Will America Ever Be United Again?

At left, protesters move a Baby Trump balloon into position before Independence Day celebrations in Washington on Thursday. At right, Supporters of President Donald Trump walk on the National Mall in Washington before Independence Day celebrations on Thursday

Information technology's not your imagination. The nation really is politically polarized.

A June 19 report past the Pew Research Eye, "Public Highly Critical of Land of Political Soapbox in the U.S.," plant that nigh half of the people surveyed said that "talking about politics with people they disagree with politically is 'stressful and frustrating,'" to the betoken where many people prefer to avoid those discussions. A significant majority of those surveyed said political debate has become more negative, less respectful and less based on facts over the past few years.

We spoke to political scientific discipline experts and to a few politically engaged citizens about this growing divide, how we got hither, and how nosotros address the issues that separate us.

The upshot: The schism is real, information technology'southward widening, and the road to repairing the social rifts is likely narrow.

Why then polarized?

"Polarization is, in a way, a manifestation of social change," said Dr. Gerald Benjamin, director of the Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz, which provides inquiry, policy development and analysis.

In the 1950s and 1960s, ideology wasn't so closely tied to party, Benjamin said. What nosotros have now, Benjamin said, is "a convergence between ideology and party," and national leadership that doesn't encourage coalitions or partnerships across party lines.

By 2050, Benjamin said, no racial or ethnic group will make up a majority of the U.S. population, and there will be no single ascendant faith. That'due south disturbing to many, consciously or non, he said.

Richard Built-in, a professor of political scientific discipline at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, said academic literature identifies xv to twenty causes of political polarization, only the keys over the past xl or so years are the regional realignment of parties and ideology; a shift in the motive to seek higher office from status and money to activism; and outside spending by ideologically driven groups, much of it via "nighttime money" and political action committees.

"If you lot're running for Congress, you lot know if you have middle-of-the-road positions, you know you're likely not going to be well-funded," Built-in said. That pressure from monied interests continues in office, pushing incumbents farther from the middle.

In the by, Benjamin said, "we always thought that polarization was an anomaly," and that the phenomenon would hurt a presidential candidate'due south chances. The conventional wisdom was that appealing to "the broad eye" was necessary to win the presidency.

President Donald Trump is a product of the long-term polarization trend, not the root cause, Built-in said.

"He couldn't accept been elected had polarization not been proceeding rapidly," Built-in said, merely he has spent his time in office mobilizing his base so they'll become out and vote. "It'due south actually 100 percent that he's been the well-nigh polarizing president in American history."

Twenty-four hour period-to-day discord

The dismal state of discourse spills into people'southward twenty-four hours-to-day lives.

"I do notice that conversations on these topics present go heated very quickly," said Mark Bischof of Goshen, who considers himself a conservative. "In a way that's good, it shows we requite a damn about what's going on. It would assist to recognize that and what it tells us about each other."

Bischof said he learned fairly recently that three co-workers he has always assumed were moderate or conservative are in fact liberal, and he says that shows how the current climate has raised tensions.

"Previously, our political difference never came up," he said.

"There'due south a thou people can't stand Donald Trump, and a yard people can't stand these other characters," said Jim Carney of Mamakating, a former Teamster who also worked every bit a state trooper in the 1960s, who's adequately bourgeois.

"I think a lot of people are uptight almost a lot of things," he said. "It'due south gotten to the point these days, you lot've got to sentinel what you say, because people get very offended."

For Willa Freiband, a media consultant, past president of the Orange County Democratic Women and a member of the country Democratic Committee, this is a marked change from the past, when people had faith in social club's institutions and government, and felt that everyone was a office of the nation.

"There has been an erosion of trust and respect for each other, which shows up in both large and minor means." she said. "It seeps through the mode we view our social club."

Some people decline to address the problems, said Kathleen Brophy of Middletown, a liberal-leaning one-time Democrat who relishes a good debate.

"It seems that a lot of folks prefer to spend their lives in a hive mentality, unable (or) unwilling to stray from the perceived mandated rhetoric of group beliefs," she said.

