Introduction

Our opinions and worldviews are shaped by the people we associate with and the media we consume. Before social media and smartphones, we relied on our communities, local newspapers, and nightly news programs to stay informed. News was largely presented as unbiased, and we valued the opinions of friends and neighbors we knew and trusted. We could interact with people different from us with a general sense of civility. I grew up in the post-civil rights era and know this hasn’t always been the case, but the political and social animosity has grown exponentially since my childhood in the 80s and 90s.

Perhaps that hatred was always there and I just didn’t see it, but I believe something else is at play. I’ve been thinking about this since the news of Charlie Kirk’s murder. His death is an abhorrent reflection of where we are as a society, a point where people are willing to kill over differences in belief. In the tragedy’s wake, I have seen calls for civil war from the right and celebrations of his murder from the left. I find both extremes deeply concerning and ask, how did we get to this point?

I don’t have all the answers, but I believe the seeds of our division were planted in the early 2000s and accelerated into a perfect storm of technology, politics, and economics, with social media algorithms acting as the primary engine of our polarization. This isn’t just a political issue; it’s a problem for anything that involves differences of opinion and the interpretation of facts.

An Election and an Attack

For me, the first large cracks in modern civility appeared during the 2000 Presidential Election between Bush and Gore. When the Supreme Court effectively issued a ruling on who won, it became a flashpoint of political contention, sparking widespread outrage. While I’m not a political historian, it was the first time I can remember the Court producing such a partisan outcome that got everyone talking. I had just entered adulthood, so it was the first time I was paying close attention to national politics. In my mind, this was the catalyst—the seed for how we got to where we are today.

These political tensions seemed to subside in the immediate wake of 9/11. Faced with a common enemy, we came together in a wave of mourning and patriotism while neighbors embraced neighbors. But this moment of unity came with lasting consequences: increased security at airports, the Patriot Act of 2001 that expanded government surveillance, and two prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost taxpayers trillions of dollars. For many, this felt like a massive government overreach, infringing on personal rights while spending endlessly on foreign wars.

Feeding the Algorithms

The 2000 Presidential Election, 9/11, and the subsequent wars followed the Dot-com bubble crash, a period when massive amounts of money were lost in the tech industry. The crash didn’t mean internet technology was doomed; rather, it was a “wild west” where few had figured out how to monetize it. Many companies failed, but a few giants emerged, buying up technology and hiring the brightest minds from the defunct businesses.

These surviving companies pioneered a new business model: giving away popular products like search engines for free, supported by targeted advertising. Showing the same ad to everyone wasn’t profitable enough; the key was tailoring ads to specific users, which required enormous amounts of data. Tech companies began creating detailed user profiles, cataloging their likes, dislikes, and preferences.

Conveniently, social media began to emerge at the same time. People willingly shared personal stories and experiences, creating treasure troves of personal data that tech companies saw immense value in. They offered their services for free in exchange for our information, gaining access to our search histories, posts, and purchase habits. It was the cost of “free,” and we gladly gave up our privacy for these new services.

As “Big Data” became all the rage, companies like Google and Facebook became kings of targeted advertising. By analyzing user data—from searches for dog food to posts about a Hawaiian vacation—they could attract marketers who wanted to put their products in front of the people most likely to buy them. It was a win-win: tech companies and marketers made money, and consumers saw ads that were actually relevant to their interests.

In its early days, social media was niche; Facebook famously began in 2004 as an exclusive platform for college students. But in the lead-up to the 2008 Presidential Election, and coinciding with the release of the iPhone in 2007, social media went mainstream.

Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to effectively use these platforms in his campaign. Because the user base was still young, his message reached a key demographic, helping him win 66% of voters aged 18-29—a 12-point increase from what John Kerry received in 2004. His resonant message, charisma, and savvy use of this new technology scared the Republican Party, who saw firsthand how powerful it could be.

Arkansas’s Political 180

The shockwaves from the 2008 election and the rise of a new media landscape were not just national phenomena; they had profound consequences at the state level. The political transformation of Arkansas serves as a stark case study.

For generations, Arkansas was a Democratic stronghold. The state legislature was controlled by Democrats since Reconstruction, and as recently as 2008, their majority in the State House was over 70%. While the state had shown signs of favoring Republicans in presidential elections since the 1970s, at the state level, Arkansas was firmly blue.

The 2010 mid-term elections, however, triggered a dramatic and rapid realignment. The speed of this political reversal is illustrated by data from BallotPedia.

In what felt like the political blink of an eye, over a century of Democratic control vanished. By 2010, the parties were at a virtual tie, and by 2014, Republicans had full control of the state legislature. In just six years, Arkansas politics flipped 180 degrees, becoming as staunchly Republican as it had once been Democratic. This was not an accident; it was the result of the perfect storm of forces the nation was just beginning to understand.

The Perfect Storm

I believe a fundamental shift in American society coalesced around the years 2007-2012. It was the perfect storm: the rise of social media and smartphones, the power of big data, the Great Recession, the Tea Party movement, the Citizens United ruling, and the hyper-partisan politics surrounding the Affordable Care Act, or “ObamaCare.” I also can’t help but think race played a role in the 2010 mid-terms; it certainly became a much larger topic in politics and media around that time.

