You think your political enemies hate the same heroes you love, but they actually like them too.
April 16, 2026
Original Paper
The False Polarization of Heroes: How Social Sorting Affects Collective Memory
SocArXiv · j4bzs_v1
The Takeaway
We are living in an era of 'false polarization' where we assume our neighbors on the other side of the aisle want to tear down the same icons we cherish. This research shows that for figures like Lincoln or MLK, sentiments are actually very similar across partisan lines, but voters *believe* the other side hates them. We are essentially living in a hall of mirrors where we fight over a disagreement that doesn't actually exist. This psychological sorting is so powerful that it distorts our collective memory to fit a narrative of conflict. For you, it means that the 'culture war' over history is often a manufactured phantom, and we have more shared ground than the news cycle wants us to believe.
From the abstract
Iconic historical figures are meant to represent a society’s most enduring and universal values. And yet, across partisan and sociodemographic groups Americans believe their most important values are widely contested rather than shared. Whether these perceived divisions extend to sentiments for objects of collective memory meant to represent shared values remains unknown. Relying on a dataset measuring public sentiments toward the 15 most institutionally consecrated iconic historical figures, we