Political Sectarianism
You don't love your party's policies. You hate the other side. And that hate is your politics now.
Political sectarianism is what happens when partisan identity stops being about shared goals and becomes about tribal belonging. You don't support your side because you carefully evaluated their platform. You support them because they're your side, and more importantly, because the other side is the enemy. The loyalty isn't to ideas — it's to the group. And the fuel isn't hope. It's contempt.
Research shows this pattern has been accelerating for decades. Democrats and Republicans increasingly dislike, distrust, and dehumanise each other — not because their policy disagreements have gotten deeper, but because their identities have gotten more entangled with their party label. Your politics merges with your sense of self. An attack on your party feels like an attack on you personally.
This is extremely useful for anyone who wants to maintain power without delivering results. When voters choose based on tribal loyalty rather than track records, accountability disappears. You don't need to govern well. You just need the other side to seem worse.
The test is simple: can you name three things your own side got wrong recently? If that question makes you uncomfortable, sectarianism has already done its work on you.
References
- Finkel et al. — Political Sectarianism in America (2020)
- Thomas Frank — What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)
- Chris Hedges — Death of the Liberal Class (2010)