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By Jesse Edwards
Director of Newsweek Voices and Radio, Host of Newsweek Radio
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Anyone with a finger on the pulse of America has felt the growing rhythm of regular people who are absolutely exhausted by political division. Most Americans simply want to afford a home, raise their kids in safe neighborhoods, and earn an honest living. They desperately want common ground.
Yet, at the very same time, we increasingly define ourselves—and one another—by our political opinions.
Somewhere between the "with us or against us" mentality that emerged after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the rise of social media that soon followed, politics stopped being something we participated in and became something we used to define who we are as individuals. Opinions that once reflected our world view calcified into political avatars of identity politics, reducing complex human beings to little more than a political Rorschach test. A person's views on guns, abortion, immigration, religion, taxes, climate change, or foreign policy no longer merely signal what they think, they increasingly determine who we assume they are.
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Identity itself is not the problem. Race, religion, sex, family, economic background, nationality, and culture all shape our experiences. There are times when those identities are essential to understanding the challenges we face. But there are also times when they become obstacles to understanding one another. Knowing the difference is the challenge.
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Identity politics begin with good intentions to ensure that people who have long been overlooked are seen and heard. But like so many roads paved with good intentions, hell hath no fury like a movement that forgets its purpose. Today, our identities too often serve as shortcuts for judgment rather than starting points for understanding. They tell us who to applaud before an argument is made and who to dismiss before one is heard.
This dynamic isn’t confined to any given sector across the political spectrum.
Nearly every contentious issue has become an identity marker of political affiliation. Before we know anything else about a person, we imagine we know almost everything simply because of where they stand on any given issue.
Opinions are supposed to evolve. They should change as we learn, mature, and encounter new evidence. Identity, by contrast, is something far more permanent. When we weld our opinions to our identity, changing our minds feels like an existential betrayal of our core being. Disagreement feels intensely personal. Curiosity becomes threatening.
This is why our political conversations collapse before they begin. We've stopped defending ideas and started defending our fragile egos.
People who are confident in their convictions do not fear opposing viewpoints; they welcome the opportunity to test their beliefs against competing arguments because they understand that truth has little to fear from scrutiny. If another person's perspective feels like an existential threat, perhaps what is being threatened is not the strength of an argument, but the mask of identity politics wrapped around it.
A free society depends on citizens who can distinguish between the two.
The reality is that we are never going to agree on everything. Nor should we. Freedom guarantees that we will disagree. The goal has always been learning how to disagree without allowing it to demolish our discourse. That begins by focusing on what already unites us.
Despite the constant portrayal of America as hopelessly divided, the broad majority of Americans want safe communities, good schools, affordable healthcare, honest government, opportunities for hard work to pay off, clean air and water, and a secure future for their children, and public officials who are more interested in solving problems than humiliating their opponents.
Defending the voices of people who already agree with you requires no courage at all. The real test of a free society is whether we are willing to defend the right of those we disagree with most to speak, to participate, and to challenge our own assumptions. This is where civic virtue begins, and where a healthy republic endures.
Don't just tolerate your political opponents. Champion their right to be heard with the same passion you defend your own.
Jesse Edwards is director of radio and podcasting at Newsweek*.*
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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