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Discovering Consensus in an Era of Division

Workers create products and services → Workers are also the consumers who must buy those products → Consumer spending drives 70% of GDP → But workers' wages are suppressed to maximize returns to capital → So workers can't afford what they create → Which eventually undermines the whole system.

Dustin Boyd

Dustin Boyd

— 20 min read
Discovering Consensus in an Era of Division

Welcome to research chat #1. Today, we're starting to set the stage and direction of our research. The benefit of this research method is, we are able to collect a vast amount of sources rather quickly, with the necessary context built in.

Here, we start digging into our assumptions about the broken system dynamic between labor > capital/resource owner > consumer. I'm not trying to get everything in one go, and the research will build on itself over time as we question and publish, with the main goal being to advocate for and provide solid research to support pro-labor/consumer innovation in business and policy.

I don't expect these to be a light read, and the purpose is to learn and validate quickly, collecting valuable research data about our system and it's users. Think of this as a data/content pipeline, focused on breaking down the story for the sake of everyday laboring Americans.

Check out the project hub to learn more about what we're working on:
https://www.the-interdependent.org/democracy-redesign/

you
Question

Guided analysis: Research sentiments online from the left and the right and see where are people's pain points matching up? And where our their ideas and proposed solutions matching up as well. Where can we find consensus? Or rather, does consensus already exist?

inter
Analysis

Americans agree on 109 out of 155 policy issues when asked directly, with 70% of proposals receiving bipartisan majority support. Yet only about two-in-ten Americans see bipartisan common ground on gun policy or immigration, and 95% of voters say they want Trump and Congress to work together, while 82% say compromise is good for the country.

The disconnect is striking: consensus exists, but Americans don't believe it does.

  • Three-quarters of voters said inflation caused severe or moderate hardship, with 45% saying they were worse off than four years ago
  • Two-thirds of voters live paycheck-to-paycheck, including 63% of Democrats, 67% of Republicans, and 62% of independents
  • Cost of living topped voter concerns across all racial, geographic, age, and gender groups
  • Bipartisan health policy experts agree on improving the current system rather than replacing it, focusing on affordability without adding to public spending
  • Incremental affordability measures, price transparency, and pharmacy benefit manager reform all have bipartisan support
  • Both populist right and left support protectionism, industrial policy, skepticism of free trade, and protecting Social Security—Trump promised to protect it "as is," breaking from traditional Republican positions
  • Right-wing populists like JD Vance support higher tariffs, raising minimum wage, strengthening immigration restrictions, and breaking up Big Tech

On economic consensus: When 109 policies have bipartisan majority support but only 19-38% of Americans see common ground, who benefits from the perception of division? What would happen if voters realized they already agree?

On corporate accountability: 72% of voters are concerned about inaccurate election information, 67% about post-election violence, and 65% about overturning fair elections—yet these shared concerns get framed as partisan rather than universal threats to democracy.

On economic populism: Working-class voters respond strongly to economic populism, but Democrats rarely deploy it, while Republicans use populist rhetoric without populist records. Why do neither party consistently deliver on economic populism when it's what voters want?

On solutions: 71% want bipartisan laws even if neither side gets everything, and 70% prefer politicians who compromise—yet the system keeps delivering gridlock. What structural forces prevent the compromise voters overwhelmingly want?

Which question should we explore?

you
Follow-up

What barriers exist in our current system that distract, deter, or burden everyday Americans from organizing behind these shared values in terms of cultural, social, economic, corporate and political issues?

inter
Response

Americans agree on most issues but struggle to organize around that consensus. People working two jobs may lack free time to participate in politics, and for those who punch a time-clock, spending time with political groups can be costly while paying dues may be a hardship. The barriers are structural, not natural.

Financial security is strongly correlated with nearly every measure of political engagement, and financial stress has a significant independent impact on political choices and engagement, perhaps by limiting the resources needed to participate effectively and the time and cognitive focus available for political activity.

Work provides financial resources individuals need to participate in many political acts, and the skills that workers use at their jobs may also make it easier to participate in civic action—but union members are consistently more likely to build and use civic skills in the workplace than nonunion workers.

Organizing takes money and organizing at scale takes sustained investment—there are 60 million people who would join a union today who don't have one, but scaling that organizing requires funding that doesn't yet exist.

