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For decades, Americans' trust in one another has been , according to the most recent General Social Survey.

A major factor in that downshift has been the concurrent rise in the polarization between the two major political parties. Supporters of Republicans and Democrats are to view the .

That political polarization is so stark that many Americans are now unlikely to have friendly social interactions, live nearby or congregate with people from opposing camps, .

Social scientists often refer to this sort of animosity as "affective polarization," meaning that people not only hold conflicting views on many or most political issues but also disdain fellow citizens who hold different opinions. Over the past few decades, such affective polarization in the U.S. has .

Polarization undermines democracy by making the essential processes of democratic deliberation—discussion, negotiation, compromise and bargaining over public policies—difficult, if not impossible. Because polarization extends so broadly and deeply, some people have become unwilling to express their views until they've confirmed they're speaking with someone who's like-minded.

, and I to publicly voice their opinions than even during the height of the McCarthy-era Red Scare.

The muting of the American voice

According to a written by political scientists and , fears about speaking out are grounded in concerns about social sanctions for expressing unwelcome views.

And this withholding of views extends across a broad range of social circumstances. In 2022, for instance, I of a representative sample of about 1,500 residents of the U.S. I found that while 45% of the respondents were worried about expressing their views to members of their immediate family, this percentage when it came to speaking out publicly in one's community. Nearly half of those surveyed said they felt less free to speak their minds than they used to.

About three to four times more Americans said they did not feel free to express themselves, compared with the number of those who said so .

Censorship in the US and globally

Since that survey, attacks on free speech have increased markedly, .

Issues such as the Israeli war in Gaza, "wokeism," and the ever-increasing attempts to penalize people have made it more difficult for people to speak out.

The breadth of self-censorship in the U.S. in recent times is not unprecedented or unique to the U.S. Indeed, research in , and elsewhere has reported similar increases in self-censorship in the past several years.

How the 'spiral of silence' explains self-censorship

In the 1970s, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, a distinguished German political scientist, to describe how self-censorship arises and what its consequences can be. Informed by research she conducted on the 1965 West German federal election, Noelle-Neumann observed that an individual's willingness to publicly give their opinion was tied to their perceptions of public opinion on an issue.

The so-called spiral happens when someone expresses a view on a controversial issue and then encounters vigorous criticism from an aggressive minority—perhaps even sharp attacks.

A listener can impose costs on the speaker for expressing the view in a number of ways, including criticism, direct personal attacks and even attempts to "cancel" the speaker through ending friendships or refusing to attend social events such as Thanksgiving or holiday dinners.

This kind of sanction isn't limited to just social interactions but also when someone is threatened by far bigger institutions, from corporations . The speaker learns from this encounter and decides to keep their mouth shut in the future because the costs of expressing the view are simply too high.

This self-censorship has knock-on effects, as views become less commonly expressed and people are less likely to encounter support from those who hold similar views. People come to believe that they are in the minority, even if they are, in fact, in the majority. This belief then also contributes to the unwillingness to express one's views.

The opinions of the aggressive minority then become dominant. True public opinion and expressed public opinion diverge. Most importantly, the free-ranging debate so necessary to democratic politics is stifled.

Not all issues are like this, of course—only issues for which a committed and determined minority exists that can impose costs on a particular viewpoint are subject to this spiral.

The consequences for democratic deliberation

The tendency toward self-censorship means listeners are deprived of hearing the withheld views. The marketplace of ideas becomes skewed; the choices of buyers in that marketplace are circumscribed. The robust debate so necessary to deliberations in a democracy is squelched as the views of a minority come to be seen as the only "acceptable" political views.

No better example of this can be found than in the absence of debate in the contemporary U.S. about the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis, whatever outcome such vigorous discussion might produce. , many people are on Israel—whether , for instance, or whether Israeli members of government should be sanctioned—because they fear .

Many Americans are also biting their tongues when it comes to , affirmative action and even whether political tolerance is essential for democracy.

But the dominant views are also penalized by this spiral. By not having to face their competitors, they lose the opportunity to check their beliefs and, if confirmed, bolster and strengthen their arguments. Good ideas lose the chance to become better, while bad ideas—such as something as extreme as Holocaust denial—are given space to flourish.

The spiral of silence therefore becomes inimical to pluralistic debate, discussion and, ultimately, to democracy itself.

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