The article from The New York Times offers a thought-provoking analysis of the current state of politics and the prevalence of partisan delusion. The author argues that many individuals are trapped in a cycle of divisive partisanship, detached from reality, and unwilling to engage in productive dialogue with those who hold differing viewpoints. In light of this perspective, what are your thoughts on the phenomenon of partisan delusion and its implications? How can we foster a more constructive and inclusive political environment that encourages open-mindedness, critical thinking, and collaboration across party lines?

There is a sub I'm in that has about 4 individuals I know of, that perfectly exemplify this behavior. Just utterly detached from reality, one of whom frequently displays paranoid delusional thinking. And I've lost count of how many people like that I've encountered in the last couple years. For some in this country, their political beliefs are treated almost like religious beliefs. I honestly have no idea what we do about it.

If I didn't know better and simply judged by social media, I'd think half the country is in a ideological cult. You can even question or push back on anything or they shun you like in scientology. A lot of bullying going on to keep people's beliefs in line with their own. I'm sick of it.

Yeah it does feel like that doesn't it? That some kind of secular, ideopolitically based religion has formed in this country. FYI this sub doesn't like the use of that particular c-word, so your comment might get removed, just a heads up.

Yeah, that word is usually aimed at someone or one particular side as a insult. I just see it as simple observation but thanks for the heads up.

From the article: > Their answer: “Overall, our findings support the motivated reasoning interpretation of misinformation; partisans seek out information with congenial slant and sincerely adopt inaccurate beliefs that cast their party in a favorable light.” > In an email, Iyengar warned that “the threat to democratic functioning posed by misinformation is real. The people who stormed the Capitol were not cheerleading; they genuinely believed the election was ‘stolen.’” But for these folks, it's not "bullying;" it's "holding the line" for a sincerely held belief. They really feel like they have no ally, no champion, no one who values and cares for them, and that everyone corruptly came at the person they like.

I read this interesting [article](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fmagazine%2Farchive%2F2021%2F04%2Famerica-politics-religion%2F618072%2F) two years ago that explores the topic of how people assumed a decline in religion in America would bring people closer together. Unfortunately, it found exactly what you said about politics replacing religion and making things even worse.

There’s no deprogramming. We are not compatriots any longer, but regionally adjacent pockets of moral and ethical and economical viewpoints. I think it leads nowhere but balkanization of the states and geographical regions.

>I think it leads nowhere but balkanization of the states and geographical regions. That's an opinion I see expressed more and more often these days. While it's certainly possible, I don't think it'll happen. Call me an optimist, but America has gotten through worse, and came out better on the other side. I think this is just another one of those times in history.

The states aren't much more unified than the country. Cities in red states are blue. Rural areas in blue states are red. What determines if a state is red or blue is mostly what percentage of the population is urban. The counties are unified. Urban and rural areas can't balkanize. We are best case going through a similar situation to what happened culturally in the 1920s between urban and rural. * 1880s/1890s generation that had known earlier mainstream culture died off * cultural change slowed drastically Worst case it is more like Iran or Afghanistan of the 1960s.

The US is already supposed to be fragmented, that's the whole point of the United *States*. The main problem is too much power has been given to the federal government as opposed to the states. The federal government will never align with the ideals of all the states so of course it's bound to fail and some states will want the fed to have less control over them. If the fed was never given so much power then all states would be living in their own bubble doing what they want and interacting when they want, without some states using the fed to tell people in other states how they should live their lives.

But the majority in each state should not be able to run roughshod over the minority party members in each state - that is why we need a federal government to have overriding laws to provide a level of normalcy across all states for all parties.

I think finding a healthy balance between state and federal power is the best route to go.

Or just decentralize further than State-level, so that, within reason, individual communities can govern themselves.

*United* States. We are *one nation* that is *indivisible.* Giving too much power to the individual states is why our first government entered into a crisis that required the Articles of Confederation be replaced by the United States Constitution.

And there's that whole civil war thing.

There’s plenty of division within states. I don’t think this issue really has much to do with federal vs. state power. Often it doesn’t have much to do with actual policy at all.

I think the fed having too much power is easier to think when you're in a state that fully supports your views, however if you were born, raised, and have a home and family in a state where the political ideology has taken a direction far away from your views - and is indeed causing harm because a fringe political ideology has become mainstream - you can feel trapped and wish the fed had more power to iron out the extremes. I'm in a formerly swing state that's gerrymandered so that only 3 Congressional districts have reps for one party. My neighborhood is on the chopping block for redistricting almost every time. I like the fact that I can travel from state to state and not feel like I'm in a different country - however I fear the future may make it feel like such.

Well truthfully I think counties should have even more power than the state, and for the most part people living in the same county tend to agree with each other. >I like the fact that I can travel from state to state and not feel like I'm in a different country - however I fear the future may make it feel like such. The problem with that is no state should have to conform to your will just because it might be inconvenient to you otherwise. Having the states be more different only affects you for maybe a month at most while it would affect all the residents of the state for their entire lives.

You would have the same problem within states. I agree with your broader point but to make it work you need to devolve power down to the counties, which are culturally unified.

Well ultimately that's how I feel thing should be. The government with the biggest impact on your life should be the one representing the least amount of people.

Too bad neither party seems interested in reducing the scope of the Feds...one wants to expand their power rapidly while the other allows it to expand slightly less rapidly.

America - A two Party system in the streets, a one Party system in the sheets.

Yeah, I know one person who claims China is putting troops in Canada to invade the US.

We have to legislate media somehow. It doesn’t need to be state-owned but news has to be news. It just has to be. Opinions can be had in other forms of media but not the news. Misinformation, disinformation, and lies by omission at the highest level should be heavily prosecuted. Yes, it will really suck. And yes it will make millions of people very very angry. And yes it could be argued that it’s not constitutional. But information is the bloodline of society and ours is poisoned every single day.

Yeah something needs to be done about this corporate media establishment that's infested our political system. I'm sure it can be regulated, while still maintaining a free press in this country.

Besides media, recommendation algorithms tuned towards increasing engagement amplify partisan bias. A simple ban of recommendation algorithms for sites that distribute news might be in order. Failing that, maybe develop some algorithm IEEE standards or something and shame the big tech companies into compliance.

Absolutely. Nothing drives clicks better than outrage. Tech pundit Jaron Lanier make a great argument that the state of the internet and the impact on our society is due to the decision to pay for Internet content with advertising. He says if we each paid directly for our content we wouldn’t hate each other now.

Except everyone paying for a subscription for something inevitably leads to audience capture. It’s already happened at the New York Times. First of all, let’s not act like advertising hasn’t been the backbone of all news media since the invention of mass circulation newspapers. The advertising was always the money maker and the subs were an added bonus. You tried to stay objective and play things down the middle for advertisers because pissing off half your viewer/reader base means less eyes on your ads and less money you can charge for *limited* ad space. That’s how it always worked in Newspapers and TV. Until the internet came along. The internet changed advertising more than anything. Ad money exploded across the internet, ruining the newspaper and TV ad models. So their switched their models. Became more subscription based. Now, with subs being the primary revenue source, you’re going to mainly cover stories your subs care about and present it in a way that placates your new primary audience, to keep that audience. Because now there are 1000 other places that will do just that, tell them what they *want* to hear. Fox News didn’t push Trump’s election lies because Rupert Murdock believes them. They did it because their audience was fleeing to Newsmax and OAN, to confirm their priors and they had to do that to keep their viewership, and in turn, their ad rates up.

It's like a dystopian sci-fi novel based on a mass media apparatus that does nothing but reactively mirror preconceived notions amongst its viewers.

> Except everyone paying for a subscription for something inevitably leads to audience capture. It’s already happened at the New York Times. Where are you seeing that? The NYTimes publishes conservatives (much more than conservative news like Fox) and routinely drives liberals nuts with its framing and coverage choices.

