Noah Stott
Is America’s Political
Is America Becoming Too
Politically Divided?
And How Can We Solve It?
What is the Harm in Polarization?
There are many costs that come with the price of
partisanship, both social and economic ones. If we can not
even socialize with people who do not share our same
political ideals then we have a very little chance at making
improvements to our system that both sides would benefit
from, and I think that ALL Americans need to push for this.
A study done at google looked at what was the best
measurement for success for their employees, and more
specifically teams of them. You might think that intelligence,
experience, or backround was the key factor, but in all
actuality the number one factor that predicted success is how
well people are able to work with others, especially ones that
they might not agree with. People who were better at being
tolerant of, accommodating for, and working with their fellow
employees I think that this does not only apply to the
workplace, but is also a vital function of how our country can
work more productively.
Not only are their social consequences stemming from the
political divide but economic consequences as well. Looking
at how the house handled pushing out covid relief bills is a
great example, both sides tried to throw in their own policies
with the bill which made the other side block it, stopping the
entire country from receiving stimulus aid. If we can not put
aside our partisan beliefs when it comes to making
productive change for the country, we will be doomed.
Divide Widening?
I guess the first thing we should look at
is the question, is America actually
becoming more politically divided than
it has been throughout history?
The Pew Research Center did a study
on this where they looked at how
members of each political party view
their party, as well as their political
adversaries on a scale of 0-100, with 0
being feeling no disdain for them and
100 being the vice versa, Americans
generally rated their party about 27
points higher on average in 1978. Fast
forward to 2014 and the number has
jumped to nearly 50 points almost
doubling, showing just how polarized
the country has become in that time What is Causing the Divide?
period.
Jill Kimbell, a writer for the Social There are many speculations as to what exactly is causing the divide,
Sciences and Humanities at Brown but I think the most evident is the advancements in technology that has
University wrote a similar article in made it possible for anyone to put their opinion out on social media, and
which she compared the polarization in condemn entire groups of people from behind a screen. Beyond this, news
the United States to most other first publications have become more partisan than ever, some telling almost
world countries. She found that some in two completely different stories of what America looks like. With views
the last 40 years have actually become giving them incentive they will promote the flashiest of headlines.
more unified, but around half have
shown trends of polarization. The
United States on the other hand
outpaces them all vastly, and shows
the highest rate of partisanship in
academia, the mainstream news, the
education system, and almost all other
categories. The overall conclusion from
these studies is that America has
without a doubt divided.
 Pros and Cons to a Politically Divided Society

Pros Cons

● A political divide in your nation shows signs that ● Leads to blind voting, people vote for parties,
you truly do have a free electoral process, if not policies or politicians even
you did not and operated in more of a facist ● Division makes it extremely hard to make
system, there would be very little divide in progress in any direction because often it is
the political atmosphere. mostly petty arguing and political power games
● A more divided political scene will without ● Makes politically charging politics
a doubt provide more points of view, and
advantageous and an effective
will likely keep one political ideology from
strategy to get your legislation
silencing others.
passed instead of actually arguing for
● Most often the middle path is the most
their policy
rational one, so when there are two clear ● Political division inspires more
sides that each have their own agenda,
political extremist groups that often
they are going to have to compromise with
cause violence and distress
eachother, keeping the country at a central ● It is hard to have a national sense of
point politically.
pride across the nation when the
● As long as we keep personal liberties and
nation is divided
Do not have violence from their actions,
political extremists are not necessarily bad and
we can use some ideas they have.
 What are some Solutions That can Unify Being A Rational Voter
the Country?

