The Trump Era saw vicious political polarization. Has it cooled off under Biden?

 Here is an objective, documented fact: Republicans believe that there were two invasions of the Capital in January. The riot was a horrible debacle, to be sure, but if they’re being consistent, it’s a minor peccadillo compared to the second violation of that hallowed national sanctum: the moment Joseph R. Biden stole onto its steps to be sworn as our 46th president. According to an NPR/PBS public opinion survey, just 24% of Republicans accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, with the majority of those remaining believing high members of the other party to have conspired to steal it in the single greatest act of political fraud in history.

That is, almost half of the voting population believes that the United States is no longer politically legitimate, democracy has surrendered to an elaborate swindle, and the White House has been burglarized by the current administration. Surely this would be worse than any riot, if it were true. If anything, if people believed this, it would be a reason for one. Go figure.

So, let me begin by proposing this: whatever “unity” is, if half the country unshakably believes the United States has been taken hostage by a political imposter, then we don’t have it.

Seven in ten democrats tell Pew Research Center that they “would not consider being in a relationship with a Trump voter.” If you are one of the seventy million people who voted red in 2016 and 2020, your luck is up, apparently. Trump sympathy is now a nonnegotiable disqualification for an intimate relationship, assuming you were pining across the aisle.

You would think this would cut both ways, but it turns out that republicans are a little more forgiving: 74% say they would be willing to date you, assuming you’re a democrat. I’m sure you’ll bear that in mind. If you’re skeptical, this makes more sense when you realize that 62% of the dating pool is composed of Democrats, whereas just 36% of seeking singles are Republicans. Too bad for young Republicans, I guess. All five of them.

Just 17% of Americans tell Pew they would feel comfortable discussing politics with an acquaintance. For comparison, 95% of the public feel at ease talking about the weather with one. Discussing the weather is coming on a little strong for the 5% that leaves over, apparently. So, you can take that with a modicum of salt, and probably some pity too.

Also according to Pew, climate change is the single starkest case of American political polarization on a contemporary public policy item. Just 21% of Republicans versus 78% of Democrats identify climate change as an urgent priority, one of the widest discrepancies of public opinion on general policy matters that has been measured by the organization.

Here is another proposal: whatever “unity” means, if the planet melting isn’t enough for a national cease-fire, then we don’t have it. The inference is simple, if bleak: If unity were an empirical possibility, the death and ruin of everyone we know and love would be a rallying point; if it turns out that it is not, then, in all frankness, unity must be impossible. What could be a greater call to unity than that?

Worse still, in a study published by the journal Science, Eli J Finkle and his collaborators find that Americans now disdain and fear their political opponents more than they show their own party the warmth of partisan favor.

Finally, only about 2% of Trump and Biden voters told pollsters that the other side understands them “very well.” So, in sum, we do not understand each other, we do not love each other, we cannot talk to each other, and (given all of that, it’s hardly surprising, really) we hate each other. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it would seem we also cannot agree on whether the incumbent President is just another boring career politician or a villain out of Greek Mythology, and the foreseeable destruction of the planet isn’t provocation enough for us to set these differences aside.

About the election conspiracy theories. I’ll be fair: maybe some of those believe in a slightly less conspiratorial narrative. An unfortunate series of events, mishandled mail-in ballots, and inadvertent miscounts—something like that. But if we’re going by volume of messaging, or the words of the erstwhile president himself, or the 45% Republican approval of the riots the day after they happened (against only 43% who disapproved, and 12% who “didn’t know”), I think that this is only so many of the republicans declaring Biden an illegitimately elected president.

Instead, they believe something more sinister was at work: dismissive partisan judges, or Republican judges acquiescing to intimidation (of the Antifa variety), or organized and deliberate miscounts in key states. Or something equally egregious--I didn’t bring a whiteboard; this is the best I can do under the circumstances. You’re welcome to insert your personal theory of how they managed this here.

That being said, many republicans have had a change of heart since the day-after poll. A little over 79% of Republicans now feel that federal prosecutors should bring the rioters to justice. Is this progress?

I think so, but it’s hard to see how this can be. Paradoxically, Republicans both generally believe the 2020 election to have been a blatant robbery and that the riot attempting to stop this insult to American democracy was treasonous. But how do you commit treason against a faux democracy and a pseudo-president? It’s a mystery worth pondering. 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities,” said Voltaire. Voltaire only got it half right: people don’t always mind the contradiction between their hysterical beliefs and their real-world behaviors. In the case of American disinformation campaigns, this is a reality we are currently living. It’s not as if every republican alive participated or even supported the riots—far from it.

There is a difference between an opponent and a rival, between a “proximate” enemy and an “ultimate” enemy. You fight a proximate enemy for gains in the short term, but still incorporate your opponent’s interest on some level because you are open to negotiated compromise and recognize that we are facing a shared future.

You fight a rival to some extent as an end in itself, for the sake of the rivalry. You face an ultimate enemy because they are The Enemy: people you find so socially repulsive, morally hideous, and so inherently threatening that, as far as you care, you will have your country and they can have theirs. There is no recognition of our overlapping futures. You are inherently closed to negotiation.

I think the nature of America’s partisan divide is increasingly of the latter sort. This isn’t competition. This is rivalry.

What can we do to reverse course on this sprawling failure? How will we find the magnanimity, the charity, and the maturity required to rise above partisan bitterness and embrace our common humanity, in light of our common future? Will we ever feel the stirrings of clemency and moral solidarity that will be required of us if we hope to make it out alive?

After looking at the numbers, I’m not feeling lucky. Historically, the first two weeks of a given presidency usually feature what public opinion experts call a bipartisan honeymoon: an upwelling of approval for the winning candidate wishes them well and hopes for the best of the coming administration. Biden’s initial net approval score of +16, according to FiveThirtyEight, is miniscule compared to the historical average hovering around +50. This reflects a momentous decline in political optimism and charity on the part of the American people.

Will this get any better under Biden? It is entirely too soon to tell, but absence of that usual sympathetic change in mood can be considered an early indicator of which direction things are going. If my opinion counts for anything, I am hopeful that despite all of this, we will restore the political temperature to levels historically precedented by our better periods of American unity. Sadly, I am also aware that my opinion doesn’t count for anything: I don’t have any evidence to feel optimistic.

Maybe it’s temperamental.