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Merriam-Webster’s decision to name “polarization” as 2024’s ‘word of the year’ certainly feels spot on. Of course Americans are divided into “two sharply distinct opposites,” right? and of course our beliefs are at “opposing extremes.”
But, as my therapist often reminds me, feelings aren’t facts. As a data scientist who thinks a lot about politics (and is of course extremely fun at parties), I prefer to inspect claims based on evidence. And it turns out that the quest to empirically pinpoint “polarization” in the US yields a much more complicated picture—you know, the kind of nuanced political context we are famously good at talking about.