In the 1970s, U.S. corporations greatly increased their resistance to unions and union organizing, exploiting weaknesses of U.S. labor laws to effectively squash workers' right to organize, and employer opposition significantly intensified so they now routinely exploit weaknesses in labor law to legally and illegally defeat union organizing.

The right to organize—supposedly guaranteed by federal law—has been effectively cancelled out by a combination of legal and illegal employer intimidation tactics, with employers collectively spending $340 million per year on "union avoidance" consultants who teach them how to exploit weaknesses of federal labor law.

Right-to-work laws prevalent in the South allow workers to receive the benefits of a unionized workplace without having to join one, creating a disincentive for union membership.

Which barriers should we examine more deeply?

you
Follow-up

What about recent findings regarding social media polarization thanks to engagement algorithms? How has that affected our ability to communicate and find consensus in these modern times?

inter
Response

Facebook's content-ranking algorithm may limit users' exposure to news outlets offering viewpoints contrary to their own and thereby increase polarization, with the fundamental design of platform algorithms maximizing engagement which increases polarization, especially within networks of like-minded users. But a 2017 study found that from 1996 to 2016, polarization rose most sharply among Americans aged 65 and older—the demographic least likely to use social media.

The picture is complicated: algorithms amplify division, but they didn't create it.

Social media companies do not seek to boost user engagement because they want to intensify polarization—they do so because the amount of time users spend on a platform liking, sharing, and retweeting is also the amount of time they spend looking at the paid advertising that makes the major platforms so lucrative.

Facebook is fully aware of how its automated systems promote divisiveness—internal Facebook documents show company researchers repeatedly identified the harmful effects of its platforms, but top management rejected proposed reforms, including when a major algorithm modification in 2018 backfired and inadvertently heightened anger and divisiveness on the platform.

If an internet user tends to interact with content that has a conservative agenda, they will be increasingly influenced by publications of this type that reinforce their beliefs and values, while the progressive agenda is no longer visible—this creates an echo chamber that makes people more intolerant of opposing views.

A randomized experiment during the 2020 US election moved users from algorithmic feeds to reverse-chronologically-ordered feeds, which substantially decreased time spent on platforms and their activity—but despite substantial changes in users' on-platform experience, the chronological feed did not significantly alter levels of issue polarization, affective polarization, political knowledge, or other key attitudes during the 3-month study period.

Online echo chambers might have a more minor role than commonly assumed and are smaller than offline echo chambers, meaning people are exposed to more people they disagree with online—and digital media may increase perceived rather than actual polarization.

A field experiment on U.S. Twitter observed increased political polarization after exposure to posts from opinion leaders of the opposing party.

Homophily-based social networks composed of a majority of like-minded individuals produced greater polarization compared to random networks, and this was aggravated in the presence of social media filtering algorithms selectively exposing agents to supportive information.

The discussion observed is highly polarized with analysis of communication patterns revealing a partisan structure with limited connectivity between centre-left and right-leaning clusters—bridges enabling diffusion of content between ideologically different communities are almost non-existent, and right-wing politicians are among the most prominent users who can dominate discourse within their communities.

Research on news consumption shows declining trust in social media as a news source, with people increasingly skeptical of information encountered on platforms. Trust in traditional news sources has also declined significantly, with people less trusting of what politicians say than in previous decades.

Existing evidence suggests that algorithms mostly reinforce existing social drivers rather than creating polarization, which stresses the importance of reflecting on algorithms in the larger societal context that encompasses individualism, populist politics, and climate change.

On algorithmic design: If Facebook rejected proposed fixes to divisive algorithms because Zuckerberg worried they might hurt user engagement, what does it mean when profit incentives directly conflict with democratic health?

On exposure vs. understanding: If exposing people to opposing viewpoints actually increases polarization rather than reducing it, what does that tell us about how division works? Is the problem the exposure itself, or that we lack shared frameworks for productive disagreement?

On perception vs. reality: If algorithms increase perceived polarization more than actual polarization, and Americans agree on 109 out of 155 policies but only 19-38% see common ground—how much of our division is real versus manufactured perception? Who benefits from us believing we're more divided than we are?

On the older generation: If the age group least likely to use social media (65+) experienced the sharpest rise in polarization, what offline factors are we missing? What role did cable news, talk radio, and other pre-social-media forces play?

