Whoever wins the election, Americans will still want to rip each other's heads off. Social psychologist Jay Van Bavel helps us understand why we should care about polarization, how we got here, and what, if anything, we can do about it.    From the episode:  Jay Van Bavel is a social psychologist at New York University and the author of The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony: https://www.powerofus.online/ The paper on political sectarianism Jay co-wrote:  https://www.jayvanbavel.com/_files/ugd/9c6579_b289e58eb65b461aa67c03f4cc5d4804.pdf Follow Jay on X and Instagram: @jayvanbavel   Episode credits: Produced by Yowei Shaw, with help from Anakaren Santana Edited by Tim Howard Mixed by Kyle Pulley   Proxy is a completely independent production. To support the show and get exclusive bonus episodes and our newsletter, consider joining our Patreon: patreon.com/proxypodcast.    Follow us on Instagram: @proxypodcast @yoweishaw   Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts! That stuff matters apparently.