political division essay

Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University

Politics & Elections Oct 29, 2020

The political divide in america goes beyond polarization and tribalism, these days, political identity functions a lot like religious identity..

Eli J. Finkel

Cynthia S. Wang

Yevgenia Nayberg

By now, Americans are used to hearing how “polarized” our country is—how Democrats and Republicans live in separate worlds, or “echo chambers,” with each side prone to bias or “motivated reasoning.” Pundits and scholars have made the case ad nauseum for years.

But the truth might be that it’s even worse than we think, and that polarization doesn’t quite capture the partisan rancor we see on our screens .

According to a new paper, the term that best describes our strife is “political sectarianism,” or the tendency of political groups to align on the basis of moralized identities rather than shared ideas or policy preferences.

The paper’s authors include Eli Finkel , a professor of management and organizations at Kellogg, Cynthia Wang , a clinical professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School, James Druckman and Mary McGrath , both professors of political science at Northwestern, as well as eleven others from a range of disciplines.

“It’s not just that people only trust or associate with their own side,” says Wang, who directs the Center. “It’s that they’re contemptuous of the other side, whom they see as ‘other’ and less moral—an existential threat. This rise in out-group hate is what we find so alarming.”

Some may call this “tribalism.” But tribalism is based on the metaphor of kinship. In the authors’ view, a better metaphor may be the near-schismatic divides that have historically separated religious sects such as Sunni from Shia or Protestant from Catholic. Hence the term “sectarianism.”

The point is not that the beliefs of Democrats or Republicans derive from religion, but rather that political identity in America today functions as if it is a religious identity. “People on the other side are not just wrong; they’re evil. People on our side who are not sufficiently pure are apostates,” says Finkel.

This overarching idea emerged from a body of research that spans many disciplines, frameworks, and constructs—each with its own emphases and findings.

“In a real sense, polarization is not the problem,” Finkel says. “Clear, well-articulated differences across political parties are a good thing. The problem is that Americans have grown hateful toward opposing partisans based more on a religion-like social identity than on actual disagreements about policies.”

Political Sectarianism: a “Poisonous Cocktail”

Political sectarianism, according to the researchers, has three core ingredients. The first is “othering,” or the tendency to view opponents as fundamentally different or alien from oneself. The second, “aversion,” involves intense dislike and distrust of this other. The third is “moralization,” or the perception that one’s political opponents are wicked or even criminal.

“It’s the combination of all three that makes political sectarianism so corrosive,” Wang says. “Each on its own has adverse effects, but it is the coexistence of all three that creates the poisonous cocktail of political sectarianism.”

“Partisans on both sides have generated coherent narratives, which they experience as capital-T truth.” — Eli Finkel

For example, two partisans with opposing ideologies might still, given a baseline of trust, solve their policy differences through compromise or persuasion. But if each views the other as a moral threat, it’s a different game. “Now it’s zero-sum,” Wang says, where compromise feels like apostasy.

Divisiveness in American politics is certainly nothing new—nor is it always a bad thing. A healthy democracy requires a regular contest of ideas, and bipartisanship can sometimes mask deep social inequities. In the 1870s, for example, political compromises disenfranchised women and racial minorities. In 1950, some political scientists worried that the U.S. wasn’t polarized enough—that its politics were too localized, and that voters would be better served by a two-party system with distinct positions and national platforms.

More recently, however, studies reveal that out-party hatred now exceeds in-group solidarity. In addition, Americans’ voting behavior today is driven more strongly by contempt for the opposition than by support for one’s own side.

The Thirty Years’ War

The weary citizen might inquire: How did our politics get so toxic? Is it possible to interpret the last four years as a deviation?

Unfortunately, no, the researchers say. Their paper points to causes and trends that date back thirty years.

Part of the story has to do with Republicans and Democrats having sorted into identity groups that extend beyond politics. These “mega-identities” have grown almost mutually incomprehensible: studies show that each group dramatically misperceives the other. As the researchers point out, “Republicans estimate that 32 percent of Democrats are LGBT when in reality it is 6 percent; Democrats estimate that 38 percent of Republicans earn over $250,000 per year when in reality it is 2 percent.”

These identities are reinforced by dueling media ecosystems, which the researchers say can be traced back to the Reagan administration’s move to terminate the “fairness doctrine” put in place after World War II to reduce bias in broadcasting. In the intervening decades, this move has given us Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and MSNBC. And in the last decade, Facebook and Twitter have intensified sectarianism, since posts that use inflammatory and moralizing language are promoted by the algorithms meant to push “engagement.”

There’s also the trend of stark divergence among political elites, who increasingly depend on extremist donors, and who, beginning with Newt Gingrich and his followers in the 1980s and 1990s, often relied on “the rhetoric of moral outrage” to gain support, as the researchers point out.

The consequences are predictably dire, argue the researchers: increased social alienation, a breakdown of civic trust and norms, and a compromised democracy in which leaders beholden to extremist donors care more about partisan purity than actual constituents.

“Partisans on both sides have generated coherent narratives, which they experience as capital-T truth,” says Finkel. “And although the details of the two narratives are entirely different, they align in promoting the belief that the other side is so corrupt that our side would be gullible dupes to adhere to the sorts of norms that have long upheld democracy in America.”

Perhaps most alarming is the tendency of partisans, in response to the “existential threat” the other side poses, to justify antidemocratic behavior: violating election laws, flouting checks and balances, even promoting unrest.

“As political sectarianism has surged in recent years,” the researchers write, “so too has support for violent tactics.”

Lowering the Temperature on Political Tensions

So what can we do , as policymakers or citizens, to mitigate political sectarianism in the U.S.? How do we build a political culture that’s focused on ideas and not unbridgeable identities?

“The short answer is, slow and steady. There aren’t any silver bullets,” Wang says.

Still, the researchers discuss a few possible interventions. For example, correcting our misperceptions of those in the opposing group might help reduce hostility, and learning to focus on policy details rather than identity groups might give partisans a greater appreciation for complexity and foster a sense of humility. According to the authors, “leaders of civic, re­ligious, and media organizations committed to bridging divides can look to such strate­gies to reduce intellectual self-righteousness that can contribute to political sectarianism.”

A big question is what to do about social media’s influence. How do we encourage people to spend time assessing the accuracy of claims on Facebook or Twitter? One potential strategy is to rely on crowdsourcing to identify accurate content and reward it through the algorithm, thus reducing the spread of false or hyper-partisan posts and memes.

Campaign finance reform might help—by eliminating huge contributions from the most extreme donors—and fixing partisan gerrymandering would encourage more competition in the marketplace of ideas.

There are also strategies that might work at the individual level, such as learning to adopt some of the moral language of the other side when engaging with individuals with a different political identity. For example, liberals could discuss mask wearing in terms of homeland security, or conservatives could talk about deficit reduction in terms of caring for poorer Americans in the future.

“Sometimes a different frame or use of language can be quite powerful,” Wang says. “When you’re dealing with parallel realities, you have to find effective ways to communicate across that divide.”

The researchers hope that their own reframing of the challenges facing the nation spurs meaningful discussion—and perhaps even action—by academics and policymakers.

“Hopefully we’ll get great feedback, and some of these interventions can be tested or applied,” says Wang. “But we see this as a first step. There’s a long way to go.”

Professor of Psychology, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences; Professor of Management & Organizations

Clinical Professor of Management & Organizations; Executive Director of Kellogg's Dispute Resolution and Research Center

About the Writer Drew Calvert is a freelance writer based in Southern California.

We’ll send you one email a week with content you actually want to read, curated by the Insight team.

America Is Being Pulled Apart. Here’s How We Can Start to Heal Our Nation

F or the first time in my adult life, it’s easy for me to foresee the possibility of a genuine constitutional crisis in the United States of America. The scenario is simple. Imagine that either Joe Biden or Donald Trump wins the 2020 election in a close race. There is a surge in voter-suppression claims and mail-in ballot controversies.

Partisans refuse to concede, and they declare the election illegitimate. President Trump himself has indicated he may not accept the outcome.

What happens then? Well, according to a scenario planning exercise at the Transition Integrity Project, a bipartisan coalition of former officials concerned about the disruptions to the 2020 election, the result in every scenario except a Biden landslide would be “street-level violence and political crisis.” But what kind of political crisis? Could we ever again reach the point where American polarization could trigger “massive resistance” to federal authority or even outright national division?

For the past several years, I’ve been watching the increase in partisan enmity in the U.S. with growing alarm. Multiple social, cultural and religious factors are converging to create a particularly toxic political stew. America is being pulled apart. This phenomenon is geographic, ideological and spiritual.

Thanks to the decades-long “big sort”–a phenomenon outlined by Bill Bishop in his excellent 2009 book–Americans are increasingly clustering in like-minded communities, and surrounding yourself with people who think like you think has a profound effect. As Cass Sunstein articulated, when like-minded people gather, they tend to grow more extreme.

His “law of group polarization” holds that people who agree with each other grow more enthusiastic in their beliefs and agreement. If like-minded Second Amendment advocates gather, they grow more opposed to gun control. If like-minded environmental activists gather, they grow more committed to fighting climate change. As geographic separation increases, ideological divisions are magnified.

America is becoming extremely efficient at creating superclusters of like-minded citizens. White evangelicals famously delivered 81% of their 2016 votes to Donald Trump. Manhattan gave 87% of its vote to Hillary Clinton. She won 91% of the vote in Washington, D.C., and 84% of the vote in San Francisco.

Almost 80% of Americans live under unified, one-party rule. A total of 36 states–15 Democratic and 21 Republican–have “trifecta” governments where one party controls the upper house, the lower house and the governor’s mansion. Minnesota is the only divided legislature in the entire U.S.

