What Is the Biggest Obstacle to Civil Political Discourse?

The following is adapted from We the People.

I’m right. You’re wrong.

My beliefs are good. Yours are evil.

We see this black-and-white absolutism all the time, where there is no middle ground, and it has led to the biggest obstacle to civil political discourse: polarization.

Polarization is the divergence of political attitudes to the extremes of the spectrums.

Imagine the far left as the North Pole, and the far right at the South Pole. They’re as far apart as possible, and it seems impossible that the two could ever have a civil conversation, let alone compromise on real solutions to the issues we face.

But we don’t live at the poles of the earth, right? We’re all somewhere in the middle. Likewise, though the media feeds into a narrative of polarization, recent studies have found that only about 15 to 20 percent of us are actually politically polarized at the extremes of a given position.

Whether we are personally polarized or not, polarization has a real impact on our dialogues, and it’s only getting worse. If you want to combat the creeping scope of polarization, you need to know what it looks like and how it affects us.

Examples of Polarization in Action

Both “sides” (liberal and conservative) are guilty of polarization. Some of the most visible polarization has to do with blindly and fully supporting a political party or leader out of a sense of loyalty or a belief that not doing so represents capitulation to the “enemy” — that is, the other side.

We see this loyalty clearly with President Donald Trump. Indeed, Trump stated that he could “stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and he wouldn’t lose any voters.” The polarization strategy he used to achieve this result included labeling opponents as “political” to avoid focusing on substantive issues or relevant facts. Examples of this polarizing language are “drain the swamp,” “anti-American,” “political witch hunt,” and so forth.

These labels have particular appeal when the president’s supporters can point to fringe members of the opposite party who make similar statements. For example, just hours after she was sworn in, Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib made the following polarizing statement about Trump: “We’re going to impeach the MF.”

The Trump impeachment process showed us the effects of all this polarization.

President Trump and some of his supporters created their own facts, insisted that anyone who suggested that he had done anything wrong was evil, and that anyone who didn’t support him or his positions were equally evil. He labeled the whistleblower as a “traitor” and suggested he or she should be shot. He personally attacked and intimidated any witnesses who presented contrary facts, firing or dismissing several of them after the impeachment proceedings ended.

On the other side, Democrats appeared to be investigating Trump just for the sake of investigating, taking unprecedented attempts to obtain the president’s tax returns, the most blatant of which was California enacting a law (since overturned) requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns as a precondition of being on the ballot.

Before the facts came out or even were presented, many Democrats predetermined that the president should be impeached, and many Republicans predetermined that the president should not be impeached. They were polarized on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Growing Divisiveness

This kind of polarization results in a lot of mudslinging and name-calling — and not much progress or action. One of the most troubling aspects of polarization goes like this: you can’t be friendly (or even civil) with anyone who is deemed to be part of the “opposition.”

This view recently reared its ugly head when Ellen DeGeneres sat with former President George W. Bush at a football game. The criticism was immediate and strident. To be clear, all that Ellen did was sit with the Bushes and be friendly with them. She did not endorse former President Bush’s policies or positions.

Let’s unpack why Ellen’s actions were so “evil.” Your policies and who you are as a person must be treated the same. If I disagree with your policies, you are evil, and — this is the polarization point — no one should be civil or friendly to you without also being evil.

That’s quite amazing, isn’t it? But it appears to describe, quite precisely and unequivocally, that polarization is a cause of and creates lack of political civility in our country.

Divisiveness will not lead to solutions to our nation’s problems. To the contrary, the ability of leaders and people with diametrically opposing viewpoints to come together have led to some of the most prolific and successful joint problem-solving in our country.

For instance, Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill were famously at odds on many political issues but regularly worked together for the good of the country.

We need to separate positions from the person. You can have positions with which I disagree, and I can still be civil with you. And you can have positions I agree with and not be a person of character.

We Need the Moderates

Though most of us are not polarized at the extremes of the political spectrum, polarization affects us all. One of the biggest impacts of polarization is something called affective polarization, in which we non-polarized individuals remove ourselves from the discussion of political matters because of our rejection of extreme political views.

The result is that moderates, who could be most effective in solving the pressing issues that we all face, don’t engage in the discussion and therefore in the solution of these issues.

Many government leaders and officials actively encourage polarization because this is exactly what they want. They want us disillusioned and disengaged, because it lets them get away with increasingly unacceptable behavior.

But we don’t need to play this game. The polarization of our society is a myth, not reality. Yes, there are some individuals at the extremes of the political spectrum, but they represent a small minority of the population.

Let the extremists have the poles — those cold, unpleasant, divisive places to be. The rest of us can live and enact change from somewhere in the middle.

For more about polarization, you can find We the People on Amazon.

For more than three decades, H. Edward Wynn has helped governments and companies discover and implement solutions to complex, often divisive issues. He’s worked in all branches and levels of government, and with both Republicans and Democrats. A Truman Presidential Scholar, Ed has a political science degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Illinois and a law degree, magna cum laude, from Georgetown. Most importantly, Ed’s not a political insider, and he’s willing to call out any side on its BS.