On 30 October 2020, a study published in the Science magazine warned that, ‘A poisonous cocktail of othering, aversion, and moralization poses a threat to democracy.’ 2020 was a tumultuous year for US politics. The country was rocked by protests, police brutality, rioting, and the continued controversies which have defined the Donald Trump presidency.

Fast forward a few months to 6 January 2021, and any hopes that the new year would usher in an end to deepening divisions were quickly dashed when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol Building at the heart of the US government.  Five people were killed during the assault. 

Protestors assembled to oppose the November election result, which saw Joe Biden win the presidency. Since then, the incumbent president Donald Trump has claimed that the election was ‘stolen’ by Democrats and riddled with widespread voter fraud. However, Trump has failed to substantiate these claims and overturn the election result.

Prior to the present debacle, anything but a peaceful transition of power would have been unimaginable on American soil.  However, polarisation in US politics has become so severe that many Americans now view opposing partisans as an existential threat to democracy. Discourse, debate, and compromise in an open marketplace of ideas are being replaced by a zero-sum game for political power and resources. With partisans on both sides increasingly viewing the other as immoral and corrupt, their willingness to abandon democratic norms and adopt violent tactics has increased.

Now, the Democrats and a smaller group of disillusioned Republicans have voted in the House to impeach Trump, just one week after a group of his supporters stormed the Capitol. He is the first president in US history to have been impeached twice, having first been impeached in 2019 and acquitted the following year. Meanwhile, the Capitol itself has been reinforced by thousands of troops to deter further trouble ahead of Biden’s inauguration on 20 January.

Those hoping that Trump’s exit from the White House will bridge divides in US politics will likely face disappointment. The deepening animosity between opposing political and identarian groups lies deeper than the presidency and has seeped into the very fabric of American society. As tempting as it may be to heap the blame entirely on Trump’s monumental failures as president, the Democrats have shown little willingness to confront simmering extremism amongst their own base. A bipartisan effort is needed to calm tensions and delegitimise extremists, but it is doubtful that the Republicans or the Democrats will come together to denounce rabid fanaticism on both ends of the political spectrum.

How did the US become so divided?

The authors of the paper in Science magazine were very deliberate in their choice of the term ‘political sectarianism’ to describe extreme polarisation in the US. The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘sectarianism’ as ‘excessive attachment to a particular sect or party, especially in religion.’ The term is frequently associated with the religious sectarian struggles between Sunni and Shia Muslims which has largely defined power politics in the Middle East. If you are now imagining violent confrontations between non-state actors driven by religious fanaticism, the authors’ choice of language is having its desired effect. Republicans and Democrats increasingly cling to their partisan identities with an almost religious fervour and despise their opponents with even greater intensity.

Political sectarianism is made up by three factors: ‘othering’, ‘aversion’, and ‘moralisation’. Othering refers to an in-group and out-group dynamic. Opposing partisans are no longer fellow Americans with different political beliefs, instead, they are somehow fundamentally different and alien. Aversion refers to a dislike, distrust, disgust felt towards opposing partisans. Finally, moralisation is the increasing tendency of Americans to view opposing partisans as amoral, corrupt, and in some cases outright evil.

Other studies back this up. Figures from the 2020 American Values Survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) imply that Republicans and Democrats view each other from an overly simplistic black and white moral lens. 78% of Democrat respondents felt that the Republican Party has been taken over by racists, whereas 81% of the Republicans surveyed believed that the Democrat Party has been taken over by socialists. Over 2,500 people were surveyed by the PRRI to provide a broad representative cross-section of US society.

Violence as a means for political change

The storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters, which many are calling a coup, demonstrates the growing willingness of some Americans to adopt violence as an acceptable means of political change. As noted by the Science paper authors, in the current climate, ‘political losses can feel like existential threats that must be averted – whatever the cost.’ 

Indeed, the Trump supporters at the Capitol believed they were facing an existential threat, namely a conspiracy by the Democrats to subvert democracy and steal the election from Donald Trump. One protestor shouted at the police, ‘You're defending communism and socialism’. If partisans genuinely believe that opposing partisans are hellbent on installing an evil tyranny, the paradox is that they will be willing to abandon democratic norms in the misguided belief that they are in fact, defending democracy.

The consequences of this growing trend in US politics are tragic. Brian D. Sicknick, one of the police officers at the Capitol, was killed when Trump rioters overpowered him and hit him in the head with a fire extinguisher. That same day, Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran and Trump supporter, was shot dead by police as she attempted to enter the Speaker’s Lobby inside the Capitol via a broken window. Three other pro-Trump protestors were killed.

In 2020, some protestors adopted violent means to confront another perceived existential threat: racism and police brutality. In May last year, footage emerged of George Floyd’s death at the hands of white police officer, Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck during the arrest. In response, Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests erupted across the US.

A study by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) in September 2020 found that the majority of protests were peaceful, – 93%, according to ACLED. However, given the massive scale of protests across the country, those which did descend into violence, looting, and arson were deeply impactful.

Some protestors in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed, broke into businesses and burned cars and buildings. Damages across the country are estimated to have cost between $1 billion to $2 billion according to statistics from Property Claim Services (PCS), which has tracked insurance claims pertaining to civil disorder since 1950.

