‘The American People’ Are Sharply Divided. What They Can Learn From ‘Star Wars’ Fans

While one can understand why politicians would frequently reference “The American People,” with the public more polarized and divided than at any time since perhaps the Civil War, it is one of those lazy, meaningless constructs that media should labor to avoid.

As much as we might like to think of “the American People” widely sharing key values on many issues, there is no monolithic consensus and little common ground, in the same way smaller subgroups, from race to gender, do not always see eye to eye however much polls and pundits attempt to group them.

Or, for a narrower but quite enlightening example, just ask “‘Star Wars’ Fans.”

Now, one might think “Star Wars” fans would be a fairly harmonious group, united as they obviously are by a love for all things “Star Wars.” Yet as we’ve seen through recent years, identifying what “the fans want” has flummoxed Lucasfilm, filled the Internet with abundant whining, racism and misogyny — most recently seen in the debate surrounding the Disney+ series “The Acolyte” — and exposed bitter rifts in what on its face would appear to be an at least somewhat homogenous community.

In his recent address to Congress, Trump cited the collective spirit “in the hearts of the American people.” Not to be outdone, Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries posted a video in response saying, “The American people are with us” in opposing Trump’s agenda, drawing ridicule from, among others, HBO’s John Oliver.

Yet simply put, precious little in the current media environment produces widespread agreement, except perhaps puppies and Christmas. Much of the electorate opposes Trump with every fiber of their being, a mentality mirrored by the way Trump’s most fervent supporters view Democrats.

One of the few things Americans agree on, in fact, is how divided they are. In September, a Gallup poll found a record-high 80% of U.S. adults “believe Americans are greatly divided on the most important values,” up from 77% in 2016, while exceeding 2004 and 2012 polling by more than 10%.

On any moderately divisive issue, there isn’t a unified “American public” in the traditional way the phrase gets wielded. Indeed, within the fetid swamps of social media, you can find people who will vehemently oppose pretty much anything, even if some of those voices are Russian bots and trolls.

Nothing better exemplifies this than the fact even groups representing more focused constituencies seldom speak with a coherent voice. The 2024 election exposed some of those rifts, but had the political intelligentsia been paying attention to tremors in the Force as well as the polls, they likely would have seen that coming.

To his credit, J.J. Abrams, who directed the bookends to the last “Star Wars” trilogy, “The Force Awakens” and “The Rise of Skywalker,” identified the split among fans way back in 2019 and directly tied that to the public at large. In a Vanity Fair interview when the third movie opened, Abrams observed that the polarization within the “Star Wars” fan base is really “about everything.”

For “Star Wars,” the divide then hinged on sharp disagreement between fans of “The Last Jedi,” director Rian Johnson’s entry that took the story in unexpected directions, and those who preferred “The Force Awakens.” Brought in to make the third movie, Abrams swung the pendulum back toward his original vision but graciously noted that fans weren’t wrong if they liked the other one better, before connecting the micro to the macro.

“‘It’s exactly as I see it, or you’re my enemy,’” he said, describing the way people approach disputes, from “Star Wars” to politics. “It’s a crazy thing that there’s such a norm that seems to be void of nuance and compassion — and this is not [a phenomenon] about ‘Star Wars,’ this is about everything.”

In the New York Times, opinion writer Annalee Newitz picked up this theme, noting, “Fights over ‘Star Wars’ cut to the core of American identity — all the way down to our childhood selves — because they aren’t just squabbles over whether Rey’s Force powers are realistic. They’re about who we are as a nation, and how we will survive as a people in the future.”

If that sounds a little grandiose in the broad strokes, it’s nonetheless emblematic of a greater challenge. However much we might want to distill topics down to simple divisions, pro or con, that doesn’t reflect the complexity of opinion within discordant camps, including those who skew the conversation by arguing in bad faith.

What has been clear since “The Rise of Skywalker” capped that trilogy is that some fans have reliably groused about every new “Star Wars” project and wrinkle, with many retreating to the risible “you ruined my childhood” line of attack when they don’t approve. And pity the poor folks at Lucasfilm tasked with trying to satisfy most of them.

Similarly, amid the polarization of another Trump administration, the quest for shared values has become even more elusive. That has ranged from politics to other community-oriented pastimes, including the arts, pop culture and sports.

The bottom line is the U.S. is a big, messy country that has fractured along multiple lines, in ways that make speaking in generalities, however comforting, misguided and misleading. So while it might sound like an odd example at first blush, if “Star Wars” fans can’t get their act together, “the American People” frankly don’t appear to have much of a chance.

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