I’ve long been an avid reader of all things related to the American Revolution. It is an endless, fascinating drama full of pain, betrayal, violence, hardship, alliances, and the victory of right and justice of an unlikely group of rebels over a tyrannical king and the world’s most powerful empire. This month (November 2025), the famous documentary maker Ken Burns will debut his take on the American Revolution in a six-part series that is highly anticipated by history fans like yours truly. This reminded me of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year, and something I have wondered (and I am sure I am not the only one) many times over the last 25 years: What would the founders think about the current state of American society, and its extremely divisive, antagonistic politics? Let’s come back to that in a moment.

The name of this blog is “Us and Them” to denote the idea that its focus would be on all forms of prejudice and stereotyping (since that is my research focus). Prejudice between two groups doesn’t take much to grow. In fact, research on something called “minimal groups” (whereby membership in each group is randomly assigned on arbitrary bases, such as “you are group A,” and to another person, “you are group B”) shows that people prefer those in their own groups over those in the other group. Even though they are objectively, rationally, and probabilistically identical (Brewer, 1979).

Now, how much greater might those feelings of “us vs. them” be when you scale up to the level of countries? There is a lot of history, feelings, religions, and different languages and values between many countries. Even then, countries can develop diplomatic ties, treaties, commerce, military alliances, and tourist trade, despite their many apparent differences. The point is that even seemingly big differences and possible strong prejudices between countries can be overcome if both governments are motivated to talk and find common ground.

Which brings me to a famous quote that might characterize the current U.S. political climate: “We have met the enemy, and it (or they) are us.” Actually, this popular quote is a misremembering of the actual quote. On September 10, 1813, upon defeating the British in the Battle of Lake Erie, the commander of the American fleet, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent a dispatch to General Harrison saying, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” He meant that the U.S. forces had captured the ships (the ‘they’ in his quote) of the British fleet in the battle.

Sticking with the popular incorrect quote, however, how is the enemy us? What I mean here is that, prior to 2000, the parties in Congress functioned differently than they have since then. They were able to pass legislation because they were able to see the other political side not as “the enemy” but as fellow Americans who also love their country and who have the same goals for the country. They just have different ideas about how to effectuate those goals. Each side was willing and able to meet and discuss their respective ideas for legislation to help the country, and they often disagreed, but they were able to compromise to craft legislation that was signed into law.

However, starting with the debacle of the “hanging chads” in the 2000 election, something changed in the political atmosphere. Respect and compromise largely went out the window, and each side was no longer willing to work to find solutions together, because they wanted to do anything they could to not “give a win” to the opposing party, even if that meant Congress got nothing done, and the American people suffered. This political division increased (remember Senate leader Mitch McConnell saying his sole mission was to make Obama a “one-term president”?), and there was another factor adding gasoline to the fire: social media.

Research has found that social media, in particular, made people more connected, but it also contributed to greater loneliness, psychological distress, and isolation (Taylor et al., 2025). This is especially true for those who had few existing social relationships (Bonsaksen, 2026). Social media fosters the “rabbit holes” and “echo chambers” of like-minded people trading in conspiracy theories (Iandoli, Primario, & Zollo, 2021). Social media facilitates people trading unusual facts that are not facts at all, and rewards people with clicks, followers, likes, and financial rewards by the platforms that host such “influencers” for peddling the incendiary, extreme misinformation.

What happens when like-minded people get together (in person or online) and discuss their views on the issues or beliefs they agree about? Research in psychology shows that people leave that meeting feeling even stronger about their beliefs, and they hold those ideas with more conviction because they believe everyone else thinks like themselves (Moscovici & Zavalloni, 1969). This is known as “group polarization” (Myers & Lamm, 1976), and it nicely describes what happens with people in social media rabbit holes and like-minded corners of the web. They construct their own version of the world and distrust people who have different views or ideas about goals for the country. Each side may tend to even distrust previously agreed-upon facts and truths. There is no commonality from which each “side” can begin to talk, let alone try to problem-solve and find solutions to the issues that affect everyone in the country.