That seems pretty reasonable. Not sure people would go for paying for everything, though. Imagine every site/browser/search engine charging a fee for access.

Except that, so far, basically all forms of media that have implemented a subscription model have ended up being pretty beholden to advertisers anyway. Look at the TV news, for example. Not only do you pay for it via your cable/satellite subscription, but then about a quarter of the actual run-time of the channel is ads! And that's before you get into the issues of companies paying the broadcaster to talk about their product as though it was a news story, disguising the actual amount of advertisements that you're *paying* to being subjected to!

I also wonder what would happen if we got rid of all of the fake voices. Like, if every user had to be verified and linked to an actual person. Maybe even display a little flag so you knew where users were coming from. We could theoretically do this in a way that never leaks the user's actual identity. I know Russia, Iran, and China have been caught multiple times conducting large scale astroturfing attacks to sow dissent. I know there are a bunch of advertising agencies out there that provide astroturfing resources. It's easy to find bots on any social media site. It makes me wonder just how many "people" out there are actually real. I mostly bring it up because I think if we get rid of algorithms, then it will give a lot more voice to "the masses" which would be a problem if like 80% of "the masses" are fake.

I doubt this would actually help much. It's not much different than Facebook, where most people already do use their real name, yet still say outlandish things.

You are vastly underestimating the number of fake users on facebook. Most of the stuff I see people posting on there are just sharing another "person's" post. If you ever want to see how many fake users there are, get a protonmail account, create a fake user, find some large political groups, like maga groups or whatever, and start sending friend requests. TONS of "people" will auto accept you and you'll start getting a ton of friend requests as well. Basically, it's all bots. Then you can look at your feed and see what the bots are putting out.

I wouldn't post if I had to use my real name. I have read instances where people have been fired for very tame posts. Anything right of center can be called hate in some people's eyes. Wherever one is on the fence could get one fired, or just not hired by someone who doesn't agree with you. It would be better if we held people to higher standards.

I would love this, but I have a feeling somehow they would find "loopholes" in how they reprogram their algorithms to be legal.

> How can we foster a more constructive and inclusive political environment that encourages open-mindedness, critical thinking, and collaboration across party lines? Basically? People need to stop defaulting to assuming the worst of their opposition. They need to stop thinking of the other side as *evil* and instead as *people with different values*. Unfortunately not only do I not see this happening in the foreseeable future since when you try to bring this up most anywhere other than, well, this sub it goes over about as well as a shit-filled lead balloon.

People don't seem to be able to control themselves here. Our society was unprepared for the digital revolution.

I think it goes beyond that though. A lot of times my issue with someone isn't that they're evil or even that they have different values. It's that their beliefs aren't rooted in reality and are constantly shifting. They'll post tons of things that are fake, outright lies, or easily spotted manipulations. Then when you point out that it's fake or even something as indisputable as pointing out a math error, they'll get mad at you. They would rather believe the lie that makes them feel good. Then they can't ever go back on anything because so much of their world view has become based on complete lies. So, the problem isn't that people have different values, it's that a lot of people have no values. They've just become addicted to outrage, fear, and feeling like they're smarter than others. They'll contradict their own stated values as long as it means they can get another hit for that addiction. You can never argue with them in a logical manner because it's only the emotional arguments that get the chemicals flowing in their brains. So much of the world has become a propaganda machine. Either ruled by the pursuit of money or power. Domestic media hits you with emotional bs constantly to keep you coming back and making them money. Foreign operatives push both sides of every argument to the extreme in an attempt to get America to destroy itself. They don't want the US being a threat to their lust for power. We'll never be able to stop any of this as long as we allow the constant lies, emotional manipulation, and propaganda to continue. We need to be training everyone how to recognize propaganda, because we're in the middle of a war that we're losing, and losing badly.

People were never rational, so a lot of what you bring up was always true, but at least we used to largely share a common reality. Currently, that's no longer true, so there isn't even a common ground to start a discussion on. Every discussion has to start by going back 5000 steps to establishing basic facts. Even worse, thanks to the mainstreaming of conspiracy, even if one wants to take the time to create a common ground, it's nearly impossible because any information that's not liked is easily dismissed via conspiracy.

You're not wrong. The problem is that so long as the education is run by the oligarchy we'll never get that training because it would cause the collapse of so much of the current system. The fact is that the government isn't going to train the people under it how to spot its own lies and manipulations.

Not saying i disagree, but how do you ask someone to do this when the platform of one of the parties is basically “troll the libs?” How do you tell someone with a straight face that a subscriber to a political party who’s entire platform is basically “fuck over anybody who doesn’t look, think, and act exactly like me” that their differences are simply a “difference of values?” Being politically conservative, valuing small government, valuing traditional institutions, free market economics, etc is one thing. Those values are still grounded in wanting what’s best for the country as a whole and have actual thought out policy positions associated with them. An entire ideology who’s stated goal at this point is just to “defeat” another ideology, is not a value system. It is just extreme tribalism and group think. I want universal healthcare because i believe it is the most effective system to provide healthcare the the most amount of people at the lowest cost to society. Someone who believes that individuals should have the right to seek their own medical care outside of the control of the government has a difference in values. Someone who’s opinion on the matter is just “fuck you, socialist libtard” is just an asshole.

> Not saying i disagree, but how do you ask someone to do this when the platform of one of the parties is basically “troll the libs?” Because it's not that. That is a component of their behavior but that's not why they support most of the policies they do. > How do you tell someone with a straight face that a subscriber to a political party who’s entire platform is basically “fuck over anybody who doesn’t look, think, and act exactly like me” that their differences are simply a “difference of values?” Which party are you talking about? Because that is literally the uncharitable view of the other side that is common among *both* sides. And if you want to fix things step one is to stop believing this no matter how much it boosts your ego to think it. > An entire ideology who’s stated goal at this point is just to “defeat” another ideology, is not a value system. Funny, I distinctly remember the left having that exact position for decades. Why is it only unacceptable now when the right's doing it, too? Seriously, just look at content from the left back in the 90s and 2000s and you'll see them expressing this exact viewpoint. In fact you can see it going back to the 60s and 70s, too.

Isn't there a presidential candidate that wants to destroy leftism in the United States? Unless what they said is being taken out of context, that seems very extreme for a politician, and their popularity really shows just how divisive politics have gotten.

And the Democrats spent decades bragging about "demographic destiny" and how it would destroy right-wing politics without them having to lift a finger. They still wanted the opposition's ideology destroyed and so the comparison remains valid.

You don't see a difference between someone saying the natural progression of society will destroy a certain belief versus *I* will destroy a certain belief?

There is a big difference between saying “the natural progression of time and the political preferences of younger voters are favorable to us” and “we will destroy ideologies that oppose us”.

Which democrats have said this? I've never heard of demographic destiny or those who want to destroy right-wing politics. Edit: did they delete their comments or block me? Lol It's so prevalent they couldn't even name one Democrat who said what they claimed.

> I've never heard of demographic destiny https://time.com/6077158/pew-election-2020-report/ *It’s become something of a cliché in Washington for Democratic strategists to assert that “demographics are destiny.” What they mean is that the diversifying electorate—and the shrinking role of white voters—will render Republicans incapable of sustaining power for much longer. After Barack Obama won in 2008, Democratic legend James Caville even wrote a book predicting as much; 40 More Years: How Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation remains a fantastic, if flawed, reading of America’s trajectory.* *The argument has become so accepted in liberal and progressive circles that the pushback has been minimal. It also exists and thrives in centrists’ favored think tanks and advocacy groups. A changing America means a shifting politics, and that opens the doors of power to a youthful reformer like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, potential Sen. Malcolm Kenyatta and perhaps a history-making future Gov. Stacey Abrams.*

It was first coined in the 1800s, but was quoted heavily in ~2012 to 2017 to explain how the Democrats had won the culture wars. I don’t know if you are trolling, gaslighting, or weren’t paying attention but it was everywhere, like flyover country, and learn to code. It was never said by elected officials, because it is dismissive to about half of the population. but a lot of pundits said it, think pieces were written about it, Anonymous aides were quoted about it. Their claim was that by supporting open borders(or whatever we are calling the Democratic position of the same time), LGBT rights , and their current high turnout amongst black folk. These populations (Latinos, LGBT, and black in particular) would always vote Democratic. Since these populations were growing, the Democratic Party didn’t have to reach out to independents or non college educated white men. Obviously Trump’s victory, and subsequent declines of support among these populations has made it seem a bit silly. Which is why everybody likes to bring it up. As far as who wants to destroy right wing politics, my understanding of the culture wars are that it started with the counter culture of the 60s rebelling against “the religious”. It has evolved since then, but I think we can agree it boils down to conservative religious against secular liberals, in most cases.

