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An illustration to symbolize two divided groups.
Getty Images / Andrii Yalanskyi
We Need to Rethink Polarization Before It Becomes a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Jan 29, 2025
It’s time to rethink the notion that we Americans are too polarized to work together and get things done. And it’s time to get clear-eyed about what’s really holding us back and what it will take to help us move forward together.
A few years ago, I engaged cross-sections of Americans from all across the country in 16 in-depth focus groups about how they were feeling about their lives, the country, and our future. These conversations resulted in the report Civic Virus: Why Polarization is a Misdiagnosis.
We released the report at a time when political pundits, researchers, the news media, and others had created a constant drumbeat, saying that Americans are polarized. The initial reception was positive; I appeared on MSNBC’s Meet the Press and had op-eds slated to run in national publications. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and all the attention went to covering the war.
Now, just as Merriam-Webster declared “polarization” their 2024 word of the year, I’m noticing an increasing number of voices, such as pollster Kristin Soltis Anderson for The New York Times,claiming that we aren’t as polarized as we think. Or others, like this data scientist writing for The Daily Beast, stating that the prevailing narrative on polarization gets things wrong.
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I know our “politics” are polarized. Yet, I believe the drumbeat that Americans are polarized has increasingly become an excuse for not engaging with one another and, at times, even a smokescreen to justify actions by those who seek to win at any cost. We must get beyond these traps.
When I engaged Americans in our conversations, I discovered something more profound than polarization. The findings reflected years of larger, underlying societal shifts taking root in society. And they were consistent across the country from rural Kansas to urban New Orleans to suburban Connecticut. The report may be even more explanatory and insightful about what’s going on in the country today than when we originally published it in 2022. Rather than finding that people were polarized, we discovered three overarching points:
- People are separating and segregating themselves from one another due to unrelenting fear and anxiety about what’s happening around and to them.
- Many leaders and media are intentionally manufacturing and stoking divisions for their own self-interest, with social media helping create and amplify these divisions. This is producing a ceaseless surround sound that is engulfing people, subjecting them to an alternate reality that confuses, disorients, and destabilizes them.
- Seeing no way out, people are in an instinctive fight-or-flight response, many breaking up into smaller groups and camps to protect themselves and gain validation, while others retreat from engaging at all.
Notice the term “fight-or-flight” in that last bullet. That isn’t a phrase I chose to describe what people told me during our Civic Virus study; it’s one that Americans from across our conversations repeatedly used themselves.
It’s not that people don’t care about what’s happening in their communities and the country; they care deeply, intensely. As one Nebraska woman shared, “People do want to come together and help each other, but they don’t really know how anymore.” If we’re serious about moving forward today, we must recognize that the divisions in the country are intrinsically about social and psychological conditions—such as fear, anxiety, alienation, and a lack of empathy and belonging—rather than about political polarization. We’re facing a particular human dilemma.
As a result, so many people of good faith have thrown up their hands in frustration and retreated from public life. They’re fearful of raising hard issues, disagreeing with others, and being cut down for what they say. Others have decided that the way forward is to come out fighting and seek to win for their side at any cost.
So what’s the answer to this dilemma? I believe what we’re missing today in American society is a way in which people can come together, figure out what they can agree on amid our real differences, and take action. We must build together; talk alone is not enough. This very act of building generates a sense that we’re in something together, we have a shared humanity, and we each hold a sense of agency in moving forward. As we take shared action, we can demonstrate proof that progress is possible—because belief is based on proof—and that we have the capacity to step forward and get things done together.
This missing piece is what I have come to call the new civic path and I believe it must begin in our local communities, where so much of the significant change in American history has originated. In its absence, we will remain a splintered, divided nation.
How we move forward is not easy. But the choice is basic. Surrender to fight-or-flight. Or come together and get things moving again by taking action on issues that matter to people in their daily lives.
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An illustration of someone listening and someone speaking.
Getty Images / Leolintang
Even in victory, Republicans should listen to their opponents
Jan 29, 2025
In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, many people have discussed Democrats’ mistakes—from being “out of touch” and insulting, to focusing too much on Trump, to Biden’s “arrogance” in running again. It’s good for political parties to ask tough questions about how their approach may be driving people away and how they can better serve people.
As Republicans continue to celebrate their victory, will they be brave enough to ask themselves similar questions?
No matter the election results, what hasn’t changed is we’re deeply divided—almost down the middle, in terms of voters. If Republicans fail to reflect on those questions, in a few years they risk finding themselves back where they were in 2020: out of power and mired in resentment. If that happens, will they blame “the establishment” and other external forces for their losses? Or will they consider how their rhetoric and approaches may have alienated Americans and led to setbacks?
Much of the recent toxicity centers around Trump. Many Americans see him as a uniquely irresponsible and dangerous figure—and that perception obviously won’t go away with his return to power. Republicans should think deeply about these concerns—and avoid the urge to denigrate and mock them.
