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Politics
Protestors shout at counterprotesters at the Women’s March at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., USA, on November 2, 2024.
– By Alex Kliment
It’s become commonplace in recent years to say that America is deeply polarized. That we are a country of people split into increasingly irreconcilable extremes of belief, ideology, and politics. That we are tearing ourselves apart.
But at least one prominent scholar of American politics has a slightly different view of this. Morris Fiorina is a political scientist at Stanford University, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has written for years about American politics, focusing on public opinion, elections, and political representation.
At a moment when America feels more divided and on edge than at any point in decades, I called up Dr. Fiorina to ask him what he thought. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and concision.
AK: Dr. Fiorina, in your work you have argued against the idea that Americans are hopelessly polarized – why?
Fiorina: Well, if we are more polarized, then you’d expect ordinary people today would be much more likely to say they're liberals or conservatives – and much less likely to say they’re moderates – than 50 years ago.
In fact, that/s not the case. “Moderate” has always been the preferred position, it’s still about 40% of the population, then as now. So there’s no evidence that the middle is actually giving way to the extremes.
What’s actually happened is that the political parties themselves have become more homogeneous and polarized in their positions. For example, when Jimmy Carter ran for president in 1976, only a quarter of Democrats said they were liberals. Today, it’s two- thirds. When Jerry Ford was the GOP candidate that year, 50% of Republicans said they were conservatives. Today, it’s three-quarters.
Today, everybody in each party has gone to the liberal or conservative position. So the days when you could have cross-party coalitions where liberal Republicans got together with conservative Democrats are gone. Those people are almost non-existent now.
AK: When you say “Republicans” and “Democrats,” do you mean elected officials? Registered voters? Activists?
Fiorina: Great question. There’s a big difference between normal people and the political class. The political class are the roughly 15% of the country who live and breathe politics. These are the people who give money, who work in campaigns, who post on Facebook and go on BlueSky and X and so forth. These are the people you basically avoid at cocktail parties.
And so when we’re talking about polarization, that’s primarily where it is now. Among the political class. It’s percolated down, simply because of party sorting. The average Democrat now has more differences with the average Republican than they did 50 years ago. But there too, when you ask people if they “like” Republicans or Democrats, they’re generally not thinking about their neighbor who has a Harris or a Trump bumper sticker. They’re thinking about the people they see on TV. The political class. If you really make it clear that you’re talking about ordinary Democrats and Republicans, the polarization is not nearly as strong.
AK: What accounts for this ideological sorting of the two parties?
Fiorina: One reason is demographic change. After the 1960s, the Southern Democrats and the Sun Belt basically became Republican and the Great Migration of African Americans northward shifted urban politics.
But a lot of it was also unpredictable. In 1960, I’d have guessed the Democrats would become the pro-life party—after all, they had the Catholics and the Southern Baptists. And I’d have guessed Republicans would be more focused on the environment—they were the party of Teddy Roosevelt, the National Parks system, and so on. But things didn’t go that way.
There’s also the nationalization of politics. It used to be that every big city had multiple papers and most small towns had papers too. That’s largely gone now. People don’t know as much about their local candidates. It’s mostly national coverage of national issues now.
And there’s the financing. When I was just starting out as an assistant professor, the average House campaign was much cheaper than today, yes, but also most of the money came from local people, friends, neighbors, and local interest groups.
Now it’s mostly national fundraising networks. GOP money from Texas goes into Republican races everywhere, Democratic money from Hollywood and Manhattan goes into Democratic races everywhere. All of that imposes a much more homogenous and divided national agenda on candidates and parties.
AK: I’m struck that you didn’t mention social media as a factor.
Fiorina: This all started well in advance of social media. This was going on for 30 years before Facebook. So there is a lot of exaggeration about social media, but studies show how few people actually pay any attention to politics on social media. Less than 1% of registered voters visit BlueSky daily, for example. But again, these are the visible people. These are the political class people we think of when we think of national politics. So social media is blamed for things by people who don’t have a sense of history, and they’re also probably people who are on social media a lot.
AK: We’re talking just a few days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which was the latest in a string of high profile acts of political violence affecting prominent figures of both parties. How does that trend fit in with your thinking about polarization?
Fiorina: Well, we have always been a violent society. We had 70 years of labor wars [in the late 19th and early 20th century] when hundreds of strikers were shot down by the National Guard, and even army troops. And in the sixties, violence of this kind was typical. Between my senior year of high school and my senior year of college, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X were all shot. One of the things that I think scares people today is they don’t remember these episodes which were much worse.
AK: If the problem is party polarization rather than popular polarization, what’s the cure?
Fiorina: I’ve been asked that question for 20 years and I don’t know. What worries me most is simply that we have this political gridlock and stalemate at a time when we face genuine problems – budgetary problems, ecological problems, international problems. And right now, our political system is simply incapable of coming together and doing something positive.
