merica is hopelessly divided—or so we are told. More than twenty-five years ago, political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain wrote in her book Democracy on Trial that we have been bombarded by “a cascading series of manifestos that tell us we cannot live together; we cannot work together; we are not in this together.” If these messages came by way of manifestos in the 1990s, today they are coming through social media blasts. Voices on all sides tell us that we live in an age of “polarization,” and that we have little left in common.
A recent survey by More in Common, a national nonprofit working to reduce polarization, finds that there is more to the story, however—that there is a “perception gap” among Americans about each other. By wide margins, Democrats tend to underestimate Republicans’ support for education about the country’s past mistakes and about minority groups’ contributions to American life. Similarly, and also by wide margins, Republicans tend to underestimate Democrats’ support for teaching about America’s record of achievement and its foundational ideas and documents.
