A divided democracy; destined for doom?
The issue of polarization in the US (Ryan Win-Ruan/The Puma Prensa)
Written By: Ryan Win-Ruan, staff writer
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” These were the words of Abraham Lincoln, and they continue to be relevant, especially today. As the world becomes more and more interconnected and information travels faster than ever before, it also becomes, quite inconveniently, more divided. Research has shown that, as information becomes increasingly accessible, individual political opinions may slowly be becoming more radicalized, as people move away from centrist values and begin to move towards the extremes on the political spectrum. In recent years, this movement of a populace’s mindset has gained a very fitting name: political polarization.
Political polarization, a form of partisanship, is defined as the movement of a general population’s political attitudes away from what is known as the political “center” towards more radical extremes on either the “left wing” or “right wing”. Although this polarization is constantly happening across the world, especially in the political hotbeds that are areas like South America, a study by Brown University has shown that the US’s population is polarizing at a faster rate than most other countries, which has raised some concerns among citizens.
With the 2024 election behind us and Trump’s inauguration quickly approaching, the topic of political polarization between the Democrats and Republicans and their extreme ends, far-left liberals and far-right conservatives, in the US is likely what comes to mind first for many, and for good reason.
Yihe Wang, a freshman at Maria Carrillo High School, named three factors that he thought were the main causes of polarization in individuals– upbringing, education, and life experiences. Additionally, he cited social media as a major medium through which many people experience ongoing political and world events today, expressing concern for the exaggeration of politics that he says are often used to “hook people and get more views, even if [the facts] aren’t necessarily true.” Wang believes that the media is partially responsible for inflating facts and changing the opinions of opposing sides to make their own group seem more appealing to voters, and acknowledges the fact that this has the consequence of increasing animosity to the other side, so, as Wang says, “it’s good to have [our own] opinions, but opinions don’t define the person.”
Esmond Hoang, another freshman at MCHS, believes that the internet and more “negative-focused” news networks might be to blame for the polarization. Hoang worries that the Republican-Democrat split could get even worse due to Trump’s recent election, but he hopes that it will eventually die down in a few years. He largely agrees with Wang’s points, similarly stating that “it’s always good to have differing views, but sometimes more radical opinions can be dangerous,” but, interestingly, he’s also mentioned Covid-19 and the quarantine as another factor of polarization, though he states that news and the media are the larger factors at hand.
The distribution of Democrats and Republicans politically over the years (Pew Research Center)
Many newspapers and notable organizations seem to agree with the freshmen, as Pew Research Center shows that (in the US) members of more radical groups tend to view the opposing party negatively, corroborating Wang’s viewpoints, while Carnegie Endowment has blamed the election campaigning of elites and politicians for causing the split in political views, as well as the increased role of social media in today’s elections. Both Stanford University and the National Institute of Health have released papers on polarization in the US, and both essays seem to contribute polarization to a vilifying of the opposition to make it seem like the other party is becoming more extreme, rather than any actually changing political views and opinions amongst individuals, which is a newer alternative explanation for the polarization (the two older theories are that people have either more radical individual political opinions, or they have stable, generally centrist political opinions, but more radical, extreme camps that they identify with, which is causing division).
Furthermore, Trevor Brady, a Leadership/Government teacher at MCHS, partially placed the blame on the media and news for being a large factor of this polarization, much like Hoang and Wang. Interestingly however, he branched away from the freshmans’ opinions a little, mentioning that it is also the responsibility of citizens to know what they believe in and what politicians represent, and to not just follow along blindly because they identify with a party. Brady believes that the US government as a whole is designed “not to reward compromise, [because] it’s written in our Constitution”, and that politicians are at fault for villainizing the opposing party and increasing the animosity between the two camps, a theory which several of the aforementioned articles and research papers have corroborated. He is a strong advocate for individuality concerning political opinions, stating that, “as long as they [students] can defend what they believe in with concrete evidence, that’s good.” Now, that is not to say that Brady believes that polarization isn’t an issue; quite the opposite, in fact. He thinks that the radicalization of political beliefs is dangerous, and that “dangerous rhetoric causes dangerous actions.” However, he has said that the US has always been fairly polarized, bringing up the fact that “we [the US] have even had a civil war where people went to war over their beliefs.”
Insofar as the research papers are concerned, there are quite a few inconsistencies and arguments on the origins and effects of polarization on a modern society, but the interviewees all seemed to agree that, while individuality is good, radical groups and more extreme beliefs on both sides of the left-right scale are a net negative.
Overall, political polarization is a messy, controversial topic and is the subject of much argument and confusion in many circles, but its growing presence cannot be ignored. Especially as students use social media more commonly and they are as such frequently exposed to polarizing information, even if it may not be true, which Brady, Hoang, and Wang (as well as most of the papers) warn against, encouraging the public to learn more about a topic before talking about it to others.
And above everything else, Brady reminds us that, no matter what internal divisions we as a nation may have, “there is more that unites us than divides us as a country.”