#political-polarization

#political-polarization

The left branded the ICE agent a "rogue officer" who executed a U.S. citizen during a federal immigration crackdown that never should have happened in the first place. The right labeled the slain driver as a "domestic terrorist" and framed the shooting as a clear-cut case of self-defense amid an assault on law enforcement. The same video footage, watched by millions of Americans, fueled both narratives.

Goldberg quoted Leah Greenberg, a founder of the resistance group Indivisible, who said that while Donald Trump "has been able to do extraordinary damage that will have generational effects, he has not successfully consolidated power. That has been staved off, and it has been staved off not, frankly, due to the efforts of pretty much anyone in elite institutions or political leadership but due to the efforts of regular people declining to go along with fascism."

The great sports sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards has described athletes as "the canary in the coal mine," meaning that the politics and struggles in sports prefigure what will come elsewhere in society. Think of Jackie Robinson integrating baseball nearly a decade before the Montgomery bus boycotts or Billie Jean King signaling the coming of Title IX legislation by standing for women's liberation in a traditionally male and hostile space.

It seems possible that what will ultimately emerge is a clarified sense of principles and a deeper commitment to them (which is why part of the conflict is over American history itself). On one hand, there are the heads of the federal government and their spokespeople, whose lies are part of their disdain for the electorate and the rule of law.

We don't need to see Donald Trump's name on there, Schneider said. What are we allowed to put it on? Jennings asked. He picks a memorial to a slain assassinated president it's gross. It's absolutely gross it's pretty disgusting, Schneider continued. It's not necessary, they're drilling holes into the walls, the pristine white walls of the Kennedy Center that Jennings at that point jumped in and said he cannot understand how liberals can be so worked up about it.

Why Political Conversations Feel So Hopeless Political life in the United States is increasingly marked by interparty animus, including tendencies toward dehumanization. Partisans can seem to prefer distance to dialogue and moral judgment to intellectual engagement. Such unproductive habits steadily erode both the willingness to engage politically and the capacity to consider ideas that conflict with one's own. It's easy to assume that political conversations are hopeless because nothing you say is likely to change anyone's mind.

Being right is a victory for the ego. Being connected is a truth of the soul. We are always connected-all that fluctuates is our awareness of that reality. But in being right, we not only forget that truth, but we translate the pain of disconnection into the cost of our struggle. Of course things are hard-because the other side makes it that way. This is true whether it's our political enemy or viewing our partner as the enemy.

He said it four times in seven seconds: Somali immigrants in the United States are "garbage." It was no mistake. In fact, President Donald Trump's rhetorical attacks on immigrants have been building since he said Mexico was sending "rapists" across the border during his presidential campaign announcement a decade ago. He's also echoed rhetoric once used by Adolf Hitler and called the 54 nations of Africa "s--hole countries." But with one flourish closing a two-hour Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump amped up his anti-immigrant rhetoric even further and ditched any claim that his administration was only seeking to remove people in the U.S. illegally.

Schadenfreude seems to permeate American politics these days as viral clips and memes of politicians making real or AI-generated gaffes and off-color remarks are gleefully shared by ideological foes. The German word, which means taking delight in another's misfortune, describes a response that was once taboo to express openly. Now it's been embraced by partisans as a powerful weapon to reinforce political support and group identity.

I am deeply, deeply concerned about what I've been seeingfor almost 10 years now. We see great division in families and friendships broken up over how strongly they feel about Trump, Alpert said. What I'm seeing is symptoms that in many ways mirror other disorders. People are anxious, they're angry, they can't sleep. One person even said she couldn't possibly enjoy a family vacation as long as Trump is out there.

One paradox of American politics is that voters are both extremely polarized about politics and extremely disdainful of political parties. A record share, 43 percent, self-identify as political independents. Most of these are not true swing voters, but they hold both major parties in low regard. As of September, only 40 percent of voters approved of the ruling Republican Party. The Democrats' favorability was an even more miserable 37 percent-barely above their July showing, their worst in more than 30 years.

