Partisanship
Etymology
From “partisan,” via French from Italian dialect “partigiano,” “member of a faction,” from “parte,” “part,” from Latin “pars, partis.” A partisan is one who takes a part — a side — and partisanship is the disposition of the person who has committed to a side and views everything through it.
noun · /PAR-tih-zun-ship/
Strong, often unquestioning loyalty to a political party or side.
What it names
Use it when allegiance to a team starts driving judgment — support given because of whose side it is, not what it is.
Example
Partisanship ran so deep that voters approved of a policy or opposed it depending only on which party proposed it.
Related idea
Partisanship is loyalty to a side; polarization is the growing distance and hostility between the sides. Partisanship is old and, in moderation, ordinary; it curdles into polarization when the sides stop seeing each other as legitimate opponents and start seeing enemies.
See also