Reasons To Be Hopeful in 2025 – BCB #131

Extremism is still limited, and people are investing in healthier conflict

Whether the election brought you relief or despair, there’s no question 2024 showed deep cracks in the foundations of our country. We know that many of you are looking at 2025 with skepticism. But there are also many reasons to be hopeful. Here are some things that make us feel optimistic about the year to come.

People on the the other side aren’t as extreme as you think they are

Americans have deeply distorted understandings of each other. We have written before about the Perception Gap, where each side thinks the other holds much more extreme views than it actually does. This term was coined by bridge-building organization More in Common, which surveyed 2,100 Americans on what they believed—and what they thought people on the other side believed—about topics including climate change, patriotism, sexual assault, police conduct and more. Here’s what they found:

Overall, Democrats and Republicans imagine almost twice as many of their political opponents as reality hold views they consider “extreme”. Even on the most controversial issues in our national debates, Americans are less divided than most of us think. This is good news for those worried about the character of this country. The majority of Americans hold views that may not be so different from your own.

These findings were expanded in More in Common’s recent report, “The Priority Gap,” which specifically examined how people perceived the other side’s election priorities this past year. For example, on average, Americans perceive LGBT/transgender policies as Democrats’ second-highest priority (after abortion); in reality, these issues are the 14th highest priority. ​

In light of how common such misconceptions are, international relations and conflict expert Rachel Kleinfeld recently spoke about making an effort to gain greater understanding of those we think we disagree with:

I'm not saying, “Go have a chat with that neo Nazi waving the ‘Jews will not replace us’ sign, he may not be so bad.” There is a line where it becomes impossible to engage … What I'm saying is, don't assume everyone who votes for a party or a policy is that flag-waving neo Nazi. Don't assume all party supporters are the same as the party leaders. If people are arrayed on a spectrum, sure, don't go after that hard 10% at the edge. But what about the next 10? What about the next 10? Better yet, don't array everyone on a single line – most people are much more eclectic than that. It flattens complex identities to just string them out this way.

Support for political violence is low

This year, there were two assassination attempts on Donald Trump. A few weeks ago, a healthcare CEO was murdered for what some think were politically-motivated reasons. Leading up to the 2024 election, some polls showed that more than 70% of voters were worried about political violence.

How many people do you think would support politically-motivated murder? According to a 2024 study by Dartmouth’s Polarization Research Lab, Democrats think 45.5% of Republicans approve of partisan murder, while Republicans think 42% of Democrats do. But this same research show that only about 2% of people would support a politically-motivated murder. (Previous surveys suggesting much higher numbers are simply wrong, victims of bad methodology.)

This means we think that support for political violence, especially on “the other side,” is 20-25 times greater than it actually is.

Also, for what it’s worth, despite the rise in political violence in America over the past decade, it’s still nowhere near the peak of the 1970s. Which is all to say: don’t let the fear-mongering scare you. Almost nobody actually supports violence, even on the “other side,” even if everyone around you seems sure that they do.

People are investing in healthy conflict

Bridge-building, anti-polarization, dialogue and conflict resolution work are heating up. Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2024 is “Polarization.” The incoming president of Stanford University recently said his first priority is “constructive dialogue” (while AI came in second). Bipartisan news outlet (and friend of the Bulletin) Tangle had its biggest year ever, pioneering a new business model for a new kind of news. And money is pouring into the field.

According to a recent article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy, “foundations, fiscal sponsors, donor-advised funds and other grantmakers spent $9.7 billion on democracy efforts in 2022, nearly twice the total from 2018.” Among the largest projects the Ford Foundation’s Global Initiative in Polarization, a five-year program launched in 2021 which

aims to improve civil society’s ability to anticipate and counter polarization by identifying and connecting people who are working to combat it in different global contexts, and accelerating their ability to develop, test, and share effective practices.

This year the Carnegie Corporation of New York also announced that it would funnel $18 million into political polarization research over the next three years, one of several ways it’s funding to people working to improve our national political and social climate.

All of the above are signs that perhaps, finally, destructive conflict is being recognized as the emergency that it is, and resourced accordingly.

Thanks for Reading

In 2022, Guy and Heidi Burgess of Beyond Intractability wrote,

The conflict field is at about the same stage as the climate change movement was 30–40 years ago …. We will need a new generation of conflict professionals willing to commit to doing for the conflict field what a previous generation did (and is still trying to do) for climate.

If you are reading this you are part of the solution. Happy holidays, and we wish you a 2025 filled with joy, insight, and connection.

Quote of the Week

should we be worried that 2025 begins with "wtf"

— wtffrio