So how can we start to resolve these intensifying divisions in politics and American culture? Intuitively, a good starting place would be to foster empathy in each side for the people on the other side. Perspective-taking and exercises designed to foster compassion and understanding should work, right? Strangely, some research suggests that empathy actually enhances group polarization. People with enhanced empathy tend to favor ingroup members and are more attentive to negative behaviors from outgroup members, more biased in their censorship of the other side’s ideas, and are more likely to take pleasure in the pain of the other side (Simas, Clifford, & Kirkland, 2019). I should note this is only one study, and more research is needed to have confidence in these unusual results.

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One way to get a bunch of diverse people to feel positively toward each other is through big events that foster an overarching, common identity. Think back to the American Revolution, where colonialists of all walks of life banded together to face off the tyranny of King George III of England. In so doing, they created a new country and a new government.

After the terrorist bombings of the World Trade Center in 2001, there was a tremendous surge of American patriotism and camaraderie among Americans, born out of a shared realization of common values and threat from other outside terrorist forces. Now, of course, I am not suggesting that the only way to reduce group polarization in our culture and politics is by encouraging revolution or hoping for the country to be attacked. No. Researchers have found that when two disparate groups are encouraged or reminded to think that they all share a common identity (e.g. we are all Americans, and we all care about our country), they are less likely to think of our ingroup and outgroup labels, and are more open to discussions, compromise, and cooperation (Gaertner, et al., 1993).

Of course, this may seem too simplistic to apply to real-world politics and dual realities created by social media, but it is a good start, backed by many studies (Lindstrom et al., 2025). It may take a strong leader that everyone reveres, like George Washington, to remind these dueling sides that we are all Americans. As a side note, Ken Burns’ documentary on the American Revolution should be required viewing for everyone. It can serve the country well by showing that the colonists fought and died for the values we all share in this country (and reaffirm what it is to be an American). Another thing that can help people not fall prey to social media rabbit holes and their own silos of group-polarized attitudes and negative views of others is to educate them about group polarization. Social media companies could do this easily, as they have monitored what people post for inappropriate content.

The other side is not the enemy. We need to talk to each other, find common ground, and work hard to cooperate. In so doing, the walls of prejudice can start to come down, transforming our country from “us vs. them” to U.S.

References

Bonsaksen, T. (2026). Loneliness and social media use: Do motives for using social media matter? In T. Nelson (Ed.), Springer International Handbook of Loneliness. Springer Nature.

Brewer, M. B. (1979). In-group bias in the minimal intergroup situation: A cognitive-motivational analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 307-324.

Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Anastasio, P. A., Bachman, B. A., & Rust, M. C. (1993). The Common Ingroup Identity Model: Recategorization and the Reduction of Intergroup Bias. European Review of Social Psychology, 4(1), 1–26.

Iandoli, L., Primario, S., & Zollo, G. (2021). The impact of group polarization on the quality of online debate in social media: A systematic literature review. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 170, 120924. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120924

Lindström, Joanna; Aradhya, Siddartha; Čehajić-Clancy, Sabina (2025). From “Them” to “Us”: Intergroup contact leads to improved intergroup attitudes through building common ingroup-identity—Longitudinal evidence from four European countries. Stockholm Research Reports in Demography. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.17045/sthlmuni.30321526.v1

Moscovici, S., & Zavalloni, M. (1969). The group as a polarizer of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12(2), 125–135. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0027568

Myers, D. G., & Lamm, H. (1976). The group polarization phenomenon. Psychological Bulletin, 83(4), 602–627. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.83.4.602

Simas, E. N., Clifford, S., & Kirkland, J. H. (2020). How Empathic Concern Fuels Political Polarization. American Political Science Review, 114(1), 258–269. doi:10.1017/S0003055419000534

Taylor, Z., Yankouskaya, A., & Panourgia, C. (2024). Social media use, loneliness, and psychological distress in emerging adults. Behavior & Information Technology, 43 (7), 1312-1325.