The storm began gathering in 2007 as the global economy teetered on the edge of a prolonged recession. When there are economic woes during an election cycle, politics tend to swing against the party in power. This, combined with Barack Obama’s charisma and his campaign’s command of social media, contributed to his historic victory in 2008. His election as the first Black president felt to many like a crowning moment in a country with a dark racial history—a hopeful, if brief, glimpse of a post-racial America.

But the Great Recession, which officially lasted from late 2007 to mid-2009, inflicted deep and lasting pain on working-class Americans. By late 2009, unemployment peaked around 10%, and over 14.4% of mortgages were delinquent or in foreclosure. Americans were hurting, losing their homes and jobs due to a crisis that was largely not their fault. While the economy was improving for big businesses, it would take years before it felt like a true recovery for most Americans.

It was in this tumultuous period that the newly elected Democratic majority pushed through the Affordable Care Act in March 2010 without a single Republican vote. At that moment, bipartisanship was dead. American politics had become a game of simple majority control, and Americans took notice.

The purely partisan passage of the ACA became the perfect fuel for the new media fire. Conservative outlets branded it as socialism, while 24/7 news coverage amplified the political conflict. This is where the algorithms began to take over. If you clicked on an article calling ObamaCare a government takeover, your feed would show you more of the same. If you clicked a story about expanding healthcare access, your feed would reinforce that view. Social media platforms, needing to keep users engaged to maximize ad revenue, learned to show you content that would provoke a reaction—either through agreement or through outrage at a viewpoint so foreign to your own that you couldn’t help but engage.

As a result, in the lead-up to the 2010 mid-term elections, Americans were increasingly fed a diet of content that confirmed their existing beliefs. Unbiased news gave way to charismatic, biased commentary tailored to appeal to a specific demographic. Politicians and influencers on both sides learned that extremism gets more engagement. Outlandish sound bites and fringe ideas, amplified by the opposition, were more likely to be shared than moderate, middle-of-the-road ideas in a race to the extremes for your attention.

The 2010 mid-terms thus became a massive backlash. The rising Tea Party movement masterfully messaged against the ACA, framing it as an expansion of government debt and an assault on traditional American values. Their messaging, which often included claims that Democrats couldn’t be real Christians, was perfectly suited for the algorithmic echo chambers that were now fully formed. Conservatives became more conservative, and liberals became more liberal. And that is how a state like Arkansas, Democratic for over a century, flipped to become a Republican stronghold by 2014.

Money, Influence, and a Populist Uprising

But the story doesn’t end there. In 2010, a monumental Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission would alter American politics even further. The Court found that laws restricting the political spending of corporations and unions were inconsistent with the First Amendment, essentially opening the floodgates for corporations and political action committees (PACs) to spend unlimited money on political agendas. Suddenly, corporations had a far greater capacity for political influence than regular Americans who could not fund their own PACs.

This surge in corporate power coincided with a grim economic reality for many. As the mega-wealthy began buying up foreclosed homes from Americans still suffering from the Great Recession, housing prices began to soar. A struggling, angry populace saw large corporations thriving at their expense, cementing the view that the rich and the politicians were rigging the system. Social media echo chambers became a place for people to gather around these shared struggles, creating a fertile ground for a new political force.

This is when Donald Trump entered the picture. After briefly running in 2000, his political career began in earnest in 2011 with a speech at CPAC and by championing claims that questioned President Obama’s citizenship. After Obama’s reelection in 2012, Trump became more politically active, and on June 16, 2015, he officially announced his candidacy for president. He inherited the anti-establishment energy of the Tea Party but amplified it, positioning himself as the ultimate political outsider. He didn’t speak like a politician, but like the everyday Americans who were struggling.

Trump leveraged the power of social media with unprecedented skill, leaning heavily into the anger and fears of everyday Americans. He spoke to them uncensored and made them feel heard. He was a billionaire who ironically became the champion of the working class against what they saw as the cronyism of the ultra-wealthy and the political elite. For many Americans who felt that politicians and corporations had grown deaf to their concerns, Trump was the answer. He promised to “drain the swamp” and return America to a time when the American dream felt alive, not a time of unaffordable housing and soaring debt.

Covid and the Echo Chambers

The COVID-19 pandemic threw gasoline on the fire. At the end of Trump’s first term, the world shut down. Out of an abundance of caution, people stayed home while massive federal spending kept the nation afloat. With schools and businesses closed, people had nothing but time, and social media algorithms thrived. The response to the pandemic was further complicated by the messy, public nature of scientific research; mistakes were made based on the best available information at the time, and hindsight is always 20/20.

In this environment of uncertainty, online communities and influencers amplified messages to their respective groups, and misinformation became commonplace. People who trusted the government and scientific experts felt strongly about vaccines and social distancing, and their feeds gave them a steady diet of that messaging. Meanwhile, those who had concerns about the vaccines, the shifting recommendations, or government mandates were fed information that reinforced their own beliefs. The two groups began to drift further apart during a time when many, if not most, social interactions were only happening online with like-minded individuals. We truly started to see people who believed differently than us as “others,” somehow less human than ourselves.

