All hail partisan politics

Thursday, February 9, 2017 - 14:51 in Psychology & Sociology

Is the Affordable Care Act eroding economic growth? Did the opposition steal a Supreme Court appointment from President Barack Obama? Did President Trump have a record large crowd at his inauguration? In these divided times when seemingly everything — no matter how minor or how true — gets litigated largely along partisan lines, it’s tempting to see tension and vigorous political disagreement as counterproductive, even harmful, to the smooth functioning of a healthy democracy. But historian David Moss, the Paul Whiton Cherington Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), says that while consensus and cooperation certainly seem like national goals worth aspiring toward, in reality democracy has always been “a contact sport,” and that’s all right. It can even be a good thing. In a new book, “Democracy: A Case Study” (Harvard University Press, 2017), Moss highlights 19 decisive moments in American history when political conflict came to a...

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