Tension Building in the U.S. as the political climate becomes more polarized:

The idea of them versus us is not new. It has been around since the days of the hunter-gatherer; however, recent events have rapidly increased tensions. In the 1940’s there was little polarization within the. U.S., but many events starting in the later parts of the 1900s and early 2000s have brought the left and right farther apart. Things such as the culture wars over topics such as environmentalism, feminism, and the war in Vietnam divided those who wanted to stick with traditional values and those who favored revolution. This is not surprising, necessarily. In every lunchroom in America, the football players sit with the football players, the soccer kids sit with the soccer kids, and the nerds sit with the nerds. Even at Troy High School, which is praised for its diversity, this rule holds. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the 2000s and 2010’s with the introduction of social media, the U.S. became more divided. For the first time, a person can spend hours being fed their own ideas right back to them with no question of whether those ideas are correct. This shift is very evident in the Rust Belt, where many people feel the big corporations have thrown them under the bus in favor of paying a foreign worker a quarter of their salary. Combine this with the countless YouTubers and podcasters appealing to these people, and you get the shattering of the blue wall that was seen in 2016 and 2024. Many people who live in the rust belt believed that Trump would bring back the industry that was seen in the early and middle of the 1900’s. However, in other places, some people have completely different experiences that lead them to have completely different opinions than those in the Rust Belt, but also those who share ideas with people in the Rust Belt. This causes the two sides to absolutely hate each other as they have different experiences, but they don’t interact with the other side because social media is a feedback loop. The left and right hate each other to the point that people have said we are not trick-or-treating at anyone’s house who has a certain political sign outside their house. This them-versus-us mentality will continue to hurt communities in the United States until each side puts its differences aside and cooperates.