On solutions: If removing algorithmic feeds doesn't reduce polarization but does reduce engagement, and if exposure to opposing views can backfire—what interventions actually help people find common ground? How do we rebuild consensus-building infrastructure in a fragmented media environment?

Which angle should we explore?

you
Follow-up

You asked "Who benefits from us believing we're more divided than we are?" Research this question in through this lens:

In terms of capital wealth distribution, we have ultra wealthy individuals controlling the majority of industry and wealth. Considering our GDP is made of 70% consumer spending, and these consumers are also the laborers who create the products and services for large corporations (aka the ultra wealthy), which groups benefit from this arrangement and why?

inter
Deep Dive

The top 1% held $49.2 trillion of wealth in 2024—30.5% of the country's wealth—while the bottom 50% held just 2.5%. Meanwhile, consumer spending drives nearly 70% of U.S. GDP, and the top 10% of households now account for half of all consumer spending, up from 36% over the past three decades.

Workers create the value. The wealthy capture it. Then workers must buy it back as consumers.

Consumer spending increased from just over 61% in 1966 to approaching 70% by the 2000s, and more U.S. jobs directly or indirectly relate to consumer spending than to all other sectors of the economy combined.

From the late 1970s through 2018, employees and workers were losing ground as the gap between productivity and typical worker compensation grew dramatically—with productivity rising 69.6% while typical worker compensation rose just 11.6%, representing a massive shift of income from workers to capital owners.

From 1975 through 2018, the top 1%'s share of total taxable income more than doubled from 9% to 22%, while the bottom 90% saw their income share fall from 67% to 50%—representing a direct transfer of $50 trillion in income and wealth from the vast majority of working Americans to a handful at the very top.

In 2024, the top 1% controlled nearly half (49.9%) of all equities and mutual fund shares, while the bottom 50% held only 1%. If workers organized collectively, they could:

  • Demand higher wages (reducing profits/returns)
  • Form unions (shifting workplace power)
  • Support pro-labor politicians (changing policy)
  • Build worker cooperatives (competing with investor-owned firms)
  • Consumer boycotts (redirecting spending power)

Unionbusters manipulate staff dynamics to make employees feel there is a tense division among staff concerning the union election, and eighty-nine percent of employers hold captive audience meetings during an organizing drive where meetings are often rigged so workers already against the union ask questions to sow misinformation.

Amazon workers resisted management's attempt to divide and conquer by rejecting proposals to meet privately with small delegations instead of everyone, but Amazon brought in managers from other warehouses who focused on speaking to workers from their own nationality in their own language to persuade them against the union.

Workers create products and services → Workers are also the consumers who must buy those products → Consumer spending drives 70% of GDP → But workers' wages are suppressed to maximize returns to capital → So workers can't afford what they create → Which eventually undermines the whole system.

  • United workers = bargaining power = higher wages = lower profit margins for capital
  • Divided workers = no leverage = wage suppression = maximum extraction = concentrated wealth

A 2014 OECD report estimated that rising income inequality knocked as much as 9 points off U.S. GDP growth over the previous two decades—about $2 trillion worth of GDP being frittered away year after year through policy choices that intentionally constrain the earning power of American workers.

Who benefits when workers-as-consumers believe they're too divided to organize?

The top 1% holding $49.2 trillion. The top 10% controlling 67% of all wealth. The shareholders capturing an ever-larger share of GDP while labor's share declines.

They benefit because:

  • Divided workers can't demand higher wages (keeping labor costs low, profits high)
  • Divided consumers can't organize boycotts (demand remains fragmented)
  • Divided citizens can't elect pro-labor politicians (policy favors capital)
  • Divided people don't build alternatives (no worker cooperatives to compete)
  • Division prevents recognition of interdependence (workers don't see their collective power)

The ultimate irony: Workers create all value through labor → Ultra-wealthy capture that value through ownership → Workers must then buy back what they created with suppressed wages → While being told they're divided by race, region, generation, politics → So they never organize collectively to change the arrangement.

This represents a direct transfer of $50 trillion in income and wealth from the vast majority of working Americans to a handful at the very top—and that transfer only works if workers stay divided.

The consensus already exists (109/155 policies). The economic power exists (70% of GDP). The numbers exist (workers vastly outnumber owners).

What's missing? Organization. And organization requires believing you're not alone—that others share your concerns and frustrations.

