Even in this election year, undividing America is possible

After big political events like the Harris-Trump debate, you might get the impression that most Americans, firmly on team red or team blue, are too divided and dislike each other too much to truly engage the other side on any policy or cultural issue. You might be left wondering whether the two sides are even talking about the same thing or living on the same planet.

All over the country, conversations about things that divide us are taking place. The problem is that, maybe more than ever, they tend to take place between and among like-minded people. To those who find the situation hopeless, my colleagues and I have seen — and filmed — how people can reengage as fellow Americans, despite deep differences.

Two decades ago, Bill Bishop published “The Big Sort,” in which he described the ways Americans are self-selecting into like-minded geographic spaces. This phenomenon is happening in virtual and online spaces as well. 

What happens when most of your conversations are with people who agree on everything? With only those who have similar tastes and interests?

Your views, especially on politics, will probably become more intense and further from the mean. Some might say extreme. It then becomes easier to “otherize” those who don’t share your strongly held beliefs.

Journalist and author Mónica Guzmán calls it the “SOS” phenomenon: sorting, othering and silo-ing. We’re sorting into echo chambers, othering those in the outgroup and seeing them as somehow less than us, and siloing to stay entrenched in our camps. We become less informed and knowledgeable about each other, even when we track the news to stay informed.

In fact, according to More in Common’s research, the more news people consume, the more distorted their perceptions are about people in the other party. The ideas we have of each other become caricature versions.

Over the last 18 months, working with filmmaker Kristi Kendall on the movie “Undivide Us,” I have had the privilege of crisscrossing America and talking to Americans of all walks of life. 

We went to Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Atlanta. We facilitated conversations with Americans from different backgrounds and perspectives. And since the film debuted at the Big Apple Film Festival in New York last November, many communities have hosted screenings, from Fargo to Tallahassee and Roanoke to Holland, Michigan. I’ve also hosted these types of conversations with college students all over the country.

Each time, there’s a little bit of fear in the room about fellow Americans. Because of the SOS phenomenon and the magnification of news about divisive partisans that we can barely avoid on our TV screens and social media just about every day, we’re fearful of engaging with anyone who seems to identify as part of Team Red or Team Blue.

Will they fly off the handle if someone expresses a different view, particularly on politics? The perception, both inside and outside these rooms, is that Americans are too extreme to engage.

We see this especially with college students, who are often nervous about engaging in conversation with others with different perspectives. They are self-censoring. According to a 2022 Heterodox Academy survey, 58.5 percent of students reported self-censorship that year.

There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, from our political institutions to our civic institutions, educational institutions, community groups, and so on. But we first must understand that we’re overestimating the extent to which those who disagree with us are actually extreme.

Polarization and its causes have many different facets, and we can’t fix them all in one day or with one approach or tactic. My experiences during filming and post-screening events showed me that most Americans are in fact eager to be part of the solution, but don’t know where to start. 

That first step seems daunting, but it’s simple: We need more, not fewer, real conversations. When participants engage in conversations across differences, the experience is so exciting that they wish they had started sooner. They realize that their fellow Americans aren’t all that extreme, have nuanced views and arrive at their political views in unexpected ways.

More than that, the experience showed that it’s possible to break the fever and overcome our fear of one another. If you’re tired of the way things are, begin by simply fostering your own curiosity about your fellow citizens. 

If you can get through this election season thinking about and treating everyone — even those you vehemently disagree with — as more than the political choices they make, you’ll be helping to undivide us.

Benjamin Klutsey is the executive director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.