In the 1950s, political elites wanted to make the parties more distinct — a push for partisanship. Imagine that. 

Long, long ago, voting tended to be based more on geography or industry, rather than ideology. It was believed that the public didn’t know what each party stood for, and this threatened democracy. 

At the time, women’s suffrage was in its fourth decade, and the Civil Rights Movement was mobilizing. But over the next quarter-century, the Democrats and Republicans defined the lines along their ideological and policy differences. 

The era of partisanship began. 

This emboldened the classic “us versus them” mentality that is intrinsically human and historically conflicting in-party competition. We are all well aware that humans don’t have the best track record with “othering.” 

Time jump to the 1970s and 80s, and Republican Newt Gingrich was gaining popularity by being confrontational and antagonistic, demonizing Democrats. Does this rhetoric sound familiar? Well, at the time, it wasn’t. Political scientists credit Gingrich for this new combative rhetoric. 

“He was the language changer,” University of Minnesota political science professor Howard Lavine said.

Fast forward to today, and our parties are clearly defined by their respective social identities, which creates stereotypes. On one side, Lavine said, there are “whites, evangelical Christians, people from rural areas, people without college identifications, men,” and on the other are “women, non-whites, college graduates, people that live in urban areas and who are secular.” 

There is a generalist claim that stereotypes have to come from somewhere, but it’s negligent and insulting when a stereotype becomes someone’s entire perception of a group’s identity. And worse, it threatens the health of democracy.  

Each group instinctively feels superior to the other. Gingrich capitalized on this, and Princeton professor Julian Zelizer wrote a book all about this partisan prioritization. 

“[Gingrich believed Republicans] didn’t have to balance that with the needs of governance,” Zelizer said in an interview with Brandeis Magazine. “They didn’t have to balance that with the health of our democratic institutions.”

This above-all alignment is what makes the frenzy of polarization we see today. This is exacerbated by the language we use to describe who we deem the opposition. 

“It’s become vogue to use the worst words,” Lavine said. “Language does influence what we think, right? Our language isn’t completely detached from what our feelings are.”

It’s worsened with elite rhetoric and social media.

The right thinks the left and the left thinks the right is stupid or sick or insert any other name-calling and dehumanizing insult that feels most accessible to you. This is a flattening of the other half of the country into a caricature. 

“One amorphous blob,” University political science graduate student Nick Campos said.

Campos studies polarization and said there are two types among the mass public. The first is ideological polarization, where the different groups are rooted in different beliefs. The second is affective polarization, which is a relatively recent area of study among political scientists and represents this inclination to favor the in-party and disfavor the out-party.  

“[Affective polarization is] less about the exact issue content or actual policy battles, but instead more about how people feel about each other, about the other side, about the relationship between the two parties,” Campos said. 

In a study he co-authored, Campos argued that affective polarization is made up of three distinct concepts: othering, aversion and moralization. The study found that othering and aversion, or disliking and avoiding the opposite party, were most related to anti-democratic attitudes among the public. This could look like supporting, and even excusing, a political leader despite their actions being anti-democratic. 

Democracy, because we could all use a refresher now and then, is the laws and norms that promise free and fair elections, constitutional protections, individual rights, civil liberties, and checks and balances.

In the 1950s, the idea was that homogeneity was threatening these democratic institutions, and distinctive parties were seen as a solution. 

But that’s not what happened, Lavine said, as people ditched their policy preferences for party solidarity, “which is an inverse of the way democracy is supposed to work.”

Then, when polarization intensified, it led to democratic backsliding, or democratic erosion, Lavine added. In-party power becomes more desirable than checks and balances.

“The parties are willing to set the Constitution aside,” Lavine said. “They’re willing to set social norms aside.” 

An example of this is Operation Metro Surge. 

“Operation Metro Surge is probably one of the clearest examples of the government attempting to strip people of their individual freedoms,” Campos said. “Part of the reason why they feel emboldened to do this, to go and arrest people kind of unlawfully, is because they believe that their supporters will support them, right? And support them no matter what they do, or as long as they frame it as us versus them.”

This is loyalty to a fault, a dangerous fault that threatens America’s foundation. When we’re willing to support our in-group to the detriment of constitutional integrity and just for the sake of winning, then we are surely a country losing devotion to independence. 

Polarization, at large, is not inherently bad for democracy. But, certainly, what we have today is too much. 

“Don’t assume that people on the other side, don’t assume that the basis of what they believe is crazy, stupid or evil,” Lavine said, referring to what he tells his students. “Hold the belief that political opponents are acting in good faith on the basis of their values.”

This column’s intent was to dive into why thinking the worst of each other is an existential threat to democracy. Very doomsday-esque. 

“It’s easy, very easy to talk about how bad things are going, right?” Campos said. “It’s much harder to give people hope.”

So, I thought about where we began, with the 1950s push for greater partisanship and Gingrich’s creation of combative politics. Each of these movements responded to the condition of the times. 

We can construct a new political climate. We’ve done it before. 

Imagine a time not so far in the future where we learn to evolve past our in-group conditioning, where our leaders teach tolerance and respect for diversity and where our devotion to democracy rises above partisanship. Where we contend with our own hate and our own ignorances and acknowledge and debate and build and connect upon both the worst and the best parts of each other. 

Can we turn toward each other, now, and imagine a thriving United States of America?

This story was originally published on Minnesota Daily on March 4, 2026.