If our political system and broad elements of our culture are out of sorts, as they are, a good deal of the cause lies in the manner in which we have sorted ourselves by political tribe.

Nearly 15 years ago, Bill Bishop wrote what remains for me a formative book, “The Big Sort.” The book’s subtitle said it even better, “Why the clustering of like-minded America is tearing us apart.”

Bishop made the case back in 2008 – before Obama’s presidency and when Donald Trump was still a second-tier television celebrity – that the country was increasingly sorting itself into red and blue by the neighborhood in which we live, the profession we pursue, the school to which we send our kids, and whether and where we worship.

What about using another word for that sorting and calling it what it really is: a type of de facto segregation?

Over the intervening decade and a half, while America continues to break down the racial and ethnic barriers of segregation, our separation into red and blue camps has only intensified. We have grown ever more welcoming and accepting of differences of skin tone, religion, gender and family structure, while sharply more isolated and less tolerant of different viewpoints and political values.

The partition is then further accentuated by media, both the old-fashioned print and broadcast kind, as well as social media.

Most Americans now customize their media sources to suit their established, zealously-held worldview. Those on the right tune into FOX News, listen to their name-brand radio shows, and read publications with a distinct conservative lean. People of the left do the precise inverse in picking media sources with a progressive tilt.

To a scary degree and in far too many quarters, the pursuit of information and balanced perspective has given way to the desire for affirmation. Consumption of media news and opinion these days often brings to mind the old, pugilistic high-school football cheer: “Hit ’em again, hit ’em again, harder, harder.”

Then there is social media with a silo effect that dwarfs even traditional media. Facebook, Twitter and the rest have put the exclamation point on our sorting into distinct, isolated camps.

The algorithms that run these platforms are explicitly designed to reinforce rather than challenge. We get more and more of that which we like or share or retweet. Minute by minute, ever-louder, more polarizing voices gain traction. The walls of the echo chamber grow higher, thicker and impenetrable.

Put it all together and you get America as the calendar turns to 2023. Or, rather, what you get are two Americas with different realities, sometimes even different facts, and far too little overlap or common ground.

The insular sorting now extends as well to our closest relationships. In two recent conversations, including one around our holiday dinner table, we heard from someone who has pulled away from a whole wing of his family because they are “Trumpy” and from a contemporary who flat-out said that political non-alignment would be a deal-breaker when it comes to accepting a child’s prospective partner.

Dating back a few years, 71 percent of Democrats expressed a hesitancy to date someone who had voted for Trump in 2016, including 45 percent who stated it would “definitely” be a no-go. Republicans seemed slightly more open with 47 percent having reservations and 19 percent being adamant that was a relationship line they would not cross.

Parents of young adults are not having it either. A YouGov survey in 2020 showed that an equal 38 percent of both Democrats and Republicans would be upset if their child married outside their political faith. Other surveys put that number even higher.

So much for the quaint notion that opposites attract.

The sorting applies, too, to shopping patterns and affinities. Righteous types on the left avoid Hobby Lobby, Chick-fil-A, Carl’s Jr., Urban Outfitters and Curves fitness clubs. Their counterparts on the right disdain Bank of America, Levi’s, Disney, Netflix and Nike.

The new year could be a time for a self checkup. Do 30 percent or more of your neighbors possess different political values and display opposing political yard signs to those in your lawn?

Sticking with that 30 percent minimum threshold, is at least that share of your social circle of a viewpoint notably different than yours? Ditto for your workplace? For the parents of your kids’ classmates and playmates? For those who might attend your church or synagogue?

Do you cultivate diverse opinion in the media you watch and read? What is the ideological diversity quotient among your social media friends?

And where does political agreement fall among the characteristics you would insist on in a mate? Or in a partner for your child?

These questions might shine a light on the magnitude of your political bubble. They could point to the degree of sorting and exclusion, conscious or subconscious, you have employed in shaping your life.

Within some bounds, there is nothing wrong with holding strong political beliefs. The danger, both personal and societal, lies in walling yourself off from those of a conflicting mindset. Those barriers and such seclusion lead to the demonization of those outside your curated circle.

Per a Pew Research Center study this past summer, there has been an alarming rise in the numbers who regard those of the other party as fundamentally immoral. In 2016, 47 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats ascribed such ill motive to those of the other affiliation. Even that was a shockingly high number.

By 2022, that figure had exploded to 72 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats. The divide has grown from disagreement to outright antipathy. It is a direct consequence of the accelerating confinement on each end. And it is simply not sustainable.

If you are looking for a New Year’s resolution, you might consider a goal of breaking free of the comfortable shackles of head-nodding political conformity. You might even find an added measure of understanding and big-heartedness in such engagement. At least, it is worth a try, sort of.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for Colorado Politics and the Gazette newspapers. Reach him at?EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann