The Radicalization of American Politics

Governing the nation hardly seems the priority of our elected officials anymore. Now, it seems the priority is either to win, or to look good losing. The good of the country is now perfectly aligned with the good of their party. But it extends past our politicians into our own lives. Despite having access to more information, more viewpoints than ever before, we build our own echo chambers and rarely leave. Funnily enough, I have never heard anyone suggest our political landscape is healthy. Every election, there is a smaller area of middle ground that is safe to debate. Our political beliefs are becoming more polarized on all issues, no matter their importance. At the same time, politics is becoming less accessible to those not involved while becoming more formative in the identity of those who are involved.

This polarization and radicalization creates division. This division is between well-intentioned people who will never see the same information, the same opinions, the same research. Instead, they will only be exposed to interpretations that match their political affiliation. Then they take those interpretations and share them on social media. They might get some negative feedback but usually it is one of style and rarely of substance. A republic is supposed to involve the exchange of ideas. Iron sharpens iron.

Now, there is no give and take on ideas. Instead, the originator of the idea and whether there is a R or a D next to their name determines the merit of the idea in our eyes. I guess we should hardly be surprised. The average politician demonstrates daily that politics is not a meritocracy.

This radicalization also creates false perceptions of reality. One of the most recent examples of this is the response to Texas’s heartbeat law. Some of the responses from celebrities advocated policies such as fathers paying prenatal support or being legally obligated to not abandon the woman. The obvious joke is that people are rediscovering marriage. These ideas were proposed as though beyond the pale. However, pro-life people would support them if it meant less abortions. Also, people seem genuinely shocked that people would support the Texas heartbeat law. Some of the people who are shocked are paid money – real money – to offer commentary about current events on TV. Yet they have no grasp of the electorate. How embarrassing to be paid for being that bad at your job!

I’ll be honest. I believe conservatives are generally more informed about progressive viewpoints than progressives are of conservative ones. Perhaps I’m wrong on that, but both sides have their own echo chambers. I think this contributed to the conspiracies and concerns around the 2020 election. We value personal anecdotes too highly and there are conservatives that don’t know a single person in their community who voted for President Biden. That doesn’t mean there weren’t people who voted for the President; it just highlights the limitations of living in echo chambers. Heck, they could live in the same apartment complex or down the street, but due to our online communities we have less reasons to invest in our local communities and less knowledge of the people we share our neighborhoods and towns with. It goes both ways though. There are progressives who can’t comprehend that there are people who are pro-life and believe human life begins at conception or that there are pro-gun people who own multiple guns, enjoy shooting them, and will buy more.

This disconnect is even more ridiculous since they aren’t new beliefs in the movement. Being pro-life and pro-gun are perhaps the two biggest identifiers of conservatives. Finding a person who is pro-choice and anti-gun and claims to be conservative is certainly not impossible but very difficult. If you do find one, chances are they work in D.C. and write for the Bulwark.

Having a false reality is why people on both sides of the political spectrum are shocked when their opponents win any sort of legal, political, or hell even moral victory. Understandably some issues are important and compromising on them would be to compromise on closely held personal values. But as politics are radicalized and polarized it creates an umbrella effect that encompasses more issues. I believe this leads to greater harm to both sides but more importantly to us. Take immigration. Everyone who has two brain cells to rub together knows the system is broken and needs fixed. But for decades both political parties have applied their own little patches that are usually repealed within an election or two. At this point, what may have been bureaucratic and political incompetence has become maliciousness. People who wish to come to America deserve a clear, concise, and efficient system. But politicians are too afraid of losing re-election to compromise on the issues that deserve compromise.

The United States government was always supposed to be somewhat inefficient. This was to prevent a mob mentality from enacting horrible policies overnight. However, it was never intended to be this incompetent. Our two major parties, our elected officials, and now ourselves are becoming too polarized in our political views to work together. The worst part of this is that our elected officials are supposed to be OUR voice in government. They are supposed to be the oversight of the vast administrative state that impacts our day to day lives. But even the simplest of bills are now thousands of pages long and fund hundreds of agencies with zero substantive debate on 90% of the bill. Our elected officials can’t exercise oversight because they are so busy trying to spite each other. We lose in that situation. And worse yet, they want us to behave like them and make our political affiliation foundational to our identities.

At this point, we could pull random people off the streets and stick them in Congress, and we’d have a higher functioning government.