Is America Destined for Civil War?

On today's episode of The Rising, we dive into the psychology of partisanship.

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Nov 09, 2025

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The Rising, Episode 5: Can Americans Unite Again?

If we are actually to save this country and reunite the American people, we must eventually learn how to talk to each other again across the political divide.

What will this require? We get into it from many different angles on today’s episode of THE RISING, and we were thrilled to welcome Gregg Hurwitz to discuss the massive undertaking ahead of us:

Defeating the social media rage machine.
Overcoming the psychological divide between conservatives and liberals.
Fighting against ongoing foreign psyops.

And much, much more. Please watch the show, share the episode, and check out a deeper dive into the psychology of partisanship below!

DEEPER DIVE: The Ideological Divide is Rooted in Psychology

What if America’s political divide isn’t just ideological - but psychological?

In this week’s episode of The Rising, we talked about the “Big Five” personality traits - Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism - and how these deep, largely heritable aspects of who we are shape the way we see politics.

Researchers have found that people high in Openness - curious, imaginative, eager to explore new ideas - tend to lean liberal. People high in Conscientiousness - organized, disciplined, and drawn to order - lean conservative. It’s not about intelligence or morality. It’s about temperament. Liberals crave the new; conservatives protect what’s known. Both impulses are essential to a functioning society.

But here’s the problem: we’ve built a political culture - and a social-media economy - that monetizes contempt for the other side. The “rage machine” rewards low-agreeableness behavior: mockery, aggression, certainty. Platforms profit when our personalities are at war with each other.

If we want to bridge the divide, we have to start with a simple truth: we’re not going to change people’s personalities. We can’t expect conservative voters to suddenly become more open to radical social change, any more than we can expect someone like Cory Booker to stop being exuberant and gregarious. What we can do is learn to speak to the strengths of different temperaments.

That means Democrats have to learn the language of Conscientiousness - the values of duty, order, loyalty, and stability - without abandoning their own moral imagination. Too often, Democratic messaging emphasizes novelty (“a bold new vision,” “systemic transformation”) that resonates with high-openness voters but alienates those who see chaos where we see change.

When Democrats talk about climate action, for example, they can frame it not as revolution but as preservation: protecting our homes, safeguarding the land we love, ensuring that our children inherit the country our grandparents built. When we talk about equality, we can emphasize fairness, responsibility, and shared duty, not just liberation.

Because when you understand personality, you realize that persuasion isn’t about argument - it’s about resonance. Conservatives don’t need to be convinced to become liberals. They need to hear that the values they already hold - faith, family, order, loyalty - are part of the moral foundation of democracy itself.

America doesn’t need one side to win a personality contest. It needs both temperaments - the dreamers and the doers, the reformers and the guardians - to coexist again under a shared sense of purpose.

The work of democratic leadership isn’t to convert everyone to one mindset. It’s to translate between mindsets - to build a political language wide enough for every personality in the republic.