To be clear, this isn’t to argue that one must have or agree with those concerns about Trump. It’s to argue for the importance of understanding and respecting American citizens’ concerns. That is just a good thing to do, regardless of one’s political beliefs or partisanship. When we fail to do those things, we’ll find that we deepen divisions and amplify contempt.
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For example, consider the election distrust fostered by Trump and other Republicans after Trump’s 2020 loss. Many embraced the narrative that the election was “stolen” by Democrats, despite a lack of substantial evidence. Trump’s victory in 2024 undermines those claims.
As Mark Antonio Wright sarcastically put it in National Review: “If Democrats stole it in 2020, why didn’t they steal it this time?” Regardless of your views of Trump or the 2020 election, hopefully you can see that Trump’s recent win highlights the illogical nature of the more dark and paranoid narratives about powerful anti-Trump forces working behind-the-scenes to rig our elections.
Pessimistic thinking happens across the political spectrum, and our emotional divides make such negativity more likely. Regardless of how they view this topic or objections that “Democrats have done it, too,” Republicans should be able to see why so many Americans were deeply concerned by such behaviors. Promoting a narrative where one’s opponents are stealing elections amplifies fears and can fuel violence; at a large enough scale, it can threaten a country’s stability. That’s why concerns that “democracy is being threatened” resonated for many Americans.
Of course, not all responses to such concerns are equally good or helpful. Some efforts to “save democracy” can easily be criticized as partisan and polarizing—like the attempt to remove Trump from the ballot. The partisan nature of some of those efforts can make it easy for Republicans to view all concerns about Trump’s actions as unreasonable—as either having political motivations or being overblown.
That is just how conflict works: our hostility will lead us to filter for and find evidence of why our opponents’ concerns shouldn’t matter — why they’re laughable and worthy of mockery. And in a huge country like ours, finding examples of behaviors that strike us as unreasonable and outlandish will always be easy.
But when political parties focus on mocking opponents’ concerns and fail to take Americans’ grievances seriously, there is a price to pay—just ask the Democrats who are soul searching after their recent losses.
If Republicans want to lower political toxicity, or even ensure long-term success, they must avoid gloating and indulging in “we won, so deal with it” attitudes. Instead, they should take this opportunity to acknowledge the valid concerns of those who view Trump’s behavior and rhetoric as dangerous. Understanding those views doesn’t require agreeing with them—it simply requires empathy and respect.
They should also examine their views about Democrats as a group to determine if they are overly pessimistic. For example, claiming that Democratic stances on immigration are motivated by a desire to win elections is as reductive and insulting as the claim that Republican stances on immigration are driven by racism. All of us must resist the temptation to reach for worst-case assumptions and to “mind-read” our opponents’ hidden intentions: these tendencies only deepen mistrust and hostility.
Winning an election will never guarantee permanent victory—and speaking as if it can will only amplify tensions. Trying to understand and speak to our opponents’ concerns is not weakness; it is how we build a healthier, stronger country and avoid worst-case outcomes. It also happens to be how we can better advocate for our goals.
Pearce Godwin is politically conservative and the founder of the Listen First Project. In a piece advising Republicans to work to reduce toxicity for their own sake, he writes: “As we vigorously contest visions, values, and policies, never surrendering our convictions, we can uphold a basic respect for the humanity of our opponents and all fellow Americans.”
If more leaders and activists—Democrats and Republicans—can rise to that challenge, we may find a way to bridge the toxic divides that threaten our nation. If we can’t, we risk remaining trapped in a dangerous cycle of hostility and contempt. The choice is ours to make.
Zachary Elwood works with Builders, a nonpartisan organization aimed at overcoming toxic polarization. He’s the author of “Defusing American Anger.”Keep ReadingShow less
An illustration of a clock surrounded by clouds.
Getty Images / Artpartner-images
Honor The Past Without Shame: Anniversaries Pass, Trauma Remains
Jan 29, 2025
Even as the wildfires of California continue, having affected an estimated 200,000 residents and resulted in 27 deaths, the memory of the Northridge Earthquake of January 1994 and the mass devastation and destruction afterward still linger three decades later.
The fires raged recently on the anniversary of the earthquake in the San Fernando Valley in California, when 33 people died and 7,000 were injured with a damage cost estimated up to $40 billion. The loss of life, livelihood, and long-term lingering trauma experienced has been widely recognized by mental health professionals and the lay community as well.
As a community, many not only understood the physical loss but understood that many would be impacted throughout their lifetime. Many became disabled by the earthquake, some temporarily, while others indefinitely.
As a neighborhood, we understood, grieved, and we were compassionate and kind, because we saw this mass disaster with our own eyes, and could hear the devastation as it happened. It has been widely recognized by researchers as a factor in collective trauma.
