“I don’t worry about that, because I don’t think that’s going to last,” he said in an interview with Vox, when asked about statistics that show the Democratic and Republican Parties becoming increasingly polarized on issues of race.
Obama noted that the influx of immigrants has made people “more and more comfortable with the diversity of this country,” but that “the key is to make sure that our politics and our politicians are tapping into that better set of impulses rather than our baser fears.”
“And my gut tells me, and I’ve seen it in my own career and you see it generally, a politician who plays on those fears in America, I don’t think is going to over time get a lot of traction,” Obama added.
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Vox itself was an example of the President putting that theory into practice. His choice to speak with the outlet and BuzzFeed — two relatively young, niche media properties — made headlines and created early buzz around the President’s late-term interview.
Though he targeted the media as the cause of political polarization, Obama also cited the influx of outside spending as a cause, and said he would “love to see some constitutional process that would allow us to actually regulate campaign spending the way we used to, and maybe even improve it.” He also targeted gerrymandering as a key issue, but noted that polarization is ultimately nothing new for America.
“There’ve been periods in the past where we’ve been pretty polarized. I think there just wasn’t polling around. As I recall, there was a whole civil war — that was a good example of polarization that took place,” he said.
