As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the public should be preparing to celebrate the durability of our democracy. Instead, many are wondering whether it will hold another 5, 25, or 250 years. It’s a fair question. Our democracy was built on the need for collective trust in institutions, and trust is plummeting. Last year, the Pew Research Center found public trust in government is at its lowest in nearly seven decades, with only 17% of people saying they trust the federal government to do what is right most of the time.
Not only are we losing trust in institutions, but we are also losing trust in each other. A recent poll from the Pew Research Center found the majority of Americans question the ethics and morality of their fellow Americans.
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And when trust bottoms out, one consequence is an increase in political violence. Assassination attempts seize national attention. Election workers and legislators face harassment. Local officials increasingly say they no longer feel safe simply doing their jobs.
WHEN POLITICS BECOMES YOUR IDENTITY, DISAGREEMENT BECOMES WAR
Political violence rarely appears out of nowhere. It grows in the conditions around it, in the rhetoric we excuse, the assumptions we make about one another, and a political culture that too often rewards contempt instead of empathy or collaboration.
Political violence does not begin with an act. It begins when Americans stop seeing one another as fellow citizens and start seeing one another as enemies.
The numbers are sobering. Nearly 90% of state legislators experienced threats or attacks between 2021 and 2024, and more than half of local elected officials reported threats or harassment during the same period. The damage extends beyond personal safety: many officials say these threats make them less willing to engage on controversial issues, communicate publicly, or seek reelection.
But there is another truth we hear far less often that should offer some hope: Americans are not nearly as divided as our politics suggests. Roughly 7 in 10 say we have more in common than what separates us, and majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents reject political violence and want conflict settled through debate, persuasion, and elections.
The real problem is that too many people do not know how much common ground still exists.
Research shows that Democrats and Republicans wildly overestimate the other side’s support for political violence and extremism. We imagine a country more radical, more hateful, and more unreachable than it actually is. Those false perceptions deepen distrust, harden polarization, and make democratic compromise feel like surrender.
If we want to lower the risk of violence, condemning it after the fact is not enough. We have to build a political culture that makes violence harder to justify in the first place.
That is the idea behind Disagree Better, a national effort to encourage the public to engage across differences with respect and curiosity rather than contempt. Recently, Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) appeared together in a public service announcement urging Americans to spend less time fighting online and more time talking with their neighbors. They did not paper over their differences. They modeled something more valuable: how to disagree without dehumanizing.
The encouraging news is that people respond positively when leaders model this behavior. In partnership with Stanford University’s Politics and Social Change Lab, Disagree Better tested bipartisan public service announcements with more than 11,000 Americans. Viewers became more willing to engage across political differences, more open to opposing viewpoints, and more tolerant of disagreement.
Just as important, the politicians in those messages did not pay a price for showing civility. Their public standing improved, including members of their own party, and viewers were even more likely to support their campaigns financially.
For years, politicians have been warned that respect is weakness and cooperation is political risk. The evidence points the other way. The public is hungry for leaders who can argue hard, stand firm, and still treat opponents like human beings.
As we commemorate 250 years of the American experiment, that should give us hope.
The U.S. was founded not on unanimity but on disagreement. The framers argued fiercely about the structure of government, the balance of power, and the country’s future. What made the American experiment remarkable was the belief that conflict could be managed through democratic institutions rather than by force.
That remains the challenge before us today.
AMERICA IS POLARIZED, BUT THE CENTER IS NOT DEAD
We should condemn political violence wherever it appears. But if we are serious about preventing it, condemnation alone is not enough. The harder work is cultural. Rebuilding the habits of democratic citizenship before the next crisis forces us to reckon with what we failed to do. That starts with rejecting rhetoric that dehumanizes people who think differently than we do, trusting in other people’s motives and opinions, criticizing ideas without demonizing people, and expecting more from leaders who profit from division while claiming to defend democracy.
As the country marks this historic anniversary, the question is not whether people will keep disagreeing. We will. The question is whether we can do it without destroying the civic trust a healthy democracy requires to survive.
Marianne Viray is the executive director of Disagree Better, a nonpartisan initiative designed to reduce inflammatory rhetoric and foster a culture of healthy debate.