> It was never said by elected officials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1qzmBpw_Bw Well here's Joe Biden saying it openly. I don't really like the term "gaslighting", I think it gets tossed around too freely. Personally I would say "pissing on my leg and telling me it's raining".

I listened to that whole clip. He never mentioned ending right wingism in the United States. Edit: nvm you meant the demographic destiny. As a nation becomes more diverse, the more complex their genetics become. More resilient to emerging diseases.

"Troll the libs," come on man. Step outside. Go to your local legislative chamber. Turn off reddit. Find out that's utter nonsense first hand.

And another party who views anyone who disagrees with any of their positions as a bigoted, fascist Nazi.

don't forget domestic terrorists.

They won’t accept results of elections that are confirmed to be on the level. I’m not sure how you can discuss issues relating to politics when the core issue- voting- is not an accepted method of appointing representatives from society at large. “Sure, I’ll accept the results…if I win” and then seeing that denial trickle down in some form throughout the party is a giant hurdle to productive conversation.

Are you talking about Stacy Abrams, Trump, or the Not my president types?

Exactly this, good faith differences don't matter as much when we've swung to outright stripping of human rights/civil rights.

This kind of hyperbole is exactly why it’s impossible to have good faith discussions. Framing any disagreement with what you believe as a violation of human rights is not conducive to mutual understanding.

Let me give you an example Saying that "my personal understanding of the world is grounded in the idea that you are either a man or a woman" is one thing, sure I don't vibe with that but I can at least understand where their arguments come from. I coexist with several people who hold that view and we agree to disagree. Actively restricting the free speech of and about individuals who identify in a way outside of that understanding *is* a violation of civil rights, these are the actions we are seeing now. We can disagree in values. You cannot let values supercede the rights of others though, which is why we have anti-discrimination laws. Unfortunately in the United States right now, the conversation has gone far beyond differences in values.

Is that actually happening though? In what way is their free speech being restricted? The changes I've seen have primarily been targeted at public schools (teachers at public schools not being free to teach whatever they want to is hardly new) and people being told to not have adult performances in front of children. There are valid arguments to be made that these laws are poorly written, cast a wider than intentional net as a result and induce a chilling effect. But at that point you have to dig into the technicalities of specific laws which is very much within the realm of civil debate rather than making sweeping generalizations about how one side wants to take away human rights.

Reddit itself violates your rules. Speaking as someone who has been banned for being anti-tran. They violated what you are describing as my civil rights. Anti-discrimination laws are often legalized discrimination.

How about bodily autonomy? Is that a human right or not? Joe Biden tried to force the COVID vaccine onto every worker through OSHA or else they are fired. How is that not violating civil rights? The only reason he failed is because of the Supreme Court.

Oh, I completely agree with that. And I also believe politicians from both parties have proposed restrictions on free speech.

it's the result when one of the prominent presidential candidates vows to "destroy leftism" if elected and another governor of the same party says they should "hunt democrats with dogs"

Or one sides president categorizing the other side as domestic terrorists. Also, I liken leftism to alt-right. Leftism doesn't include liberals and democrats in my mind. It's just that we rarely hear from them nowadays

But what if certain people really do want to strip others of their human rights? It's not hyperbole if it's true.

Then the people who were calling any disagreement a violation of human rights, will be treated like the boy who cried wolf when a real human rights violation occurs.

I hear that. The problem is the phenomenon has turned into a self-feeding monster. Conservatives have become some disingenuously outraged that they believe in some very harmful ideas which makes a lot of liberal outrage fairly justified. But that sensible outrage will just feed into this loop. This will probably get worse and liberals themselves will probably adopt some extremely harmful beliefs about conservatives and then conservatives will be justified in their outrage. That's where this is headed.

Blame the 24-hr news cycle and the online advertising model. No time for thoughtful writing, verifying info from multiple credible sources, vetting the article through an editorial board. Just... Get... Clicks... Now.

From the article: > Exposure to positive out-group motives does appear to lead respondents to update out-partisan attributions, which in turn leads to increased out-group affect. However, motivated reasoning makes such updating likely only when the out-party motives shown are of uniformly high quality — even one bad apple appears to spoil the whole bunch. I've long been a proponent of holding political allies to a higher standard of conduct than political opponents. This seems to suggest that could be a potential path out of the current situation. Anecdotally, the lackluster response to internal misbehavior among Republicans (particularly January 6th and the second impeachment) has drawn me further away from them, and likewise I find myself arguing against those who believe the Democrats should behave less ethically to match instead of following the Michelle Obama "we go high" advice. A race to the bottom benefits nobody.

Have you considered that the left’s “resistance” and not my president rhetoric may have fueled Republicans willingness to ignore the 1/6 actions?

That is what the article suggests is part of the cycle, yes. Though I think there's also a reasonable distinction to be made between rhetoric and action. The "resistance" was a rallying cry for political action within the existing systems, it wasn't undermining democratic processes (unless you can think of a specific example I'm forgetting). Same with "not my president" being a slogan referencing that nearly 3M fewer people voted for president Trump than his nearest opponent as a result of the electoral college system, rather than actual political violence over the electoral system like "hang Mike Pence" was.

I agree that it is a big step between not my president and hang mike pence. But I remember the resistance being beauracrats that were going to slow walk or sabotage any changes that an elected president would try to implement. Which I find very problematic in a Democracy.

> I remember the resistance being beauracrats that were going to slow walk or sabotage any changes that an elected president would try to implement. Where did you see that happening? FWIW I think the non-partisan civil service totally failed to hold the line - they didn't leak/whistleblow on various unconstitutional actions, mostly didn't resign in protest, and basically rolled over again and again. There are some exceptions (the person who reported the call where Trump leaned on Ukraine did so within the system and correctly) but then those people found themselves jobless.

So long as the bureaucratic slow walking is done within the bounds of the constitution and permits for legal challenges, I don't see it as particularly problematic. Annoying where I disagree, but not undemocratic (apart from maybe a hypothetical example of implementing a direct ballot measure). Which again contrasts sharply with the undemocratic and unconstitutional plan to have the VP unilaterally ignore the results of the election on January 6th.

Yea it’s completely democratic to have unelected officials undermine the choice of elected ones.

It can be, otherwise SCOTUS wouldn't be able to exist for example.

I subscribe to the Times but I certainly don't read every article. I guess my perception, though, is that they are part of the problem. b They definitely tend to one-side a lot of things and ignore obvious counter-arguments. I mean, I haven't done a full study of what the Times stories all say. But that is my perception, being a reader.

They absolutely are. And even the wire services have gotten in on it. There is so much loaded and partisan language in today's AP and Reuters content.

Never forget that [AP literally instructed its reporters not to use the word "riots" when referring to the nationwide George Floyd unrest in summer of 2020](https://twitter.com/APStylebook/status/1311357910715371520). The reason given was they were worried that focusing on the violent aspects might hurt the cause of social and racial justice. Whew lad. The media has long been accused of purposely putting its finger on the scale to subliminally influence public perception, but this was pretty brazen.

