This column poses a question for which I have only a tentative answer. I am interested to learn what answers readers have. How do you deal with friends who are so intolerant of political views different from their own that they consider anyone who disagrees with them evil? Those of you who follow this blog know that I have been hosting a series of political discussion threads on my Facebook page. (I wrote a book about the initial experiment, because I found the response so interesting.) Two fr...

Halfway through watching the president’s rally in Phoenix Tuesday night, I had the almost uncontrollable urge to jump on social media and blast off a post expressing my anger. Blaming the mainstream media, democrat’s, disloyal Republican senators and left-wing protesters for legislative failures and bad press doesn’t sit well with me. But, since I am the author of the book: Polarized! The Case for Civility in the Time of Trump-- An experiment in civil discourse on Facebook--restraint won the ni...

"A house divided against itself cannot stand.” - Abraham Lincoln The almost-deadly attack by a gunman at a Republican baseball practice briefly focused national attention on the dangerous level political polarization has reached in the US. It’s been trending upward for decades. Since the 1970s, ideological polarization has increased dramatically among the mass public in the United States... There are now large differences in outlook between Democrats and Republicans, between red state voters a...