America is more politically polarized than it’s been in 150 years, which if you’re keeping score, would mean anytime since the Civil War. Despite the Great Depression, Vietnam and Civil Rights, America today manages to be so ideologically separate that we have a fascist and a socialist making a significant impact on the race for the presidency. So let’s talk about political polarization, what it is, and how we got here, how moderates died, and how being Republican now means saying Obama is the worst president in US history.
First let’s tackle what it means to be politically polar. According to a study from Pew Research, “the ‘median,’ or typical, Republican is now more conservative than 94 percent of Democrats, compared with 70 percent twenty years ago. And the median Democrat is more liberal than 92 percent of Republicans, up from 64 percent.” What we’re looking at is two groups moving further and further apart at an alarming rate, as people adopt entire platforms of a party as if they are rooting for a sports team. No longer does the population take their due diligence to discover what’s politically relevant and form their own opinions, but rather lazily sit back and yell “go red” or “go blue”.
This new approach to politics has been aided by the rise of political echo chambers. Essentially the population self-selects the information that they agree with, while eliminating the information they don't agree with. A great lens we can see this through is Facebook. Facebook is a tool that allows people to check out information from a litany of different sources from all over the world; chances are your reading this article via Facebook now (thanks mom for sharing). However instead of making people more open minded and open to conversation, studies have shown that people on Facebook tend to shuffle into interest groups; chances are your dad, who frequently shares articles from Breitbart News and The Federalist Papers, isn’t following Huffington Post or John Oliver’s YouTube page. The fact of the matter is that these trends creates contradictory communities of reinforcement that foster confirmation bias, segregation, and polarization. Facebook is an easy place to view this phenomenon, however, Pew confirms this expands far beyond the internet, as 63 percent of conservatives and 49 percent of liberals say most of their close friends share their political views. If you disagree with someone politically that’s not supposed to be grounds for relationship termination, but rather an outlet for discussion.
Some people would argue that political polarization is a good thing, because it either increase the number of people engaged in politics, or it forces compromise on policy. However, political polarization has very real negative effects, both tangibly and perceptually. First, political polarization significantly hinders the ability of politicians to compromise. The 114th (current) congress has passed only 2 percent of proposed bills, which signals a steep decline in cooperation and bipartisanship. It’s like watching an unstoppable force meet an immovable object, nothing happens. This means that important issues get ignored, and bills left on the table. For example: Puerto Rico’s crisis gets shoved to the side, Flint’s water crisis ignored, and tackling Zika virus nonexistence. These very real issues are not going away, yet the people with the power to do anything about it are too busy trying to prove that they’re a real conservative or a real liberal by ignoring bipartisanship.
Political polarization also results in a perceptual problem, as 27 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of Republicans believe that the other party is a threat to the nation’s well-being. The fact that a significant amount of voters who believe that Hillary Clinton is going to end America has allowed for a culture of vitriol, hate, and fear politics, in which the American public is manipulated in a game of political positioning. The things people say about the other party are unwarranted, and conservative or liberal they’re uncalled for (example tweet below). Nobody deserves to be called what you’ll hear people in congress call the president. This kind of perceptual "us vs them" mentality has only widened the gap, and legitimized the current state of extreme politics.
There is not one thing that is responsible for political polarization, but there is a silver bullet - education. Having smart and informed discussions of specific policies is the way to beat back the polarization problem. That isn’t easy I know, everybody wants to be informed, but nobody wants to work for it. But take the first step, read articles that dissent from your own opinion, talk to socialist economic major, or the conservative veteran; don’t shut out voices you disagree with, because the only way you can evolve your own opinions, and shape a dialogue, is to be respectful, and know the arguments.