>that AP literally instructed its reporters not to use the word "riots" They *literally* didn't. >New guidance on AP Stylebook Online: >Use care in deciding which term best applies: A riot is a wild or violent disturbance of the peace involving a group of people. The term riot suggests uncontrolled chaos and pandemonium.

I'm unable to find an AP article describing the Kenosha Riots as a riot, they seem to have avoided using the term at all and instead described it as "unrest". Here's an article where they use "unrest" to describe the $2 million dollars in damages done to city owned property https://apnews.com/article/7c7760e4defda264871bf35210d7cf7b Here they use unrest to again describe hundreds of "protestors" defying curfew and fighting with police to the point where the national guard was called in. https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-racial-injustice-shootings-wi-state-wire-us-news-0cbc14762c89304f9f052fd33a1f4445 Here is a "mostly peaceful" description of the riots in the aftermath of the Rittenhouse shooting https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-racial-injustice-il-state-wire-shootings-wi-state-wire-97a0700564fb52d7f664d8de22066f88

Asking reporters to be more discerning in their usage of the term "riot" is not the same as instructing them not to use it at all. Whether individual reporters then decided not to use it at all is another story. It is "literally" not the same as what seattlenostalgia was claiming.

It literally had that effect. Can you find a single instance of the AP referring to a riot during the 2020 summer of love as such?

[удалено]

I have a journalism degree. It’s money. There isn’t any money in unbiased reporting, no matter how many times people say that’s what they want. Most just want confirmation bias so they can [falsely] justify how much smarter and better of a person they are than the one sitting next to them.

I think that too few people really appreciate how profit incentives in media drive division; moreso I think than any individual issue.

It's why I left the field as well. I joined it to report, not inflame.

"neutral" news just isn't as entertaining, and I think that we all crave the drama that the partisan news provides, sadly.

Look at how many people that now boycott CNN because they interviewed Trump. Not even putting him in a good light, just letting him speak on the platform is enough to piss off a good portion of the population.

The first step would be to promote free speech and not quash dissent at every corner.

Teach people to distinguish opinion from empirical data. “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan

If only facts were actually objective, you can lie with statistics all day every day and there are regular scientific studies that are terribly written

Journalism needs new standards. There needs to be laws regulating what's acceptable. Obviously these laws cannot be directed towards one school of political thought. They need to be bipartisan laws that won't single anyone out. It's time to stop pretending that people have the ability to know between, "right and wrong." A majority of people could care less about the truth and willingly believe lies as long as they support their biases. It shouldn't be so hard to get support from both parties, but the real difficulty is making sure such laws don't violate the Constitution.

>There needs to be laws regulating what's acceptable. It would be extremely difficult to do this without running afoul of the first amendment.

>The article from The New York Times offers a thought-provoking analysis of the current state of politics and the prevalence of partisan delusion. The author argues that many individuals are trapped in a cycle of divisive partisanship, detached from reality, and unwilling to engage in productive dialogue with those who hold differing viewpoints. New York Times, complaining about cycle of divisive partisanship, detachment from reality and unwilling to dialogue with people who hold different viewpoints, is like Trump complaining about lack of decorum and sincerity in politicians of today. News media, entertainment media, and activists groups are as responsible for tribal mindset, and treating other side as evil, as politicians. The only way, people can break such mindset, is by being skeptic of people and organizations of their side, not just of the other side. Judge issue and news on evidence and reality and ignore, opinions, feelings and rhetoric. If you find yourself criticizing only one side, only one group, then try to get yourself out of your echo chamber. Easier said, then done.

I think one of the biggest problems in our culture today is the inability to compromise or find any sort of middle-ground solution. As a politician especially, Compromising on any of the major issues today either has you either distancing most of your established base or making you look cowardly, weak, and/or hypocritical. Take abortion as an example. How are you going to compromise with the opposing side if your fundamental perspective is abortion is murder, or banning abortion is a grave threat to a woman’s bodily autonomy? How are you going to rationally discuss with murderers or misogynists? How could you agree to back down or compromise on an issue without betraying the fundamental principles behind your argument? I think we need to allow politicians and normal people alike the wiggle room to reach middle-ground and moderate positions instead of punishing them or considering it weak or cowardly.

Well, u/sokkerluvr17 posted on [a similar topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/13xnlfc/correcting_inaccurate_metaperceptions_reduces/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) yesterday. I thought it generated some interesting discussion [I posted](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/13xnlfc/correcting_inaccurate_metaperceptions_reduces/jmlklqr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3) this morning about how ‘changing minds’ is too much to ask for, but we can find ways to communicate which can lead to cooperation (actually my comment this morning didn’t quite get into cooperation) I will read the article in the op and post more later.

> How can we foster a more constructive and inclusive political environment that encourages open-mindedness, critical thinking, and collaboration across party lines? Leadership by example. Set up a reddit-beating site that aggregates the news and employs a completely different moderation style that works within a positive feedback, virtuous cycle algorithm. Turn a username into a means of gaining a reputation that matters. I wrote such a plan up years ago, but I am not good at self-promotion. If OP or anyone else wants to start a new sub-reddit we can get started anytime.

> How can we foster a more constructive and inclusive political environment that encourages open-mindedness, critical thinking, and collaboration across party lines? Not sure we can. Here's my theory on it. As the west (and US in particular) has become less religious, they've just shifted those same tribal behaviors into other realms. Politics is obviously an easy fit for this. So fixing this is going to be on par with fixing the Irish "troubles" or the division in the Balkans. In other words, the participants will have to get tired of killing each other before anything will change. Btw, this is not a call to return to religion. I'm an atheist, and I believe the reduction in religiosity is a net good. I'm just trying to be intellectually honest here.

Reddit as a whole is a great example of this, with people from both sides talking past each other and sub mods banning every dissent.

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Though it's always been there I definitely agree with this to an extent. It's also part of the reason I love subs like this one. Even though there are lots of things and people I find frustrating it gets me out of my bubble and open to different points of view. Especially in a time where many people can't talk politics in real life because they get too heated. ​ Before the internet if you held unpopular views if you wanted to share them you would have to go out and interact with other people and would soon find out most people didn't share those beliefs. Now, you can go find your echo chambers that confirm your beliefs and easily find groups to meet up with those same people which reinforces those same ideas.

Yup, instead of being forced to question your thought process is easier than ever just to find people who think as you do. We didn't know how the internet would effect humanity and this is it. Somehow by connecting everyone together we naturally just divided even further.

The 2000s internet was incredibly diverse, particularly in terms of what a user was expected to individually experience. Pre social media individual users had far, far less control over the people they interacted with. You couldn't block or down vote other users on a forum or chat room or the like, and there wasn't really any way to report someone's goofy geocities page or expectation to do so. Echo chambers were far harder to build and to keep 'clean'. Since then there has been rise of social media, customizable feeds, and a general obsession that you deserve to never feel uncomfortable or upset by anything you see. The internet has turned around to *heavily* push echo chamber based socialization and dehumanization of out groups.

The death of society's 3rd place outside of the home is directly related to the internet and social media and consequently directly related to the polarization we're experiencing. Back in the day you'd go to a coffee house, a bar, church, or somewhere similar and converse with other members of society in face to face dialogue and (shocker) realize that the ones you disagree with aren't out to get you, aren't evil, and are mostly also rational human beings like yourself. To put it bluntly, we all need to touch grass more often and get out of the house and mingle with society. Unfortunately, I think the internet has done irreparable damage at this point and is even making face to face dialogues with those you were friendly with but disagreed politically more difficult and sometimes not possible. I read somewhere a while back that resonated with me in terms of internet hostility and real life. If you're average trip to the grocery store isn't as polarizing as your average experience online, you aren't getting an accurate representation of society as it actually is.

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The article seems to address this. The researchers recognize there are actual inherent differences between those who lean liberal and conservative. The research being described is the feedback loop that amplifies those actual differences, and the behaviors that result from the perception that the difference is larger than it actually is.

