This is part 14 in a series. For the full series, go here.

A few months ago on Twitter, a gay Asian man defended a social media pile-on by an Indigenous bloke of a white feminist.

“It’s gone too far,” I heard myself say, incredulous at my own words even as they poured from my mouth. “Political correctness gone mad.” 

This is where I find myself as the end of 2021, as the second year of the global pandemic grinds to a close and the democracy in the country of my birth teeters on the brink: sounding like one of the grumpy old men who used to run every Australian newspaper, corporation and government back when I was a feisty young columnist beating the drum for a feminist revolution that couldn’t come fast enough. 

So what’s different? Not my personal politics, which remain consistent with the socialist left agenda of supporting multiracial democracy, giving people union jobs and doing what it takes to avert a climate crisis. Instead the impulse to brake comes from my fear that if we don’t slow down and allow the laggards to catch up — and the resistant to reconcile themselves to the world we’ve created — our liberal democracy could fail.  

The argument goes like this: democracy is fragile and mobs are a constant threat, driven by emotion rather than reason, fear instead of hope, the will to power rather than to cooperate. Liberal democratic leaders must ensure such citizens are stuffed full of bread and amused by circuses. Why? Because if they fail a demagogue like Donald Trump will arouse them and, like the rats enthralled by the Pied Piper, lead them down the road to authoritarian hell. 

Few dispute that in recent times the mob has become restive. What aroused them, however, remains a hot topic of debate. Persistent and racially described economic inequality and institutional violence? Shortcomings of the mainstream media or the Murdoch press? The internet kleptocracy or social media echo chamber? The demise of the gatekeeper function once played by institutionally robust political parties? The injustice of minority rule? 

Whatever the cause/s the result is hyperpolarisation, when one part of the electorate views the other as liars and cheats and — consequently — no longer sees its vision for the country as legitimate. Indeed, hyperpolarisation may be the core reason for democratic decline because it legitimises all forms of undemocratic abuses of power including electoral cheating and violence to stop the feared and hated other from taking — or keeping — power.

As Trump put it to his followers at the speech that preceded their assault on the US Capitol: “If you don’t fight like hell you won’t have a country any more.” 

Of course, it must be said that abuses of government power and violence are disqualifying in a democracy. Where existing laws have been broken by either side, accountability must be sought, and lessons learnt. 

But reversing the strong feelings of animosity and distrust that give rise to such extreme antidemocratic behaviour is more difficult. So difficult that it’s far, far better to prevent hyperpolarisation from occurring than to knit two angry camps of mistrustful and resentful citizens together again. Ask both sides of the troubles in Ireland, or opposing camps in post-apartheid Africa. 

The funny thing is that although we believe our politics and social values are too different from our crazy uncle or grandpa to live and let live or agree to disagree, the lived experience of everyone you know over 40 and a spate of new research suggests otherwise. 

For example, several studies have found that connecting party labels to a policy is what influences support. This includes research which showed that participants were heavily influenced in the support they gave to proposed policy “nudges” not by whether they thought the policy was fair or right, but whether it supported the goals of their political party.

In another study, moral evaluations of an actor were shaped by the alignment of that actor’s political affiliation with their own, not the moral acceptability or heinousness of the act. 

What’s really dividing us, in other words, is not our political and value differences, but our pre-existing partisan ones. For Australians, this insight is critical. While the United States has no choice but to focus on repairing the damage done to its vicious partisan divide, we still have a chance to turn back. 

So this new year, why not resolve to spend at least two weeks entirely separate from all forms of social media and political coverage and see how it affects your partisan allegiances and the way you feel about those whose politics differ. Or if this seems impossible, dial back the disregard, disrespect and shaming of those who disagree with us on- and offline? 

You’ll be doing your relationships and mental health a world of good. And at this moment in Australian history, it’s just what the democracy doctor ordered.