The Psychology Behind Political Division

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]I think I figured out why politics feels so toxic right now. It's something in psychology called splitting. Splitting is when we start seeing something as all good or all bad. My side good, their side is evil. Sound familiar? And once that happens, we stop listening. And here's the part why it works. Because the media and politicians often reward emotion over nuance. Anger spreads faster and fear gets all the clicks. So instead of us trying to find what's actually true, we just want to know which side won. So if I had to say what step one is of bridging the divide, I would say that we first need to recognize that politics is not a sports game and the other side is not all Dad.