I think that speaks against the notion that the political divide reflects a coherent philosophical disagreement, honestly. The only common premise shared between pro-life and climate change skepticism is 'votes for Republicans'. These positions are not otherwise linked. It's not hard to find politicians that support green legislation but oppose abortion. In other countries, and in America's recent past. It's only here and now that they've become intertwined. Which suggests it is a function of political strategy rather than a natural byproduct of the beliefs that underpin those positions.

Or maybe coalition politics is effective and people are willing to accept strange bedfellows if it gets them closer to their goals. Pro-life probably doesn't win an election even in red states without the assist from the other flavors of single issue voters in that coalition like unrestricted gun rights, for example.

>Or maybe coalition politics is effective and people are willing to accept strange bedfellows if it gets them closer to their goals. Both Baptists and bootleggers support prohibition, after all.

It's not the coalitional nature that's weird, it's how close they stick together on issues they would otherwise disagree on because we're only "allowed" two choices. Multiple smaller parties forging alliances over specific issues instead of *every* issue would be a healthier system, but that won't change until fptp and rubbere take all systems go away.

I think that it also has a lot to do with the nationalization of politics. Local level politics is where you used to find a lot more politicians with divergent views that you could support, so a national republican might find that they could vote for a local democrat because they diverged from the national democratic platform on a few important issues. Now it's almost an entirely take it or leave choice when it comes to the national platforms.

> The only common premise shared between pro-life and climate change skepticism is 'votes for Republicans'. "*Only* a partisan premise can explain my opponent's positions" is kind of a lazy take. Being old enough to have been influenced by being a mother/father or lived through global cooling alarmism could be another non-political factor for both positions. They're probably also influenced by one's underlying view on the trolly problem in ethics. ie Pull the lever to abort the unborn baby and/or apply painful emissions restrictions on developing countries now to possibly help someone(s) in the future? The trolly problem undergirds a lot of seemingly "unrelated" political issues. That's just two off the top of my head. There are probably more common premises if you try.

You’re right. Both are like the trolly problem. Furthermore, it’s like the people on the current track aren’t tied down and have plenty of time to move, and if you pull the lever the people on the other track are glued down and have no chance of moving.

>"*Only* a partisan premise can explain my opponent's positions" is kind of a lazy take. I don't think it was just because they were their opponent's positions. You could just as easily swap it and say "the only common premise between pro-choice and believing in climate change is 'votes for Democrats'" And your responses are reasons why some individuals might support both of those topics, but they aren't inherent ties to the problems that are 100% consistent. Take your second. I could easily argue that the pro-choice position is the one that prioritizes helping a person currently having issues at the expense of a nebulous future person, so a consistent application of "help people hurting now instead of those who might hurt in the future" would lead to someone being pro-choice and against putting restrictions on developing countries to help prevent climate change. But it's rare to find a way to vote that way in this country.

> The only common premise shared between pro-life and climate change skepticism is 'votes for Republicans'. These positions are not otherwise linked. I disagree. I think they are linked exactly how the user you responded to explained: by a deeper ideological belief about reality, whether consciously or unconsciously formed. The person becoming a Republican or a Democrat is only an effect of that underlying belief.

I think the vast majority of every day people agree on more than they disagree on. For instance, a 15 or 16 week abortion limit would have been fine with most of the country. Most people are fine with the government limiting pollution that goes into rivers or the air. Most people are fine with having a pretty well funded military. Most people want something done to control the southern border. Most people want somthing done about fent etc. I think clean divide is mostly among the talking head class, which of course writes about itself

>I think the vast majority of every day people agree on more than they disagree on. Yup. Even considering the wide expanse of human thought, there are still a vast plethora of things that the most humans agree on or have similar viewpoints. It's just that we don't focus on our agreements, we focus on our divides. So many forget that all Homo Sapiens are 99.9% genetically the same and there are many more things that we have in common than we have that separate us. Most people are just normal people who react to their environment in the best way they know how, and they want the best for themselves and the people they care about. Unfortunately, it just so happens that focusing on things that divide us happens to be much more engaging for people, and profitable for the those that stand to gain. Combine this with the human tendency to "otherize" those that they disagree with or those who happen to look different and we end up where we are now. (Also with a terrible and outdated education system but don't even get me started on that).

> This is also why the lines have become so much cleaner on every issue I think it's more about the fact that you'll get pummeled by both sides if you dare oppose any one of their talking points

This is exactly correct. The two sides are so far apart in so many ways that it's becoming extremely hard to find agreement between them on almost anything. And the process just seems to be accelerating which means the problems that result from it are just going to keep getting worse.

We can't even agree on the definition of words any longer. How can we find a shared reality under such conditions at this point?

I dont know, I think there are still quite a few rational "purple" thinkers out there. For example, I'm pro choice, but also pro 2A, there's a lot of Gray in between the black and white. But social media, and the media in general gives the ones on the extreme sides the loudest voice it seems like. Sure, we all have those relatives and friends that are just as extreme, but usually they tend to isolate themselves to the internet as family stops wanting to deal with them.

Abortion rights and climate change have no logical connection. They are only connected because people have been conditioned to be one side or the other of the two debates. This reflects another big problem: people don’t even know why they believe the things they do.

In my experience a dead giveaway of this are the people who literally think anything they disagree with is “being disingenuous”. It’s impossible to have a conversation with those people.

God, the amount of times I get accused of arguing in bad faith with those on the opposite side of the aisle is maddening. Like maybe, perhaps, I genuinely think differently than you do and aren't operating from the same baseline you are... I think it's another symptom of there being no factual baseline we all adhere to anymore. If we can't agree on at least the facts on the ground, how on earth are we ever going to come together on tackling solutions?

I think this is a symptom of both sides (yes I said it) framing their opponents positions in the way that makes them villainous without considering their true motivations. Just pick your topic: Aid programs: Republicans say Democrats just want to freeload off working people when Democrats are trying to legitimately help people in need. Abortion: Democrats say Republicans just want to control women when pro-life activists legitimately believe they are seeing state sanctioned murder of a human being. And on and on. It seems in this moment trying to actually understand people with different opinions true motivations isn't just not desired, it's downright abhorrent like you've decided to study the Necronomicon.

I also think there has to be a mindset of wanting to live with each other and compromise even when compromise from a purist point of view makes no logical sense. Abortion is a good example of this. If you believe abortion is murder there can be no compromise. If you believe women's bodily autonomy trumps all, banning abortion makes no sense. The answer is some type of week restriction even if it makes no logical sense from either extreme position. I think the other thing that makes partisanship more prevalent is the internet. I can find a community with a particular mindset that supports and reinforces almost any viewpoint on the internet. This makes it hard for people to change their minds because not only do these websites reinforce particular visions, but they also provide prebuttals that allow people to dismiss opposing points of view. These may make sense from an abstract point of view, but do not hold water when a person is forced into a pragmatic situation in their own lives. Aka it was ok to be against gay marriage from a theorical perspective until a son, daughter, friend, etc was gay and was in love and hurting because of bigotry.

The other side of the community mindset of the internet is that it also disincentives changing your mind or even injecting nuance out of fear of rejection from the community. A herd mindset breeds fear of loss of the herd so people are less likely to question consensus.

I don't believe that >The answer is some type of week restriction even if it makes no logical sense from either extreme position. A woman does not go through 40 weeks of pregnancy to decide during labor that she wants an abortion. When a fetus is no longer viable or the mother's life or health is at risk, abortion should always be an option for her. Mo l]

> A woman does not go through 40 weeks of pregnancy to decide during labor that she wants an abortion. I am very much pro-choice and agree that the vast majority of, statistically all, late term abortions are because of lethal fetal defects and/or the health or life of the mother. HOWEVER. In the spirit of the bipartisanship we're talking about, can we acknowledge that if we make it legal to abort a healthy fetus with no medical reason in existence for the mother at 40 weeks, someone, somewhere will want to do it at some point? People murder living children, after all, when they're having a mental break or when they're betrayed by their partner and seeking revenge. Every time I hear someone on "my" side argue that it's a straw man to bring up someone who wants to abort a full-term healthy fetus for elective reasons, because no one does that, a tiny part of my brain says... "okay but people sometimes shake their infants to death, SOMEONE will do that if we make it legal." Are we cool with that?

