According to the European Center for Populism Studies, mass polarization or political polarization occurs when a people’s attitudes towards politics, political issues, and political leaders are neatly divided along party lines. At the extreme, each camp questions the moral legitimacy of the other, viewing the opposing camp and its policies as an existential threat to their way of life or the nation as a whole.

Social researcher, Emilia Palonen, takes it a step further with her assertion that “polarization takes people that have something in common, emphasizes their differences, hardens their differences into disgust, and turns their disgust into blatant hatred. It creates two sharply contrasting groups and pits them against each other, shaping us for only two options — ”our side” or “their side.” And it becomes a suffocating social arrangement.”

Ultimately, polarization is a situation in which groups identify each other according to their political or ideological differences rather than their similarities. This over reliance on differences makes finding a middle ground nearly impossible. To succeed in this us v. them dynamic, one must choose sides, thereby tuning what started as a “political opponent” into a lifelong enemy.