In the age of MAGA, ideological lines that once distinguished left from right have blurred. Republicans who said they were willing to die for the market now support a president who tells the government to buy up shares in the private sector. ( Bernie Sanders approves.) The right has also embraced cancel culture, a progressive trend it recently despised. But conservatives aren't the only ones emulating the other side.

The facts of the incident are ostensibly simple: In the early days of Trump's militarization of the nation's capital, Dunn-a 37-year-old Air Force veteran and, at the time, Justice Department employee-screamed at federal officers stationed in a popular nightlife corridor, repeatedly calling them fascists, and then hurled a Subway footlong at a Customs and Border Protection agent, hitting him squarely in the chest.

Outkick host Dan Dakich lambasted fans at the Washington Commanders-Detroit Lions game for booing President Donald Trump while he swore in new members of the U.S. military, saying it was reprehensible behavior that showed they are nothing more than horrible humans. Dakich did not mince words when he joined America's Newsroom on Fox News on Monday morning, one day after the president was loudly jeered.

People trying to understand politics in the United States today often turn to history for precedents and perspective. Are our current divisions like the ones that preceded the American Revolution or the Civil War? Did the dramatic events of the 1960s generate the same kind of social and political forces seen today? Are there lessons from the past that show us how eras of intense political turmoil eventually subside?

My family, originally from Portugal, moved to America when I was three. We became naturalised US citizens, though we always kept our Portuguese citizenship. I now have settled status in the UK, having lived here for five years. Miles is from Cornwall, I have friends in Devon so I know there's rivalry about the proper way to do scones and cream and jam.

He was listening to the Limbaugh shit on the radio and working with people who displayed the characteristics of MAGA. After Trump was elected in 2016, he really started to get weird. He would come home spouting bullshit, and he was always contrary, confrontational, and negative. It was weird. I loved him a little less each day. We had been married for 38 years when we finally divorced, and he wasn't the same person anymore. I couldn't stand to be intimate with him anymore.

The poll - which interviewed 4,027 people aged 16+ between 21 and 27 August 2025 - revealed there is no longer a majority of British citizens who feel 'pride' in their country, there are rising tension between those who are immigrants and British born, more people are feeling nostalgia for the past, many believe the country is changing too quickly and culture war issues are seen as a key dividing issue.

New York City's voters are deciding the outcome of a generational and ideological divide that will resonate across the country Tuesday as they choose the next mayor to run the nation's largest city. Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary earlier this year, faces former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and perennial Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, who is trying to land a massive upset.

Tomorrow's elections make the case that the opposite is more accurate these days: No politics is local. In the Virginia and New Jersey governor's races, Donald Trump is a central issue for voters. In the New York City mayoral election, things are even more complicated: Trump endorsed Andrew Cuomo this evening, the culmination of months of sparring between the president and front-runner Zohran Mamdani, and analysts are debating what Mamdani's expected victory would mean for the national Democratic Party.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's political crash out has been painful to watch. His public endorsement of U.S. President Donald Trump and spearheading role in the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (which was linked to more than 280,000 layoffs) earned Muskand Teslaa negative reputation amongst left-leaning voters in the U.S. A new study by Yale scholars at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reveals just how much of an impact that reputation had on Tesla's sales.

When I was a kid, we got McDonald's coupons from a house once. Every single one of us was like, "The fuck?" Another time, we knocked on the apartment door of some drunk yuppies having a cocktail party, who invited us in for cheese and crackers. I'm not even sure they knew it was Halloween. They were very nice, but my brother and sister and I were weirded out anyway. Also, we didn't have time to socialize. We just wanted to get some fucking candy.

Urbana, Ohio, is a small city of 11,000, where nearly three out of four voters went for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The journalist Beth Macy, who in her previous books chronicled the widening fissures in American society by examining the opioid crisis and the aftereffects of globalization, grew up there. In Paper Girl, she returns to Urbana-a place beset by economic decline, dwindling public resources, failing schools, and the disappearance of local journalism.