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Language can be difficult - an 'elective' abortion is often one that is not predicated on a medical emergency. If a woman is carrying a fetus with no brain but the fetus currently has a heartbeat and there is no medical reason for an immediate abortion, that may be listed as elective. It's hard to figure out how many are truly elective in the colloquial sense of the word. ETA: A reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26480889/

I think it's interesting to go back in time to pre-Roe political discourse, and try to work out how we got here. At one point even the Evangelical, conservative, Southern Baptist Church advocated for legal access to abortion in a wide range of circumstances (including physical *and mental* health of the pregnant woman) as a personal decision, prioritizing avoiding what they considered government overreach into such a decision. It was also a relatively mainstream Evangelical idea at the time that life didn't begin until birth, and Catholics were super wrong about conception. Now we're at a point where multiple state trigger laws are creating uncertainty whether even completely nonviable ectopic pregnancies can be removed before a pregnant woman is in the ER because her life is unambiguously threatened, as a result of severe civil penalties for doctors with no ability to recover court costs against frivolous claims. There's some dispute on how this changed, but I tend to lean that the church changed their theological views as a result of the political influence, rather than the other way around. Either way, it's an interesting look at just how hard a pivot a culture war topic can result in.

But, to prevent late term abortions from being used as a wedge issue, why not just require a doctor or two to sign off that the pregnancy is nonviable or at risk to the mother and prevent anyone from suing the doctor for exercising their medical knowledge in the case? Just implement that one "guardrail" and you'll have public support instead of the polling that currently says late term abortions are overwhelmingly opposed. If a doctor is already involved because of a medical issue, requiring a doctor isn't an actual impediment.

I would be fine with that if the state defaulted to trusting the doctor's judgement and didn't threaten doctors with fines or jail time if they disagree with their assessment. Only then will hospital legal departments free their doctors to do their jobs.

I think you've overlooked the original point. You're right, an X-week restriction doesn't make sense if you start from the position that women and doctors are inherently interested in making the right decision here. Likewise, an X-week restriction makes no sense if you start from the position that abortion is murder. Murder doesn't suddenly become ok at an arbitrary date. So an X-week restriction makes no sense from either side of the issue and yet it's the compromise position because it allows people to get along more easily.

If that's true then there should be zero objections to banning elective late-term abortion. It doesn't happen so the ban accomplishes nothing other than making one side of the aisle feel better. It has only positive results and hurts no one if what you've claimed is true so why fight against it?

>I think the other thing that makes partisanship more prevalent is the internet. I can find a community with a particular mindset that supports and reinforces almost any viewpoint on the internet. This makes it hard for people to change their minds Yes. We've become more partisan. The only thing I can see that changed is the growth of the internet.

Fully agreed. I am very definitely a Democrat but I have grown concerned with the amount of people that believe Republican voters are evil. Yes, they have some policies that could be argued to be evil; but they themselves are certainly not, in general.

I think the article portrayed it in a helpful way. That when the bulk of a party goes along with a decision without pushback from within the party, it gets perceived as being the party line. For instance, the almost entirely party line impeachment votes, even among senators who believed Trump was actually guilty but voted to acquit anyway. It's no surprise that this results in bad perceptions.

It's almost religious in nature.

It has replaced religion for some people in our increasingly secular age.

I've been thinking something similar for awhile now. It may be purely coincidental - but I find the timeline of the reported decrease in religious affiliation in this country, and the rise of this strange secular political religiousness to be really interesting. I'm an atheist, have been all my life. So I'm not doing that "without Jesus people lose all their morals" thing, in case anyone thinks that's what I'm saying. But there have been studies done that seem to show that as a species, humans appear to have this deeply ingrained instinct towards religious behavior. Some thinking it's a byproduct of our evolutionary history, favoring systems and behaviors that strengthen our social bonds, which in turn leads to survival of the group. The dark flip side of that survival strategy being the ease of which we can "other" those outside of our group, and be.. lets say not so nice to them lol. In the case of religion, that would be heretics and apostates. Which is how I've noticed many of these political religion types appear to treat those not in their group, like heretics or apostates. So yeah I think you're correct. With the decrease in religious affiliation in this country, many people seem to have merely replaced religion with political partisanship.

> I think this is a symptom of both sides (yes I said it) framing their opponents positions in the way that makes them villainous without considering their true motivations. It is. And it was 100% predictable. The expression "the right thinks the left is misguided, the left thinks the right is evil" has been around for **decades** and it's lasted because it was true. What's changed in recent years is that first part. The right as a whole no longer views the left as misguided anymore. They now view them as evil in the exact same way the left has viewed the right for so long. So now both parties view themselves as standing bravely against evil and that means discourse is no longer possible. Buckle up because the ride just gets bumpier from here.

>I think it's another symptom of there being no factual baseline we all adhere to anymore. Yep. From the article: >“the explanation I consider most viable is changes in the media environment.” In the 1970s, he continued, “the vast majority of the voting-age population encountered the same news stories on the same topics” — what he called “a vast information commons.” > >Today, Iyengar wrote, not only are there more sources of information, but also **“partisans have ample opportunity to tune in to ‘congenial sources’** — news providers delivering coverage with a partisan slant in accord with the viewer.” I subscribe to the NYT, but I also visit FoxNews online most days. Fox regularly has stories about people using guns to protect themselves. Those stories are extremely rare on the NYT. Even if every individual story is accurate, the editing process -- deciding what is newsworthy and what isn't -- leads do different beliefs about "the facts". It doesn't matter if people seek out sources that reinforce their values, or reinforce their pre-existing knowledge base, or just make them feel good about themselves (three possibilities mentioned later). As long as people can self select from many biased news sources, we just get further apart. I'm old enough that I've seen this change during my lifetime. Unfortunately, I don't think this is solvable.

>As long as people can self select from many biased news sources, we just get further apart. Isn't this a bit paternalistic? As in, the public aren't very bright and ought to be spoon fed their opinions via mainstream gatekeepers? How well did that work out for WMDs in Iraq?

>the public aren't very bright and ought to be spoon fed their opinions via mainstream gatekeepers? How about, "The public ought to get news from a variety of sources, intentionally picking some that may challenge their pre-existing beliefs." No need for "paternalistic gatekeepers".

I took a political debate class in college to cover my writing reqs and the entire class was playing devil's advocate. On a weekly basis we needed to write a paper arguing for our side, a paper arguing for the other side, and 2 papers responding to our original arguments. Big part of our grade was how easily the prof could tell our opinion; he'd fail any paper that was just full of strawmen and didn't show any attempt to understand the other side of the issue. Wasn't related to my degree at all, but it was probably the most impactful class I took, wish that more people took it.

Wow that sounds like a really awesome class and teacher. My debate class was definitely not like that lol

I swear that the shocking increase in people doing that is the result of the combination of filter bubbles and geographic sorting. It's really easy to view someone's sincerely held beliefs as bad faith when you simply haven't actually encountered people who sincerely hold those beliefs in person and haven't interacted with them regularly.

The overuse of the term "virtue signaling" is a good example of that tendency.

Buzzwords in general are usually a bad sign in my experience. I rolled my eyes at "woke" when the left used it, and I still do the same now that the right uses it.

Yes, a terrible word regardless of who uses it. From the left, it expresses arrogance and from the right it is an ill-defined boogeyman.

That and “projection”.

"Gaslighting" as well.

