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Essay On Polarization

852 Words4 Pages

Political identification can bring a sense of unity amongst other individuals who also align with their political identification. Political polarization refers to cases in which someone’s stance on a given issue, policy, or person is strictly defined by their identification with a particular political party or ideology. Polarization has the potential to threaten our democracy, it doesn’t allow for productive conversations or compromise; something necessary for a healthy democracy. Polarization affects not only congress’s ability to make policy change, but it also creates a political atmosphere constantly in stalemate. While polarization often times isn’t good for a democracy, there are a few ways in which it can also be beneficial to our two-party …show more content…

There are basic foundational principles that are important when it comes to understanding what a successful democracy is – I will provide those some of foundational principles and how polarization can overall threaten our American Democracy. According to Hershey Americans are becoming disinterested in politics and less civically engaged in part because of the hostile political parties. The unengaged citizen poses the greatest threat to our American democracy because citizens who are disinterested are unable to make change. There are other benchmarks that are lay the basic foundation of democracy. According to Greenberg and Page, mention that political liberty and equality are necessary for a democracy to be considered successful (Greenberg and page, pg. 30). Political liberty states that all citizens in a democracy are protected from government; this notion is being threatened. Polarization is threatening political liberty primarily because of laws that allow ideological gerrymandering. With more conservative states getting more conservative and Democratic states becoming more liberal it is allowing voters to sort themselves into more ideologically homogenous districts that it is politicians drawing these lines. The idea of ideological gerrymandering causes polarization on a smaller scale, it then becomes between districts that polarization is

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