You turn on the news channel, ready to hear some morning news. But after watching for a couple of minutes, you realize that you are unable to extract even an ounce of information from it. Half of it claims that someone’s new bill will save America, while the other half claims that it will ruin us all. It’s a highly partial rant about President A’s “disastrous” foreign policy, and also a highly partial rant on the same “beautiful” policy said to revolutionize our society. Seems familiar? Does it remind you of, say, Obamacare? This is the current state of social media and news–biased with the rare appearance of facts like needles in an opinionized haystack.
The thing is, political polarization has been around ever since news itself emerged, since no person or even group of people can be completely unbiased about a topic. It came along with the beginnings of democracy, all the way from ancient Greece. Given the abundance of scholars and philosophers at the time, including big names like Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, and their vastly differing views on a variety of topics (e.g. politics & society), it was almost certain that each had supporters rallying around them.
After the fall of Ancient Greece, much of democracy had mostly died out. Even the Roman Republic, which could be seen as a successor to the Ancient Greeks, only provided votes to the wealthy, and so political opposition was relatively scarce, however embittered the poor may have been toward the wealthy. Democracy and its inspiration of discourse would be left forgotten for many centuries, until the rise of a new nation changed all that, reviving both debates and polarization.
America was meant to be the next in line for the revival of political discourse and polarization. As another historically significant democracy, it had numerous polarizing issues throughout each period. The fight between loyalists and patriots, the controversial idea of abolitionism, and even our coveted Constitution and its promises of democracy were questioned and debated among the public.
It slowly grew over time, soon engulfing most of the modern political landscape. In the past, polarization manifested itself in basic attack ads, such as Lyndon B Johnson’s “Daisy ad”, which featured the detonation of a warhead, appearing in TV broadcasts. Now, candidates can simply pay for political advertisements inside a newspaper or TV show to boost their popularity. If they don’t want to go through the trouble themselves, candidates can hire their supporters to advertise for them instead. We’ve seen this in almost every political campaign. Charlie Kirk’s podcast, The Charlie Kirk Show, is just one example of this widespread phenomenon. This podcast, run by Charlie Kirk, a famous, extreme right-wing political influencer, has been known for its strong bias towards Trump. His assassination sent shockwaves through the far-right community, and caused protests across the country, from people who both mourned his death and those who supported his assassination.
It is clear that the current news state tends to favor more clicks rather than being able to share unbiased information. The growth of TV has caused the amount of true information to fall sharply, putting American democracy in jeopardy.
Sources:
Factually. “Factually.” Factually.co, 18 Sept. 2025, factually.co/fact-checks/politics/charlie-kirk-trump-endorsement-6a506b. Accessed 16 Jan. 2026.
“Shaping the Narrative: How Major Media Outlets Cover the Economy | AllSides.” Allsides.com, 2025, www.allsides.com/blog/shaping-narrative-how-major-media-outlets-cover-economy.