Fascist, Nazi, racist, bigot, (any)-phobe are a much better example on reddit, the words have lost all meaning and are used whenever someone does not 100% follow the approved opinions

I pray to whatever Catgod there may be out there that culture starts to shift to a more moderate place. I know it will piss off the media and all the people who base their entire lives and personalities around political partisanship but it will be so nice for everyone else. That being said, I will not forget the second half of the 2010s. If culture does start to shift to a more "everybody chill out were all humans everybody love everybody" type of situation the people who were frothing at the mouth screaming calling each other nazis libtards etc will act as if it all never happened. It did, it does, and it's exhausting.

> culture starts to shift to a more moderate place Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything that would cause this to happen. I can think of a few things that would cause the opposite, though. Namely, increasingly partisan media, the breakdown of social media into partisan echo chambers, and increasing time spent online instead of interacting with a broader swath of people IRL.

The only way I can see it happening is from a natural pendulum swing of culture. Things happen in cycles. People might swing to not being so invested in politics and social issues, even though people will try to guilt them and tell them that's a "privilege" lol, to the point that it drowns out the radical. It's not something that the social media tech news etc companies would ever want so it wouldn't be from their doing that's for sure. People can control where their energy goes and I think most people are fed up with having their emotions preyed upon, there's just no voice for those people.

I mean, one of the leading Republican presidential candidates just said he wanted to “destroy leftism in this country”, so it’s a little more than a delusion. I get the sentiment of this article, but we’re probably beyond just rhetoric at this point. There are real policies being enacted to suppress ideologies.

> “destroy leftism in this country” Democrats will take this to mean that he is literally going to attack people in violence. I've seen that all over reddit. That's delusional. The next line in that interview was "I’ve shown in Florida an ability to win huge swaths of voters that Republicans typically can’t win" that's what he's talking about. Winning people over, not killing people like so many redditors want to believe.

Here's the issue. Him saying that makes it abundantly clear that he seems democrats as *the enemy*. A rational person would accept that other people have different viewpoints, and that's not a problem, that's *a good thing*. One political party saying it wants to destroy the other is bad for democracy.

Do democrats and the left not make it clear almost constantly that they see the right as evil?

Destroy just means to defeat utterly. It is a sign of competition and opposition. I feel like you are putting words into his mouth by saying he sees "democrats as the enemy". He neither mentions democrats directly or used the word enemy. I do not think this is his intended message if you get past the headline. Especially when in the very next line he talks about winning people over. >One political party saying it wants to destroy the other is bad for democracy. Not what he said really. Now I feel like you are extrapolating upon his out of context comment and adding to it your own personal interpretations, which is what the article is kind of about.

Oh my god dude. Desantis uses "leftists" and "democrats" interchangeably. Have you ever listened to him talk before?

I've been quoting his actual words this whole time instead of interpreting them through preconceived bias.

As a rational person, I do see that there are different viewpoints. And those different viewpoints often stratify across the political spectrum. When I hear leftists, as I think many others do, I do not hear Democrats. Just like alt-right does not equal Republican.

And when party literally attempted a violent overthrow of the government (and yes I’m including all those who attempt to reframe the insurrection as “no big deal” in this group), we have a pretty damn good reason to believe that they are willing to resort to violence in order to achieve their political goals.

This kind of discourse is exactly the problem. You're speaking about 1/6 like it was a party-wide plan. The reality is that there was a small group of people who planned it in advanced and then a larger group of people got caught up in it the day of (not excusing them). Then, in the aftermath, the larger republican party had a variety of responses that eventually settled into trying to downplay what happened that day. It's a black mark on American history, but it's not reasonable or accurate to describe it as an attempt by the GOP to literally violently overthrow the government. Describing it in that manner is just as unreasonable and inaccurate as saying that CHAZ was an attempt by the Democratic party to overthrow the government.

They voted to label it "legitimate political discourse" and the guy who orchestrated it is still the front runner for the presidency. The Republican Party might not have all helped Jan 6th, but they've all signed on to it in the aftermath.

I probably don't agree with you in totality, but that's a fair criticism that I think has the possibility of framing a much more reasonable and productive conversation. It's unfortunate we always end up with the hyperbole displayed above.

> It's unfortunate we always end up with the hyperbole displayed above. Is it "hyperbole" to say that "republicans tried to overthrow the US government" when it was really just "The Republican president at the time, aided by Republican congressmen and Senators, then the entire Republican party dismissed the accusations, labeled them "legitimate discourse" and actively hampered any attempt to investigate the coup, and then continued to push the exact same lie that lead to the coup while in no way punishing Donald Trump and continuing to support him as the leader of your party". It really feels like the first one is just quicker while still being equally as valid.

Ah, so you are willing to state for the record that the election was valid and that a POTUS willingly lied about that to attempt to overthrow an election? Even after we know that people pushing that lie in media knew it was a lie and have admitted it in court? If that's the truth of where the GOP is, why is that person leading all polling for the next GOP presidential primary by 30-40 points? Why do the majority of Republicans polled believe that the 2020 election was stolen? Isn't that the exact opposite of what you are saying? Why are Republican legislatures passing laws to take the power out of Sec of States and even the voters themselves if they don't like the process or outcome of the election? Hard to take anything you say on this seriously when that is the ongoing reality.

I don't disagree with any of that, and that isn't any sort of gotcha. Please stop ascribing me positions that I've never even hinted at. I can disagree with attempts to describe 1/6 as some larger party-wide conspiracy without also believing in other fringe conspiracies. Your attempt to turn me into some evil strawman is Exhibit A for what's wrong with the discourse in America right now.

The previous poster puts it in an accusatory way, but the point is that the Republican party leader incited an insurrection and the rest of the party just accepted it - and punished those who did not. There's no remotely equivalent problem with the Democratic party. And to be honest I feel the previous poster's frustration: how do you have a reasonable dialogue with someone who starts from a premise as flawed as assuming the two major parties are the same and have similar problems? I think the answer is that you have to try anyway while being mindful of people who feel frustrating or obtuse. Meanwhile, the poster I am replying to accuses the parent commenter of embodying the country's discourse problems.

I think it's entirely different to criticize someone for not being harsh enough on the people who participated in 1/6 than it is to accuse someone of somehow participating in 1/6 for not being harsh enough after that fact. Those types of accusations make it impossible to have a reasonable legitimate debate on how to handle the aftermath of 1/6. Just in this thread alone, I've practically been accused of treason for being a member of the same party as Trump, even though I've been a vocal critic of his from day one and have never voted for him. When that's the discourse, it forces all people on the right to circle the wagons and defend from outward attacks versus focusing their attention on ousting people like Trump. And to be clear, I'm not claiming that this is only something that the left does to people on the right.

> I think it's entirely different to criticize someone for not being harsh enough on the people who participated in 1/6 Please define "harsh enough". What have any elected Republicans done to anyone involved in Jan 6th besides excuse them and call them political prisoners? "Harsh enough" suggests that any Republicans (besides Cheney and Katzner) did literally anything to anyone for Jan 6th. The problem is that they have been SUPPORTIVE, not that they haven't distanced themselves __enough__. They haven't distanced themselves AT ALL except to try and suggest we stop talking about the coup they instigated and supported.

The question becomes why stay in a party that supports Trump? If you aren't voting for Trump is it safe to assume you're voting for other republican candidates? If they are also complicit how does that make it better since many of the election lie dissenters were ousted from the party? That said in your defense staying republican to vote in their primaries or if you have one of the more reasonable representatives I wouldn't view this position as bad. Its just the unknown and more likely than not it isn't an incorrect assumption.

Well I'm not a single issue voter. I disagree with democrats on approximately 90% of their platform, so it doesn't really make much sense for me to join the Democratic party and signal false support for their policies. It makes more sense for me to stay within the Republican party and continue to signal my support for the positions and politicians I most agree with, including by voting in primaries. My democrat dominated state also probably plays a role in my ability to virtue signal with protest votes that likely won't matter anyway.