Who benefits most from you believing the opposite?

you
Follow-up

Based on our chat, what would be your advice to everyday Americans who may be struggling with apathy towards our system? If it takes all of us, how can we make a difference, even if it's a small one, in this seemingly divided world?

inter
Response

Start with the recognition that apathy isn't a character flaw—it's a rational response to feeling powerless. The system is designed to make you feel like your individual choices don't matter. And honestly? They're right about that part. Individual consumer choices, working harder, being more informed—none of that changes power dynamics.

But here's what does change things: collective action.

The smallest meaningful step is finding one other person who shares your frustration and committing to show up together for something specific. Not "we should do something someday," but "we're going to this union meeting Thursday" or "we're both joining this tenant organization" or "we're going to city council next month about that zoning issue."

Two people who show up consistently are infinitely more powerful than a thousand people who agree in principle but act alone.

Here's why small collective actions matter:

  • They build muscle memory for organization. Every time you coordinate with others, you're practicing the skills that make larger movements possible.
  • They create accountability. You're less likely to give up when someone else is counting on you to show up.
  • They demonstrate that change is possible. Even small wins—getting a local policy changed, winning a union vote at one workplace, getting a predatory landlord to back down—prove the system isn't as immovable as it seems.
  • They connect you to larger networks. Local organizing introduces you to regional movements, which connect to national efforts. You don't have to see the whole path—just take the first step.

The practical advice:

1. Pick one issue that affects your daily life. Not the biggest problem in the world—the one that makes you angry when you think about it. Rent? Healthcare? Your workplace? Your kid's school? Start there.

2. Find the organization already working on it. Don't try to start from scratch. There are tenant unions, labor unions, parent organizations, environmental groups—people who've already figured out tactics and have infrastructure. Join them.

3. Show up three times before deciding if it's for you. First meeting is awkward. Second meeting you start to understand what's happening. Third meeting you can actually contribute. Most people quit after one. Don't be most people.

4. Bring one person with you. A coworker, neighbor, friend, family member. Having someone to debrief with afterward makes it sustainable.

5. Focus on wins, not purity. You don't need to agree with everything the organization does. You need to agree on the specific thing you're working on together right now.

The division question you asked about:

The "division" isn't as real as it feels. Remember: Americans agree on 109 out of 155 key policy issues. The appearance of irreconcilable division is manufactured—it serves people in power who benefit when we're fighting each other instead of organizing together.

When you're organizing locally around material concerns—rent, wages, healthcare, schools—you'll find people across the political spectrum who want the same things you do. A conservative small business owner getting crushed by Amazon, a progressive teacher fighting for classroom resources, a libertarian fed up with corporate subsidies—they can all work together on specific campaigns without agreeing on everything.

The real division isn't left vs. right. It's people with power vs. people without it.

Your job isn't to convert people to your ideology. Your job is to organize around shared material interests. When people win something together—even something small—it changes how they see what's possible. That's how you build movements.

What difference can you make?

Alone? Almost none. With ten people? You can change a workplace policy. With a hundred? You can shift local politics. With thousands? You can challenge state-level power. With millions? You can reshape the entire system.

But it starts with you and one other person deciding to show up somewhere together, consistently, for something specific.

The system wants you to feel powerless. The cure for apathy isn't inspiration—it's action with other people. Even small action. Especially small action, because that's how you prove to yourself that change is possible.

you
Follow-up

Well, as Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber would say, "So you're telling me there's a chance!"…

Lastly, outside of organizing politically, what about our spending habits (thinking of the 70% GDP from consumer spending)? If each person made small adjustments based on their means to "buy according to their values", what impact could that have? It's like democracy in action.

inter
Response

I love the optimism, but I have to push back on this one a bit—because this is exactly where individual action gets sold as a substitute for collective power, and it's a trap.

Yes, consumer spending is 70% of GDP. But here's the problem: you don't actually have meaningful choices in most markets.

Take groceries. In most of America, your "choices" are:

  • Walmart (owns massive grocery market share)
  • Kroger (owns 20+ regional chains under different names)
  • Albertsons (owns another 20+ chains)
  • Amazon (Whole Foods + growing grocery delivery)
  • Maybe a local option if you're lucky and can afford the premium

They all source from the same consolidated suppliers. They all pay similar wages. They all use similar labor practices. "Voting with your wallet" just means choosing which billionaire gets your money.