Moreover, states where red and blue dominate are not scattered randomly across the map. The West Coast and New England are bastions of blue rule. The South and large sections of the upper Midwest represent the red heartland.

Now, let’s throw in another ingredient–enmity. It is clear that partisan Americans dislike each other a great deal. We live separately, snarling at each other across a growing divide. The result is a politics of fear and rage, where policy differences often take a back seat to the list of grievances that red possesses against blue and blue against red.

Nothing I’m outlining here is new. Commentators have called our dysfunctional politics a form of “cold civil war,” and the assumption is that one side or the other will win, dominate the opposition and rule a united country.

That’s certainly a possibility, but it’s not a certainty. When immense geographic regions share a common culture, believe their most fundamental values are under attack and lose confidence that the Democratic process will protect their interests, unity is not always the result. Just ask the colonists who sought to secure liberty in 1776. Just ask the Confederates who sought to secure slavery in the 1860s.

Over the past decade, I’ve heard committed partisans say out loud that they would be “happy” to be rid of states like California. I’ve heard (and read) men fantasizing and theorizing about a second Civil War. Right-wing insurrectionist groups have even formed for the purpose of fomenting civil strife. Look at the smoke drifting from U.S. cities from coast to coast. Watch far-right and far-left protesters square off in street battles. There is a crackling tension in the air.

My proposition is simple: In an atmosphere of increasing negative polarization and geographic separation, we can no longer take our nation for granted. We must intentionally care for the state of our union.

In “Federalist No. 10,” James Madison wrestled with the challenge of “the violence of faction.” How does a nation deal with competing factions? Not through oppression and not through uniformity but rather through pluralism–by letting many different political flowers bloom. A broad diversity of interests and groups helps prevent any interest or group from attaining dangerous dominance. In his words, “the increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase this security.”

Why do we rightly worry that a contested election would result in far more tension and even violence than 2000’s battle between George W. Bush and Al Gore? In part because our competing sides do not trust that if they lose they will still be free and secure in the land that they love. They fear domination. They do not trust the possibility of accommodation.

I’ve been writing and speaking about national polarization and division since before the Trump election. Two years ago, I began writing a book describing our challenge, outlining how we could divide and how we can heal. The prescription isn’t easy. We have to flip the script on the present political narrative. We have to prioritize accommodation.

That means revitalizing the Bill of Rights. America’s worst sins have always included denying fundamental constitutional rights to America’s most vulnerable citizens, those without electoral power. While progress has been made, doctrines like qualified immunity leave countless citizens without recourse when they face state abuse. It alienates citizens from the state and drains confidence in the American republic.

That means diminishing presidential power. A principal reason presidential politics is so toxic is that the diminishing power of states and Congress means that every four years we elect the most powerful peacetime ruler in the history of the U.S. No one person should have so much authority over an increasingly diverse and divided nation.

The increasing stakes of each presidential election increase political tension and heighten public anxiety. Americans should not see their individual liberty or the autonomy of their churches and communities as so dependent on the identity of the President.

But beyond the political changes–more local control, less centralization–Americans need a change of heart. Defending the Bill of Rights requires commitment and effort, and it requires citizens to think of others beyond their partisan tribe. Defending the Bill of Rights means that you must fight for others to have the rights that you would like to exercise yourself. The goal is simple yet elusive. Every American–regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, religion or sexual orientation–can and should have a home in this land.

Yes, many of our founders had profound flaws. But their aspirations can still be our aspirations. In the musical Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda referred to a biblical verse that George Washington used almost 50 times in his personal and political correspondence. It comes from the Book of Micah, it’s a promise of both autonomy and peace that Washington used, for example, to include Jewish Americans within the American promise, and its words echo today–“Every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

More Must-Reads from TIME

• Heman Bekele Is TIME’s 2024 Kid of the Year
• The Reintroduction of Kamala Harris
• The 7 States That Will Decide the Election
• Why China Won’t Allow Single Women to Freeze Their Eggs
• Is the U.S. Ready for Psychedelics?
• The Rise of a New Kind of Parenting Guru
• The 50 Best Romance Novels to Read Right Now
• Can Food Really Change Your Hormones?

Contact us at [email protected]

Along with Stanford news and stories, show me:

• Student information
• Faculty/Staff information

We want to provide announcements, events, leadership messages and resources that are relevant to you. Your selection is stored in a browser cookie which you can remove at any time using “Clear all personalization” below.

The United States is currently experiencing a deep political and social divide, according to many experts. But what has led to this polarization?

A new book by Law School lecturer Mugambi Jouet examines American exceptionalism as among the root causes of political polarization in the U.S. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Mugambi Jouet, a Thomas C. Grey Fellow and lecturer at Stanford Law School , tackles this question in his new book, Exceptional America: What Divides Americans from the World and from Each Other .

Jouet examines the ideological evolution of American conservatism and how American exceptionalism is among the root causes of current political polarization in the country. Jouet also explores what sets the U.S. apart from other Western countries.

Stanford News Service interviewed Jouet about his research.

How and why did you start working on the research behind this book?

I grew up in Paris in a multicultural environment, as my mother is French and father Kenyan. At 17, I moved to the United States for college and ultimately lived in many regions, including the East Coast, South, Midwest and West Coast. I was always fascinated not only by how America compares to other nations but also by the great contrasts within the U.S.

I started this research during the Barack Obama presidency to examine the sources of the nation’s polarization and why Americans often intensely debate issues that generally are not controversial, or less so elsewhere, in the modern Western world, such as universal health care, gun control, the existence of climate change, abortion and contraception. Additionally, I wanted to examine the roots of Donald Trump’s political rise, which I trace to a long-term ideological evolution.

What do you believe is the biggest takeaway from your research?

The United States is exceptionally polarized compared to other Western nations due to unique aspects of its history, culture, politics, legal institutions, religious attitudes, race relations and foreign policy. Even though divisions exist in all countries, there are far more sources and forces of polarization in America. Its polarization is also frequently over very basic issues, such as whether people should have a right to medical treatment, whether to allow unlimited spending by special interests in political campaigns, whether global warming is a hoax, whether to torture terrorists and whether people should have an unbridled right to bear arms.

Moreover, the U.S. has many other unique features within the West, including mass incarceration, the death penalty, a tendency to exempt itself from international human rights treaties, and a substantial minority of Biblical literalists who reject the theory of evolution and believe in apocalyptic prophecies.

People often overlook these differences by correctly noting similarities between the anti-immigration, nationalistic movements of President Trump and far-right European parties aiming to dismantle the European Union. Even on immigration, however, America is different because it has long been the Western country with the largest share of racial and ethnic minorities, whereas Europe’s population was essentially white until the surge of immigration from former colonies in the post-World War II era. Institutional racism is therefore more rooted in the U.S., which partly explains its greater wealth inequality and harsher penal system.

What are some of the primary sources behind the current divisions that exist among Americans?

Four interrelated ideological factors stand out. First, anti-intellectualism is exceptionally strong in parts of America. This fosters anti-rationalism, skepticism of education and receptiveness to propaganda like conspiracy theories. Second, Christian fundamentalism can exacerbate certain ideological mindsets, such as anti-intellectualism, authoritarianism and a black-and-white worldview stressing ideological purity. Third, market fundamentalism shapes a virulent suspicion of government that’s also bolstered by these prior factors in its intransigence and fact-free assertions. Finally, racial resentment is not a new factor either, but it has reached new dimensions in a diversifying U.S. where whites might no longer be the majority by 2050. Racial animus is connected to the prior factors. For example, it shaped propaganda about Obama’s forged birth certificate and insinuations that Obamacare is a handout primarily for blacks and Latinos, which isn’t factually true.

Intriguingly, these social problems partly have roots in admirable aspects of American society, such as its tradition of religious liberty and egalitarianism, as well as the country’s remarkable demographic diversity. These positive aspects of American exceptionalism can manifest themselves in inspiring, contradictory and self-destructive ways.

What does American exceptionalism mean and how does it relate to the cultural and political polarization in the U.S.?

Today, people assume it means a faith in America’s inherent greatness, namely “exceptional” in the sense of “superior.” But the term was not frequently used in U.S. politics until the Obama presidency. That’s largely because the Republican establishment routinely used it as a rhetorical weapon to accuse Obama of betraying “American exceptionalism” and the nation’s heritage. The term became a dog whistle – coded language appealing to certain citizens – and an anti-Obama rallying cry with nativist overtones, like how the phrase “states’ rights” was previously used to rally whites hostile to desegregation. Certain figures, including Trump, took claims about Obama’s un-American values a step further by spreading conspiracy theories about his identity, such as the notion that Obama has a forged U.S. birth certificate or jihadist sympathies.

But, historically, American exceptionalism has primarily meant that the United States is an exception compared to other countries, for better or worse. The nation’s extraordinary polarization today embodies what American exceptionalism means.

In an earlier age, the U.S. stood out as the first Western democracy to emerge from the Enlightenment. Throughout history, Americans have made phenomenal contributions to the humanities, literature, science and the spread of democracy throughout the world. This suggests that the nation’s present difficulties are not insurmountable.

What surprised you the most during your research?

In France, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen has increased her popular support partly by sanitizing her rhetoric and often using dog whistles to promote her nativist agenda. In doing so, she distanced herself from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the pioneer of the modern French far right, known for his incendiary statements. However, in America, there has been an opposite trend. Donald Trump’s nationalistic campaign commonly avoided the dog whistles long used by other politicians, as he regularly made overtly inflammatory statements about undocumented immigrants, Muslims and other minorities.

Finally, it was striking to document the many contradictions within American society. For example, Americans played a significant role in the development of feminism and the sexual revolution, which had a great international impact, yet the United States is among the Western nations where women’s reproductive rights remain the most staunchly contested. A comparable contradiction exists on numerous other issues, such as race, economic policy, science, religion and human rights. This makes America a fascinating country to research and write about.

