Unity loses in 2024 Trump vs. Harris Get the latest views Submit a column
Hidden Common Ground

How the outrage industrial complex profits from stoking Americans' anger at each other

Polarization starts within the media we consume, stoking outrage, and being funded by people like me — marketers.

Dan Granger
Opinion contributor

This year, four out of five Americans agreed that America is falling apart. Given the polarized state of the nation, it might be the only thing on which 80% of us can agree.

How did we get so polarized? There are tremendous costs to believing that roughly half the country is, as Northwestern University's Cynthia Wang says, "not just wrong, but also evil."