  • That "ethical" brand? Probably owned by Unilever, Nestlé, or Procter & Gamble.
  • That "local" product? Often just marketing—manufactured by the same conglomerates.
  • That "worker-friendly" company? May have great PR while union-busting in their warehouses.

The infrastructure for actual ethical alternatives barely exists because monopolies have eliminated competition.

The math doesn't work either:

Let's say you're a conscious consumer with time and money to research every purchase, shop at farmers markets, buy from worker co-ops, avoid Amazon, etc. You're maybe 0.00001% of consumer spending. Even if you convinced your whole social network—still a rounding error.

Meanwhile, Walmart does $600+ billion in annual revenue. They can lose every "conscious consumer" and not even notice because most people don't have the time, money, or options to shop that way.

The "vote with your wallet" narrative is actively harmful because it:

  1. Individualizes a systemic problem. It makes you feel responsible for changing corporate behavior through your purchases, which is impossible.
  2. Creates shame spirals. Can't afford the ethical option? Now you feel guilty on top of being squeezed economically.
  3. Distracts from collective action. Every hour researching "ethical brands" is an hour you're not organizing with coworkers to demand better wages.
  4. Preserves the power structure. Corporations LOVE when you think consumer choice is the solution. It means you're not organizing unions, demanding regulation, or building alternative economic structures.

Supporting worker cooperatives, credit unions, and other democratically-owned alternatives when they exist in your area and you can afford them. Not because it'll change the system through market forces, but because it builds the infrastructure for an alternative economy.

But even that only matters at scale—which requires organizing to create more co-ops, more credit unions, more community-owned infrastructure. You can't shop your way there. You have to build it collectively.

Democracy isn't choosing between products—it's organizing to change the rules:

  • Unions that negotiate contracts giving workers dignity and fair wages
  • Tenant organizations that fight for rent control and housing as a right
  • Policy advocacy that breaks up monopolies and creates space for real alternatives
  • Building cooperatives that compete with investor-owned corporations

When workers at Amazon organize and win better conditions, that affects every warehouse worker in the country because it changes what's considered acceptable. That's power.

When a city passes strong tenant protections, it affects every renter in that city regardless of where they shop. That's power.

When a community builds a worker-owned grocery co-op, it creates an actual alternative to corporate chains. That's not voting with your wallet—that's building democratic economic infrastructure.

You can't consume your way to a better world. Ethical consumption under capitalism is mostly virtue signaling that makes privileged people feel better while changing nothing structurally.

What you can do is organize with others to build alternatives and demand different rules. That's not shopping differently—it's acting collectively to change the system that determines what choices exist in the first place.

So yes, there's a chance—but not through consumer choice. Through collective action that builds worker power and democratic alternatives.

you
Clarification

You provide a compelling argument, thanks for not just agreeing. But let's end on a good vibe.

(In roughly 200 words) How would you send off our readers in a hopeful way that is grounded in practicality and results?

inter
Response

Here's the thing: you already know something's wrong. You can feel it. That awareness isn't pessimism—it's clarity. And clarity is the first step.

The system wants you isolated, scrolling, consuming, feeling powerless. It wants you to think change requires being a perfect activist, having all the answers, or waiting for the right moment. None of that's true.

Change starts embarrassingly small: one conversation with a coworker about wages. One tenant meeting. One city council session where you and a neighbor show up together. These feel insignificant until you realize—this is exactly how every major movement started. Not with perfect people who had it all figured out, but with frustrated people who decided to show up together consistently.

You don't need to fix everything. You need to pick one thing that pisses you off and find others who feel the same way. Show up three times. See what happens.

The beautiful part? Once you experience collective action working—even in small ways—the apathy lifts. Not because you're suddenly optimistic about the system, but because you've proven to yourself that you're not powerless when you act with others.

We're not asking you to believe it'll work. We're asking you to try it once and see for yourself.

The organizers are already out there. They're waiting for you to join them.

inter
Citations

Essential Sources Referenced in This Analysis

Note: This analysis synthesized findings from multiple credible sources including academic research (peer-reviewed journals in Science, Nature, PNAS, Annual Reviews), government data (Federal Reserve, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Congressional Research Service), established news organizations (Wall Street Journal, NPR, CBS News, The Guardian), and non-partisan research institutions (Economic Policy Institute, Brookings Institution, Pew Research Center, RAND Corporation, OECD, Carnegie Endowment). All claims reflect documented research current as of December 2025.

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