Media Contacts

Mugambi Jouet, Stanford Law School: [email protected] , (650) 906-8914

Alex Shashkevich, Stanford News Service: [email protected] , (650) 497-4419

Political polarization and its echo chambers: Surprising new, cross-disciplinary perspectives from Princeton

Artwork by Egan Jimenez

Much like an overexploited ecosystem, the increasingly polarized political landscape in the United States — and much of the world — is experiencing a catastrophic loss of diversity that threatens the resilience not only of democracy, but also of society, according to a series of new studies that examine political polarization as a collection of complex ever-evolving systems.

Fifteen interdisciplinary teams of political scientists and complex systems theorists in the natural sciences and engineering explored how polarization is produced and influenced over time by the actions and interactions of individual voters, people in power, and various social networks. Ultimately, as social interactions and individual decisions isolate people into only a few intractable camps, the political system becomes incapable of addressing the range of issues — or formulating the variety of solutions — necessary for government to function and provide the services critical for society.

The studies were published Dec. 6 in a special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that stemmed from a collaboration between Princeton University and Arizona State University (ASU) and includes several papers led by Princeton researchers.

“The complex systems perspective demonstrates that the loss of diversity associated with polarization undermines cooperation and the ability of societies to provide the public goods that make for a healthy society,” according to an introduction by issue editors Simon Levin , Princeton’s James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology , Helen Milner , the B.C. Forbes Professor of Public Affairs and professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, and Charles Perrings , professor of environmental economics at ASU.

“Polarization is a dynamic process and that is what complexity theory can best help us understand,” they wrote. “As environmental and complexity scientists have shown in other contexts, diversity maintenance is critical for many systems to thrive, and often to survive at all.”

“The polarization currently being experienced both within and among nations  undercuts efforts to deal with critical issues facing societies , none more so than those related to the environment — from climate change and extreme weather, to the emergence of pandemic viruses such as COVID-19,” said Levin, who is director of the  Center for BioComplexity  based in Princeton’s  High Meadows Environmental Institute  (HMEI) and associated faculty in HMEI.

Complex adaptive systems — which are widespread in fields from physics and financial systems to natural systems driven by evolution and socioeconomic-political systems — allow scientists to understand the multiscale interactions that result in specific structures and outcomes, Levin said. At that point, efforts to mitigate negative results can be implemented more effectively.

“These systems are composed of individual agents, in which there is an interplay, and perhaps a coevolution, between the attitudes and actions of individual agents and the emergent properties of the systems to which they belong,” he said. “Similar challenges exist across these applications, involving the need for a statistical mechanics to scale from individuals to collectives, to the emergence of patterns and processes such as social norms.”

Despite the rise of partisanship, populism and polarization, these phenomena have not been thoroughly studied as dynamic systems consisting of multiple interacting components and large-scale features, Milner said.

“James Madison had hoped that the system devised in the Constitution would avoid the sorts of polarization that political parties can produce and that can undermine the workings of government,” Milner said.

“Sadly, we are seeing polarization today and a subsequent loss of diversity in the range of positions in society within the United States and globally,” she said. “The papers in this issue demonstrate from a systems perspective the forces that lead to polarization — and some of the consequences of it — with the hope that understanding them will lead to better governance.”

The studies from Princeton researchers are summarized below. The papers explored issues from how people unwittingly isolate themselves into partisan networks through social media and how to ensure successful electoral reforms using models, to how public opinion fuels extremism among political elites, as well as the potential benefits of polarization under the right circumstances.

People unwittingly polarize themselves by ditching followers considered untrustworthy 

A computational model tested with Twitter data showed that social media users may inadvertently sort themselves into polarized networks by “unfollowing” users they consider untrustworthy news sources. Princeton researchers  Andy Guess , assistant professor of politics and public affairs, Corina Tarnita , professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and first author  Christopher Tokita , who received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 2021, found that when people are less reactive to news, their online environment remains politically mixed.

When users constantly react to and share articles from their preferred news sources, however, they are more likely to develop politically isolated networks, or what the researchers call “epistemic bubbles.” Once users are in these bubbles, they miss out on more news articles, including those from their preferred media outlets. 

“It’s not hard to find evidence of polarized discourse on social media, but we know less about the mechanisms of how social media can drive people apart,” Guess said. “Our contribution is to show that polarization of online social networks emerges naturally as people curate their feeds. Counterintuitively, this can occur even without knowing other users' partisan identities.”

Conservative swings in public opinion ramp up lawmaker extremism

While it is well-documented that Americans are not as polarized as the people they elect, a study led by  Naomi Ehrich Leonard , Princeton’s Edwin S. Wilsey Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering , and Keena Lipsitz , associate professor of political science at Queens College, CUNY, with Princeton doctoral student Anastasia Bizyaeva shows that Americans are still partly to blame for the extremism of their elected officials.  

The researchers found that over time, conservative swings in public opinion — which are typically slightly larger and more prolonged than liberal swings — exacerbate the self-reinforcement processes for Republican lawmakers, wherein legislators respond to favorable public opinion by further bolstering their own positions. They identified a tipping point beyond which the process of polarization speeds up as the forces driving it are compounded and the forces mitigating polarization are overwhelmed . They report that Republicans may have passed this critical threshold while Democrats are quickly approaching it.    

“By combining our expertise on political processes together with our expertise on feedback and nonlinearity in complex time-varying processes, we were able to make new discoveries about the mechanisms that can explain, and potentially mitigate, political polarization,” Leonard said.

“Until now, the ways in which public opinion changes over time had not been implicated in the political polarization of lawmakers,” she said. “Yet, by accounting for nonlinearity in how lawmakers respond to public opinion, we show that these differences matter significantly and small differences in public opinion swings can in fact lead to large changes in polarization. I am hopeful that the analytical tools we developed for this study will prove useful in finding ways to slow down the trend.”    

Progressive taxation could reduce economic hardships, social tensions fueling polarization

Intergroup conflict triggered by economic hardship can reduce social and economic interactions, which in turn further exacerbates economic decline and political polarization, according to a paper coauthored by Nolan McCarty , Princeton’s Susan Dod Brown Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, and  Joshua Plotkin , a professor of natural sciences at the University of Pennsylvania who received his Ph.D. from Princeton, with first author Alexander J. Stewart, senior lecturer in mathematical biology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.  The findings suggest that progressive taxation designed to ensure an adequate social safety net could  help prevent the economic anxieties that fuel ethnic and racial conflict.

“During the past 20 years, the United States and many other countries have experienced profound economic, social and political upheaval — including economic crises, escalating inequality, the exacerbation of racial and ethnic conflicts, and deepening political polarization,” McCarty said. “Our paper is an attempt to understand the complex dynamics that link these developments and explore ways to break the negative cycle.”

Diversity of social networks can intensify or moderate personal attitudes

The social networks to which people belong can “rewire” their personal attitudes over time to reflect the opinions of the people they’re linked to, according to a study led by former Princeton postdoctoral fellow Fernando Santos , an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam, with Simon Levin , Princeton’s James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology , and Yphtach Lelkes , associate professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers found that when people preferentially connect to people with similar opinions, they create an echo chamber that increasingly polarizes the views of everyone in the network. On the other hand, people who are part of a network consisting of a variety of viewpoints tend to moderate one another. Understanding that social networks influence polarization — rather than merely reflect it — could be crucial in developing interventions to curb polarization online and the spread of political extremism, the researchers report.

“This is a relatively new phenomenon and, like other internet and media mechanisms, has likely sped and reinforced the segmentation of our societies,” Levin said.

Polarization can benefit society when opposing sides consist of diverse populations

Polarization may actually benefit society  when opposing viewpoints each represent a variety of people and communities with shared values, according to research led by  Vitor Vasconcelos , assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam and past postdoctoral research associate at Princeton, with  Elke Weber , the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in  Energy and the Environment  and professor of  psychology  and the School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton associate research scholar  Sara Constantino , and  Simon Levin , Princeton’s James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in  Ecology and Evolutionary Biology , as well as Professor  Astrid Dannenberg  and research fellow  Mar­cel Lum­kow­sky  at the University of Kassel in Germany.

Polarization becomes harmful when it segregates social networks and excludes information about the preferences of people other than close neighbors. Cooperation becomes less likely when these local networks distort or undermine the value of working  with opponents, which can result in a number of effects including the weakening of democratic processes.

“Pluralistic societies thrive when members with different values and beliefs manage to discuss these differences and leverage them to generate win-win solutions,” Weber said. “Our paper shows that collective benefits are reduced by the polarization of social networks that restrict communication and negotiation across partisan lines, not the fact that we disagree on values.”

Contrarians at the gate: How strong local attitudes can breed opposition

Local variations in political attitudes can lead to polarization, particularly after political unrest, according to research led by Olivia Chu , a Princeton graduate student in quantitative and computational biology, with coauthors Grigore Pop-Eleches , professor of politics and international affairs, and Jonathan Donges , a visiting research collaborator in HMEI from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. They deployed an adaptive voter model — which is used to study opinion dynamics — across Ukraine to determine how people’s perceptions of the European Union differed based on how people in their communities and social circles discussed revolutions, mass protests and other political shocks.

"Our research shows that rather than sweeping everyone along, the effect of revolutions on how people think about politics depends in part on the attitudes of the people with whom they talk about politics,” Pop-Eleches said. “Those who mostly talk to supporters of the revolution are likely to change their opinions in the opposite direction from those who talk to opponents. This can lead to pockets of increased polarization even in countries where most people support the goals of the revolution."

