As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a great deal of concern about how polarized we are as a nation. Three-quarters believe the pandemic has pushed us further apart, and most are not very confident that President Joe Biden will be able to unify us.
America is indeed polarized these days. But perhaps not in the way you think.
In 1994, the year of the Gingrich revolution in Congress, America was not particularly polarized. The Pew Research Center found the majority had views that were more “mixed” between conservative and liberal. It isn’t really until 2011 that Pew begins to find the ideological makeup of Republicans and Democrats moving further apart. By 2017, while Republicans still have a reasonably wide range of ideological positions, Democrats have shifted leftward, more concentrated toward the liberal pole.
So, yes, we are a bit more polarized ideologically, but not by much. This alone does not produce an apocalyptic hellscape where we are at each others’ throats over intractable policy disputes. There are still many, many people living in shades of gray.
In fact, the vast majority seem to have at least some heterodox views. In new research conducted by my firm Echelon Insights, we asked voters 10 questions about cultural and social issues and another 10 questions about economic issues. The responses were turned into an index score, with 0 being the maximum liberal score and 100 being the maximum conservative score. It turns out most are somewhere in between; 58% have a cultural view between 25 and 75, and 59% have an economic view in that range. When each respondent is plotted out on a chart, you see the large number of people whose views are a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
Within our two parties, there are splits, with Republicans often divided by generation and Democrats often divided by race and education. We do not have a nation with half the people as strongly conservative Republicans and the other half very liberal Democrats, with no overlap.
So, if we have a lot of centrists, a lot of people who hold views that aren’t party line all the way down, why do we feel so divided?
The problem isn’t that Republicans and Democrats in the electorate don’t agree on anything. There are plenty of issues in which you can find 70% or 80% in agreement. No, it’s that we view the other side as a grave threat to our way of life and furthermore believe that the other side has the capabilities to make good on their ill intentions.
Before the 2020 election, voters were asked what they thought would happen if the opposing candidate won. Among Trump voters, only 8% said that a Biden win would be concerning but would not lead to lasting harm; 89% said a Biden win would cause lasting harm to the United States. The numbers are identical in the other direction, with 9 in 10 Biden voters viewing a Trump victory as not just concerning but as damaging.
It isn’t hard to piece together the reasons why either side is deeply afraid of the other. To a Republican these days, whether centrist or conservative, the Left appears to be eroding the American way of life. They worry that the police aren’t allowed to do their jobs, that the borders are not secured, or that they won’t be able to raise their children with the values they hold dear such as patriotism or faith. And it is not just the goals of the Left they fear. It is the fact that they view the Left as increasingly holding power over the country through influence in business, tech, and media as well as control of the government.
Meanwhile, Democrats view Republicans as authoritarians who want to suppress minority rights, exacerbate inequalities, and erode democratic norms. They worry that gains for minorities and women will be rolled back, systemic racism will not be uprooted, and fair elections will be overturned. And it is not just the goals of the Right they fear. It is the fact that they view the Right as capable of enacting this vision through state legislatures, gerrymandering, and the use of procedures such as the filibuster that grant a political minority outsize influence.
Yes, we are a nation divided. But we can’t begin to solve the problem of polarization if we haven’t diagnosed it properly in the first place. Our most critical political divides today aren’t so much about policy or ideology — they are about threat perception.
