[acslater00]

The proposed link between civic participation ("cooperation") and both inequality and political polarization is a strange one to me, since civic participation seems like it would be a local phenomenon, and both inequality and political polarization mostly show up as regional differences rather than differences within communities.

Sure, the political space between Allegany County, NY (low income and trump voting) and Westchester County, NY (high income and clinton voting) is huge. But if you go to an elk lodge in Allegany or a (i dunno) running club in Westchester, you're going to find that everybody there has basically the same politics and basically the same income.

Something else is going on here.

[PoachedSausage]

Maybe we're a bit more varied here in the UK and this is anecdata but I'm a member of a running club that has at one end of the spectrum members of the Conservative party through to anarcho-vegans.

[acslater00]

Yeah - sure I'm not literally saying that all clubs are full of people with identical politics. I'm just pointing out that most communities in America are actually not that diverse or polarized.