On the road to political extremism

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Americans are curiously passionate about politics. This is something that, for many years, I observed with wry amusement.

From an Australian perspective, Republicans and Democrats seemed so similar that it was hard to imagine getting excited about either. But there is little doubt that over the past decade the perception has changed.

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart has a thesis regarding why this change has occurred. He points the finger squarely at the media. The pressure of increasing competition for scarcer and scarcer news attention from the public has polarised the US new media. The polarisation is real with Fox News on the right and MSNBC in the left and CNN not knowing what to do with itsel…   [Read Full Text]