Stop Taking the Bait: Facts Over Feuds, Neighbours Over Narratives

Shane Warren
18 minutes ago
5 min read

A strange thing happens when a country starts arguing with itself: we forget who benefits. We trade side-eye with the person down the street who votes differently, while those who profit from chaos quietly toast another bumper quarter. We rage at each other online, and the engagement metrics purr. We are, as the saying goes, taking the bait.

You can feel the script in the air: fearful young men told for years they’re “under attack”; communities fed a diet of outrage clips; neighbours nudged to see each other as enemies. It’s the oldest magic trick in politics - divide the crowd, then pass the hat. The more we fight each other, the less we notice how much power and policy are set elsewhere.

This isn’t a conspiracy; it’s an incentive structure. Research shows that online systems reward content that provokes moral outrage anger gets clicks, clicks get reach, and reach gets revenue. Outrage is not just expressed; it’s amplified. And once amplified, it reshapes what we believe is normal, urgent, or unforgivable.

So, let’s step back. Let’s talk about neighbours, real ones. The family two doors down who arrived five years ago and now run the café you love. The nurse on night shift who came here on a student visa and stayed for the home she’s building. If the story we’re told is that “they” are a threat, the least we can do is check the facts before we start throwing stones we can’t take back.

What the data actually says (and why it matters)

Let’s take a moment to dive into some data sets that draw a torch of juxtaposition towards what is said and what is real in a country we all are watching implode on itself just now…

Crime. The loudest claims often paint immigrants as dangerous. Texas is the only state that reliably tracks immigration status in arrests and convictions; it gives us a rare apples-to-apples look. Over multiple years of data, both legal and undocumented immigrants are convicted of crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans, including for serious offences like homicide. That doesn’t mean “no crime”; it means the caricature simply doesn’t hold.

Education & skills. America’s newest arrivals are, on average, more likely to hold a college degree than US-born adults. Nearly half of recent immigrants have a bachelor’s or higher, compared with roughly a third of the US-born population. That’s not a culture war talking point; it’s a labour-market reality. It helps explain why many sectors such as healthcare, engineering, and tech, to name a few, lean on immigrant talent to keep the lights on.

Entrepreneurship. If you care about jobs, you should care about immigrants. For years, immigrants have started businesses at significantly higher rates than the local US-born. Depending on the measure and year, they’re nearly twice as likely to launch new firms, meaning more local jobs, more tax base, more life on the high street.

Family & community stability. You’ll sometimes hear that newcomers “undermine the family values structure of our society.” In fact, data show many immigrant households are more likely to be two-parent households with children than those headed by US-born adults, particularly among the most vulnerable (including unauthorized households). Which reminds us that stability isn’t a slogan; it’s a statistic.

Schools & young people. The national high-school graduation rate sits around 87% today, up from a decade ago. Within that whole, the picture for immigrant and second-generation students is complex by subgroup, but a broad pattern emerges from decades of research: many children of immigrants’ match or exceed the educational outcomes of their peers over time, especially by the second generation. Research contradicts the idea that achievement is a fixed pie, improvements for one group don’t reduce outcomes for others. In short, when immigrant students thrive, they don’t ‘take’ success from others; overall performance often rises; with some figures suggesting that children from immigrant families are more likely to go to college and complete, graduating with a bachelors degree (honours).

None of this erases pressure points - housing supply, school funding, local planning, infrastructure strain - those are real and deserve mature conversation. But such conversation starts with facts, not fear. If someone’s selling you the story that your neighbour is your problem, check whose pocket that story fattens.

Why the bait works (and how to refuse it)

In resilience psychology we say anger is the bodyguard of fear. Strip away the roar and you often find a quieter ache; fear of losing status, losing certainty, losing place. Tell enough people they’re under attack, and they will eventually act like an army. That doesn’t make them villains; it makes them human. The question is whose ends that fear serves.

Decades of political science suggest policy outcomes often reflect the preferences of economic elites and well-organized interests more than those of average citizens. If that’s broadly true, then the permanent culture war is more than a shouting match it’s a smoke machine. We hurl insults at each other on Main Street while decisions that shape our lives are hammered out in rooms we can’t find on a map.

This is why the “neighbour vs neighbour” script is so effective: it keeps us busy. If we’re busy, we’re not building coalitions around the boring but vital stuff like wages, healthcare access, local services, housing supply, small-business credit, anti-corruption guardrails, support for families and kids. Outrage is thrilling; institution-building is slow. But only one of those fixes anything.

A different kind of strength

Here’s a radical thought in an unradical tone: unity is not unanimity. We don’t need to agree on everything to refuse the bait. We can recognise the everyday decency across our differences and still argue policy hard. In practice, that looks like:

Choosing evidence over rumour, even when it cuts against our tribe.
Refusing imported enemies. If you wouldn’t yell at your neighbour at the letterbox, don’t let an algorithm convince you to do it online.
Backing the builders. Media, leaders, and local groups who cool the temperature and work on shared problems deserve more oxygen than those who set rhetorical fires for sport.

And yes, it’s worth remembering who benefits when we break trust with each other; than denying them the dividend.

The work of a united future

A united future isn’t naïve; it’s deliberate. It asks us to do the unglamorous work of building fair systems and thick communities. It insists that facts matter more than vibes. It treats newcomers as neighbours and neighbours as partners. It forgives the algorithm its seductions and grows suspicious when politics sounds like professional wrestling.

Most of all, it remembers that the person across the street is not your enemy. They are the person you will need when your power goes out, when your kid needs a lift, when you’re grieving, when a storm comes through and trees are down across the road.

We can make a different choice. We can step out of the outrage economy, refuse the neighbour-versus-neighbour script, and build something sturdier together.

Data Sources

Outrage amplification & algorithms: Brady et al., Science Advances (2021); overview of algorithmic amplification of polarizing content.
Crime & immigration: Texas conviction/arrest data analyses showing lower rates among immigrants.
Education & skills: Migration Policy Institute on the share of recent immigrants with college degrees.
Entrepreneurship: Kauffman Foundation; Bipartisan Policy Center synthesis.
Family structure: Pew Research Center on household composition among unauthorized immigrant families.
Graduation rates & second-generation outcomes: U.S. NCES ACGR; National Academies on integration trajectories.
Policy influence and elite power: Gilens & Page, Perspectives on Politics (2014).