The Cactus Patch of Polarization

What our political extremes miss about the common ground beneath them

By Scott C. Miller

Last month, my friend hit a golf ball into a thicket of cholla cactus. I warned him to leave it. The ball was worth a few dollars, and anyone who has lived in the Southwest knows that cholla does not negotiate. He went in anyway and stumbled out with barbed segments in his clothes and skin. I had to pull them out with pliers.

All of that pain for one lost ball.

It captures something about American politics. We keep charging into the cactus patch for prizes much smaller than the injuries we inflict on ourselves. We defend party identity, punish perceived enemies, and celebrate short-term victories while trust in our institutions and in one another erodes.

When identity replaces thought

Political parties are necessary: they organize competing values and give voters real choices. But a party becomes dangerous when belonging requires us to surrender independent judgment. If Democrats take one position, Republicans feel pressure to take the opposite. The result is less deliberation than brand differentiation: blue Kool-Aid and red Kool-Aid, each marketed as the only safe drink.

This reflexive opposition trains us to treat every issue as a loyalty test: nuance becomes weakness, compromise becomes betrayal, and the quieter majority chooses between packages of beliefs few people fully embrace.

The Obama administration advanced many policies I valued, and the Republican response was often not to correct them but to reverse them. Under Donald Trump, the wrecking-ball impulse became explicit: disrupt first, dominate the news cycle, treat restraint as surrender. Yet Democrats have their own temptations, and neither side is immune from confusing intensity with wisdom.

The deeper problem is not one president or one party. It is a system that rewards outrage, simplifies hard questions, and asks us to despise people whose values overlap with ours more than the daily spectacle suggests.

The common ground we rarely see

Polling shifts with events and wording, so no single number is eternal truth. Still, a pattern holds: on many divisive issues, Americans hold two values at once: individual freedom and public responsibility, compassion and order, economic security and fiscal realism. The parties force an either-or choice where the public is asking for both-and leadership.

ISSUE	A POSSIBLE CENTER
Guns	Protect lawful ownership and keep firearms away from people who present a serious danger. Large majorities support background checks for private sales.
Abortion	Protect women’s agency while recognizing that developing life has moral significance. Most Americans reject both a total ban and no limits at all.
Immigration	Secure the border and create an orderly legal system, while allowing long-settled immigrants to stay if they meet clear requirements.
Health care	Preserve meaningful choice while making coverage affordable. Roughly two-thirds of Americans say government should ensure access to coverage.
Climate and energy	Reduce environmental harm while protecting reliability, jobs, and household budgets. People want a transition they can afford.
Social Security	Protect earned benefits and confront the program’s long-term finances honestly. In a 2024 survey, about eight in ten voters in both coalitions opposed benefit cuts.

These are not perfect consensuses. They are starting points for adult conversation.

From lower-frequency politics to mature leadership

Much of today’s politics runs on fear, humiliation, resentment, and the hunger to dominate. These emotions narrow perception: they make opponents look less human and extreme actions feel necessary, and they make our attention easy to manipulate.

A higher political consciousness does not mean avoiding conflict or pretending every position is sound. It means holding firm values without losing curiosity, proportion, or regard for the people affected. It means asking not only, “Did my side win?” but also, “Will this still look wise in ten years? Did it leave us more capable of solving the next problem together?”

This begins with the ability to hold competing truths. A nation can need secure borders and humane treatment. It can defend gun ownership and reduce preventable violence. It can protect economic vitality and respond seriously to climate risk. That work is harder than choosing a slogan, but governing a diverse country is supposed to be hard.

What we should demand

We need leaders who can hear the values beneath an opponent’s position and build policy from the broadest durable agreement. That takes courage, because activists, donors, cable television, and social media reward the opposite. A lawmaker who says, “The other side has a point,” is attacked before the sentence is finished.

Voters have a role, too. We can stop rewarding theatrical cruelty and refuse the easy dopamine of outrage. We can ask candidates to name one idea from the other party they would preserve, one tradeoff their own proposal requires, and one long-term national goal more important than the next election.

My friend was not a foolish man. He simply became fixated on what he had lost. That is how people end up in cactus: one step feels reasonable, then another, until the prize is no longer worth the damage.

America does not need to abandon disagreement. It needs perspective. We can walk away from the cactus patch and choose leaders mature enough to build from the common ground beneath our feet.

Sources for polling references

• Pew Research Center, “Topic: Gun Ownership and Regulation,” Dec. 20, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-sheet/topic-gun-ownership-and-regulation/

• Gallup, “Abortion,” historical trends, updated 2025. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx

• Pew Research Center, “Immigration Attitudes and the 2024 Election,” June 6, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/06/immigration-attitudes-and-the-2024-election/

• Pew Research Center, “Americans’ Views of Government Aid to Poor, Role in Health Care and Social Security,” June 24, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/americans-views-of-government-aid-to-poor-role-in-health-care-and-social-security/

• Pew Research Center, “What the Data Says About Social Security,” May 20, 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/20/what-the-data-says-about-social-security/

SCOTT C. MILLER

Scott C. Miller is the author of The Inevitability of Joy: How Better Systems Create Better Lives and the founder of the Happiness Network.