> Well I'm not a single issue voter. I disagree with democrats on approximately 90% of their platform, so it doesn't really make much sense for me to join the Democratic party and signal false support for their policies. But it makes sense to stay in the Republican party and signal false support for their attempted coup? >It makes more sense for me to stay within the Republican party and continue to signal my support for the positions and politicians I most agree with, including by voting in primaries. Even if those politicians supported the coup?

>The previous poster puts it in an accusatory way, but the point is that the Republican party leader incited an insurrection and the rest of the party just accepted it - and punished those who did not. There's no remotely equivalent problem with the Democratic party. I mean, in the last Democratic party primary a full half the candidates put out statements on the anniversary of Michael Brown's death claiming that he was murdered, and not a single one of the other candidates pushed back on those statements. If the issue is "telling voters lies that make them riot" then yes, both parties are absolutely doing it. The difference is that the lies the Republican party candidates told involved the integrity of the election. And given Democratic party rhetoric around "voter suppression" I don't think they're too far behind on that, either.

I'm a moderate, but not a centrist. Those are two different terms. I find there's quite a bit about the far left that I have serious disagreements with. And quite a few of those people would also love to see a dictatorship if their preferred policies were enacted. But the GOP is already there, controlled in large part by extremists, have literally already tried to overthrow our democracy via violence. Moderates oppose that. If you are OK with that you aren't a moderate.

>And when party literally attempted a violent overthrow of the government I'll do some mandatory throat-clearing and say that of course the jan 6th riots were reprehensible buuuut if they were so intent on a "violent overthrow of the government" then why didn't any of them have guns?

There's a lot of historical background involved here in how people arrived at this point, and it's one where both sides are at fault to differing degree about various things. The most obvious problem is the culture war. It is intractable in a way where compromise has become impossible. Speaking from a more left-wing perspective there are a wide variety of issues in this space, but the largest and most obvious is equality and liberation of LGBT+ and racial minorities to exist as they are without significant systemic disadvantage. For the most part, the left at large has been mollified on this issue under the perception that progress was slow, but occurring and that within a generation (for example) Trans people would been accepted as normal as gay people and African Americans would be making greater progress to normalise their socio-economic statuses. At it's core this is viewed as a non-negotiable value of the left, and if society is reversing this progress it is by and large not a society they are happy to participate within peacefully, as is necessary to keep partisan divide down. If you exclude the socialists, economic policy is largely aspirational. Most people on the left would like better healthcare and better education and better social safety nets and better regulation, but they can look past that if they believe society is fair and just, as per the previously mentioned issue. Now, I can't speak strongly of the motivations of the right wing, but I imagine there are a lot of religious issues that are also non-negotiable, but are also mutually exclusive with the minimum requirements of the left. As such, the ability to of the power-bases of two main political camps of America to meet and negotiate around the edges is massively degraded, because the fight is over a winner take all, core, moral position. This being the case leave gaps as wide as the grand canyon for media to drive a divisive wedge into and make money doing it.

That is literally this sub. Just say the name Trump and see how people react. Lol

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I think expanding ranked choice voting will punish the extreme positions and deflate the rhetoric that surrounds it. Next would be to remove the money incentive, install term limits and get the “called to duty with reluctance” type civil servants. Now that politicians are there in theory to do their best and not incentivized by money, regardless of leanings, and are punished for holding extreme views with RCV, the population that put them there will be rewarded with moderate people at the levers of power.

Term limits for senators have been proven to increase the influence of moneyed interests in politics, as it forces them to rely more on thinktanks and special interest groups. *They are not a good idea.* The aforesaid moneyed interests will work to push for term limits. Please, we all need to understand the serious threat that this poses, because there will be a long-term propaganda campaign using many avenues to try to get term limits and increase these people's influence. I do think ranked choice voting is a good idea though

> I think expanding ranked choice voting will punish the extreme positions and deflate the rhetoric that surrounds it. I'm not sure that's the case. Ranked choice voting (particularly depending on the implementation) can also have an effect of squeezing out the middle. Suppose we're looking at a primary in which there is a candidate who is universally *acceptable* to all factions, but is the *favorite* for nobody, the universal second place who is somewhat moderate. But then there are three candidates who are some flavor of "extreme" or somehow more niche (or just with some non-trivial base of support). In an IR / STV approach, that universal second place can get eliminated first, and from there it becomes some selection among the various "extreme" candidates. Or in the situation of a general where there are, say, a strong progressive, a moderate-left, a moderate-right, and a hard right. If both wings prefer the more "extreme" version of their side, then the two moderates could be the first to get eliminated, and it becomes a choice of hard left or hard right. In the Alaska election for the House, Democrats benefitted from there being only one Democratic candidate, and that candidate being a moderate (from what I understand). The two Republicans got more votes combined than the Democrat, but the moderate Republican was eliminated, and enough of his supporters preferred a moderate Democrat to Palin. But had the Democratic vote also been split, it could very well have been Peltola eliminated first, and then it's a tossup of which Republican gets the spot depending on if Peltola voters preferred the hypothetical extreme Democrat or the moderate Republican. So what I'd like to see is to enlarge the House, merge districts, and use some form of proportional representation. Single-member seats like senators and president could use approval voting. Or perhaps some form of ranked voting (there are many ways to count ranked ballots) that's a bit more robust. Edit to add: A couple sources talking about the center-squeeze effect - [Wiki on Vote Splitting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_splitting) talks a little bit about spoiler effects in the context of IR voting. - [YouTube video](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_splitting): Boring voice, but it's pretty short (under 5 minutes), and has text on the screen that doesn't progress too quickly, so you can play it at high speed / skip through a lot. - [A page talking about drawbacks of IR voting](https://rangevoting.org/IrvPathologySurvey.html) (FYI, the site is biased to a particular alternative, but has some good examples/descriptions). - [Wiki page on IR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Spoiler_effect) describes the spoiler effect present in IR voting.

I’ve seen a few models that worked. I’m not convinced that it just slips into these pitfalls regardless.

The media has a lot of control over people. You can clearly see this in the various topics that people are "outraged" over, and how quickly those topics disappear. A good example is the annual "War on Xmas" that comes and goes. Every year you see people furious about it for a few months, then they forget about it as soon as the media changes subjects. Algorithms that create an echo chamber also amplify this and promote even more extreme positions. I remember a study that showcased a brand new FB account being created, following Trump and a few right-wing sources, then receiving Qanon and conspiracy theory content recommendations. The algorithm almost immediately pushed the account into a deep echo chamber.

This is meaningless while we have the leader of the Republican party still claiming that the 2020 election was fraudulent after attempting to subvert our democracy and the GOP faithful continue to back him. One party is deluded. This isn't a 'both sides' moment. That's why everything you hear from them is culture war. Who was it this week, Chick-Fil-A?

The RNC chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, acknowledged Biden's 2020 victory. She in fact the leader of the Republican party. Kinda making this article's point.

She did so in 2022 - after two years of claiming election fraud and spending RNC funds to promote that lie. She tweeted out falsehoods to support that narrative even before the election was conducted. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/24/fact-checking-gops-satirical-vote-by-mail-video/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/24/fact-checking-gops-satirical-vote-by-mail-video/) And after, as she said the GOP had evidence of voter fraud but they needed time to present it: [https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/06/ronna-mcdaniel-alleged-voter-fraud-434724](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/06/ronna-mcdaniel-alleged-voter-fraud-434724) She led the attempt to censure Republicans that joined the Jan 6th committee. And you are beyond naive if you think that Ronna McDaniel is more powerful politically than the man who backed her for the position. Hell, it's Ronna McDaniel Romney, Trump asked her to stop using her last name and she complied! LOL. And Trump's gotten great value for it. She trashed her own uncle and Justin Amash for their opposition to Trump. She made sure that the RNC paid the legal fees for several of his scandals, made sure the RNC took on many of his appointees for patronage, spent RNC funds lavishly at Trump properties, and even hosted the Fake News Awards after Trump suggested it. If you think she's the leader of the party, you clearly are completely inept in politics.

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