Democrats and Republicans are not symmetrical groups: they have different traits and ways of moving

We look for the bad things our enemies do but that we don't do to bolster our narrative that it's all their fault

I wrote an op-ed that captures my “big idea” about our divides post-election. It’s now on The Fulcrum titled “To overcome our divides, we must try to understand the other side’s anger” (originally published on Independent Voter News).

The original title for this was going to be something like, “To lower toxicity, we must see Democrats and Republicans are not symmetrical groups,” which is more directly about the “big idea” I’m trying to get across. This is about something I’ve written about in my books and on Substack: the asymmetry of groups in conflict. And this is something that others have talked about, too. For example, Matt Grossmann and David Hopkins wrote Asymmetric Politics about core differences between how the Republican and Democrat parties think about and approach politics (I did an interview with Grossmann recently for my podcast, which will be out soon).

After Trump’s election, I listened to a lot of people: what people wrote and said online and in the news, and also messages I heard and read directly from people in the Builders community (Builders is an organization that I’ve been helping write content for over the past 1.5 years or so; it was previously known as Starts With Us). It really stood out to me (yet again) how easy it is for people to build completely different narratives of how it was the “other side” that is more toxic, harmful, and authoritarian.

And a big factor there, for why that is so easy for us, seemed to me to be about the asymmetry of our political groups: the fact that Democrats and Republicans, at a group level, have very different traits. As the title of this piece says: this isn’t a chess board where both sides have the same pieces and move in the same, exact ways. (To be clear, this isn’t to say the individuals in the groups are that different; we’re talking at a group level.) And yet, we often try to compare groups-in-conflict as if they can easily be compared, which leads us to faulty comparisons. And because conflict leads us to filter for worst-case interpretations of “them,” it’s easy to use those faulty comparisons as evidence for why “this is all their fault.”

So, in short, the group asymmetry thing has stood out to me as increasingly important, from a conflict resolution perspective. (And you can apply this to many conflicts; for example, people in the debate over the Middle East conflict often seem to me to be attempting to score points by picking out things one group does that the other group doesn’t do, as a way to say “clearly this shows this is all/mostly this group’s fault.” But the groups are very different, as groups in any large conflict will tend to be.)

So that op-ed of mine is here: https://thefulcrum.us/bridging-common-ground/political-polarization-2671039318.

On ‘asymmetric polarization’ (e.g., “it’s Republicans’ fault”)

A point of clarification: some people write about America’s toxic polarization being a case of asymmetric polarization, which is often a way to say “Republicans have become more extreme; our political toxicity and dysfunction is mostly Republicans’ fault.” This is related to some liberal people’s stance that “polarization is not the problem,” which is another way to say the same thing.

So it’s important to differentiate the asymmetry I’m talking about from that other, more common usage. I think the asymmetric polarization framing is a result of liberal-leaning bias in academia (which Musa Al-Gharbi has done great work examining; I also write about that here). Some papers that talk about asymmetric polarization have struck me as quite biased in seeming to filter for the worst-case interpretations of Republican-side beliefs and actions, and not examining Democrat-associated things that can be seen to contribute to conflict.

I think it’s important to embrace some humility about the complexity of conflict, as often we will have blind spots for how a conflict has progressed and the factors involved (especially a conflict we ourselves are in). Even if one decides “this toxicity is mostly one group’s fault” (which I’m not saying is a bad, unreasonable thing to do), embracing some humility about the conflict allows one to better see the ways in which the conflict may be self-reinforcing and have contributions from both groups.

I’ll also recommend Dan Stone’s Undue Hate here, which contains some good points about the ways in which Republicans form their narratives of how it’s Democrats who have become more toxic and extreme (e.g., the Robert Bork confirmation hearings).

But what about Trump?

I know some people will respond, “Why are you worried about all this rather academic stuff about conflict and polarization, when we’ve got so many real-world concerns about bad things happening right now?” That’s just a common objection to this work in general, but I get that a lot recently with people upset about Trump winning and the things he’s doing that they view as authoritarian and dangerous.

I’m actually working on something about this topic now, but for now I’d answer: I am focusing on what I believe is a foundational aspect to how we got where we are. I think excessive contempt leads to our stances becoming polarized and more extreme; I think excessive contempt leads to more support for toxic, aggressive, us-vs-them ways of approaching politics. I think contempt and toxicity puts more “wind in the sails” of toxic, winner-take-all approaches by leaders and activists.

I’m someone who thinks Trump engages in toxic and conflict-amplifying ways (something that even many Trump voters believe). I also believe that liberal-side contempt and overly pessimistic framings of Trump and Trump voters have led to more support for Trump. Because I think it’s important that these ideas be scalable, I’d make the same case to Republicans; overly pessimistic and insulting responses to far-left stances can actually create more empathy and support for those stances. In conflict, our instincts lead us to act in ways that help create the very things that bother us.

By getting more people to consider how they might be contributing to toxicity and the polarization of our discourse, I hope that we’ll achieve a critical mass of people who can work on this core, underlying problem — even as they also do their political activism.

This is all to say: I am not saying you or anyone can’t be angry, or judgmental, and can’t work hard for whatever goals you want to work for. I only hope that if more people see the complexity of conflict and the ways in which we can unintentionally make it more toxic, that they’ll then see the importance of doing politics in better, more healthier ways. E.g., criticizing without creating the very pushback you’re looking to overcome; criticizing the “other side” without adding to our nuclear stockpile of contempt and disdain; criticizing with an awareness of your opponents’ views and concerns and fears, which will make you more persuasive in addition to lowering toxicity and polarized beliefs.

What do you think of all this? Appreciate your thoughts.