“Politics,” they say, “ain’t beanbag.” In other words, it’s not just a game. Today, many descriptions of American political life begin with the observation that there is a great deal of disagreement when it comes to our political beliefs. And this disagreement is characterized as being increasingly rancorous, polarized, and ubiquitous. Family get-togethers turn sour over political arguments. Relationships end, or don’t ever begin, because of political differences. Red states and blue states, or, more accurately, the more rural and more urban parts of every state, see themselves as fundamentally at odds. Of course, our politicians are part of this, too. Whether they set the tone or reflect it back at us, their campaigns are notable for their relentless negativity, and their efforts at governing often seem to be an extension of those campaigns rather than vice versa.

Moreover, outcomes in American politics — elections won or lost, bills that pass or fail to pass, precedents that are upheld or overturned by courts — are explained based on diagnoses of dysfunctions in how we form our political beliefs. Citizens might be described as being affected by alternative facts, fake news, misinformation, or conspiracy theories, depending on who’s doing the describing. We might have failed to trust the experts or ended up in an echo chamber because of our news consumption or social media habits. We might be treating politics like tribal warfare, in which getting beliefs right isn’t the point, or as a cult or (in a derogatory sense) a fundamentalist religion, in which certain beliefs are taken to be beyond rational doubt and questioning them is taken to be heresy. We might be in the thralls of an ideology, emerging organically from the desires of those in power. Or we might be grasping at straws in a world too complex for our silly little brains.