Why has everything in the U.S.A. become so politically divided?

[WarVeteranO01]

Seems like people walk around wearing their political affiliation like a badge of honor. Everyone is very vocal about their views and who they vote for. I remember when I was young, I was told you never ask anyone who they voted for and when its time for me to vote to keep it to myself.

What has changed over the past decade?

[BrometheusBob.]

Everyone getting worked up by crap they see on the interwebs is what happened

[Theodore]

Identity Politics went overboard and the ensuing backlash is what happened. While identity politics has been around for decades, the oversaturation of it caused today's atmosphere. Everything in moderation as they say.

[WarVeteranO01]

Everyone getting worked up by crap they see on the interwebs is what happened

Maybe so but I hear comments off the internet as well. Seems like you cant go anywhere without people representing. I went to the grocery store during lunch and I counted 4 political based bumper stickers on the way in and 1 old man with a MAGA hat on. During this week 2 co-workers of mine (one of which has proud liberal on her car) were bashing the President, another co-worker from another cube heard and went ballistic, mind you this guy has a Ronald Reagan picture on his desk...

[GhostofDempsey]

Radicalization of our schools and universities plays a big part. Fake/biased news and irresponsible "journalists". Race and gender politics were pushed to the foreground during the Obama admin. Barry and Mooch loved that race-card and pitting left against right.

[WarVeteranO01]

Identity Politics went overboard and the ensuing backlash is what happened. While identity politics has been around for decades, the oversaturation of it caused today's atmosphere. Everything in moderation as they say.

Good stuff man, had to look it up. To be honest with you it seems like a trick prison gangs use to manipulate others.

Identity politics, also called identitarian politics,[2] refers to political positions based on the interests and perspectives of social groups with which people identify. Identity politics includes the ways in which people's politics is shaped by aspects of their identity through loosely correlated social organizations. Examples include social organizations based on age, religion, social class or caste, culture, dialect, disability, education, ethnicity, language, nationality, sex, gender identity, generation, occupation, profession, race, political party affiliation, sexual orientation, settlement, urban and rural habitation, and veteran status.

[Sweet Pea 50]

Helicopter rides for all communists.

[.!WAR MIKEY!.]

Social Media is the reason!

When you have all day to manipulate wording and edit, breakdown, anything to make it look the way that favors your agenda you can easily compel and invoke emotion in susceptible people.

[////]

It's pretty standard that when a country goes from having a clear ethnocultural majority to no clear ethnocultural majority, extreme political schisms form. I can't think of any examples where this hasn't happen. The US is no longer simply multicultural; it's multinational. Several true 'nations' exist within a loose economic state.

The colonization of Europe is leading to the same schisms as in the US.

To sum it up... I have more in common with random people overseas than I do with any of my neighbors & clear political communication/relationships of mutual benefit have broken down.

[BrometheusBob.]

Maybe so but I hear comments off the internet as well. Seems like you cant go anywhere without people representing. I went to the grocery store during lunch and I counted 4 political based bumper stickers on the way in and 1 old man with a MAGA hat on. During this week 2 co-workers of mine (one of which has proud liberal on her car) were bashing the President, another co-worker from another cube heard and went ballistic, mind you this guy has a Ronald Reagan picture on his desk...

What I mean is that people get worked up by what they see on the internet, and that influences how often and how intensely they think about these things.

There has been a concerted effort for years by many on the left and right to inflame other people on the internet which makes them think the other side is focused primarily on doing crazy things that put your life in jeopardy. Often those people intentionally misinterpret or overextend things that the other side thinks for shock value/to get clicks/to push an agenda. Especially effective on Facebook and Twitter, which didn't exist over a decade ago.

And people peruse through these things faster and with less inquiry than ever before. I've seen things that are misleading or outright false from liberal and conservative sources plenty of times in recent memory. But worse, when even a cursory search would disprove something you still see the content in question get tons of comments/likes/shares/digs whatever which suggests that most people don't bother to do that.

And why would they? Said content is telling them what they already thought was true or common sense or was what they wanted to hear. It is normal for people to just unfollow/unlike/unsubscribe etc from content sources immediately if they say something they disagree with.