This has certainly been a tumultuous year in American politics, but better conflict, bridge building, depolarization — whatever you call it, it was more popular than ever. We’ve covered it here, from immediate issues (like immigration) to ancient questions (like when force is necessary). Here’s our best work this year, a combination of reader and editor favorites, organized into five different categories.
This one became an instant classic, and readers continue to share it. We often hear of the evils of “bothsidesism,” but even if the other side is actually wrong there are excellent reasons to fairly represent their views: to create diplomatic meeting grounds, to reduce stereotyping, because the best arguments come from engaging strong opposition, and because calling them evil is both spiritually and strategically harmful.
Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to end Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was politically motivated, but the program also faced real challenges: it never achieved scale, checks often came too late, and conservatives rapidly lost trust. Yet research shows that conservatives actually mostly agree with the calls that professional fact-checkers make, and crowsourced fact checking systems are more trusted, more scalable, and often respond faster than professional fact checkers.
Americans overestimate how many people on the other side hold extreme positions by 20-30 percentage points—and it’s roughly symmetric. Why? We consume distorted media (hyperpartisan politicians get 4x more coverage) while living in increasing geographic and social isolation. The result is that we fear and misunderstand each other based on media images of people we mostly never meet.
After Kirk’s assassination, social media filled with cherry-picked screenshots of people celebrating or calling for more violence. We sampled posts on X and BlueSky and found that less than 1.5% called for violence—consistent with research showing only about 2% of Americans would support politically-motivated murder, though each side imagines the other’s support is 20 times higher.
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“They’re the problem, why should we listen to them?” This is a question that bridge builders get in any conflict, all the more so when the foundations of democracy are threatened. But even if one side poses greater danger, the winning strategy is for “us” to ally with some of “them” against authoritarianism—building coalitions around shared values like anti-corruption or honest institutions, rather than partisan identity.
We were thrilled to interview political scientist Jennifer McCoy, who explained that progress may not come from reducing polarization, but from polarizing differently—what she calls “transformative repolarization” around broad principles rather than partisan identity. Drawing on cases from Venezuela to the American Progressive Era, she argues the goal is to build coalitions big enough to defend democratic institutions.
Conflict theory is great, but practice is better. Adam Becker has personally moderated thousands of conversations between Israelis and Palestinians after October 7th, discovering that success depends more on who talks than what they talk about. Key insights: text-only conversations are toxic, small humanizing gestures can shift everything, and each side has major misconceptions about the other. Plus: how to use AI to build a platform for difficult conversations.
You’ve read a million articles about the immigration crackdown, but ours isn’t trying to convince you the other side is wrong. While immigrants commit fewer crimes and generally benefit the economy, the recent surge put real stress on local governments, and American culture is changing. Nonetheless, support for legal immigration has actually increased since Trump’s election. The path forward might be strong enforcement combined with a path to citizenship, a combination most Americans support.
Yes—if it’s big enough and nonviolent. Protest moves votes, and no government has withstood 3.5% of its population mobilized against it. But violence dramatically hurts your chances: nonviolent campaigns are more than six times likelier to succeed than violent ones facing the same repression, largely because more people can participate and security forces are more likely to defect.
Perhaps the deepest, oldest question in peace and conflict is how to know when the other side can only be met with force. The modern answer is: the adversary is not monolithic! Different factions require different approaches. Most are “persuadables” who will respond to shared values, while “traders” will make deals, and only a small fraction are true “incorrigibles” who require coercive power. And unfortunately, the deeper we are into politics, the less accurate our estimates of who is persuadable.
Quote of the Week
There is a theory the Grinch’s disposition was partly a result of a toxic conflict/polarization cycle.
