https://arab.news/w9acm
A January 2026 Gallup poll showed that 89 percent of Americans expect high levels of political conflict this year, as the country heads toward one of the most decisive midterm elections in its history.
Gallup was stating the obvious. It is a surprise that not all Americans feel this way, judging by the coarse, often racist, discourse being normalized by top US officials. Some call this new rhetoric the “language of humiliation,” where officials refer to entire social and racial groups as “vermin,” “garbage,” or “invaders.”
The aim of this language is not simply to insult, but to feed the “rage bait cycle” — tellingly, Oxford University Press’ 2025 Word of the Year: A high-ranking official attacks a whole community or “the other side,” waits for a response, escalates the attacks, and then presents himself as a protector of traditions, values, and the US itself. This does more than simply “hollow out” democracy, as suggested in a Human Rights Watch report last January. It also prepares the country for “affective polarization,” where people no longer just disagree on political matters, but actively dislike each other for who they are and what they supposedly represent.