According to the Pew report, 85 percent of the people surveyed said political fence has become less respectful over the past few years, and 76 percentage say it's less fact-based. Of those polled, 55 pct said Trump changed the tone and nature of political argue for the worse; 24 percent say for the improve.

"While I suppose our president would be the nigh popular choice as the culprit, I really recall he only revealed the schism, and perchance aggravated it a bit," Bischof said.

Us vs. them: Twitterdome

Social media'due south instant communication, with no requirement for facts, is driving divisiveness and destroying the institution of news, Benjamin said.

People largely follow information sources that reinforce their ain biases, and many of those sources don't hew to journalistic standards and practices.

"There's nobody checking information technology, no editor, nobody saying 'did you telephone call the other side,'" Benjamin said. "There's nobody vetting the communication that's defining the conversation."

"Affective polarization," the kind driven past emotions and feelings, turns people toward a unsafe us-versus-them view, Born said.

"More and more, it's just 'the other side is the enemy,'" he said. " It's us versus them, and we're skillful and they're bad."

Bischof said our tolerance for "human uniqueness" hasn't kept upwards with advice speeds.

"Our differences have been growing and festering for decades as societal change accelerates," he said, "especially since it appears that more and more than of that alter seems to involve compelling one group to accept some other grouping's personal demands."

Brophy says disinformation is the driver.

"I believe it's a government/corporate-manufactured schism designed to divert the populace from the fact that the US is the highest income inequality Start Earth country on the planet and a plutocracy, due to the fact if we keep the peasants infighting out at that place, they won't look over here," she said. While people bargain with mass incarceration, corporate destruction of the environment and unions, crumbling infrastructure and skyrocketing wellness-care and college costs, conservative and liberal corporate media indicate fingers at the other side, painting opponents equally the villain.

"Never accept and then many been held incommunicado past and so few," Brophy said.

The digital historic period "is drowning us in an ocean of data and misinformation," Freiband said. "We don't have time to sift through what's relevant and what'southward not ... With all the racket, people are blocking out each other'south real stories."

Our neighbors are not the enemy

And so how do we breach the divide? Past reaching across and listening. We need leadership that wants to find common ground, and we need to try to avoid destroying what we have in common, Benjamin said. If someone meets hostility at every attempt to reach beyond the alley, he said, they'll withdraw deeper into the confidence that their views are justified.

Every bit America becomes more than diverse, he said, we must all exist more than mindful, and attempt harder to find commonalities.

Born said multiple solutions accept been proposed, merely he's non hopeful. He expects Trump to ratchet up the rhetoric through the 2020 election, for GOP candidates to follow suit lest they lose to a challenges from the right, and for Democratic candidates to cater to their political party's left fly.

"I retrieve the signs are that polarization is going to become worse," Born said. "A wipeout of the Republican party in 2020 is almost the only thing I could suggest for how things could become less polarized. The whole idea of American regime, and this goes back to the framers, is compromise. People have dissimilar views, but y'all've got to accept some middle ground."

Bischof said nosotros need to build on the things we share, the things that bond us.

"We equally individuals want to be as complimentary and every bit safe equally safety and freedom tin can possibly coexist; nosotros want our private sovereignty to be respected; and nosotros desire to be left in peace. Great societies are built on these tenets and we need to become back to them," he said. "Change has to beginning with the individual, partly because a society's natural tendency is to coalesce into mobs ... Panic and paranoia ensues, communication stalls, and the schism grows."

"Those who tell us scary stories don't motivate usa to observe solutions. They go along u.s. autonomously," Freiband said. "We have to push through. My hope is that each person finds their own path toward those lofty goals."

Brophy said people demand to pay attention and get involved; too many people revert to "dear information technology or leave it" instead of acknowledging the country'south problems.

"Merely the adage of 'the journey of a thousand miles begins with a unmarried footstep' applies here," she said. "One individual willing to stand and educate tin can reach another individual, who reaches another private. Apathy is a solution to zilch."

No one thinks modify will happen rapidly.

"It'south gonna take a while. You've gotta see what happens in this next election, for one," Carney said. "Y'all're just going to have to await it out."

hyakin@thursday-record.com