Politics

The Polarization of Politics in America

Published

9 years ago

July 21, 2015

Jeff Desjardins

The polarization of political views in America

Modern day media has reared its ugly head to make American politics more divisive than ever before. On the one hand, independent media has a more prominent presence which leads to new angles and ideas for those who actively seek them. The flipside is that the internet world is built to be an echo chamber of cognitive bias. Recent studies have shown that our pre-conceptions are not challenged on the web – rather, they get reinforced.

Research from The Pew Research Center confirms that there is growing polarization of politics in the United States, with consensus opinions on both the left and right spreading further apart.

All one has to do to seek proof of this? Take a look at the current outliers in the field of candidates that have announced their US presidential bids: a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, a libertarian-leaning Paul, and a (very) outspoken and often controversial real estate magnate confirm this to be true.

As seen in the above animation, the share of Americans who express a consistently liberal or conservative views have doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. The median positions, which used to overlap relatively closely, have spread much further apart such that the “typical” Republican is more conservative than 94% of Democrats. Two decades ago, this number was only 70%.

Further, there is more hate and blame being passed around these days:

Growing Animosity in United States Politics

It is now true that 43% of Republicans have “very unfavorable” attitudes about the Democratic Party, and 36% of Republicans even go so far as to say that the blue party is a threat to the nation’s well-being. The feelings are mutual on the other side of the aisle as well, with 38% of Democrats having “very unfavorable” attitudes towards Republicans. This animosity of people surveyed has more than doubled since 1994.

The most ideologically polarized Americans are those that are more engaged in the political process:

Polarization is with the politically engaged

Those that were “consistently” or “mostly” liberal or conservative in their views tended to be those that also considered themselves to be politically engaged.

While the polarization of politics in America seems greater than before, the good news is that the addition of people like Donald Trump, Rand Paul, and Bernie Sanders to the conversation may help for an escape from the usual carefully-refined rhetoric. Getting politicians outside of their comfort zones is a small win for everyone, and it will at least provide for new ideas along with some popcorn munching styled entertainment.

Original graphics by: Pew Research

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War

Visualized: Top 15 Global Tank Fleets

Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare.

Published

1 month ago

March 15, 2024

Chris Dickert

The Top 15 Global Tank Fleets

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare.

This visualization shows the top 15 global tank fleets, using data from the 2024 Military Balance report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Let’s take an in-depth look at the top three fleets:

1. United States

As the world’s pre-eminent military power, it’s perhaps no surprise that the United States also has the largest tank fleet, by a wide margin.

In total, they have just over 45,000 armored fighting vehicles in operation, along with 2,640 main battle tanks (MBTs), and 12,800 vehicles in storage, of which 2,000 are main battle tanks.

Category	Vehicles	Global rank
Main battle tanks	2,640	4
Armored reconnaissance	1,745	1
Infantry fighting vehicles	3,262	3
Armored personnel carriers	10,644	1
Amphibious assault vehicles	1,401	1
Armored utility vehicles	28,445	1
Storage	12,800	1
Total	60,937	1

The U.S. is internalizing the lessons from the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, where Western-supplied anti-tank weapons and massed Ukrainian artillery have been cutting Russian tanks to pieces. As a result, the U.S. recently canceled an upgrade of the M1 Abrams in favor of a more ambitious upgrade.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is nervously eyeing a more confident China and a potential clash over Taiwan, where air and naval forces will be critical. However, a recent war game showed that Taiwanese mechanized ground forces, kitted out with American-made tanks and armored fighting vehicles, were critical in keeping the island autonomous.

2. Russia

According to Oryx, a Dutch open-source intelligence defense website, at time of writing, Russia has lost almost 2,800 main battle tanks since invading Ukraine. Considering that in the 2022 edition of the Military Balance, Russia was estimated to have 2,927 MBTs in operation, those are some hefty losses.

Russia has been able to maintain about 2,000 MBTs in the field, in part, by increasing domestic production. Many defense plants have been taken over by state-owned Rostec and now operate around the clock. Russia is also now spending a full third of their budget on defense, equivalent to about 7.5% of GDP.

At the same time, they’ve also been drawing down their Soviet-era stockpiles, which are modernized before being sent to the front. Just how long they can keep this up is an open question; their stockpiles are large, but not limitless. Here is what their storage levels look like:

Category	2023	2024	YOY change
Main battle tanks	5,000	4,000	-20.0%
Armored reconnaissance	1,000	100	-90.0%
Infantry fighting vehicles	4,000	2,800	-30.0%
Armored personnel carriers	6,000	2,300	-61.7%
Total	16,000	9,200	-42.5%

3. China

China holds the third overall spot and top place globally for the number of main battle tanks in operation. Untypically, the People’s Liberation Army has no armored vehicles in storage, which perhaps isn’t surprising when you consider that China has been rapidly modernizing its military and that stockpiles usually contain older models.

China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of armored fighting vehicles, second only to the United States. Breaking down that headline number, we can also see that they have the largest number of light tanks, wheeled guns, and infantry fighting vehicles.

Category	Vehicles	Global rank
Main battle tanks	4,700	1
Light tanks	1,330	1
Wheeled guns	1,250	1
Infantry fighting vehicles	8,200	1
Armored personnel carriers	3,604	5
Airborne combat vehicles	180	2
Amphibious assault vehicles	990	2
Total	20,254	3

This is equipment that would be integral if China were to make an attempt to reunify Taiwan with the mainland by force, where lightly armored mechanized units need to move with speed to occupy the island before Western allies can enter the fray. It’s worth noting that China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of amphibious assault vehicles.

End of the Tank?

Many commentators at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, were quick to predict the end of the tank, however, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the tank’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

With the U.S. and China both developing remote and autonomous armored vehicles, tanks could be quite different in the future, but there is nothing else that matches them for firepower, mobility, and survivability on the modern battlefield today.