For the estimated 16 million survivors of domestic/intimate partner violence and their children each year, their earthquakes happen in the shadows—creating physical and psychological trauma—or chronic PTSD. While this is well-documented and recognized, culturally, the effect of the trauma is often minimized or dismissed.
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Recent research shows that few survivors receive positive support as they are often expected to “move forward,” “work through it,” or simply “get over it.” Some survivors express they also have experiences of loss of life and cope with long-term psychological trauma and disabilities.
Communities do not always welcome them with open arms, compassion, empathy, or understanding, because of societal perceptions and individual beliefs of deservingness as documented by extensive research. The immediate and long-term effects of stigmatization set the foundation for developing Complex PTSD and means people will experience significantly more emotional dysregulation issues.
These are negative perceptions, further reinforcing an already internalized sense of devaluation, leading to discriminative responses when seeking assistance. Negative labeling and stereotypes result in victims of domestic/intimate partner violence reporting experiencing discriminatory practices when seeking housing. They are perceived as unstable, experiencing evictions simply due to their victimhood.
This is in stark contrast to the treatment of victims of mass natural disasters, like earthquakes and wildfires.
Survivors of domestic violence report that they often reveal in detail to the larger community the abuse and violence they experienced. They must also have to prove it, to be believed, or risk being discounted. If believed, they can be shuffled throughout a multitude of short-term interventions and treatments with the expectation of overcoming their trauma.
They are expected to “complete treatment,” “graduate from group therapy,” and be recognized by others by becoming a “thriver.”
Unfortunately, as a culture, unlike earthquake survivors, survivors of domestic/intimate partner violence are somehow not afforded the same grace of empathy, compassion, and acknowledgment, of long-lasting trauma.
Many survivors report they are shamed for remembering, judged for their inability to move forward, and shamed for their acquired disabilities. Their trauma is long-standing, their wounds and loss internalized. Their grief is silenced, and their loss is insurmountable.
A study revealed in detail that victims' of domestic/intimate partners experience shame within the context of their abusive relationship, often anticipating how others will respond to their victimization. This significantly amplifies their internalized shame.
This shame—often tethered to social shame—can lead to detrimental effects for the victim by adversely impacting their need to reach out and access much-needed supportive services. The social shaming mimics and often parallels the dynamics of power and control their abuser exerted over them.
Yet with a disaster like the 1994 earthquake, the difference of how people are judged by their reactions is clear: a mass natural disaster is out of their control. Domestic/violence is seen as the outcome of an individual's inability or unwillingness to see the red flags, that they made a choice and they were in control. They stayed and it happened.
But, the effects on the mind and the body of a survivor of intimate partner violence are as traumatic as an earthquake. Until this is recognized within our culture, it will take so much longer to heal.
Elizabeth Vera is a Domestic Violence Survivor, founder and CEO of Vera Strategies Training and Consulting, national speaker with 30 years of advocacy and a member of The OpEd Project Public Voices Fellowship on Domestic Violence and Economic Security.
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A group of students from the Univerity of Pennsylvania's Political Empathy Lab visited the state capitol in Harrisburg on a "listening tour" of voters last summer.
Photo Courtesy of UPenn
UPenn Political Empathy Lab students study bridging ideological divide
Jan 29, 2025
Originally published by Public News Service.
A group of University of Pennsylvania students got up close and personal with Keystone State voters recently as they studied solutions to bridging the ideological divide.
Students with Penn's Political Empathy Lab traveled across the state last summer and talked with people at parks, libraries and county fairs. The goal was to listen to Pennsylvanians as they discussed the issues in the 2024 campaign.
Lia Howard, professor of political science at the university and director of the lab, said the students emphasized using critical listening skills to understand the voters better.
"Democratic listening is one of the most important and undervalued things that are happening right now," Howard contended. "Because we're just so inundated by talk, expression, and we don't get enough time to practice listening to another human being."
Howard pointed out the students recorded 45 hours of audio during their sessions, producing a podcast series and presenting what they learned on and off campus. Another statewide tour is scheduled for this spring, and Howard added she will eventually publish the students' findings.
Howard noted the lab was formed to put into direct practice some of the theoretical concepts her students study and apply them to Pennsylvania during the 2024 election.
"We weren't trying to do polling or necessarily canvassing, though both are really important and I'm all for both," Howard explained. "That wasn't our role. It was really to think about what we were bringing and how we could connect."
The students traveled more than 2,500 miles across the state and learned about each city or town before engaging the voters. Howard emphasized the students found showing empathy as they listened often drew a higher degree of candor and openness in the responses they received.
"Empathy is something that you just practice. You have to do it to get it," Howard stressed. "I think it's worth working those muscles out, especially under times of duress. I think our country needs a lot more of that working out and building those muscles because we're a democracy, and that's what we need to do."
Penn has put together a program to extend the Political Empathy Lab's concept to other locations nationwide.
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