By Names withheld
American politics has created more division in the everyday lives of citizens than most are willing to admit. It is now considered normal to hate and berate those based on the cardboard sign that is planted on their front lawn. You could agree with everything under the sun with the person sitting next to you in class, but the moment they find out you fly a certain flag or donate to a certain organization, you are a racist, homophobe, liberal snowflake, etc. This division is growing and these past two elections have been especially dividing. These divisions have grown as a result of many factors: the two main parties slowly shifting toward their extremes while many Americans remain moderate, technology amplifying the voice of political extremes but not moderates, conspiracy theories, differing beliefs about voting and vote counting methods, and blaming of people for actions they are not responsible for.
Technology has allowed people to create echo chambers in which they only hear their side of the argument. This effect is known as political homophily. Political homophily fosters even more division because the slightest differences in ideas can lead to a split in a political ideology. For example, Medicare for All has become a popular idea in the more extreme left of the Democratic Party. Centrists in the Democratic Party have moderated this idea and some have rejected this idea. This has led to a division within the Democratic Party between the centrists and the left. This division has led to fierce primary election debates in 2020 as the two sides have battled over ideas such as Medicare for All, but these two sides are still on the same side of the overall political spectrum. This division is not isolated to Medicare for All. Divisions such as this exist in nearly every policy in government and within both political parties. These divisions have also caused some to move even further toward the extremes of the political spectrum.
This issue is especially important for the Democratic Party. According to Gallup telephone surveys, conservatives make up fourteen percent and moderates make up thirty-six percent of the Democratic Party as of 2019. Half of the Democratic Party does not identify as liberal yet the party continues to move toward the left.
Political homophily has also been observed in the Republican Party leading up to the 2020 election. Many of these echo chambers have centered around conspiracy theories and voter fraud. Technology has created echo chambers for Republicans such as the Qanon movement which spreads conspiracy theories about a range of topics. These movements have caused many Republicans to move toward the extreme right. Many of these conspiracy theories suggest that opposers of it are making a power grab and must be stopped by the supporters. This has led to even more division as conspiracy theorists attempt to prevent others from gaining power.
According to Gallup telephone surveys, thirty-five percent of people are politically moderate with some conservative and some liberal beliefs. Many of these people remain silent prior to elections which causes the extremes on the political spectrum to amplify and believe that they have more power than they do. This causes politicians to also believe that there are more people on the extremes of the political spectrum than there actually are and to move their policies towards the extremes to gain more support. This results in centrists being left behind by their parties and when the parties attempt to move back towards the center, they anger the extremes. For example, when Joe Biden became the Democratic Party nominee, many leftists were upset by him moving the party toward the center of the political spectrum to pick up the voters that the Republicans had left while moving toward the right. The anger was amplified by technology and the lack of a voice of the moderates.
Many moderates believe that they are being polite by remaining quiet. In her speech at the 2019 Women’s March in New York, congresswoman Alexandria ocasio-cortez stated “Being polite is not the same as being quiet.” Many on the extremes of the political spectrum and even some moderates use marches and other protests to voice their opinions on many policies. These protests can sometimes silence moderates who do not have strong opinions or have centrist views on the issues.
Some of these protests have also further divided the country. The summer of 2020 featured many marches against racism in America. Some of these protests became violent, allowing their opposition to paint one side as violent radicals causing fear and further polarizing the sides. This has been observed in America this summer as some Republicans, fearing that a peaceful protest would turn violent, attempted to counter protest with weapons to “protect” others from these protests. Many of these counter protests became more violent than the initial protests. An example of this was the 17-year-old who crossed state borders to join a counter protest which resulted in him killing two protesters. Many of these protests and counter protests were supported by political figures who, at times, even encouraged some of the violence in these.
The way the elections were held in 2020 has even caused division. Republicans have begun accusing the media of overstepping by calling races even though the media has been calling elections since 1952 when computers were first used to project results according to Steven Henn of National Public Radio. These elections have further divided Americans by which votes should count and which votes shouldn’t. President Trump opened multiple lawsuits on states over this issue. The main targets of these lawsuits were Michigan and Wisconsin, which Trump held healthy leads with about a majority of votes counted. The states then flipped overnight sparking allegations of voter fraud. The arrival time is a bit strange but weirder things have happened. However, when these votes were counted, nearly all were for Biden and few were for Trump. This has been explained by the handling of the elections in these states where certain types of ballots were not counted until after others. Trump did not like to see this. Several other states, including Georgia and Pennsylvania, followed suit. Hundreds of thousands of votes were being counted for Joe Biden while Trump’s count went up by less than half of Biden’s.
Controversy over seemingly close elections is not unknown to the United States. A nearly identical situation occurred 20 years ago. The year 2000 housed the Presidential race of Texas governor George W. Bush and recently elected Vice President Al Gore. The voting began and all seemed to be trending in the right direction for Candidate Gore. His votes seemed to outnumber Bush’s by multitudes, a constant flow that battered the Bush campaign to near wit’s end. Then, just as it seemed Gore was within reach of the presidency, Florida halted all momentum. The new voting counting machinery used for the election was showing unseen behavior. Bush held steady in the state for the majority of the election, only for his lead to shrink to near nothing in what seemed like an instant.
This called for the Florida Supreme Court to call for a mandatory recount of the state. This recount was stopped by the Supreme Court due to the lack of standards of which votes counted. This stopped the recounting with Bush still in the lead, allowing him to win both Florida and the Presidency. The 2000 election was one of the closest in United States history. While the 2020 election is nowhere near as close and Biden is still a heavy favorite to win regardless of the outcomes of Trump’s pending lawsuits.
It is natural for people to blame others for issues in their lives, but when the nation’s leaders start blaming others with little to no evidence it changes how all people think. If leaders blame a group for something they are not responsible for, it can cause many people to discriminate against the group. This causes division and hate between people who are part of the blamed group and not part of the group. Many people see this division as unnecessary and useless while some gain confidence and fuel from feeling superior to others and are less afraid to show their prejudices. These people then begin to hate each other more and more.
There are many solutions that could help bring the country back together. One solution is to prevent political homophily by having more moderate voices heard and making changing technology to show many viewpoints instead of isolating them to their own views. By doing this, the political spectrum extremes will be moderated and people will learn others’ viewpoints and why they think the way they do. Another solution could be to have more moderate politicians. The federal government could also create laws that would definitively state how voting should be carried out and what defines a valid vote. Probably the most reasonable solution to divisions in the country would be to have our leaders try to bring people together instead of supporting further divisions. After all, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
The collaborative Op-Ed above was written by Nordonia High School seniors enrolled in College Writing 1, a dual-enrollment course with college credit awarded through Kent State University. Two of the three students are on extreme opposite ends of the political spectrum. If they can work together to produce essays like this, despite disagreeing vehemently, then there is still hope that adults in our country can work together, too.