“Political Polarization at Hamilton College: Analyzing Student Opinions of Hamilton’s Political Climate”

Millennials are a particularly politically polarized generation. This may be because, social media and cable news have increasingly compromised journalistic integrity by presenting particularly opinionated and over exaggerated news. In addition to the changing news consumption habits of millennials, familial socialization, people mimicking the political beliefs of their parents, may be contributing to increasing political polarization. To examine why millennials are a particularly polarized generation, I interview twelve students of various political backgrounds at an elite liberal arts campus to determine what shapes their political beliefs. As expected, Republicans and Democrats both expressed polarized disapproval of the other sides’ beliefs. Familial socialization had the largest impact on shaping interviewee’s political beliefs with cable news and social media consumption having comparatively less of an impact