The deeper divide: America’s political polarisation crisis

IN THE US, political polarisation has evolved from a manageable feature of democratic life into something far more concerning: a fundamental fracture in how citizens perceive reality itself. 

While partisan disagreement is as old as the republic, today’s polarisation represents a qualitatively different phenomenon – one that threatens the basic functioning of democratic governance and can degenerate into political violence, as demonstrated in the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Traditional political divisions centred on competing visions for policy: how much the government should spend, what role it should play in the economy, how it should balance security and liberty. These were substantive disagreements between people who largely shared common assumptions about facts, democratic norms, and national identity.