Consensus
Polarized media and nationalist rhetoric are eroding democratic consensus and respect for core institutions.
The ruling party and its allied oligarchs have leveraged a polarized media landscape to undermine democratic consensus by limiting American identity to blood-and-soil nationalism that dehumanizes non-white immigrants and evokes fears of a “great replacement” of “real Americans” at a time of economic anxiety. They have also eroded the U.S. Constitutional framework and norms like respect for election results and the separation of powers, facilitated by powerful digital tools managed to manipulate public support of those eroded norms.