Partisan interpersonal interactions can weaken Madison’s cure for factions

A study led by Corina Tarnita , professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and doctoral student Mari Kawakatsu in Princeton’s Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics examined how partisan interpersonal interactions can weaken processes that the framers of the US Constitution viewed as safeguards against factions and polarization. Kawakatsu and Tarnita co-authored the study with Simon Levin , Princeton’s James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology , and Yphtach Lelkes , associate professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers were inspired by James Madison’s essay, “Federalist No. 10,” in which he argued that a republic mitigates the dangers of factions by fostering a diversity of political interests. But Americans today care about many more political issues than they did 75 years ago, yet polarization is worse. The authors developed a theoretical model of cultural evolution to investigate the possible role that interactions among partisan opinionated citizens play in this puzzle.

Their analysis confirmed Madison’s intuition that societal cohesion increases when individuals care about a greater diversity of issues. But there is a twist — under extreme partisanship, individuals’ openness to learning from peers with a different political ideology is diminished. This leads to greater tribalism that drastically diminishes interest diversity, which leads to high within-ideology camaraderie and heightened polarization.

But the researchers also found a silver lining: the harmful effects of extreme partisanship are only substantial when individuals are primarily relying on social peers to shape their opinions and strategies and are limited in their independent exploration. “Our model suggests that actively pursuing learning from beyond one’s social network is crucial to maintaining a cohesive society,” Tarnita said. “Although both opinion formation and cooperation are well-explored topics, we understand relatively little about the coupled dynamics of cooperation and polarization,” Kawakatsu said. “The unexpected interactions we found between partisanship, cooperation and independent exploration highlight the need to study polarization in a coupled, multi-level context.”

Complex systems theory can lead to deeper understanding, better design of lasting reforms to American democracy

The implications of democracy reforms  such as ranked-choice voting and citizen redistricting may be better understood using dynamic systems theory based in engineering and biology, according to an analysis led by  Sam Wang , professor of  neuroscience  and director of the Electoral Innovation Lab at Princeton, with political scientists  Keena Lipsitz  at the City University of New York,  Jonathan Cervas  from Carnegie Mellon University, and  Bernard Grofman  at UC Irvine.

Wang and a multi-institutional team of political scientists report that systems-based theory typically used in the sciences can help understand the myriad of interactions that lead to current weaknesses in American democracy — particularly polarized institutions, unresponsive representatives and the ability of a faction of voters to gain power at the expense of the majority. Concepts such as nonlinearities and amplification, positive and negative feedback, and integration over time can help identify problems in representation and institutional power.

Similarly, the effectiveness of any proposed reform is difficult to predict against a backdrop of complex network interactions. A mathematically rich description of how electoral mechanisms interact can maximize the impacts of reforms in the context of the politics and procedures of individual states.

"Our core objective was to translate the American political system into a mathematical complex-systems framework that fosters participation by scholars of the natural sciences,” Wang said.

“We want to encourage natural scientists to build models that reproduce political phenomena, create simulations to explore alternative scenarios, and design interventions that may improve the function of democracy,” he said. “These goals are analogous to those of engineers — to understand a system of many parts well enough to make repairs or improvements."

The special issue, “The Dynamics of Political Polarization,” was published Dec. 6 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

B. Rose Huber in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Molly Seltzer in the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and Molly Sharlach in Engineering Communications contributed to this story.

Related Stories

From muddy boots to mathematics: Advancing the science of ecosystems and biodiversity .

Princeton: A half-century at the environmental forefront

Of ants and men: Ant behavior might mirror political polarization, say Princeton researchers .

A team of Princeton biologists found that division of labor and political polarization — two social phenomena not typically considered together — may be driven by the same processes in ant societies.

McCarty explores economic roots of today’s political strife .

Nasty clashes on hot topics such as the Iraq war, social issues and corruption may dominate the current political discourse, but the answer to why America is so polarized ultimately lies in the widening gulf between its richest and poorest citizens. That is the message of “Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches,” written by Princeton’s Nolan McCarty, a Congressional and presidential scholar.

Fefferman and Levin receive BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Awards .

Two professors, mathematician Charles Fefferman (also a 1969 Ph.D. alumnus) and ecologist Simon Levin, have been awarded the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards.

Less knowledge, more power: Uninformed can be vital to democracy, study finds .

A Princeton University-based research team reports in Science that uninformed individuals — as in those with no prior knowledge or strong feelings on a situation's outcome — can actually be vital to achieving a democratic consensus. These individuals tend to side with and embolden the numerical majority and dilute the influence of powerful minority factions who would otherwise dominate everyone else. This finding — based on group decision-making experiments on fish, as well as mathematical models and computer simulations — challenges the common notion that

Princeton faculty members receive grants for COVID-19 research from C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute .

The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute has awarded $5.4 million to 26 projects to accelerate artificial intelligence research to mitigate COVID-19 and future pandemics. Princeton faculty members Matthew Desmond, Simon Levin, Stefana Parascho, H. Vincent Poor, Corina Tarnita and Mengdi Wang are among researchers to receive funding for their projects.

Vaccine stockpiling by nations could lead to increase in COVID-19 cases, novel variant emergence .

The allocation of COVID-19 vaccine between countries has thus far tended toward vaccine nationalism, wherein countries stockpile vaccines to prioritize access for their citizenry over equitable vaccine sharing. The extent of vaccine nationalism, however, may strongly impact global trajectories of COVID-19 case numbers and increase the potential emergence of novel variants, according to a Princeton University and McGill University study published Aug. 17 in the journal Science.

Divided Politics, Divided Nation

Ordering and Customer Service

• Amazon Kindle
• Barnes & Noble
• Apple iTunes
• Google eBookstore
• Table of Contents
• Chapter One

Subscribe to the Brookings Brief

Hyperconflict in the trump era.

Why are Americans so angry with each other?

The United States is caught in a partisan hyperconflict that divides politicians, communities—and even families. Politicians from the president to state and local office-holders play to strongly-held beliefs and sometimes even pour fuel on the resulting inferno. This polarization has become so intense that many people no longer trust anyone from a differing perspective.

Drawing on his personal story of growing up as a fundamentalist Christian on a dairy farm in rural Ohio, then as an academic in the heart of the liberal East Coast establishment, Darrell West analyzes the economic, cultural, and political aspects of polarization. He takes advantage of his experiences inside both conservative and liberal camps to explain the views of each side and offer insights into why each is angry with the other.

West argues that societal tensions have metastasized into a dangerous tribalism that seriously threatens U.S. democracy. Unless people can bridge these divisions and forge a new path forward, it will be impossible to work together, maintain a functioning democracy, and solve the country’s pressing policy problems.

Related Books

Darrell M. West

October 15, 2019

September 18, 2014

December 12, 2014

June 27, 2011

Darrell M. West, Edward Alan Miller

February 25, 2010

Praise for Divided Politics, Divided Nation

“At a time of widespread polarization, it is vital to understand why liberals and conservatives mistrust one another. Darrell West draws on his personal history of growing up in a conservative community and teaching in the Ivy League to write a heartfelt account of America’s tribes and how we might bring them back together. Readers will gain tremendous understanding of contemporary divisions from the entertaining stories he tells.”—George Stephanopoulos, ABC News

“What divides our nation goes much deeper than politics. Brookings Institution scholar Darrell West looks at polarization from the high altitude of elite academia, and the ground-level perspective of his own life, which began in a conservative, deeply religious rural community. Along the way, he discovers surprising insights about life in conservative and liberal America.”—Karen Tumulty, The Washington Post

“Lots of Americans correctly worry about deepening polarization in our politics, but few seem to know what to do about it. Darrell West is an exception; he’s lived in both Red and Blue worlds, understands both, and sprinkles his book with very personal stories that enliven his narrative. West first thoughtfully analyzes how we got to such a disturbing divide and then makes some useful suggestions for dealing with it. It’s time to think carefully and map out a way forward. Darrell West has already begun that cartography in this perceptive, readable volume.”—Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and professor of Politics at the University of Virginia

“A riveting account, part memoir and part analysis, that explains how we descended into our current social and political quagmire and gives helpful suggestions for finding our way out.”—Bart Ehrman, James A Gray Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“A valued, insightful, thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution to our current and on-going political discussion with respect to the polarization of the electorate and its implications for the survival of our American style democracy.”— Midwest Book Review

Media Coverage

How to survive impeachment talk at the dinner table

Thanksgiving And Politics: How To Navigate The Holidays Amid Trump Impeachment Inquiry

Washington Journal

MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle

Judy Woodruff Judy Woodruff

Leave your feedback

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/this-is-what-political-division-looks-like-in-the-u-s-right-now

This is what political division looks like in the U.S. right now

“America at a Crossroads,” a new one-hour documentary from the PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff, explores what everyday Americans think about the state of the country. Watch at 9 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Dec. 19, on your local PBS station or on YouTube .

I started my “America at a Crossroads” reporting project last January with the goal of meeting with and listening to as many Americans as I could, to try to understand why we’re so divided. In all my years of covering politics, I don’t remember a time like this, when people not only hold different views, but in many cases, can’t stand those who disagree with them.

Eleven months, 14 states and 21 reports later, I’ve seen examples of people trying to bridge the partisan divide , but I’m still dismayed by the division and the vitriol.

I’ve learned a lot about what that division looks and sounds like, but still struggle to understand what’s driving it. It’s not easy to know at what point people move from having strongly held political beliefs to negative partisanship, labeling people on the other side as ignorant or immoral.

What causes a long-time friendly rural community around Saegertown, in Western Pennsylvania, to break up into bitter factions over banning books in school libraries and dictating what teachers can discuss about the history of race in America?

