America Is Polarized Because We Fear Discomfort | Opinion

In an empty Los Angeles warehouse, a young woman named Sarah shares an uncomfortable story that wouldn’t be discussed at most kitchen tables: She used to hate guns, but after being sexually assaulted, she now can’t sleep without one. The conversation, part of a digital project designed to bring people with opposing views face-to-face that drew 4.6 million views, was raw and at times, challenging to hear. But it was Sarah’s sheer vulnerability, not statistics or constitutional arguments, that began to shift the entire room’s perspective.  

After the cameras stopped rolling, the conversation didn’t end. It moved outside. Strangers who had just spent hours clashing over politics, faith and identity spilled into the parking lot to keep talking. Some even shared drinks with people they’d vehemently disagreed with that morning, people they’d never have spoken to otherwise.

In a country where ideological differences can end friendships and fracture families, the scene felt almost radical.

As the 2026 midterms move into view, we’re bracing for a familiar story: more division, more rage, more certainty that the “other side” is not just wrong but dangerous. A new Pew Research Center survey found the partisan gap is the widest since Pew began asking the question in 1997. As founder of Jubilee, a digital media company that brings people with opposing views into dialogue on the issues shaping our culture, I have come to believe something deeper than politics is fueling our polarization. It is our growing intolerance for discomfort.

In our work, we’ve seen moments like Sarah’s repeat hundreds of times. When you put people with clashing views in the same room, things get tense. There are awkward silences. People don’t always say the right thing. Sometimes the internet reacts harshly. But ignoring dissenting viewpoints doesn’t make them go away or resolve polarization; it deepens it. We’ve lost the art of debate because we’re afraid to sit in discomfort, and we fear saying something wrong. But progress depends on confronting conflicting ideas head-on, in good faith.

We often blame “the algorithm,” and yes, platforms are built to keep us engaged by keeping us emotionally activated. But algorithms mirror our active choices, feeding us comfort disguised as connection. The result is an ecosystem built to affirm what we already believe.

Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff warned in The Coddling of the American Mind that we’re now living the consequences of teaching society to view those with differing opinions as enemies. We’ve reached an alarming moment where listening to someone we disagree with can feel more dangerous than not engaging at all. Empathy for people with different views is treated as betrayal. Curiosity is framed as complicity. And the line between “understanding” and “agreeing” has collapsed, as if we can’t even comprehend another person’s experience without endorsing their conclusions.

The cost is enormous. When we lose the ability to engage across differences, we lose the connective tissue that makes democratic life possible in the first place. We lose the capacity to solve complex problems that require multiple perspectives and to see one another as full, complicated human beings rather than labels or enemies.

There is, however, a real reason for hope. And it’s not where many people expect it.

We can see it in classrooms, campus forums and on our filming sets. Young people are asking harder questions, seeking out tension instead of avoiding it. A recent Public Agenda survey found that younger Americans are more open than older generations to engaging with people who hold opposing views, even amid widespread distrust and polarization. They don’t always leave conversations with consensus, but they leave having practiced something many of us have forgotten: disagreeing without dehumanizing.

The irony is striking. The generation dismissed as fragile may be the one most willing to sit with discomfort. Not universally, but enough to suggest a path forward.

With the country heading into an election year in 2026 and divisions deepening, the remedy is teachable: We need to rebuild the capacity to disagree without giving up on one another. We can design more spaces in media, schools, workplaces and communities where disagreement is expected, where people are guided to listen and meet differences with curiosity instead of avoidance. We can create norms that separate understanding from endorsement. We can follow the lead of young people like Sarah, who know that courage isn’t about being right, but about showing up at the table to face hard questions together.

Discomfort is not a threat to democracy. It’s the price of keeping it.

Jason Y. Lee is founder and CEO of Jubilee Media. Jubilee Media is a digital media company with a mission to provoke understanding and create human connection.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.