An article by the published this year contains research showing that intense political party members are exponentially more likely to view members of the opposite party as dishonest or immoral, without ever having met or heard of the person before.
Let’s dive into that a bit more. Picture a random stranger, maybe a face you saw in passing or a cashier from the grocery store. You don’t know this person, you’ve haven’t even spoken a full sentence to them. Now imagine hating them. Hating this person with all that you have — calling them names, rejecting them, making fun of who they are. But why? Why do all this? Because they’re a Republican and you’re a Democrat (or vice versa)? What a sad answer.
This illogical malice is known as partisan hostility. In simple terms it is animosity towards another person because of their choice of political party. Some people believe this hostility is just a product of American politics, and a simple fact of our electoral system. But is it more than that? Is there any real damage stemming from these divisions?
The answer is yes. This intense form of partisanship is slowly eroding our democracy and undermining our American livelihood. Here are some examples, from for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
- Since 1994, the median Democrat vs median Republican views have slowly drifted further and further apart.
- Since 1950, bipartisan alliances had dropped almost 60%.
- Since 2018, partisan-based hate crimes have increased by the thousands.
- Polarization by party is at the highest rate it ever has been in the House of Representatives.
A centrist is a politician who is considered to have “moderate” beliefs, or beliefs that fall in between both parties. Centrists are the key to lawmaking, as they play a huge role in compromise between Republican and Democrat disagreements. Compromise is the only way to get any laws passed, or complete any real change in policy. In the 1970s and ‘80s, centrists held about 30% of Congress. Now, they hold less than 10%.
It seems that compromise dwindled with the moderates. Instead of searching for agreements, Washington leaders attack each other in the media and blame the opposite side for whatever American issue is most popular at the given time. Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean wrote, “”
In George Washington’s , he warned the public about what political parties may lead to. He pleaded with the people, asking them to remain unified under one country. In his exact words — “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards.”
In Washington’s precise words, powerful men will use these parties as a means of accomplishing their own agendas, and destroy the country in the meantime. Washington begged for unity. He begged for one American people, a society that thrived and supported their fellow countrymen. But one look inside Capitol Hill and anyone can see his wishes have been disregarded.
This isn’t an attack on the American government, it isn’t even an attack on political parties. It’s an attack on hate; an attack on the cruelty that brews under the mask of partisanship. This country thrived before. Leaders compromised, citizens’ voices were heard regardless of their registered party, laws were passed and change was made. We can become that country again, and not by demolishing the party system completely, but by destroying the hate that has been tied to it over the last few years. Respecting all citizens, not as Republicans or Democrats but as our neighbors.
Adia Harbert is a student at Central Catholic High School in Allentown.
