# Prof. Jonathan Haidt on intra-Republican Party divisions

1 Faculty News March 27, 2013 ![The New York Times Logo](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/uat_027320.jpg?itok=W8xBr66g)>

Excerpt from [The New York Times](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/a-republican-left-turn/) -- "In past times of rising crime, a cold war, rising nuclear war fears, and rising Islamic terrorism, there was a lot to hold together the large conservative coalition. Now, with diminished external threats, there is much less 'to galvanize people with a psychologically conservative disposition.' Instead, [Haidt](http://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/jonathan-haidt) argued, the more intensely felt current threats are economic, and it is not immediately clear why shrinking the government is the best way to meet those threats."

[Read more](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/a-republican-left-turn/)