Why does the narrative structure of "us against them" spread so well online?

Once the public sphere becomes an attention market, polarisation pays. "Us against them" reliably produces outrage, anger and fear, and content that feeds those emotions spreads further and draws more attention.

* A self-reinforcing loop: emotional "us vs them" content spreads, so polarisation pays *

The chain of reasoning:

1. Online, attention is the currency, and the viral narrative is the "golden goose".
2. Emotional content (outrage, anger, fear) is shared more than calm, factual content.
3. "Us against them" is the narrative structure that generates exactly those emotions.
4. So political actors can succeed by betting on polarisation.

Two nuances keep the argument fair:

• Populist narratives are not claimed to have no connection to reality at all.
• Citizens are expected to form a factually informed opinion. That does not mean experts are always right or that what counts as fact cannot change. Agreeing on facts is often painful, but it remains the basis of democratic debate.

Go deeper:

• Wikipedia: Political polarization — research on how polarisation grows and what drives it.