As a U.S. Army veteran who faced radical Islamic terrorists in combat, I have looked into the eyes of men taught from childhood – in madrassas and through propaganda – to hate Americans with a purity of purpose that left little room for doubt. Their hatred was not something I merely observed. It was something their eyes burned into mine. That hatred was foreign, cultivated, and directed outward. What I struggle to comprehend is the visceral contempt some Americans now direct at their fellow citizens. It is a hatred that feels familiar in intensity yet alien in origin, because it comes from within.
I am a moderate. I find common ground with Republicans and Democrats on the core strengths of this country: individual liberty under law, equal protection, limited government constrained by a written constitution, and the capacity for self-correction through democratic processes. I do not feel alone on an island. Millions of Americans occupy the same middle ground.
Yet the fringes grow louder, painting the other side with a broad brush, amplifying disagreement into existential conflict, and treating political opponents as enemies rather than fellow citizens with different priorities. This growing divide is not merely a domestic political problem. It is a national security vulnerability that foreign adversaries actively exploit and that certain domestic organizations, operating openly, seek to deepen in pursuit of a fundamentally different vision of the United States.
The data on polarization is unambiguous. Pew Research Center surveys show that roughly eight in 10 Americans believe Republican and Democratic voters not only disagree on policy but cannot agree on basic facts. Partisan gaps on issues from government performance to national pride have widened over decades. In Congress, the ideological distance between the parties is greater than at any point in the past half-century, with the zone of moderate overlap nearly gone. Both sides now see political extremism on the other as a major problem, and large shares of the public express frustration or anger toward the federal government that tracks closely with which party holds power. This is not healthy disagreement within a shared framework. It is a progressive erosion of the shared factual and institutional standard necessary for a constitutional republic to function.
That erosion has concrete security consequences. The all-volunteer force depends on a steady supply of willing, capable young Americans. Among youth, propensity to serve has declined significantly over two decades, from roughly 16% in the early 2000s to around 10% more recently. Recruitment shortfalls in recent years, though partially addressed through policy adjustments by the current administration, occurred against a backdrop of declining institutional trust, a widening civil-military gap, and cultural debates that left segments of the traditional recruiting base alienated and other cohorts disengaged.
Adversaries notice. Chinese military doctrine tracks internal cohesion and civil-military tension as components of national power. Russian reflexive control theory is designed to exploit perceived confusion and division. Iranian and other actors time provocations and information operations to moments of American political turbulence. When Americans treat one another as the primary threat, the signal to our adversaries is that the United States is distracted, divided, and less able to sustain long-term competition or respond decisively to crisis.
Into this environment step domestic actors whose explicit project is to replace the constitutional order rather than operate within it. The Democratic Socialists of America has grown substantially in recent years, reaching more than 100,000 members according to its own and contemporaneous reporting, with chapters in all 50 states and increasing electoral visibility. Its 2026 program “Workers Deserve More!” does not merely advocate progressive policy within the existing framework. It calls for drafting a new constitution to establish a “democratic socialist republic,” abolishing the Senate, abolishing the Electoral College, and replacing the president and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress. It seeks public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries, steps toward abolishing the police and prison systems, elimination of ICE, defunding the Department of War, closure of overseas bases, and an end to military and economic aid to Israel, among other structural demands. The document states that while some goals might be pursued under the current democratic framework, “complete victory will require building a new society from the ground up.”
This is not reformist liberalism or even conventional social democracy. It is an insurgency to dismantle core foundations of our constitutional republic – federalism, separation of powers, equal state representation in the Senate, an independent judiciary, and a market-oriented economy constrained by rights rather than collective ownership of the commanding heights. One can debate the merits of any single policy. One cannot honestly claim that abolishing the Senate or subordinating the presidency and courts to a unicameral legislature preserves the system the Constitution establishes. Organizations that pursue such transformation through open politics are entitled to free speech and electoral participation. But their success would represent a rupture with the American political tradition, not its fulfillment. Foreign adversaries who benefit from American disunity have every incentive to encourage and support any force that turns political disagreement into a contest over the fundamental character of the constitutional order.
Radicals certainly exist on the right as well. There are voices that treat all Democrats as interchangeable with the furthest left, that dismiss legitimate policy disagreements as treasonous, and that risk normalizing political violence or institutional vandalism in the name of resistance. Yet none currently functions as a formal, nationwide organization with an explicit program to rewrite the Constitution and restructure the American system of government in the manner of the DSA, nor have they achieved comparable influence in primary elections. Even so, both fringes continue to feed each other. Broad-brush denunciation by one side produces reciprocal hatred on the other, shrinking the space for moderation and making compromise appear as betrayal. The result is a feedback loop that foreign information operations can easily amplify.
I still struggle to comprehend how a fellow American can arrive at the level of visceral hatred I once saw in the eyes of foreign fighters. Part of the answer lies in genuine material and cultural anxieties left unaddressed by both parties and in the decline of shared civic education. But another powerful driver is economic: Polarization has become a profitable industry. Media outlets, digital platforms, and political fundraising machines all benefit when citizens feel urgent threat. Algorithms and competitive cable and online news reward emotionally charged, divisive content because it generates higher engagement and longer attention. Research consistently shows that negative and polarizing material outperforms neutral or complex coverage in capturing clicks, views, and time on site.
At the same time, small-dollar political donations – which have grown dramatically in recent cycles –respond strongly to anger, fear, and a sense of existential urgency. Fundraising appeals that frame the other side as an imminent danger raise more money; moments of perceived crisis produce sharp spikes in giving. The result is a self-reinforcing system in which media outlets and politicians on both sides have incentives to heighten alarm rather than lower the temperature. These domestic incentives create the very fractures that foreign adversaries then exploit.
The remedy begins with the center. Moderates in both parties must stop outsourcing the definition of their coalitions to the extremes. Republicans should reject the temptation to paint every Democrat as a radical intent on dismantling the country. Democrats should reject the temptation to treat every Republican as a threat to democracy itself. Both should insist that the Constitution – not a new one drafted by ideological activists, and not a document selectively ignored when inconvenient – remains the common framework. Seeking common ground does not require abandoning principle. It requires recognizing that the alternative to imperfect agreement within a shared system is the fracture of the system itself.
As a veteran, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The foreign enemies remain real and capable. The domestic challenge is different in kind: It is the gradual normalization of the idea that fellow citizens who disagree are not co-owners of the republic but enemies to be defeated. That idea, once accepted, opens the door to every form of exploitation and fracture. The Democratic Socialists of America and similar movements on the left, and the most uncompromising voices on the right, thrive in the space created by mutual distrust. Closing that space requires more than passive concern. It demands that citizens who value our constitutional framework actively reward moderation and penalize the outrage economy.
With the midterm elections approaching, national defense begins with how we engage as citizens: rejecting candidates who treat fellow Americans as existential enemies, insisting on primary candidates who honor constitutional boundaries, and supporting institutions that rebuild civil-military trust. There are already enough people in the world who want to kill us simply because we are Americans. We do not need to foment hatred against our fellow citizens. Life is too short, and the stakes too high, for that kind of self-inflicted conflict.
The growing political divide is not inevitable. It is a choice, reinforced daily by incentives that reward polarization and by political fundraisers, domestic media, and foreign adversaries who profit from it. Denouncing the extremes, articulating moderate views without apology, rebuilding habits of common citizenship, and showing up at the ballot box are not acts of weakness. They are acts of national defense. The United States has faced far greater external threats and survived because its people ultimately chose unity of purpose over the seduction of internal enmity. That choice remains available. It is the one that preserves both the republic and the security of those who serve it.
