By Dan Malone
Serving in the Army introduced me to Americans of every race, faith, economic background and region. Each duty station, from Fort Drum in upstate New York to Fort Hood in Texas, brought me into new communities with cultures and perspectives far different from those I had encountered growing up in a small New Hampshire town.
Whenever I reported to a new duty station, the differences always stood out. But without fail, by the time orders for a new assignment came, that which had seemed so different felt like home.
I transitioned out of the Army in 2013, but these Army communities have been on my mind recently as More in Common, the nonprofit where I serve as U.S. director , prepared to release its latest research report, “The Perception Gap.” In the report we quantify Americans’ perceptions of those with different political views. The data is sobering.
Americans dramatically overestimate the extremity of views held by their political opponents. Republicans believe, for example, that only 54 percent of Democrats are proud to be American when the reality is that 82 percent hold such a view. Similarly, Democrats think only 52 percent of Republicans believe “properly controlled immigration can be good for America,” when in fact 85 percent of Republicans hold that perspective.
These “Perception Gaps” — the difference between what we perceive of the other side’s beliefs and reality — are largest among the most politically active. The most partisan Democrats and Republicans, whose voices dominate media, fill social media feeds and drive political conversation, are almost three times as inaccurate as the least partisan members of their political teams.
These distorted pictures fuel animosity and toxicity in our culture. More than 8 in 10 Democrats and Republicans refer to their opponents as “brainwashed” and hateful”; and, at the same time, more than 9 in 10 say members of their own party are “honest” and “reasonable.” Such sentiments show politics becoming less a contest of ideas and more a battle for moral superiority, eroding any space for cooperation and respectful disagreement.
The causes of this erosion are different on each side. With Republicans, a core driver of the perception gap appears to be media consumption. Consumption of conservative news (e.g., Breitbart News and the Drudge Report) and radio outlets is associated with the largest increase in perception gap — an increase of almost 50 percent in terms of inaccuracy.
For Democrats, the problem seems to be one of social circles that contain few Republicans. This is especially true among the most well-educated Democrats: Democrats with a post-graduate degree are nearly twice as likely as Democrats with a high school degree to say that “almost all” their friends hold similar political views. Unsurprisingly, they have the most inaccurate picture of Republicans’ views.
But whether it’s from the media we are tuning into or the voices we are tuning out of our lives, it is becoming far too common, and far too easy, to view each other as extremists. We must find new ways of addressing this surge of exaggerated extremism before it carries us to a state of real conflict, the likes of which takes generations to heal.
Personally, I draw lessons from the military for how to loosen the hold that perception gaps have on our politics and culture. In the Army, our deep sense of mission and purpose, as well as shared hardships and sacrifice, forged bonds that bridged differences, ideological and otherwise. Friendships formed with people from across the country serve now as an anchor in this time of volatility, putting real faces and voices I know, and care deeply about, to the terms Democrat, Republican, liberal, and conservative.
Fixing our perception gaps begins with such individual actions. We can change our media diet, drawing from a variety of sources and challenging the ones that make easy generalizations about the other side. We can also broaden our social circles and form our political assessments based on the views of real people.
But individual actions must complement a national effort. Media and political actors have powerful incentives to foster and amplify conflict and obscure agreement. Leading a national movement to address these incentives and weaken the forces of division must be a priority for anyone asking for our vote in 2020.
The good news is there is more space for us to find shared views than is commonly imagined. The data points the way to the terrain where we can forcefully disagree with one another and still build solutions to move our country forward. This moment calls for American courage to set out and find that ground.
Malone is the U.S. director of More in Common, an initiative to build communities and societies that are stronger, more united and more resilient to the increasing threats of polarization and social division. He can be reached at dan@moreincommon.com.