I first reached out to Sean Evans because he wrote an article about Ways to Stay Out of the Culture of Outrage. However, when we met I got interested in hearing from a political scientist to get the political science perspective regarding some of the themes we often discuss on the podcast, such as political polarization and extreme politics and how outrage messaging plays into it.

Outrage media typically portrays Americans as either far-left or far-right. But how accurate is this? We talk about this question and more, including some interesting perspectives about how the parties have changed over the past fifty years, third parties and ranked-choice voting, accountability of our elected officials, and, yes, even some optimism.

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed the conversation with Professor Evans.

Sean Evans is Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Union University. Originally from Decatur, Alabama, he completed his B.A. at Lipscomb University and his M.A. in Political Science at the University of Alabama. He then followed Horace Greeley’s advice to “go west young man” and completed his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Colorado.

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