Is political sectarianism fracturing America?

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Is political sectarianism fracturing America?

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Gardens in New York City on Sunday, October 27

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a “carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism” by the New York Times. The event, which came just over a week before the election, was a hostile and partisan affair. Trump doubled down on his assertion that one of America’s gravest threats is from “the ****** within.”

Trump’s rhetoric is a manifestation of the

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nature of US politics, whereby hostility from one group towards their perceived enemies is amplified across social media platforms. Yet Trump’s comment about an insidious “threat” hints at a darker undercurrent of division, with the threat of *********.

A June 2024 poll by the

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suggested that there was more support for ********* against Trump than in his favor—10% of respondents agreed that “the use of force is justified to prevent Trump becoming president,” compared to 6.9% who believed ********* was justified “to restore Trump to the presidency.” Two months earlier, a

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revealed that 47% of Americans believed that another civil war was likely in their lifetime.

As a

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recently observed, the US is more divided “along ideological and political lines than at any time since the 1850s.” And according to

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from ***-based think tank, the Foreign Policy Center, Americans have “increasingly grown to hate supporters of the other party, viewing their capture of political power as not merely unfortunate but illegitimate.”

Americans have regularly

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for living among people who share their political

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. And they have expressed a

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to dating, living, working or socializing with supporters of another party. These views point to a state suffering the ills of sectarianism.

Those who have observed sectarianism around the world know all too well the chaos that such divisions can wreak. In the Middle East, for example, politically charged religious difference has had a

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on political, economic and social life. Hundreds of thousands have been ******* and millions displaced from their homes across Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya because of ********* along

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.

The US may be a long way from these scenarios, but there are some early warning signs. Competing forms of what ********* social theorist Irving Howe calls “

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“—or a sense of certainty that is zero-sum and rejects those of the other—can be easily seen across America’s political landscape.

Protests and counter-protests have played out both on the streets and online over *********, **** laws and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as on university campuses over the war in Gaza. Elite entrepreneurs with political capital have also positioned themselves on opposite sides of sensitive issues to cultivate support.

Take, for example, Donald Trump’s

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that Democratic states ********* ******* after birth, or that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been eating pets. Such comments quickly spread across social media, regardless of their veracity. For Trump’s followers, truth matters less than the ability to justify their position on a particular issue. The stance taken by political communities is increasingly polemic and predictable.

Such dynamics are, of course, also shaped by local contexts. But the growing politicization of social identities in recent years, and the increasing political importance of social issues, has created a landscape where difference is broadly antagonistic.

In this situation, grievance becomes a means of reinforcing in-group cohesion and disdain for the other. In such a landscape, society becomes divided into mutually distrustful camps set apart by a form of emotional polarization that takes on political meaning.

It is the

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that is key here, as this is the foundation upon which political and social enmity is built. Supreme Court decisions, for example, relating to emotionally charged issues

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, have strong mobilizing potential on both left and right.

Entrenched differences

Elections often exacerbate uncertainty and division, as the

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and its fallout demonstrate. According to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (Acled), a research group that analyses occurrences of political ********* around the world, demonstrations and far-right activity peaked around the 2020 election. This reached a crescendo with the events of January 6 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building.

Far-right activity has dropped during Biden’s administration. But a number of far-right groups have recently

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in the run-up to the election. Meanwhile, divisions

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,

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, and the

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have contributed to a precarious environment.

Indeed, a vast majority do not think that next week’s election will solve the issues that America faces. In a

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, 70% of respondents believe that things in the US are going “in the wrong direction” —a view shared more by *********** respondents (94%) than Democrat respondents (41%). And 19% of Republicans think that if Trump loses the election, he should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume office.

The schisms across the US are real and the pieces are not easily put back together. Narratives of division will continue to spread as election fever increases, further deepening the rifts in ********* society. And sectarianism will become the broad frame through which political and social life is viewed.

This need not necessarily become violent. But it can easily become entrenched. The increasingly hostile exclusion of “the other” in all its forms, along with a growing willingness to breach established norms and rules, requires a step back from the brink before it is too late.

Provided by
The Conversation

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Is political sectarianism fracturing America? (2024, October 31)
retrieved 31 October 2024
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#political #sectarianism #fracturing #America

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