How ‘us vs. them’ works — and who it really works for. “Basically, politicians who use ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ rhetoric are exploiting what cognitive and social psychologists call ‘in-group, out-group’ bias,” Aaron Montgomery, a clinical psychologist from Newport Beach, California, told HuffPost. As HuffPost previously reported, mental health experts are already concerned that normalizing the divisive and toxic rhetoric coming from leadership can harm our communities IRL. And this kind of “us vs. them” language works in tandem with that to yield adverse outcomes for the real world we have to live in. “One hope is that individuals begin to reward more bipartisan (or less ‘us vs. them’) rhetoric, incentivizing elites to follow suit.”But is there a way out of this stalemate?

Source: Huffington Post November 06, 2025 04:38 UTC