We weren’t able to speak with the School Board member pushing to scrub books in that community. But one parent, Teresa Barickman, pointed to “political rhetoric that we have heard on the national level has empowered people, and let them feel like it’s okay to say these not-so-nice things about people.”

WATCH: The connections between decline of local news and growing political division

In our reporting, we found that our own industry – the news media – plays a big role . Whether it’s hearing angry talk on the TV or radio, or reading it on social media, people we spoke to said this news environment has swayed more Americans to hold exaggerated negative assumptions about folks “on the other side.”

Some people see through this.

What I remember vividly from our sit-down in Cleveland this year with a mixed partisan group of voters who’ve joined the bridging group “Braver Angels” is something Mark Nieberding, a Republican, told me: “If you tell me who you voted for, I can very easily identify you, and I can discount you as a person right way, which is antithetical to what this country should be.”

Educate your inbox

Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.

In that same “Braver Angels” conversation, Democrat John Shi pointed a finger at “a bigger problem … our leaders not representing their constituency in the majority sense … polarized voices shouting the loudest or special interests with funded campaigns, to get their messages and opinions heard.”

This no doubt contributes to the declining trust people place in Congress and other institutions, and it worries me. I know there are elected officials who do think about what’s good for the American people.

WATCH: How a group of Ohio voters are working to bridge the widening partisan divide

But that doesn’t come across every day as people watch news emanating from Capitol Hill, especially as lawmakers struggle to approve legislation on crucial items like government funding and border security.

And history teaches us what can happen when people carry the darkest views of government. This year, we traveled to Oklahoma City to report on how that city is coping in the aftermath of the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building.

What motivated a young American, Army veteran Timothy McVeigh, to latch on to an anti-government ideology and carry out that horrific act that killed 168 men, women and children?

We want for there to be healthy and vigorous debate in this country. It’s one of the freedoms our founders pinned their hopes on. But, as long as those debates are within the boundaries of our democratic system, is it possible to do so without thinking the worst thoughts of, looking down on, or feeling aggrieved by, those on the other side?

WATCH: Political experts examine America’s divisions heading into 2024 election

That, along with questions about the other structural, political and cultural forces that are driving us apart, will be some of what we focus on for “America at a Crossroads” in the coming year.

I enter 2024 – an election year likely to further deepen divisions — still with many questions, and still dismayed by division in too many communities, between too many people. But I’m determined to get out in the country and to listen to Americans from every walk of life, knowing if there are answers, we’re more likely to find them there than in Washington.

See all pieces in the “America at a Crossroads” reporting project here .

Judy Woodruff is a senior correspondent and the former anchor and managing editor of the PBS News Hour. She has covered politics and other news for five decades at NBC, CNN and PBS.

Support Provided By: Learn more

• Teaching Resources
• Upcoming Events
• On-demand Events

Political Polarization in the United States

• Civics & Citizenship
• Social Studies
• Democracy & Civic Engagement
• facebook sharing
• email sharing

Explainer: Political Polarization in the United States

Download a pdf of this resource for free, what is political polarization, and is the united states becoming more polarized.

The United States has two main political parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. In the early 1990s, the two parties had more similar policy agendas than they do today. Over the last 25 years, the Democratic Party has moved more to the “left,” while the Republican Party has moved more to the “right.” 1

What do “left” and “right” mean in American politics?

Politics are complicated, and it is hard to reduce policies to a simple left–right spectrum. In general, the left is associated with socially liberal policies and economic policies that create a greater social safety net, while the right is associated with socially conservative policies and less regulation of the economy.

LEFT (liberal)

• Example economic policies: expansion of government-provided health care; increase in minimum wage
• Example social policies: expansion of LGBTQIA+ rights; more pathways to citizenship for immigrants

RIGHT (conservative)

• Example economic policies: lowering taxes on wealth; limiting government regulation of the economy
• Example social policies: immigration restrictions; limiting access to abortion

Thus, the gap between the policy positions of the Democratic and Republican Parties is also growing, and more Americans now identify consistently with the main policy positions of their party than in previous years. 2 People often change their political beliefs to match the positions of their party, which reinforces divides between the parties. 3

• 1 Geoffrey Layman, Thomas Carsey, and Juliana Menasce Horowitz, “Party Polarization in American Politics: Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences,” The Annual Review of Political Science 9 (2006), 83-110. “ Political Polarization in the American Public ,” Pew Research Center, June 12, 2014.
• 2 Geoffrey Layman, Thomas Carsey, and Juliana Menasce Horowitz, “Party Polarization in American Politics: Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences,” The Annual Review of Political Science 9 (2006), 83-110.
• 3 Geoffrey Layman, Thomas Carsey, and Juliana Menasce Horowitz, “Party Polarization in American Politics: Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences,” The Annual Review of Political Science 9 (2006), 83-110.

The following charts illustrate that the overlap between political values of Democrats and Republicans (the purple area) shrunk between 1994 and 2017, as the share of Americans with ideologically consistent values increased.

Source: “ Political Polarization, 1994-2017 .” Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. October 20, 2017.

Americans also tend to have greater feelings of dislike toward members of the other political party than they have had in previous years. 1

• 1 Shanto Iyegar, Yphtach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra, and Sean Westwood (2019). The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States. The Annual Review of Political Science (22). 129-146.

In 1960, 4% of Republicans and 4% of Democrats said they would be displeased if their son or daughter married someone of the opposite party. 1

• 1 Maxine Najle and Robert P. Jones, “ American Democracy in Crisis: The Fate of Pluralism in a Divided Nation ,” PRRI, February 19, 2019.

In 2019, 45% of Democrats said they would be unhappy if their child married a Republican and 35% of Republicans say they would be unhappy if their child married a Democrat. 1

ASK YOURSELF:  What does political polarization look, sound, and feel like where you live?

What causes polarization?

Polarization is complex, and scholars are still debating the exact factors that contribute to it. This section highlights four of the many factors that are likely contributing to polarization’s rise.

• Political Activism:  Political activists in each party tend to push for policies that are further to the left (in the Democratic Party) and further to the right (in the Republican Party). Some scholars believe that the increased influence of political activists has widened the gap between the two parties’ platforms. 2
• Election Policies:  Recent policy changes have given political activists more power to influence which candidates get picked to run for office. For example, campaign finance reforms have made it easier for political activists to give large amounts of money to the candidate they support. Also, more districts are  gerrymandered , which can lead to districts that are overwhelmingly populated by members of the same party. Gerrymandered districts often elect candidates who support policies that appeal more to the party base than to the center of the political spectrum. Primary elections can push political parties more toward the poles as well, since candidates often must appeal to activists within their political party in order to win a primary.
• In-Group Bias:  Psychological factors also play a vital role in reinforcing partisanship. While we may like to think that people form their political opinions based on a rational evaluation of different policies, research shows that cognitive biases, such as in-group bias, drive people to change their political opinions to match those of their group. Anytime we join a group, we start to develop positive feelings toward other group members and negative or distrustful feelings toward non-members. 3  In the American two-party system, people often have negative associations with members of the other political party. These negative feelings can make it difficult for people to have productive conversations about policy across the political divide. Once people are members of a political party, they often switch their political opinions to match the positions of their chosen party. As a result, as political parties become more polarized, so do the average voters. 4
• Media Bubbles:  Many Americans are exposed to partisan news in their social media feeds and often have very few social media friends on the other end of the political spectrum. 5 Online platforms, such as YouTube, use algorithms to expose viewers to increasingly extreme content, which can lead them to fringe political views without their realizing it. 6 Spending time in a political echo-chamber can make it easier for negative feelings toward members of the other political party to develop.

What are the consequences of polarization?

Polarization is not all bad. The two main political parties in the United States are now more distinct than in previous decades, which gives voters more meaningful choices. 7 However, as political parties move toward the poles and people increasingly distrust members of the other political party, it has become difficult for politicians to agree on a way forward. Congress is more likely to gridlock and find it difficult to pass legislation, while campaigns and partisan media can become more divisive.

ASK YOURSELF:  How do you think polarization might influence how Americans respond to current issues?

​​What are the limits of polarization?

Despite growing polarization, Americans are less likely to express negative feelings toward someone of the other political party if they are told that the other person does not care very much about politics, or if they are asked to focus on other aspects of their identities, like their shared identity as Americans or fans of the same sports team.

In addition, many policies have bipartisan support, or support from members of both the Republican and Democratic Parties. For example:

• gerrymandered gerrymandered : Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing the boundaries of a legislative district to give one political party an advantage over the other.
• 3 Shanto Iyegar, Yphtach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra, and Sean Westwood (2019). The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States. The Annual Review of Political Science (22). 129-146.
• 4 Geoffrey Layman, Thomas Carsey, and Juliana Menasce Horowitz, “Party Polarization in American Politics: Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences,” The Annual Review of Political Science 9 (2006), 83-110.
• 5 Shanto Iyegar, Yphtach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra, and Sean Westwood (2019). The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States. The Annual Review of Political Science (22). 129-146.
• 6 Kevin Roose, “ The Making of a YouTube Radical ,” New York Times , June 8, 2019.
• 7 Geoffrey Layman, Thomas Carsey, and Juliana Menasce Horowitz, “Party Polarization in American Politics: Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences,” The Annual Review of Political Science 9 (2006), 83-110.

of Americans are in favor of encouraging highly skilled immigrants to come to the United States.

Phillip Connor and Neil G. Ruiz, “ Majority of U.S. Public Supports High-Skilled Immigration ,” Pew Research Center, January 22, 2019.

of voters support spending $1.3 trillion to weatherize homes, making them more energy efficient.

Robinson Meyer, “ Five Radical Climate Policies That Most Americans Actually Like ,”  The Atlantic , October 7, 2019.

of Americans are in favor of requiring background checks on people who buy guns through private sales or gun shows.

