How has political discourse changed over the past quarter century?

These days, when chatting with friends, Americans are likely to be talking about politics, and they are more likely to talk with people with whom they agree politically rather than crossing lines of belief.

“People who like talk to people who like” has always been true, says Diana Mutz, a political scientist at Penn Penn, but what has changed is the sheer number of like-minded conversations. By increasing the salience of politics, Mutz says, political leaders, political elites and the media have increased the volume of political discourse.

Using two pre-election surveys conducted 24 years apart – 1996 and 2020 – Mutz found that Americans are no more avoiding cross-party political conversations than they were 25 years ago. Instead, they talk about politics more frequently with more people, primarily those with whom they agree politically. Mutz published his findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The result is that the number of these conversations across political differences has not diminished, contrary to what many suspected. On the contrary, discussions between Americans and those who think the same way have increased considerably, much more than cross-sectional conversations. “As politics has become more and more important in our daily lives, our political discussion networks have increased in size, leading to more political discussions,” says Mutz.

“The amount of like-minded conversations we have overwhelms this already small number of cross-cutting connections,” Mutz says. “This means that we are even more sure of our own opinions and intolerant of the opinions of others.”

Mutz, the Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication and director of Penn’s Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics, says environments in which we are surrounded by people who agree with us politically are actually the best settings for increasing political participation, such as voting and working on campaigns.

“It’s very reassuring to be surrounded by like-minded people and you feel freer to promote your opinions,” she says. “It’s very awkward to be politically active if you’re surrounded by people who disagree with you. We are all primarily social beings and we don’t like to lose friends or offend others.”

Mutz reports that while political participation has increased since 1996, political tolerance has declined over the same period. “Americans are 9 percent less willing to defend the civil liberties of hated political groups than they were in 1996,” she wrote. Mutz concludes that American leaders and political elites have, in the past, helped enforce political norms that encourage tolerance.

While people today are no more or less likely to encounter cross-cutting political conversations, Mutz says, “People can’t really escape politics. Even if you don’t want to make political statements, people will interpret your brand of coffee or your car as doing so. Politics now overwhelm our daily lives in ways that most Americans dislike.

Mutz finds that most of the political discussions Americans say they engage in take place offline, not in digital communities or on social media. “We love watching other people argue online, but very few actively participate,” she says. “Watching others engage is a sort of spectator sport on social media.”

Mutz says there has been a proliferation of initiatives aimed at promoting cross-cutting discussions. These “projects designed to get people talking to each other across political differences” assume that such discussions have declined, when that is not the case, she says.