Hard Numbers: Trump’s UK state visit begins, Brazil court fines Bolsonaro for racist comment, Ecuadorians protest new gold mine, & More
US President Donald Trump, King Charles III, First Lady Melania Trump and Queen Camilla during the ceremonial welcome at Windsor Castle, Berkshire, on day one of the president's second state visit to the UK, on September 17, 2025.
150: Pageantry will dominate the first day of US President Donald Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom on Wednesday, culminating with an exclusive 150-person white-tie state banquet, featuring a toast to the president by King Charles III. The harder-edged politics will come on Thursday, when Trump meets with Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
1 million: Days after being sentenced to 27 years in prison for fomenting a coup, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is in trouble with the law again. A federal court ordered him to pay a fine of 1 million reais ($188,865) for a racist comment he made to a Black supporter in 2021, telling him that his hair was a “cockroach breeding ground.”
$400 million: The Democratic Republic of the Congo is investing $400 million in satellite internet in a bid to improve the country’s drastically low connectivity rate. Only one in three Congolese is connected to the mobile internet. The company completing the project is co-owned by the Turkmenistan government.
90,000: An estimated 90,000 protestors took to the streets of Cuenca in central Ecuador to protest the construction of the Loma Larga gold mine there. Local residents are concerned the Canadian-run project will contaminate a critical water reserve.
47: Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield is leaving the ice cream giant that he founded 47 years ago in protest against its parent company Unilever for limiting his firm’s social activism. Greenfield is an outspoken progressive, and previously tussled with Unilever when Ben & Jerry’s refused to sell ice cream to Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Brazil’s Supreme Court has sentenced former President Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison for plotting to overturn the 2022 election and allegedly conspiring to assassinate President Lula. In this week's "ask ian," Ian Bremmer says the verdict highlights how “your response… has nothing to do with rule of law. It has everything to do with tribal political affiliation.”
While amnesty for junior coup plotters is likely, Bolsonaro himself appears headed for jail, unless his allies return to power. Meanwhile, US sanctions and tariffs have fueled backlash inside Brazil. As Ian puts it, “Brazil is doing everything they can to hedge away from the United States.”
In the latest episode of Quick Take, Ian Bremmer denounces the assassination of Charlie Kirk, cautioning that it will deepen America’s political dysfunction rather than unite the country.
Ian says this is a stress test for an already fragile political system and that political violence is not a solution.
“If you think freedom of speech and the provision of justice is for you and not those you disagree with, you need to change,” says Ian. “Americans must learn from people we disagree with, not demonize them.”
Warning about the trend of violence for attention, Ian also explains the US can still learn about representative democracy, civil society, respect, compassion, and leadership from its counterparts. And the “only people who benefit are the ones that want to destroy the American system, those that want to use the violence to create a one-party system.”
What We’re Watching: Zelensky’s turn to meet with Trump, Israelis protest against Bibi again, Hong Kong media mogul faces trial
Metropolitan Police Department officers secure 16th Street near the White House, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 17, 2025.
Zelensky heads (back) to the White House
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is back in Washington today, meeting with US President Donald Trump to discuss a potential end to the Russia-Ukraine war and hoping for a better outcome than his last visit to the Oval Office earlier this year. This time he’s bringing friends, European leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and the UK’s Keir Starmer, who are offering their support as he attempts to keep his country intact.
The confab follows Trump’s Alaska meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, which produced very little by way of a ceasefire in Ukraine. While Zelensky will hope that this visit is more cordial than his last, he is likely still feeling the pressure: Trump reportedly told European leaders yesterday that he supports Putin’s offer to pause fighting if Ukraine relinquishes the Donbas region, even though Russian forces don’t currently hold this land. Zelensky has ruled out such a land swap. The US president also said on social media last night that his Ukrainian counterpart should forget about regaining Crimea or joining NATO.
Is there any timeline for peace here? With the White House now pushing for a peace deal rather than just a ceasefire, don’t expect an imminent pause in fighting, says US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Washington is nonetheless trying to strike a positive tone, with US special envoy Steve Witkoff declaring on Sunday that Russia had agreed to “robust” security guarantees, including a collective defense of Ukraine by American and European forces should Russia try to invade again.
Anti-Netanyahu protests growing in Israel
Is Israel’s anti-Bibi wing back to pre-October 7 levels? Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv – and other parts of Israel – on Sunday to implore Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a deal to return the remaining hostages. The crowds were roughly the same size as the rallies against Netanyahu’s judicial changes in early 2023. The protests came after the Security Cabinet approved a plan to conquer Gaza City two weeks ago, a possible signal that the Knesset is prioritizing rooting out Hamas over returning the hostages.
In latest setback for Hong Kong’s democracy, a media mogul faces trial
Closing arguments are underway in a landmark trial against Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai, one of the city’s most prominent pro-democracy figures. Lai ran the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, which China has criticized for spreading “fake news” and instigating “Hong Kong Independence”. After being held in solitary confinement for around 1,700 days, he is being charged under the controversial National Security Law for conspiring to collude with foreign forces and publishing so-called “seditious” articles. If convicted, the 77-year-old could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.Enaam Abdallah Mohammed, 19, a displaced Sudanese woman and mother of four, who fled with her family, looks on inside a camp shelter amid the ongoing conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan July 30, 2025.