The divide became deeply personal. A person with immunocompromised family members lived in fear and became militaristic about masking and sanitizing. From their perspective—which was reinforced by a constant stream of information about rising death tolls—anyone who opposed these measures was uncaring and selfish.

At the same time, a person already skeptical of government overreach, now told they couldn’t work to support their family, grew angrier with each new directive. Their skepticism of institutions increased as the official narrative on the virus’s mortality rate seemed to shift. For them, online groups for anti-vaccine or homeschooling communities became a refuge, their beliefs reinforced daily by the algorithm.

Crucially, neither side realized the other was seeing a completely different set of stories and information. The algorithms fed each group only what they wanted to believe unless they actively sought out other viewpoints. Media and influencers grew their audiences by appealing to emotion, because humans are emotional creatures, not logical ones. When a leader or an idea connects with us on a personal level, any questioning of that leader or idea can feel like a personal attack.

Putting My Feet to the Pavement

The algorithms have only grown smarter since artificial intelligence went mainstream in 2021. But to truly understand their impact, we must leave the digital world and step onto the pavement. In 2024, I did just that when I ran for state representative. I was not going to be another keyboard warrior; I was going to share my vision for addressing a growing problem in my state and our nation.

I ran as a Democrat, not because I’m a party loyalist, but because I was labeled one for my support of public education in the face of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ LEARNS Act. My own politics had evolved from Republican in my youth to Libertarian, but I found that the people who agreed with me on this issue were Democrats. My associations showed me they were kind and caring—nothing like the caricatures on Fox News or NewsMax. The Arkansas Democratic platform aligned with my belief in personal liberty and my conviction that government should not legislate morality. So when I was asked to run, it was clear which party I would represent.

I live in a district that has voted 80% Republican for the last decade. I knew I couldn’t out-raise my competitor, but I could outwork him. I knocked on thousands of doors, had hundreds of conversations, and did politics the old-fashioned way. I ran my campaign as if I had a shot, spending dozens of hours a week canvassing neighborhoods. I never resorted to personal attacks and even tried to arrange a debate, but I was ignored.

Many people I spoke with liked my message—until they heard I was a Democrat. Then, the wall went up. I had doors slammed in my face. I was threatened with a dog. I was told I was the devil and going to hell. Over a decade of algorithmic messaging had conditioned people to see a label, not a person. I was labeled the enemy, the “other,” and denied a fair chance to talk about the issues that mattered to them, even as I worked tirelessly to prove I would represent everyone, regardless of party.

To their credit, some listened anyway, and I earned their votes because they connected with my message of representing everyone, not just one party. Others told me they wanted to vote for me but couldn’t bring themselves to trust the Democratic party—a strange sentiment in a state that was solidly Democratic just over a decade ago.

In the end, I didn’t win, but I poured my heart and soul into the campaign and moved the needle. I earned 24.5% of the vote, outperforming the top of the Democratic ticket, which earned just over 18% in my district. But this small victory came at an immense emotional and physical cost. It burned me out of politics. I realized I can’t run another race against both an opponent and a decade of messaging that has defined me as the enemy before I even have a chance to say hello. Something has to change. We can’t keep treating our neighbors this way.

The Conclusion and Call to Action

The insurmountable gulf between the political left and right now feels permanent. Both sides have shifted toward the extremes, leaving everyday people feeling ignored and powerless—a feeling that helps explain why voter turnout is so low in places like Arkansas. The online vitriol we see doesn’t match the reality of the neighbors we interact with every day, but it’s the reality the algorithms feed us. It’s how one side can view Charlie Kirk as a martyr defending his faith, while the other sees a man who alienated and attacked those who believe differently than him.

This tragic divide is the result of a decade of conditioning. We haven’t seen the other perspective because that isn’t what the algorithm shows us. We have been trained to tolerate only the viewpoints that agree with us or anger us enough to harden our own beliefs. We have grown unable to meaningfully engage with different life experiences because the “other side” has been cast in such an extreme light to elicit a reaction. In the process, we have lost the middle ground, the unifying power we felt after 9/11, and the ability to work on bipartisan issues. It is no longer about working together; it is about control. It is about winning for one group, not doing what’s best for everyone.

Bipartisanship is dead, and the algorithms behind social media and big data are to blame. We are now left with the death of Charlie Kirk, a tragedy born from this very divide. We stand at a fork in the road.

One path is easy: to retreat into our separate feeds where his death is either a martyrdom or a meme. That path leads only to more violence. The other path is harder. It demands we have the courage to ask why this happened and to recognize the neighbor we demonize online.

The murder of Charlie Kirk can be another brick in the wall that divides us, or it can be the tragedy that reminds us of the unity we found in the ashes of another national tragedy over two decades ago.

Bipartisanship and neighborly love were casualties of the algorithm. The only question left is whether we recognize the problem and have the courage to be part of the solution.