barker Rubio voters. As they were walking out the focus group, one of the guys looked at me and said,

well, I play guitar in a rock band and he shrug his shoulders.

Like, I'm the conservative in the rock band and so, I'm Gailin Druk.

How much do you respect people who hold different political views from you?

It's a question that underpins much of the discord in our current politics.

Political polarization has been on the rise for decades in the US,

and people are feeling those effects in their everyday lives.

A pew study last year found that two-thirds of Americans always are often

feel exhausted when thinking about politics and a majority 55% feel angry. In that same

study 84% of adults said political debate has become less respectful.

And just a couple of weeks ago on this podcast, we spoke about a rise in political violence in America and threats to lawmakers.

43% of state legislators had said they'd experienced threats of political violence.

We've had a pretty monumental last month of news and we wanted to

zoom out for a second and talk about a wider trend in our politics and also to that

point the point about having so much news over the past month. If everything is going to plan, I am on vacation right now, and this was recorded last week, just in case I miss a newsy reference. And I'm also knocking on wood right now as I say that. So our guests today have some

clues about how we got here. Jeff Spinner Hallev is a political science

professor at UNC Chapel Hill and Elizabeth Tice Morse is a political science professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. They co-authored a book called Respect and Loathing in American Democracy, which explores how respect is both lacking and vital in modern politics.

Jeff and Elizabeth, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Glad to be here.

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