Drones have become the new face of modern warfare, dominating headlines as Russia and Ukraine trade near-daily aerial strikes.
But unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs) are wreaking havoc in another of the world’s deadliest, and least covered, conflicts.
In Sudan, a country of 50 million people in the Sahel region of Africa, a brutal civil war is taking place between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Now drones are exacerbating the crisis.
Back up a second: how did this war begin? The Sudanese Civil War pits two army leaders – Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed “Hemedti” Dagalo – against each other. While the pair were once allied in ousting Sudan’s long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir, a bitter rivalry between them erupted in 2023, plunging the country into an all-out civil war that has claimed as many as 150,000 lives and left an estimated 14 million displaced. Half of the country is in desperate need of food assistance, and there are reports of an ongoing genocide in the western region of Darfur.
“It’s really the full set of a catastrophe,” says Sarra Majdoub, a Sudan analyst for the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts. “Everyone is really struggling, the humanitarian needs are huge.”
A growing disaster. With drones now entering the fray, the conflict risks escalating into a dangerous new phase, allowing both sides to keep inflicting damage with minimal risks to themselves.
Ever since the SAF recaptured the capital Khartoum in March, the two sides have been locked in a strategic stalemate, with drones enabling both groups to carry out precision strikes hundreds of miles behind enemy lines.
“There’s this race for militarization and getting more and more weaponry,” says Majdoub.
In May, the RSF launched several drone strikes on the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, where thousands had sought refuge from fierce fighting in Khartoum. The following month, five members of a UN aid convoy were killed in an aerial strike while delivering life-saving assistance to the famine-stricken North Darfur.
How did high-tech drones make it to Sudan? “Drones are often delivered in pieces, disguised as civilian goods or humanitarian aid, and reassembled,” says Dr Andreas Krieg, a Middle East and North Africa expert at King’s College London.
But understanding why UAVs ended up in the hands of SAF and RSF fighters requires a broader look at the region – and the external powers fueling the war.
Situated along the Red Sea, Sudan occupies a strategic geographic position with access to valuable natural resources, including fertile agricultural land and precious minerals like gold. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have invested billions in Sudan’s agriculture sector, while Egypt – which shares a 793-mile border with Sudan – sees its own security as closely linked to its southern neighbor.
“The conflict is geopolitically embedded,” Majdoub adds.
Despite a partial UN arms embargo on Sudan, foreign weapons continue to play a significant role in the conflict.
High-impact UAVs are especially attractive because they can be produced at scale, are low cost, and are easily smuggled through clandestine supply networks.
While analysts like Krieg accuse Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and Russia of helping build up the SAF’s aerial capabilities, several reports suggest the RSF is receiving covert support from the UAE – a claim Abu Dhabi denies.
“We’re seeing the emergence of a new kind of warfare – one in which surrogate forces can be armed and equipped to wage high-tech battles, without ever having to be officially recognized or formally allied,” adds Krieg.
Caught in the crossfire. As foreign powers appear to advance their competing agendas, and drones flood the zone, it is Sudan’s civilians who are bearing the costs.
“Drones have made the war feel omnipresent. They strike without warning, often in places that were once considered safe,” says Krieg. “This sense of constant, inescapable threat has become part of daily life in many parts of Sudan.”
What We’re Watching: Haiti turns to foreign fighters, China’s economy slumps, protests flare-up in Serbia
Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, attends a police and military presentation, in Guayaquil, Ecuador April 5, 2025.
Haiti turns to foreign guns as gangs tighten grip
Blackwater founder Erik Prince is ramping up his private security firm’s presence in Haiti, deploying hundreds of fighters from the US, Europe, and El Salvador to battle gangs controlling much of the country. Prince’s Vectus Global, active there since March, says it’s working under a 10-year deal with Haiti’s government, including a role in tax collection. The move — involving snipers, helicopters, and drones — comes after gangs toppled the government in February, causing ongoing chaos in Port-au-Prince.
The stakes of China’s economic slowdown
China’s economy stumbled in July, with factory output hitting an eight-month low, though still 5.7% higher year-over-year than the previous July. The relative slowdown reflects weakening domestic demand, property sector woes, extreme weather, and fierce market competition — compounded by uncertainty over Donald Trump’s trade policy. Beyond the economic hit, analysts note that prolonged weakness could limit Beijing’s ability to come into impending trade talks on strong footing.
Tension in Serbia flare
Tensions in Serbia escalated this week after supporters of President Aleksandar Vučić and his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) hurled flares at anti-government protestors late Wednesday. The violence follows nine months of demonstrations sparked by the deadly collapse of a train canopy in Novi Sad that killed 16 last year – an incident which protestors have blamed on state corruption and mismanagement. With Serbian Prime Minister Miloš Vučević having already resigned earlier this year, we’ll be watching to see if Vučić can outlast this growing political crisis.