Why the political divide occurs

We have learned that two major factions of the elite class created political parties to protect their interests and to compete for control of the government. Today, as then, political parties fight to prevail in winner-take-all elections. Like all businesses, they must differentiate themselves from the other party to win voters. If both major parties were in the middle, they would seem the same. Therefore, the more extreme their position and ideology, the better for staking a unique space in the minds of the people. (By the way, political parties are non-profit businesses who receive their revenues through donations generally without paying income tax. They have no owners. The executives are free to do as they wish without oversight.)

The official platforms of both parties are also based on blame of the other party for the major ills of the country. Both are riddled with criticisms of the administrations of the other party. [1] Almost all political media articles, political books, and the speeches of every politician do the same.

The strongest instinct that we all have is to stay safe. Political parties have learned that it is easier to motivate us to vote against someone whom we are afraid of using negative ads than to persuade us to vote for someone with positive ads. However, combining both fear and hope is even more powerful. Both party platforms claim that the only solution to saving America is to choose their party for all elected offices and to vote their party line against the other party.

Keep in mind that party platforms and political slogans are advertising created by marketing people. The purpose is to persuade the most people to vote for their party, nothing more. The specifics of bills and those who benefit from them often turn out quite different from the ideological values sold to the media and the public.

We are victims of political psychological warfare

The modern advertising industry arose from studies on psychological warfare paid for by the US government after WWII. The studies honed propaganda to a fine art, allowing advertisers to control our thinking and behavior. Using these same tactics, political marketing departments understand what psychological buttons and prompts are needed to program us. Through their advertising, we are persuaded that every ill fortune we experience was caused by the other party. We should blame them for everything. Now they are telling us to be afraid that the other party and their voters will destroy America. This blame is creating the fear and anger that is the basis of our political divide. Media platforms are just the instrument of delivery of their propaganda.

"The propagandist's purpose is to make
one set of people forget that certain
other sets of people are human."

― Aldous Huxley [2]

Figure 4-1 illustrates how extreme differentiation combined with negativity results in hatred and polarization in society.

1. The political parties create marketing strategies that promote extreme ideologies to stand out from the other party. They vilify the other party to generate fear.

2. Based on their strategy, they advertise fear-based propaganda that captures people's attention. Media algorithms observe the attention and concentrate similarly biased, negative, one-sided articles in the individual's media feed. The individual believes the propaganda due to confirmation bias, becoming enraged. Polarization drives more engagement, resulting in further anger, hatred, and polarization.  

Figure 4-1

Unfortunately, this marketing strategy of the political parties is effective. Due to the political divide, the complaint of most people regarding government is the other political party. If they could only put their party in power, everything would be fixed. People see any news against their party as biased and readily believe any information against the other party.

Media organizations also benefit from polarization

Ridiculing one political party and their candidates has become the primary strategy of not only the political parties but of much of the media as well. Each media company is in business to make money so it panders to its partisan audience, giving them biased information that will enforce their beliefs because that is what captures and keeps their attention. [3]

The two most prominent examples are CNN for Democrats and Fox News for Republicans. [4] The viewers believe their source has the truth and the other spews lies but all they are actually getting is propaganda that mirrors their beliefs regarding each political party and its leaders. This is the most effective way for media companies to get attention from their audience that they sell for advertising dollars, which are their revenues, their income. [5]

Political articles tend to be opinion pieces that express the ideology of the writer and their audience. The more outlandish an article is against the enemies of their audience, the more page views (reads) the article gets and the more advertising dollars it earns, regardless of its truthfulness.

Vocabulary is used to drive polarization

The entire sphere of governments, laws, and politics has been divided into two parts by the parties and the media from day one. Every political issue, action, and statement around the world is labeled as an issue of "the left" or an issue of "the right." Political parties, coalitions, foundations, think tanks, politicians, and even media companies are described as left leaning or right leaning. Such vocabulary is used to create a division in our minds and to support the wedge driven by the propaganda and indoctrination of the political parties. Its purpose is to eliminate all other options in our minds except the extremes. We have come to accept the indoctrination that this political difference is just the way people naturally are.

Social media is making the political divide worse

You have probably read that the big social media tech companies are making it worse. [6] Facebook, YouTube, news feeds, and other social media sites use AI algorithms to show us the posts and ads in our feed that the algorithm deems will most capture and hold our attention. In other words, each of our individual feeds is different depending on our past choices. The algorithms not only use our choices on that platform, they may also bring in our data from other social media sites and even our history on many websites outside of social media.

For example, the social media algorithms have learned that political polarization keeps people engaged. If one political party's information captures our attention, we will see more of it and less of any opposing views. The algorithms may throw in different ad posts as tests to see what gets our attention to hone our feed specifically for each of us.

No conspiracy here, AI algorithms are "just business"

The algorithms were not created with the intention of polarizing anyone or spreading false news. They were intended to keep us engaged to allow the social media company to sell more advertising. The more posts we view, the more advertising they sell because the advertising is dispersed throughout the posts. The more they know about us and can target us for a specific advertiser, the more they can charge for ads displayed to us. For them, it is purely business.

The problem is that the algorithms run automatically and instantaneously to optimize capturing and holding our attention. Fake news spreads six times faster than true news because it gets more attention, which makes it more profitable. The algorithms don't know or care what is true. They only know that one piece of information gets more views and spreads faster than another. Polarization keeps people engaged so the AI algorithms promote it. [7] This has come to be called the "disinformation profit system."

Finely honed propaganda for social media

Governments and political parties have weaponized this system to manipulate your thinking and your behavior. They have become so good at it that they give you just what you need to hear to believe the message, whether it is true, partially true, or false, which is the very definition of propaganda. They vary the message according to different user profiles. Consequently, you might read the news feed of someone else (or see what they choose to repost from their newsfeed) and wonder how they could possibly believe that garbage. Yet, all of the articles in your feed that you repost feel important and legitimate to you. Psychological warfare at its best.

Political parties and governments (including both domestic and foreign actors) do not need to hack one of these platforms to disseminate their propaganda. They simply buy advertising the same as other businesses do. The platform doesn't know whether an ad is true or not nor its purpose. It doesn't know the advertiser to whom it is selling your time and attention. It doesn't care. It simply optimizes your feed for your attention to keep you engaged to make the most money possible from advertising. [8]

And when social media companies do censor content, they seem to do so on a politically biased basis. Government agencies and political parties around the world are taking advantage of social media and its algorithms to spread disinformation and other forms of manipulated media. [9]