by James Lyons-Weiler, PhD, Popular Rationalism, ©2026
(Jan. 13, 2026) — Share if you are part of the 45%. Or the other part. We all need this
The week the country argued about something again
On January 13, 2026, the United States does not argue about immigration policy in the abstract. The United States argues about a dead woman in Minneapolis, a surge of federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota, and street-level confrontations that now function as a national Rorschach test.
Reporting describes a rapid escalation after an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, age 37, during an operation in Minneapolis. Federal officials defended the shooting and characterized Good’s behavior as a threat; Minnesota leaders disputed those claims and pointed to video evidence that complicates the official narrative.
Minnesota—joined by Minneapolis and St. Paul—filed suit to halt or limit the federal surge, while demonstrations and clashes expanded across multiple cities, including the use of tear gas during crowd confrontations.
I do not write this to litigate a single use-of-force decision from a single frame of video. I write because the ICE conflict now reveals something broader and uglier: the country’s fracture has reached a stage where a non-tribal person can name broken dynamics and still get rejected by both sides for naming them.
That pattern signals success—for every internal and external force that benefits when Americans treat politics as a blood sport instead of a truth-seeking process.
How the machine converts facts into loyalty tests
The Minneapolis killing illustrates the modern sequence:
- Officials and influencers issue maximal claims at maximal speed.
- The public sorts those claims into tribal bins before investigations conclude.
- Each coalition uses the incident as moral fuel.
- The impact of polarized policies sought on both sides is not given due consideration by either side.
In that environment, a reality-based sentence becomes radioactive.
- Say, “An officer can face a real threat and still make a wrong decision” — one side hears treason.
- Say, “A viral clip cannot substitute for an investigation” — the other hears evasion.
- Say, “Law matters and human dignity matters” — both sides hear weakness.
This is the point where the country stops arguing about what happened and starts arguing about what we are allowed to notice.
Polarization does not behave like a normal disagreement
Political polarization is not just disagreement. It’s a social identity war.
Jost, Baldassarri, and Druckman (2022) describe polarization as an “us versus them” mentality shaped by ego-justifying, group-justifying, and system-justifying motives. These motives make neutrality feel like betrayal and dissent feel like treason.
That is why partisanship no longer acts as voting preference. It acts as substitute religion.
One solution to having your amygdala on fire is rational thought processes. Or to realize that you are using gasoline, not water, to douse a flame. Or to realize that you are a patsy and you once swore to yourself to never become a tool for polarizing politics.
More connection can create more fracture
Thurner et al. (2025) modeled opinion formation in connected societies and showed that more connectivity can cause more polarization. They mapped the rise of polarization to the emergence of social media. Once a certain threshold is crossed, interaction accelerates divergence.
This matters because America has already crossed that threshold.
Everyone carries a broadcasting device. Everyone swims in algorithmic feeds. Everyone can join a digital crowd in seconds. The same tools that enable shared reality also enable synchronized outrage and refusal to revise beliefs.
You are consuming information now that is an outlier: We address polarization as corrosive. We call not for unity, but for study, regard, discipline and respect.
Even “exposure to the other side” can backfire
Bail et al. (2018) conducted a Twitter randomized experiment. Republicans who followed a liberal bot became more conservative. Democrats showed slight, statistically insignificant shifts. The point: polarization is not an information deficit. Exposure is not the cure.
Content becomes ammunition, not illumination.
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