An Ethics Institute colloquy with Dr. Henry Milner, Université de Montréal

[Suzanna Bartlett]

The American Exception

Wednesday, March 24, 2021, noon – 1 p.m. by Zoom <https://bit.ly/319eHXD>

In anticipation of the next Ethics Institute colloquy, Henry Milner shares
the following observation;

*When I was a graduate student in political science way back when, we
learned that, unlike elsewhere among modern democracies where political
parties split along ideological lines, the U.S. was exceptional in that its
(two) parties hewed to the center, the liberal Democrats constrained by the
party’s Dixiecrat wing, and the conservative Republicans by their
Rockefeller-Lindsay-Romney wing. *

*Starting in the latter 1970s, polarization mounted in the U.S. as these
two wings were being cut off. Elsewhere, the opposite was happening as the
more radical parties on the left especially were moving toward the center,
accelerated by the disintegration of the Communist bloc. *

*In the past decades, due especially to the takeover of the Republicans by
Newt Gingrich, the Tea Party, and the Trumpists, the U.S. party system has
again become exceptional, except in the opposite sense, i.e., more rather
than less polarized than in other Western democracies. While there is much
talk about the rise of populist parties in Western Europe, it is in fact
only in the U.S., with its unique political institutions, that such
populists are in a position to actually take power. Why is this the case?*

For further information about colloquies at the Ethics Institute, contact
Dr. Jonathan Slater, director, at slaterjr at plattsburgh.edu. The Institute
for Ethics in Public Life is generously supported by gifts to the
Plattsburgh College Foundation. Institute colloquies are open to all
members of the SUNY Plattsburgh community.
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