The lasting implications of Jan. 6

A lot has happened since the attack on our Capitol two years ago.

We’ve had congressional hearings, impeachments, investigations. And through it all the country has remained deeply polarized.

In the past 40 years, the United States has polarized a lot faster than other wealthy democracies like Canada or Germany. Why is the U.S. so different?

“Right now, our [political] system makes it extremely difficult to break out of this kind of rigid binary, the two-party system that we have,” said Jennifer McCoy, a political science professor at Georgia State University.

On the show today, McCoy breaks down the state of our democracy post-Jan. 6, why the U.S. can’t seem to bridge its extreme political divide and what that could mean for the health of our economy and our democracy. Plus, some signs that all hope is not lost.

In the News Fix, we’ll go further into the far-right insurrection in Brazil over the weekend. Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the country’s main government buildings in a strikingly similar fashion to the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol. We’ll discuss what connects the two and what kind of influence the U.S. may have had in Brazil.

Later, we’ll hear from a listener about keeping New Year’s resolutions, and a writer shares how her own research proved her wrong about creating lasting habits.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• “How Can American Democracy Be Saved?” from Jennifer McCoy
• “Polls show Americans are divided on the significance of January 6” from The Brookings Institution
• “U.S. is polarizing faster than other democracies, study finds” from Brown University
• “Videos of Brazil attack show striking similarities to Jan. 6” from The Washington Post
• “How Trump’s allies stoked Brazil Congress attack” from BBC News

Got a question for our hosts? Email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org. Or leave us a voice message at 508 U-B-SMART, or 508-827-6278.