Without blaming Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, what has caused political polarization over the past 20 years or so?

Calvin Taylor, B.S. Bioengineering & History, Stanford University (2021)
Updated Jun 11, 2020

"I’m going out on a limb here, to say that the current political polarization has little to do with the political parties, or their beliefs.

It’s not the Democrats’ fault.

It’s not the Republicans’ fault.

…

It’s the Soviets’ fault.

Okay, hear me out here before you write out some angry comments calling me crazy. Recent political polarization in the US is due to the fall of the Soviet Union. While they officially dissolved in 1991, they were falling apart all through the 1980’s.

While one could blame the polarization on Reagan (who took office in 1981), the Soviet thesis fits the larger historical trend.

My basic assertion is this: All humans are tribal. A tribe can only exist if another tribe exists in opposition to it.

What does this mean? A group can only be united, and therefore continue to exist, if there is some other group for it to compete with and distinguish itself from. You can’t have a football team without someone to play against. You can’t have the American Civil Rights Movement without racists. Further, you can’t have a united America without…someplace that’s not America.

I’ve spent many years wondering about how apex civilizations, the Romans, the Chinese Kingdoms, the British Empire, etc. could collapse. How could such powerful civilizations, which had dominated all opponents in their reach, no longer exist? In my studies of history, I’ve come across a single common thread. If a nation cannot be eclipsed by its opponents outright, it will tear itself apart until it can be. The Romans broke in two, and were defeated separately. Each great Chinese Kingdom dissolved into warring states. The British advocated for the dissolution of their own empire, and found themselves in the shadows of the US and USSR.

What does that mean for us?

Throughout our history, we’ve had some “other” that existed to unite us. We united against the British in the Revolution. We united against the Native Americans, the Mexicans, and the Spanish in our drive westward. We united against the imperialist and fascist nations in our debut on the world stage (the real empires and fascists, you know the ones, danke). And finally, we united against the Soviet Union as we pushed the world into the global age we live in today.

But we eclipsed the Soviets, and they collapsed. We’ve spent the past 30 years looking for someone else to take their place. Iraq was briefly the bogeyman of the new era, but proved to be a paper tiger, easily defeated in Desert Storm. 9/11 also briefly united us, but with only shadowy terrorists to pin the blame on, it didn’t stick. The only consistent opponent we could find was ourselves. The 2008 recession exacerbated the problem, as both sides tried to pin the blame on the other. Every disaster of even minor consequence since then has only fed the flames further.

What about the Civil War? In 1860 on the eve of war, America had forced its way from sea to shining sea. The Native Americans were slaughtered or imprisoned, never to recover. We had conquered Mexico. Britain had ceded Oregon and Canada was more hassle than it was worth. Texas had joined the Union. We had no quarrel with countries abroad. The only suitable “other” available was…us. Granted, animosity had been brewing for a while, but when the other opponents fell away, the North and South’s differences were laid bare.

Unfortunately, that is where we are headed today. Not to a pitched Civil War a la the 1860’s, but to a point where the “other America” is the enemy. Some would argue we are already there. We have no significant ideological or military opponents left in the world. Terrorist organizations are too ephemeral. Iran and North Korea are show-offs who cannot back up their posturing. We are too economically reliant on China to turn them into the bogeyman. And we don’t dare enter into another military competition with a peer opponent, for fear of reviving the specter of total nuclear annihilation.

And so, in the age of identity politics, we continue to find fault with each other. Democrat and Republican, white and black, man and woman, straight and queer, snowflake and boomer, Libtard and Rethuglican. The list goes on. The tribal fractures become more defined.

It might take a decade or a century, but unless we find someone or something else to focus our collective will against, we’ll be added to the list of apex civilizations that collapsed under the weight of their own glory.

And you know what? That’s a bloody, crying shame. The United States has overseen the most peaceful and prosperous time in the history of human civilization. This is not a point of debate, one need only compare global metrics of infant mortality rates, representation in democracies, or war casualties of today with times as recent as the Cold War. Who will fill the void when we are gone? China? Russia? The EU? Or perhaps they will raze the planet to ashes in their fight to take our place.

Remember that the next time you think conservatives are irredeemable deplorables, or that liberals are America-hating snowflakes."
[quora.com]