This article is a few months old now, but I think itā€™s an incredibly important area of research and something that explains a lot of why America is like it is and how red states stay red.

Excerpt,

A study I co-authored with fellow researcher Kevin Morris, published in December in the American Political Science Review, finds that traffic stops by police stops in Hillsborough County reduced voter turnout in 2014, 2016, and 2018 federal elections.

Our study compared the voter turnout of Hillsborough motorists who were stopped by police shortly before and after each election. Drawing on information about each personā€™s turnout in past cycles, we found that these stops reduced the likelihood that a stopped individual turned out to vote by 1.8 percentage points on average. The effect held when accounting for characteristics like race, gender, party affiliation, past turnout, and prior traffic stops to improve our comparisons. The discouraging effect of stops was slightly higher in 2014 and 2018.

These results make clear that the collateral consequences of policingā€”including worsening outcomes for economic security, educational attainment, and healthā€”also extend to political participation. If the communities who are most frequently subjected to policing are also discouraged from voting as a result, it could create a vicious feedback loop of political withdrawal.

Why would traffic stops make people less likely to show up to the polls? Past research has already established that the most disruptive forms of criminal legal contact, like arrest and incarceration, discourage people from voting. Our study shows that low-level police contact matters in the same way. If a traffic stop makes a motorist fear that the government will harm them, it can prompt a withdrawal from civic life that political scientists call ā€œstrategic retreat.ā€ Motorists might worry that a routine traffic stop could escalate into police violence, a more common outcome for Black people in particular. Beyond justified fears of violent victimization, voters might also bristle at the perception of being targeted to raise revenue through excessive ticketing. Accordingly, if incarceration ā€˜teachesā€™ would-be voters that their government is an alienating and harmful force in their lives, traffic stops could catalyze a similar form of ā€˜learning.ā€™

Full study is available here, and hereā€™s an archived thread from a dumb website where one of the research study authors answered questions.

  • KoofNoof@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The issue with the word fascism is that it only pertains to right leaning ideologies according to the dictionary definition. This provides liberal extremists a safe haven from negative labels as they feel free to force their views and silence opposition, which ironically seems to be what the definition of fascism SHOULD be, regardless of party

    • PostmodernPythia@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Leftists have a term for thatā€”red fascism. (Though plenty of people just use the left/right blind ā€œauthoritarianism.ā€) Also, I think you mean ā€œleft extremistsā€ not ā€œliberal extremists.ā€ ā€œLiberals,ā€ in the American sense at least, are not left, and therefore couldnā€™t be the left counterpart to fascism. Plus, I donā€™t see Stalinism sweeping the globe, so I donā€™t see the need for equivalent terms.

      Fascismā€™s definition comes from its origins. Mussoliniā€™s and Hitlerā€™s parties were fundamentally right-wing, and so are their ideological descendents. Whether or not you like that, itā€™s true.

      • KoofNoof@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        In what ways were they right wing? I guess you donā€™t need to answer that, I can do my own research. Just seems like taking away guns and using propaganda to put everyone against a particular group seems like what the left is wanting to do in America today.

        Modern day leftists are very ā€œif youā€™re not with us, youā€™re against usā€, and ā€œanyone who is against us is anti-human and a stain on societyā€.

        All it takes is more time for the division to escalate and I could see Republican views being considered terrorism and grounds for going into a prison camp

    • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Wow, maybe if I had read ā€œOn Tyranny,ā€ by Timothy Snyder. Or ā€œUr Fascism,ā€ by Umberto Eco, Iā€™d know that left wing authoritarians share traits with the far right.