The Damaging Effects Of Team Sport Politics

America’s Lawyer E72: Americans today are more partisan than ever, according to research, and that’s not a good thing. Tribalism has taken over to the point where neither Party is willing to admit that they make mistakes – and that’s poisoning our political conversations. A Catholic Church diocese is trying to file for bankruptcy protection as laws change to allow sexual assault survivors to sue for the abuse they suffered at the hands of the church. And James Carville says that Woke Progressives are the REAL problem with the Democratic Party. All that, and more is coming up, so don’t go anywhere – America’s Lawyer starts right now.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Hi, I'm Mike Papantonio and this is America's Lawyer. Americans today are more partisan than ever, according to research, that's not a good thing. Tribalism has taken over to the point where neither party is willing to admit that they make mistakes, and it's poisoning our political conversation. And a Catholic church diocese is trying to file bankruptcy protection as laws changed to allow sexual assault survivors to sue for abuse. They suffered at the hands of the church, and now the church simply doesn't want to pay. And James Carville, well, he says that woke progressives are the real, serious, serious problem that the Democrats are suffering from right now. All that and more, it's coming up. Don't go anywhere. America's Lawyer starts right now.

There have been countless studies conducted in the past decade that show that Americans are becoming more tribal than ever with their political affiliations. We're no longer willing to even be friends with people outside our political bubble. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins joins me to talk about this problem that is a huge problem. Farron, first of all, it's group identity is the whole catch phrase right here. This need for kind of a collective belonging. I have to be on this baseball team. I need to be on this football team. I need to wear the colors all the time. If my team loses, things are really bad. They internalize all that and make it a personal kind of way that they live their lives. And it's the weirdest thing that I've seen. You're seeing the change, aren't you?

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm certainly seeing the change. I can't even put my, I mean, it makes my head spin. What's your take on this?

It's interesting because we've talked about this a lot and we set out, let's find what's really going on. And there have been multiple studies over the last few years that have all proven the same thing. There's been self polling. People personally reporting like, yeah, I will not go and have lunch with a Republican. I won't date a Democrat. I won't be in their social circles because it's me and my team. And one, you have this Johns Hopkins political scientist, Lilliana Mason.

I was so fascinated by that study.

It's such a great quote. They say, instead of going into the voting booth and asking, what do I want my elected representatives to do for me, they're thinking, if my party loses, it's not just that my policy preferences aren't going to get done, it's who I think I am, my place in the world, my religion, my race, the many parts of my identity are all wrapped up in that one vote.

How sick is that? I mean, how sick is that really? Doesn't it remind you of these numb nuts that show up at a football game and get into fights over what's happening on the field? That's how crazy this has become. It's become, like, rather than raising the intellectual discussion at all, they move into this area to where they are losers if their party loses. They're somehow suffering if something doesn't go right for their party. They pick up their iPad and read the news that day and they're happy or sad according to which team is ahead, which team is losing. It's actually causing mental dysfunction. It's causing mental problems. And some of them, the great thing is our staff is able to, when you look at some comments sometimes.