By Javier Padilla and Belén Hípola
The coronavirus crisis has reinforced some of the tendencies that were already taking place for some time. In the United States, before the demonstrations initiated by George Floyd’s death began, Donald Trump alternated between public appearances calling for lockdown and appeals to ‘liberate’ the democrat states from the ‘oppressing’ measures their governors would have been taking. His erratic management led to conflicts with several governors, among them some republicans. However, the population’s perception of Trump’s management of the health crisis has been determined by their mentality prior to the pandemic: Most Republicans approve of it while Democrats almost unanimously consider it a failure. This phenomenon, called affective polarization by Iyengar y Westwood, can affect technical as well as personal issues. In the recent years, the number of Americans who declare that they would not want their children to get married with someone of the opposing party has increased. As Rogowski and Sutherland have shown, affective polarization is conditioned by ideology: the closer the person gets to the extremes, the greater the contempt for the opponent.