“ Gun Policy Remains Divisive, But Several Proposals Still Draw Bipartisan Support ,” Pew Research Center, October 18, 2018.

What can I do about political polarization?

Reforming the policies that govern elections and governance can help decrease political polarization, but there are also things that individuals can do:

• Focus on issues rather than parties: Decide what policies you want to pass, instead of focusing only on which political party you want to win the election. Try getting involved in local politics, where issues often matter more than political parties.
• Break out of your media bubble: Try to follow a variety of news sources that examine issues from different political angles. You can use AllSides to find out more about the political leanings of different news outlets.
• Learn to listen: Try to understand the perspectives of people on the other side of the political spectrum and listen to other points of view before judging. Read the Greater Good Magazine article Five Ways to Have Better Conversations Across Difference for advice on how to have a productive discussion with people who have different perspectives or experiences.

ASK YOURSELF:  What other individual or policy changes do you think could help to decrease the negative effects of polarization?

How to Cite This Explainer

Facing History & Ourselves, “ Political Polarization in the United States ”, last updated October 22, 2019.

Related Facing History Resources & Learning Opportunities

Assessing the strength of democracy, fostering civil discourse: how do we talk about issues that matter, you might also be interested in…, the child refugee debate, dr. king's legacy and choosing to participate, memphis in 1968: the sanitation workers' strike, three visions for achieving equal rights, contemporary antisemitism and youth, recognising antisemitism in british football, the refugee crisis and human responsibility, 10 questions for the future: student action project, 10 questions for the present: parkland student activism, #iftheygunnedmedown, the impact of identity, the power of images, inspiration, insights, & ways to get involved.

Advanced Search (Items only)

A Nation Divided: The Political Climate of 1850s America

By the 1850s the United States had become a nation polarized by specific regional identities. The South held a pro-slavery identity that supported the expansion of slavery into western territories, while the North largely held abolitionist sentiments and opposed the institution’s westward expansion. Until the 1850s the nation precariously balanced the slavery issue. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was the first serious argument over the expansion of slavery into newly acquired western territory and also revealed fissures between the Second Party System of Whigs and Democrats in the North and the South. Whigs, while not an abolitionist party, believed a strong government served as the protector of Republican principles. The Democrats, on the other hand, emphasized the right of individual states to create and enforce laws. Ultimately, the parties compromised and prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. This compromise artificially quelled the storm brewing between the two regions and for over thirty years the nation maintained this delicate balance with regards to slavery. This balance would teeter in the mid-1840s when, amid extreme controversy, Texas was annexed as a slave state by a majority vote in 1845. Events following the annexation of Texas would lead to war with Mexico and eventually to the American Civil War.

After two years of fighting, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican American War. Through this treaty the United States acquired over a half million square acres. This territory included all of present day California, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona. (Niven 1990, 53) The treaty may have ended the hostilities between Mexico and the United States; however it revived the contentious arguments concerning slavery between the North and the South. Some politicians, like ardent pro-slavery advocate John C. Calhoun, had opposed the war with Mexico, fearing that any territory acquired as a result would imperil the Union. His fears would be realized in 1846 when Democratic Pennsylvania congressman David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso in Congess. (Niven 1990, 53) The Wilmot Proviso stated that slavery would not be allowed to spread into any territory obtained from Mexico. Wilmot’s proposal proved highly unpopular throughout the southern states whose white residents believed that the bill would infringe on the rights of their state and the rights provided them as American citizens by the Constitution. 

In North Carolina, a slaveholding state with a relatively small slave population, “it was unclear whether ordinary North Carolinians ever accepted the notion that the issue of slavery in the territories was a matter of vital concern to them. Of course no influential politician in the state chose to endorse the restrictions of slavery in the territories. Instead, both parties tried to capitalize on the issue by denouncing their opponents and ‘Wilmot Provisoists.’” (Jeffrey 1989, 287) In North Carolina, the Wilmot Proviso highlighted the competition between the Whig and Democratic Parties regarding which party most ardently supported and protected the right to own slave property. Although the Wilmot Proviso passed in the House of Representatives, where the Free States had a clear majority, the Senate rejected the legislation. Despite its failure, the Wilmot Proviso, like the Compromise of 1820, revealed the discontinuity between the Whig and Democratic Parties in the North and South and opened the way for the sectional realignment of the nation’s party system.  

The question of how to deal with the new territory acquired from Mexico led to the Compromise of 1850, orchestrated by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster with southern Democrat, John C. Calhoun. They warned that the Union would only survive if the North and the South shared equal power within it. After a series of fierce debates, “the ‘Compromise’ that finally emerged was not really a compromise in which all parties conceded part of what they wanted, but a series of separately enacted measures each of which became law with a majority of congressmen from each section voting against a majority of those from the other.” (McPherson 1988, 71) The Compromise passed in a series of five bills. As part of the Compromise, California was annexed as a free state, which upset the balance of free and slave states. Additionally, the New Mexico and Utah territories were given popular sovereignty, which allowed them to choose whether slavery would be allowed within their borders. The Compromise abolished the slave trade in Washington D.C., but  appeased southern Democrats with the passage of a tougher Fugitive Slave Law, to the outrage of the northern public. 

In North Carolina the Compromise of 1850 demonstrated the divisiveness of the state’s Second Party System comprised of Whigs and Democrats. The divide in the parties can be seen in the state’s political newspapers. The majority of “Whig presses in North Carolina supported the Compromise and rejoiced after its passage in Congress, while Democratic newspapers like the North Carolina Standard opposed the key compromise proposals and regarded their passage as a defeat for the South.” (Jeffrey 1989, 293) Ultimately the debates concerning Clay’s Compromise proposal placed the North Carolina Democratic Party firmly in the corner of southern rights. They used the controversy over the compromise, “as an opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to Southern rights and to create an image of their opponents as cowardly submissionists who were willing to sacrifice the interests of their own section in the name of compromise and moderation.” (Jeffrey 1989, 293)  

The Compromise of 1850 settled the turmoil created by the territory acquisition of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, however, the nation’s debate over slavery would resurface on a national level only a few years later with the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act. Over the years a steady stream of settlers made their way to these areas and looked to establish territorial and eventually state governments. Once again slavery became an issue in these areas. The 1854 act proposed by Democrat Stephen Douglass, “sought to expand the political liberties of the territory’s white men by giving them the power at the local level to pronounce on the most contentious issue of the time, black slavery.  Popular sovereignty, the principal of the Kansas bill, built on the belief that the balance between personal freedom and government power ought to tilt toward the former.” (Etcheson 2004, 2) Giving settlers in the Kansas-Nebraska territory the opportunity to choose whether or not they would allow slavery conflicted with the parameters of the 1820 Missouri Compromise which outlawed slavery in that area of the country. Debates about the bill erupted throughout the nation. Despite public opposition, Douglass, “utilizing all his powers of argument, his prestige, and his mastery of parliamentary tactics [forced] the bill through Congress by the narrowest of margins. It received President Pierce’s signature on May 29, 1854.” (Niven 1990, 83) The Kansas-Nebraska Act deepened the already existing gulf between the North and the South that would eventually push the nation to Civil War. It also led to the creation of a new national political party.

The Benjamin Hedrick Ordeal: A Portait of Antebellum Politics and Debates Over Slavery

Resolving Political Divisions

The political divisions have always existed in different places worldwide and are linked to the historical, cultural, and religious diversity of people in that area. As far as three good examples are concerned, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Palestine will bring out the dynamics of political separation and possible solutions. Investigating their peculiar situations and the approaches to addressing their division may help other world nations achieve short-term and long-term solutions.

This separation of Ireland on a political basis is steeped in history, mainly due to differences in religion between Catholics and Protestants. However, it climaxed at the end of the 20th century, a period that became known as “The Troubles.” The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 signified the beginning of this new phase, creating power-sharing partnerships with Unionists and Nationalists. This led to institutions such as the Northern Ireland Assembly, which sought to promote cooperation and inclusion in society (Ruane, 2021). Despite these difficulties, the accords have substantially reduced violence and helped to stabilize a once fraught political situation.

Apartheid was a state-sponsored policy of racial segregation that posed a specific threat to the well-being of South Africans. There was, politically, a separation along racial grounds, where the minority whites ruled over the majority of blacks. Leaders in Nelson Mandela ushered in the era of apartheid ending after talks through dialogue in 1994. The role of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee was key in dealing with historical wrongs and fostering recuperation (Todes & Turok, 2018). Through this transition, the necessity for dialoguing, revealing the truth, and forgiveness became apparent in moving beyond severe political divides that had entrenched themselves in South Africa.

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is a centuries-old political division between the various communities based on their national aspirations and land demands. The attempts of several peace deals and negotiations have not worked out well, leaving no complete solution. Oslo Accord was meant to create a governance model for Palestinians, and since then, occurrences have blocked development. Attribution Further work involves renewed diplomacy on fundamental concerns and trust building for lasting resolution (Caplan, 2019).

The international community can be very instrumental in the short run in helping to reduce political disputes through the dialogue process, facilitation of negotiations, and provision of resources for peacebuilding. Investment in diplomacy, mediation initiatives, and humanitarian support will alleviate pressures and create conditions for cooperation (Smidt, 2019). Addressing the underlying cause of such divisiveness might be a long-term solution. This entails championing education awareness, cultural integration, and economic advancement to close societal divides. These include active engagement in conflict prevention, observance of human rights, and encouragement of inclusive governance structures by international organizations. Peace is sustainable if there is a commitment to justice and equal opportunities for all people regardless of gender, ethnicity, tribe, or age, as well as guaranteeing the rights of minorities (Ellinor & Girard, 2023).

