The social, political and religious polarization of the US is a festering sore on the face of America; a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that has been growing for decades but has culminated since the rise of Donald Trump and MAGA world.
Results of a poll released this week showed that a third of young voters said they can’t even be friends with rival party supporters. Compare this to a similar poll in 2016 that found that only 7% of voters placed political affiliation above friendship.
The poll, conducted between February 3 and 14 by The Generation Lab and Axios to 1,073 young adults, revealed that 33% of respondents said they would “definitely not” or “probably not” be open to being friends with someone who voted for the opposing party’s presidential nominee (selecting Republican former President Donald Trump or Democratic current President Joe Biden, specifically).
America is at war with itself, its population divided along political affiliation more than at any other time in history, except perhaps, during the Civil War era—the leadup to it, its duration, and the aftermath. But even worse than that dreadful depth in American history, today the political division has subsumed the religious and the social as well, at times seeming like it’s MAGA world against all others and the animosity between the two factions is irreconcilable. Since the rise of Trump, as in the runup to the Civil War, families and friendships have been torn apart by differing ideology.
As the poll indicated, a large number of young adults say they’re unwilling to be friends with someone voting for the presidential candidate of the opposing political party.
The animosity has been increasing since the 2016 election, when a Monmouth University poll found that 7% of voters said they ended friendships over the vitriolic race between Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Those friendships ended, the poll found, as 70% of respondents said the presidential campaign “brought out the worse [sic] in people.”
It may still be early in the process, neither of the presumed candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, have clinched the nomination as their party’s candidate, but the wars of words have been ratcheting up steadily; this despite the fact that both candidates have barely lukewarm support from the mainstream voters. Both are seen as too old and debilitated to be effective leaders of the nation, both have too much baggage that is dragging them down. There is talk of dementia for both candidates, and indeed, while Biden seems to be fighting only age, according to experts, Trump is probably fighting against age and mental illness as well.
Dr. John Gartner, known for his contributions to the 2017 bestseller “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” now describes him as “dangerously demented.” Drawing on his extensive experience, Gartner highlights Trump’s speech patterns and behavior as clear indicators of severe cognitive impairment, a stark deviation from the normal aging process that is besetting Biden. He cites “phonemic paraphasias” and tangential speech patterns as evidence supporting his claim of Trump’s dementia.
Indeed, at a recent rally Trump mistakenly called his wife Mercedes and read his children’s names from a cheat sheet that he was hiding in his hand.
What may be even worse is that Trump is in an unprecedented position of being the only candidate to ever run for the presidency with 91 criminal charges against him and shuttling from one state to another as he fights daily wars in courtrooms in multiple states.
All these factors are hammered relentlessly by the media that fans the flames of disunity and hatred to further its own agenda.
Polarization affects not only personal relationships, but has significant implications for the functioning of democracy, the quality of public discourse, and the well-being of citizens. It can undermine the ability to find common ground, compromise, and cooperate on solving the nation’s problems. We see this on a daily basis in the gridlock in our nation’s capital where legislators have no interest in solving our problems, but only in scoring points off the other team and getting on television.
Polarization can also fuel intolerance, resentment, and violence among different segments of society. These have all become prominent features of American society.
The fact that young people–that segment of the population that is normally most tolerant of differences and most open to friendships—is now making relationship decisions based on political affiliation, is probably the most damning indicator of a broken society.
