Life & Wisdom Quote by John Avlon

Avlon’s line doubles as diagnosis and quiet indictment: polarization isn’t just a mood in the electorate, it’s an information architecture. By saying the parties are “more polarized than ever” and then pinning “an important reason” on partisan media, he frames division as something produced, amplified, and monetized - not merely discovered. The wording matters. “Still” implies a stubborn condition that persists despite all the hand-wringing about civility, while “rise” suggests a historical shift: we didn’t always live inside ideologically curated feeds, and we chose to build them.

The subtext is aimed less at voters than at the ecosystem that trains them. Partisan media doesn’t simply reflect existing beliefs; it rewards escalation. Outrage retains attention, attention drives revenue, revenue funds more outrage. In that loop, the other side stops being wrong and becomes illegitimate, even dangerous. Polarization becomes rational behavior inside an irrational incentive system.

Contextually, Avlon has made a career out of critiquing extremism and arguing for a “center” that can still function. This sentence is a compact version of that project: it nudges readers to see polarization not as fate or tribal instinct, but as a media-era feedback mechanism. It also carries a subtle warning: if the cause is structural, then personal goodwill won’t fix it. The solution would have to be structural too - changing what we platform, what we pay for, and what we mistake for “news.”