It is evident in the cases of Ireland, South Africa, and Palestine that dialogue, compromises, and external support mechanisms overcome political divides. Immediate conflicts should contain short-term solutions, whereas long-term measures should emphasize inclusiveness in addressing some of the root causes. The international community will be able to learn from these examples and help create a peaceful and cooperative world where political divisions are settled diplomatically amicably and respect for common humanity is upheld.

References.

Caplan, N. (2019). The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Contested Histories. In Google Books. John Wiley & Sons.

Ellinor, L., & Girard, G. (2023). Dialogue: Rediscover the Transforming Power of Conversation. In Google Books. Crossroad Press.

Ruane, J. (2021). Long conflict and how it ends: Protestants and Catholics in Europe and Ireland. Irish Political Studies, 36(1), 109–131.

Smidt, H. M. (2019). United Nations Peacekeeping Locally: Enabling Conflict Resolution, Reducing Communal Violence. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 64(2-3), 002200271985963.

Todes, A., & Turok, I. (2018). Spatial inequalities and policies in South Africa: Place-based or people-centered? Progress in Planning, 123, 1–31.

Cite This Work

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Related Essays

Article reflection: nursing students’ experiences of a pedagogical transition from campus learning to distance learning using digital tools, political advocacy program research proposal, parliamentary sovereignty essay, the influence of community and problem-oriented policing on future criminal justice practices, psychology of adjustment, concept of personality, popular essay topics.

• American Dream
• Artificial Intelligence
• Black Lives Matter
• Bullying Essay
• Career Goals Essay
• Causes of the Civil War
• Child Abusing
• Civil Rights Movement
• Community Service
• Cultural Identity
• Cyber Bullying
• Death Penalty
• Depression Essay
• Domestic Violence
• Freedom of Speech
• Global Warming
• Gun Control
• Human Trafficking
• I Believe Essay
• Immigration
• Importance of Education
• Israel and Palestine Conflict
• Leadership Essay
• Legalizing Marijuanas
• Mental Health
• National Honor Society
• Police Brutality
• Pollution Essay
• Racism Essay
• Romeo and Juliet
• Same Sex Marriages
• Social Media
• The Great Gatsby
• The Yellow Wallpaper
• Time Management
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Violent Video Games
• What Makes You Unique
• Why I Want to Be a Nurse
• Send us an e-mail

Don't let political polarization damage your mental health

Strategies like avoiding “doomscrolling” on social media and setting boundaries on political conversations can help all of us navigate extreme political divisions, the head of nami chicago writes..

Supporters wait for the doors to open for a campaign rally for Donald Trump on July 20 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Political divisions have worsened since the 2022 election, which Trump falsely claims he won.

Bill Pugliano/Getty

Political polarization is not just a concerning trend across our country — it poses a significant threat to our collective mental health. Recent election cycles have made polarization worse, creating extraordinary levels of stress and anxiety in our daily lives.

This election year, characterized by extreme divisiveness and hostility, feels particularly overwhelming. It is crucial that we actively seek relief from this strain on our mental wellness, as individuals and within our communities. Polarization influences not only our political interactions, but also our interpersonal relationships and how we manage daily challenges. Alarmingly, research indicates that even sixth graders are increasingly learning to distrust and alienate others based on political differences — a marked departure from previous decades.

Why does this matter? Today’s polarized political climate, coupled with the often-hostile tone of our communication, impacts us directly on a day-to-day basis while also exposing us to vicarious trauma. Vicarious trauma arises when we witness or indirectly experience distressing events — including dangerous and extreme political content — and can significantly compound mental health struggles.

This emotional strain can alter our sense of self and identity, reduce our ability to constructively engage in political discourse, weaken our mental resilience and make it challenging to engage in meaningful action. Ultimately, the strain perpetuates polarization and psychological distress.

While there is no immediate solution, we owe it to ourselves and each other to disrupt this cycle of vicarious trauma and polarization.

Disrupt negativity, set boundaries, seek other perspectives

For one, we can focus on positive self-talk. Disrupting negative self-talk is crucial because our internal conversations shape our reality. Constantly telling ourselves that change is impossible can reinforce a sense of defeat, weakening our motivation to take positive steps. To build hope and resilience, we need to believe that change is possible and find meaning in challenging different viewpoints.

Setting boundaries that make sense for you is also important. While staying informed is key to participating in a democracy, many of us have fallen into the trap of “doomscrolling” — getting caught in a seemingly never-ending stream of negativity on social media or news platforms — which causes our tension, stress and anxiety levels to spike upwards. If you relate to this, consider turning off phone notifications so you are not consistently alerted to difficult and oftentimes traumatic breaking news.

Determining healthy boundaries should be informed by more frequent self-check-ins: Before you engage with political content, ask yourself if you are in the right mental health space to receive that type of information. Just as we pay attention to our physical health to guide healthy decisions, we must take cues from our mental health as well.

Seeking differing perspectives is essential, too. Surrounding ourselves exclusively with those who share our views can reinforce division, while isolation can deepen binary thinking. Building connections across political ideologies can foster understanding and collaboration. However, it is equally crucial to set boundaries when political discussions become harmful. By establishing clear limits and focusing on constructive dialogue, we can better maintain healthy relationships without allowing disagreements to undermine connections.

Being action-oriented is another key strategy. By participating in meaningful conversations that address political and societal issues, we can transform feelings of helplessness into empowering opportunities for change. While each of us has one vote, we have endless chances to build bridges that turn adversity into a catalyst for positive action. This approach not only fosters sustainable change, but helps us convert feelings of powerlessness into a source of collective strength and recovery.

The cycle of political polarization harms all of us, but we have tools to counteract its effects. By refining our self-talk, managing our habits, nurturing our relationships and embracing action, we can rebuild connections and strengthen our resilience. The stakes are high, but by harnessing our collective strength and hope, we can build a more connected, supportive and thriving future.

If you are struggling with the mental health effects of political polarization and don’t know where to turn, NAMI Chicago is here to provide support for you, your loved ones and even your workplace in establishing a strong foundation for improving mental well-being and navigating these challenging times. Resources, classes and trainings are at www.namichicago.org .

Alexa James is CEO of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Chicago.

The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chicago Sun-Times or any of its affiliates.

The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines .

Get Opinions content delivered to your inbox.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

• In a Politically Polarized Era, Sharp Divides in Both Partisan Coalitions

Partisanship remains biggest factor in public’s political values

Table of contents.

• 1. Views of the major problems facing the country
• 2. Views of government and the nation
• 3. Views of the economic system and social safety net
• 4. Views on race and immigration
• 5. Gender, family and marriage, same-sex marriage and religion
• 6. Views of foreign policy
• 7. Domestic policy: Taxes, environment, health care
• Methodology

Partisanship continues to be the dividing line in the American public’s political attitudes, far surpassing differences by age, race and ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, religious affiliation or other factors. Yet there are substantial divisions within both parties on fundamental political values, views of current issues and the severity of the problems facing the nation.

The issues that divide the partisan coalitions are different for Republicans than for Democrats. Age differences are generally wider among Republicans than Democrats – particularly in opinions about foreign policy, immigration and homosexuality – while educational attainment is a bigger divider among Democrats.

Democrats also are divided by race, with black Democrats much more likely than white Democrats to associate belief in God with morality and less likely to say that same-sex marriage has been good for society. Racial differences in attitudes are far less consequential for Republicans, who are predominantly non-Hispanic white.

Ideological differences are evident in both parties. Conservative Republicans, who make up a majority of all Republicans, are nearly 30 percentage points less likely than GOP moderates and liberals to say that legalizing same-sex marriage has been good for society. And among Democrats and Democratic leaners, there are notable differences between liberals (who make up around half of all Democrats) and the party’s conservatives and moderates on religion, same-sex marriage, racial discrimination and foreign policy.

Yet it remains the case that the differences between the two parties are starker than those within the two parties. Across 30 political values – encompassing attitudes about guns, race, immigration, foreign policy and other realms – the average partisan gap is 39 percentage points.

The gaps are substantially wider on some political values, especially those related to guns and race, than others. For two political values on whether guns should be generally more or less available (not specific gun policies), the average difference is 57 percentage points. An overwhelming share of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (86%) say the nation’s gun laws should be stricter than they are today; just 31% of Republicans and Republican leaners say the same.

The partisan differences on political values related to race are nearly as wide (55 points). For example, Democrats are seven times as likely as Republicans to say white people benefit “a great deal” from societal advantages that black people do not have (49% vs. 7%).

Across all 30 political values, the differences between Republicans and Democrats dwarf all other differences by demographics or other factors. The 39-point average gap is more than twice the difference between white and nonwhite adults (17 percentage points); people who regularly attend religious services and those who do not (14 points); college graduates and those who have not completed college (10 points); younger and older adults (also 10 points); and men and women (6 points).

The size of the partisan divide on political values has not changed much in recent years. But since 1994, the differences between parties on these measures has more than doubled, while the size of other gaps has been largely unchanged.

The current survey, conducted Sept. 3-15 among 9,895 U.S. adults, is the first time Pew Research Center’s political values survey has been conducted on the online American Trends Panel; previous values surveys have been conducted by telephone. (For more, see “ Trends are a cornerstone of public opinion research. How do we maintain them when there’s a shift in survey mode? ”)

The GOP’s age gap

Across multiple measures, Republicans who are under age 50 have different views from those 50 and older. Age divides among Democrats are much more modest.

A majority of younger Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (65%) say peace is best ensured with good diplomacy. Among older Republicans and Republican leaners, 42% express this view, while a majority (57%) says peace is best ensured through military strength.

The age differences are about as large in opinions about the impact of newcomers from other countries, whether stricter environmental laws are worth the cost and whether legalizing same-sex marriage has been a good thing for the United States.