Fatalities also occurred during BLM protests. In June last year, David Dorn, a 77-year-old African American retired police captain, was shot to death by looters in St. Louis when he responded to an alarm at his friend’s pawn shop. That same month, Marquis M. Tousant was found dead after an ambush on police officers occurred in Davenport. According to the police: men fired at a police truck, wounding one officer, prompting another officer to fire back. It is still unclear whether Tousant was killed by the police or the suspects shooting at them. 

Worryingly, there are reports of far-right and far-left wing activists and agitators having operated amongst BLM protestors, particularly during incidents of violence or looting.  Substantiating these claims is difficult. Identifying perpetrators amongst large groups of protestors and determining their affiliations and intentions is already a difficult task. This task is made even more difficult by an environment of fake news, disinformation, and partisan blame-games. Republicans and Democrats were both keen to pin violence and looting which took place during BLM marches on the opposing extremity of the political spectrum, whilst deflecting accusations made at their own grassroots.

However, there is sufficient data and research to conclude that the threat of extremists on both ends of the political spectrum is growing. Unrest in 2020 simply made it more visible.

A study by the Center for Strategic Studies and International Security (CSIS) examined 61 domestic terror incidents in the US from 1 January to 31 August 2020. The researchers found that 67% of perpetrators were motivated by violent far-right ideologies and 20% were motivated by violent far-left ideologies. Only 7% of perpetrators were motivated by other ideological movements, such as Salafi Jihadism which has been a prominent US security concern for nearly two decades. 

A large proportion of far-right and far-left plots and attacks were found to target protestors.  The majority of far-right plots and attacks targeted protestors, at 50%. 42% of far-left plots and attacks were directed at protestors, with the remaining 58% aimed at government, police, or military targets. The prolificacy of BLM marches and pro-Trump rallies last year, no doubt provided extremists with ample targets.

A recent report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) on the Capitol riots found that groups of far-right extremists, such as white supremacists, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and Proud Boys, were among the wider protest group assembled at the Capitol. These individuals are the most likely perpetrators of the violence which took place on 6 January.

According to the same report: ‘Explicit plans to “Occupy the Capitol” were circulating across social media suggesting that the capitol building was an explicit target of the violent vanguard from the beginning. Evidence suggests some rioters were armed with weapons and zip-ties.’  This follows from earlier NCRI research which found that the internet forums and social media plays an important role in the radicalisation, mobilisation, and organisation of far-right wing and conspiracy theorist actors.

Further research by the NCRI has found comparable trends on the far-left. Researchers found evidence that, ‘both militia and anarchist networks play key roles in the recent social justice protests from controlling perimeters at CHAZ [CHOP] to coordinating nation-wide anarchist-inspired violent protests online.’ CHAZ – the ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’ – was an occupation protest established across several city blocks of the Capitol Hill neighbourhood in Seattle, Washington, between June and July 2020.  The CHAZ protest was marred by violence, including four shootings. CHAZ ‘security personnel’ are believed to have been responsible for at least one of the shootings, which led to the death of a 16-year-old boy.

The research, which was released late last year, also found that ‘anarcho-socialist extremism appears to be rapidly growing.’ Membership and participation in online forums calling for violence and revolution surged. Many of these groups openly called for the death of police officers and the stockpiling of ammunition and weapons.

The threat of growing radicalisation on the far-right and far-left leading to escalation between the two groups is already manifesting. For instance, research by CSIS has highlighted violent clashes between the two groups, often at rallies and protests. Some clashes led to fighting with improvised melee weapons and homemade incendiary devices. If moderates are too blinded by hyper-partisanship and political sectarianism to come together and call out extremism on both sides of the political spectrum, the violence will increase.

Restoring unity

The incoming Biden administration have a difficult task ahead of them. In order to heal the divides in US society, the new government must condemn extremism in all its forms. Democrats have rightly decried the actions of the Capitol rioters and have frequently drawn attention to growing far-right wing extremism over the last four years. However, the Democrats must also acknowledge the growing threat of far-left wing violence and refrain from stereotyping their political opponents as a deplorable gang of fascists.

Likewise, the Republican Party must denounce extremism in all its forms. Like the Democrats, the GOP tend to throw stones from glass houses. Again, Antifa, anarcho-socialist agitators, and the violent protestors who tarnished the BLM movement are deserving of scorn, but criticism of these groups is rendered hypocritical if Republicans fail to also criticise comparably vile actors on the far-right. Similarly, Republicans should abandon narratives that the Democrats are conspiring to replace democracy with a communist dictatorship.

If Republicans and Democrats do not come together to condemn extremism and build bridges over the growing chasm of political sectarianism, the consequences could be catastrophic. The arms of government will be paralysed by unnecessary political gridlocks when lawmakers can no longer agree on issues which were never even partisan. Meanwhile, the streets risk becoming a battleground between violent ideologues and domestic terrorists driven by fear, loathing, and absurd utopian fantasies.

It is essential that moderates from both parties join in a bipartisan effort to restore and uphold democratic norms and values. The shared message should be clear: ‘we may disagree, but we are all still Americans.’