Carnegie, a group focussed on Whether you agree with all of What is “Rational Voting”?
internal peace in our country, their ideas on how we should
compiled this list of ways to react to the polarization in our Rational voting is essential to keeping our democracy working efficiently, and
lessen the political divide. country or not, I think that the healthily. Voting rationally means that you, as a United States citizen, make your
overall takeaway that we can voting decisions off of rational and logical conclusions in which you believe the
1. Call Out Your Own get from their research is that country would be benefited from. Knowing what policies the candidates in
Party one of the best ways to unify question support and how they are going to implement them is one of the most
our country, is to increase an important steps in making rational voting choices.
2. Avoid Bad Jokes overall sense of tolerance for The right to vote is not only a right but should be treated as a responsibility
everyone and their beliefs. If we that carries some weight with it. You as a voter have the responsibilities of
3. Make Social Media think of all Republicans or electing candidates that serve the public and its interests. Sometimes as a voter
Kinder Democrats by the stereotypes you have to put aside your preconceived biases whether it is about political
that are provided to them and parties, political views, or even where someone is from. Putting your biases
4. Downplay the nothing more, we will never aside will help you make as rational of a decision as possible with as much
Fringes and Highlight create a sense of unity in our information as possible to ultimately make your best voting decision.
the Medians country.
The other side should not be Here are some steps to voting rationally:
5. Emphasize your enemy, not even your 1. Look up information about whatever election you are voting in. Who are the
DIsagreement Within competition necessarily, they candidates? What Parties do they belong to? What is the significance of the
Your Party should be viewed as your overall election?
neighbors who may not be 2. Do general research on each candidate to figure out what they are all about.
6. Help Others Imagine getting there the same way, but Visiting their campaign website, while biased, will give you a overall view of
Empathy ultimately has the same end them.
goals as you so we should try 3. Find the one you feel holds your political opinions most, and do deeper
7. Avoid Repeating our hardest to compromise with research into them to make sure there isn't anything you are missing. Do
Information them. I think that what media research on their past to look at what they are like as a person.
you consume ultimately plays 4. Vote for your prefered candidate on voting day!
8. Vote for Policy, not one of the largest roles in how
Parties polarized you will become
 Where Do We Find Good Non-Partisan Sources of Information?

What Sources Do Americans LIke? Good Sources of News

Here are some examples of reliable news
The lower chart shows how Americans
sources that you can watch to be informed
answered to how they feel about the listed
with little to no bias.
sources of news with the further left being
1. Mainstream news stations with good
untrustworthy and the further right being
track records that rank highly on the chart
trusted. As you can see many of the
such as NBC or CBS News.
mainstream media news sources will fall
somewhere in the middle with internet and
2.Other publications such as TIME
social media publications being lower on the
magazine or the Wall Street Journal.
list and professionals being at the very high
end of the chart.
The above chart is a chart titled the Media Bias
Chart and was created by Ad Fontes Media.
They placed most the major news publications Bias or Bad News Sources
on a scale of where they fit politically and how
trustworthy the information they put out is. While most news publications have some
Most the upper middle sources in the chart are bias there are definitely ones that are still
your best and most trustworthy sources of raw reliable and trustworthy, here are some
news that doesn't have much political bias in it. examples of these.
A lot of the opinion news stations will fall into
the somewhat reliable or somewhat unreliable 1. Social media websites such as Twitter,
categories because they often don’t tell the full Facebook, Instagram ect.
story when it comes to things that damage
their political views.
It is important that you consume a good mix of
media and especially important that you watch 2. Opinion news stations, these would
a fairly reliable source of news for your main generally be the ones that fall to the lower
source or sources of consumption. If you enjoy sides of the top chart such as Fox News or
some of the other programs you can certainly Daily Kos.
watch them, just try not to watch blindly and to
balance yourself out with other sources of
news as well.
 So What Should We Do Personally?

So now that we know more about the direction America has been heading
in and what is causing it, how can we help to unify the country as individuals?
I think that you can make big impacts in small and simple ways, try to use
rhetoric that inspires unity, not devisiveness. Try to focus on the things that
we as fellow Americans have in common, which I bet is more than you think.
A study done by Berkeley University found that about 75% of Americans
believe in both stricter gun laws and a pathway to citizenship for
undocumented immigrants, we are not as divided as it may seem. At the end
of the day I think that most Americans want almost exactly the same thing
regardless of political ideologies. They want to work a reasonable amount, be
able to afford what they need with some leftover, have some time on the
weekends for their families, be saving a reasonable amount for retirement, all Sources to Find More Info
of the basics. I think that where the discussion gets tangled is how we get to
https://www.futurity.org/political-polarization-parties-united-states-2260412-2/
that goal, and I think that as long as we put our country first we will be
successful.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/23/america
Next time you find yourself at the thanksgiving table with your relatives ns-have-not-become-more-politically-polarized/
whose views are drastically different from your own, maybe try and find some
common ground with them instead of arguing, try to represent your side https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/13/america-is-exceptional-in-t
he-nature-of-its-political-divide/
without attacking who they are, and show a respect that will hopefully be
returned to you. I think that we also vote with our dollar in terms of what
media consumption we get. We need to support non partisan news networks https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_are_the_solutions_to_poli

who tell you the news and leave the interpretations of it up to you. Try to tical_polarization
listen to both sides if you do like a certain partisan news station, get a
complete idea of the political atmosphere and use that knowledge to make
change in your community. Keep rational voting in mind, vote for policy not
just party, and if we do all this, I think that you are making a change bigger
than you know, and we are one step closer to having a strong united country