The Republicans’ age (and generational) differences extend beyond the items shown here: Younger Republicans are more likely than older Republicans to say that human activity contributes a great deal to climate change and that marijuana use should be legal .

And in some instances, these differences also are seen in perceptions of the major problems facing the country. A substantial majority of Republicans ages 50 and older (80%) say illegal immigration is a “very big problem” facing the U.S.; that compares with only about half (51%) of younger Republicans.

Yet there also are important areas of agreement between younger and older Republicans. Relatively small shares of both Republicans younger than 50 (30%) and those ages 50 and older (25%) say white people benefit from societal advantages that black people do not have. Among other areas of agreement, only about one-in-five younger and older Republicans say it is more important to control gun ownership than protect gun rights.

Today, about as many Republicans and Republican leaners are under age 50 (48%) as ages 50 and older (52%). Adults under age 50 make up a majority (54%) of Democrats and Democratic leaners. For Pew Research Center’s most recent analysis of the demographic profiles of the parties and trends in partisan identification among registered voters, released in 2018, see “ Wide Gender Gap, Growing Educational Divide in Voters’ Party Identification .”

Racial, educational divisions among Democrats

Black Democrats have long been more likely than white Democrats to describe themselves as Christian and to attend religious services more frequently.

These differences are reflected in sharp divides between black and white Democrats and Democratic leaners in opinions related to faith and religion. White Democrats are nearly twice as likely as black Democrats to say that it is not necessary to believe in God in order for a person to be moral (89% vs. 44%).

On this measure, the views of black Democrats are similar to those of Republicans. Among all Republicans and Republican leaners, 53% say belief in God is not necessary for morality, while 46% say it is necessary.

There also are wide differences between black and white Democrats in views of the impact of legalizing same-sex marriage on the country. While an overwhelming share of white Democrats (88%) say same-sex marriage being legal is a good thing for society, only about half of black Democrats (52%) say the same.

There are significant, though less pronounced, racial differences in Democrats’ attitudes about other issues, including the environment and business profits. And while majorities of black and white Democrats say the country has not gone far enough in giving blacks equal rights with whites, black Democrats are more likely to express this view (81% vs. 65%).

The racial differences among Democrats also are reflected in their views of some problems facing the country. While 58% of black Democrats say terrorism is a very big problem in the U.S., just a quarter of white Democrats say this. The gap is about as wide in views of job opportunities (52% of black Democrats, vs. 25% of white Democrats).

However, black and white Democrats share similar views about many issues, particularly when it comes to the government’s social safety net. For example, nearly identical majorities of black (73%) and white Democrats (72%) say the government should do more to help needy Americans, even if it means going deeper into debt.

There also are some significant differences between Democrats with four-year college degrees and those with less educational attainment. Most of these differences are evident even when race is held constant.

Across the 30 political values items, the differences between college graduates and adults who have not completed college are generally wider among Democrats than among Republicans.

Perhaps the most striking educational gap among Democrats is in assessments of government performance.

Among Democrats and Democratic leaners who have four-year degrees, 66% say government often does a better job than it gets credit for, while 32% say it “is almost always wasteful and inefficient.” Non-college Democrats are more skeptical: 43% say government does a better job than it is credited for, while a 54% majority says it is often wasteful.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats, regardless of educational attainment, to say that government is usually wasteful (68% say this) and there are more modest differences by education among Republicans than Democrats.

Democratic college graduates also are more likely than non-college Democrats to say the U.S. should take an active role in world affairs (by 21 percentage points), that newcomers to the U.S. do more strengthen than burden the country (by 17 points) and that gun laws should be made stricter (by 14 points).

A majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners (63%) do not have a four-year college degree, while 37% are college graduates. That is a sharply different educational profile from 20 years earlier, when college graduates made up only 22% of Democrats. Currently, about a quarter of Republicans and Republican leaners (27%) have four-year college degrees, which is virtually unchanged from 1999 (26%).

Income divides within both parties, but on different issues

The most striking income difference among Republicans is over corporate profits. A 59% majority of Republicans and Republican leaners with family incomes of less than $50,000 say business corporations make too much profit. Fewer than half of Republicans (41%) with higher incomes ($50,000 or more) say the same.

Lower-income Republicans also are more likely than those with higher family incomes to support more government assistance for needy people and to say the government has a responsibility to provide health coverage to all Americans.

Democrats, regardless of family income, hold similar attitudes about business profits and the government safety net. Yet higher-income Democrats express more positive views of government performance than do those with family incomes less than $50,000. These differences mirror educational differences among Democrats.

Other important findings

Majority of public says U.S. corporations have “too much power.” Nearly three-quarters of Americans (73%) say major corporations in the U.S. have too much power; just 22% say they have the right amount of power, while only 4% say they have too little power. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to view corporate power as excessive; still, majorities in both parties express this view (83% of Democrats and Democratic leaners, 62% of Republicans and Republican leaners).

Growing share of Democrats, but not Republicans, say it’s harder for women to advance. Majorities of Democratic women (83%) and men (69%) say significant obstacles continue to make it harder for women than men to get ahead. The shares of both Democratic women and men who say this have increased by 9 percentage points since 2016. By contrast, half of Republican women and just 18% of Republican men say obstacles still block women’s progress. There has been virtually no change in opinions among Republican women since 2016, while the share of Republican men who say obstacles hinder women’s progress has ticked down (from 23% then to 18% today).

Most Americans want the U.S. to maintain its position as sole global superpower. A majority of Americans (61%) say U.S. policies should try to keep it so the country is the only military superpower, while 36% say it would be acceptable if another country became as militarily powerful as the U.S. Partisanship is a factor in these views, with Democrats twice as likely as Republicans to say it would be acceptable if another country becomes as militarily powerful as the U.S. (46% vs. 23%). There also are sizable age differences: Nearly half of adults younger than 30 (48%) say it would be acceptable if another country becomes as militarily powerful, compared with 28% of adults ages 50 and older.

Majority favors raising tax rates on high incomes. A majority of the public (58%) says tax rates on household income over $250,000 should be raised a little or a lot, while 16% say rates on high incomes should be lowered a little or a lot; 22% say they should be kept the same as they are now. Across most partisan and income categories, there is more support for raising than lowering tax rates on high incomes; the only exception are Republicans with family incomes of $100,000 or more, whose views are divided.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivery Saturday mornings

Sign up for The Briefing

Weekly updates on the world of news & information

• Issue Priorities
• Partisanship & Issues
• Political Ideals & Systems
• Political Parties
• Political Polarization

Public’s Positive Economic Ratings Slip; Inflation Still Widely Viewed as Major Problem

What are americans’ top foreign policy priorities, state of the union 2024: where americans stand on the economy, immigration and other key issues, americans’ top policy priority for 2024: strengthening the economy, asian american voters prioritize candidates’ policy positions over their racial identity, most popular, report materials.

• American Trends Panel Wave 53

901 E St. NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20004 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

© 2024 Pew Research Center

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

Catholic Converts Like JD Vance Are Reshaping Republican Politics

By Matthew Schmitz

Mr. Schmitz is a founder and an editor of the online magazine Compact.

Despite institutional decline and internal conflict, Catholicism retains a surprising resonance in American life — especially in certain elite circles. It has emerged as the largest and perhaps the most vibrant religious group at many top universities . It claims six of the nine Supreme Court justices as adherents. It continues to win high-profile converts, and its social teaching exerts an influence (often unacknowledged) on public debates, inspiring political thinkers who seek to challenge both the cultural left and the laissez-faire right.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism after attending Yale Law School, exemplifies this phenomenon. When he was baptized into the church in 2019, he joined an influential group of conservative converts, including the legal scholars Erika Bachiochi and Adrian Vermeule, the political scientist Darel Paul, the Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat, the theologian R.R. Reno and the writer and editor Sohrab Ahmari, one of my colleagues at the online magazine Compact. (I am also a convert to Catholicism, and I work or have worked with many of these figures.)

Such thinkers disagree, sometimes sharply, on important matters, not least the value of populism and the merits of Donald Trump. But all share a combination of social conservatism and a willingness to question many of the free-market orthodoxies of the pre-Trump Republican Party. In doing so, they can claim justification from Catholic social teaching, a body of thought that insists on a traditional understanding of the family while embracing a living wage and trade unions as means of promoting “the common good.” See, for example, Mr. Vance in 2019 : “My views on public policy and what the optimal state should look like are pretty aligned with Catholic social teaching.”

This group’s economic thinking distinguishes its members from an earlier cohort of conservative Catholic intellectuals such as William F. Buckley Jr. and Michael Novak. Those men laid a stress on free markets, in part because the threat of Soviet Communism had led Catholic thinkers to emphasize the relative virtues of a liberal and capitalist system that had long been subject to Catholic critique.

By contrast, for Mr. Vance and others like him, Catholicism seems to be a resource for pushing back against the excesses of cultural and economic liberalism. As for so many converts before them, the church represents an alternative to the dominant ethos of the age. During the Romantic period, intellectuals like Chateaubriand and Friedrich Schlegel were drawn to Catholicism in reaction to what they saw as a tidal wave of rationalism associated with the Enlightenment. In the 20th century, the writer Evelyn Waugh, another convert, described Catholicism as a welcome foil for what he saw as the “materialistic, mechanized state.”

Many of today’s converts look to resist the left-right fusion of libertarian cultural attitudes and free-market economics that has reshaped Western society over the past three or four decades. But rather than precipitating a radical overhaul of society, as some fear and others hope, they have exerted a subtler influence that is nonetheless significant: altering how the Republican Party approaches policy, and in some cases helping build a new consensus across party lines.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .