# "How Did We Become Bitter Political Enemies?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 16, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112 "2017-06-16T13:23:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/81 "2017-06-16T23:32:53Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > The thing is I lack certainty. I am not sure I am right about many of my political views. I am willing to consider the other side. I do not understand people who are so sure about things. +1 > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I like this post. I’ve been trying to encourage posters here to ease up on the hyperbole recently, but I don’t think it’s had much effect. I’m assuming this is a joke, but you seem reasonable enough to me, however biased. Your grinding axes as least seem associated with specific types of behaviors and attitudes rather than Leftists as a monolithic entity. > [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Meanwhile, I don’t have to attend a BBQ fundraiser for the KKK just to break out of my bubble. Amen to that. Let’s stop pretending that expanding beyond our own worldview requires the validation of vile perspectives. > [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > You know if we just ignore it, for most of us (I assume we don’t ALL live in Portland) it won’t exist. > > Though I may be caught by surprise when a SWAT team kicks down my door in a couple of years if I ignore it. Yeah, I dunno if we can '‘heal the rift’ in the sense that we can make these conflicts disappear, but we can heal our own selves, if necessary, and make peace with the fact that not everybody in the world agrees with us. I feel more politically centered than ever lately, not because we’ve ‘‘healed the rift’’ but because I know who I am and it’s not going to change just because so many in this country have lost their everloving minds. I will continue to engage with people who can do so with civility, reason, and respect. I am not going to jump all over every clickbait news article or live in a perpetual cycle of outrage, and I’m not going to spend a lot of time with people that do. The best thing we can do, I think, is make these hateful people, and their hateful ideas, irrelevant to our lives. And the less attention they get, the better off we will be as a society. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/82 "2017-06-16T23:58:03Z")
We do have one model for changing political views, and this goes for the left and the right: Same Sex Marriage. Somehow, we went from being in favor of SSM as a fringe view on the left (and the libertarians, of course 🙂 ) to it being mainstream among both liberals and conservatives. I don’t know if it’s a majority view among conservatives these days, but enough are in favor for it to be considered mainstream (i.e., not a fringe view). I think part of that was either knowing someone who is gay or watching enough TV\* where gays are portrayed in non-scary roles. And that certainly was a bitter fight at times, but it’s hard to imagine a social change that happened that quickly. \*I would not underestimate the role people like Ellen Degeneres played the whole issue of acceptance of gays and of gay rights. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/83 "2017-06-17T00:00:36Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > I am _ **certain** _, however, that Trump is a disgraceful human who is wholly unqualified in every way to be President of the United States. I’m willing to write off anyone who doesn’t see that. Are you ‘writing off’ those who didn’t see that last November (~60 million of your countrymen) or just those that don’t see it now (some smaller number of tens of millions)? Is there a process for people to get ‘unwritten off’ as their opinions change? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/84 "2017-06-17T00:10:56Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > How do you feel about those who are willing to look into reasonable ways to try to combat the gun violence in our country, or those who will not vote for someone who makes decisions on how others should behave based on their own personal religious beliefs? I’m perfectly willing to have calm, rational conversations on what appropriate firearms policies ought to be at the state or federal level. Not everyone is going to agree with me, but we can discuss it, and if there’s a compromise offered with enough give from the other side, I could see myself supporting it. I’m not claiming compromise is impossible, just that I don’t know how to get from here to there with the really rabid gun-ban faction of the Left (recognizing that most leftists are not in that particular little faction). I’m fine with people choosing to withhold their support from a Christian candidate because they disagree with their views. I’m not okay with a rule that says Christians are unfit for public office (“… no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”). There’s probably lots of fertile territory for discussion on just how far the .gov should go in protecting religious liberty vs other rights, and I suspect my position would be quite compatible with a good number of my countrymen. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/85 "2017-06-17T00:15:33Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Based on polling I’ve seen, opposition to gay marriage, and belief that climate change is a hoax, are much, much more common than wanting to ban guns or believing Christianity should be a bar from public office. I hope (and suspect) you are right. I wasn’t making any attempt to find equally-popular views on the other side, just some that I felt I couldn’t see how to compromise with. The latter one really came from a discussion here on the SDMB, and I’m pretty sure even in this fairly left-leaning circle, the majority of the opinions were decidedly against it. ---
**Author:** ![Settimo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Settimo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Settimo)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/86 "2017-06-17T00:18:57Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > This is crackers, don’t you think? How can we dial all this back a few notches? ``` I think it partly has to do with the ginormous bubbles of rhetoric being floated. At some point the tail (the rhetoric) starts wagging the dog (reality). Take global warming: the right got handed a lemon on this one, trying to protect short term business interests and addressing peoples' concerns for putting bread on the table today. Saying "we need to protect short term business interests" didn't fly. So what to do? Ramp up the rhetoric. (I mean this as a analytic understanding, not taking shots at the right.) Where has it gone? Into denialism. That's the rhetoric. The subtext is "short term business interests are important, and people want bread on the table today". The denialism is a huge red cape to the left. And I think that denialism line has taken on a life of its own. The republican leaders however see it as effective at cooling efforts to thwart short term business interests, so they don't deny (the denialism), and some of them even promote it. I remember reading somewhere awhile ago (don't remember where) that explained these bubbles of rhetoric as being necessary (more to the point, why politicans lie) because voters don't behave rationally. And to promote cooler heads on both sides, there's always that old saw about judgement vs motives. ``` ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/87 "2017-06-17T00:20:58Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > … the fact that dragging our feet on climate change could possibly kill us all, literally. I hope this is hyperbole and not a sincerely-held belief. **begbert2** : do you believe human extinction is a plausible outcome of climate change? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Crap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.crap/32/3131_2.png) [@Dr.Crap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Crap)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/88 "2017-06-17T00:25:25Z")
We could draft all able-bodied young people for a war of survival against a monstrous outgroup. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/89 "2017-06-17T00:25:50Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > As Leaper as demonstrated, because internet. Indeed, the Internet is a major factor, for a variety of reasons that have already been discussed. I wonder if one of them that I don’t see talked about all that often is the sudden increase in likelihood that you’ll be confronted with someone diametrically opposed to your beliefs or existence? What I mean is, back in the Sixties, if you were racist, you could have lived in a small all white town without ever having to meet, interact with, or even see a black person your entire life. But nowadays, them _insert slur here_ are everywhere, especially in social media. I can easily imagine that inflaming things. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/90 "2017-06-17T00:25:51Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The comment you were responding to was about climate change denial and opposition to gay marriage. The difference is that both of these things have been common and even mainstream in conservative circles, whereas I have yet to see any mainstream liberal view that seeks to “ban guns” or that “Christianity should be a bar from public office”. Seeking to have stronger gun laws more similar to those in every civilized nation on earth is not “banning guns”, and questioning the impartiality of an extreme Christian fundamentalist with a history of inflammatory op-eds is not “banning Christians from public office”. This sort of extreme hyperbole coming from you is very ironic given what you just said: > > Perhaps you should try harder to follow your own advice. I think my post came across as a bit of “the other side does it too, like \_\_\_\_ and \_\_\_\_\_”, but that’s not what I intended. I was not claiming that, for example, support for UBC = gun banner, or that the idea that Christians shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office is “common and even mainstream” among people of any political stripe. I was just throwing out two rather off-the-cuff examples of positions I’d find it difficult to reach a compromise with, while not making any claim that those stated positions were common ones. Sorry for the confusion. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/91 "2017-06-17T00:26:28Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I hope this is hyperbole and not a sincerely-held belief. **begbert2** : do you believe human extinction is a plausible outcome of climate change? The living will envy the dead. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/92 "2017-06-17T00:27:38Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > The living will envy the dead. 😕 This is probably going to become a topic for another thread, but … what? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/93 "2017-06-17T00:29:38Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Is there a process for people to get ‘unwritten off’ as their opinions change? Speaking for myself, the _tiniest shred of acknowledgement_ that Trump may not be that great for everyone would be a start. Instead, my parents have doubled down on their support, even to the point of backing away from centrist positions that I thought we had some common ground on. Turns out that even when we supported the same things, the basis for that support differed. When I told them that Trump’s tax plan will greatly increase my tax bill, their response was… denial, with a taste of “sucks to be you”. I’ll keep listening to my parents. But so far they are running exactly in the opposite direction of a reasonable position. They are already far past the point where I would ever look to them for ethical or moral guidance. It won’t be long before I can’t see them at all. It will be very difficult for me to “unwrite” them at that point because the very metrics by which we evaluate political utility will no longer overlap. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/94 "2017-06-17T00:31:44Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I hope (and suspect) you are right. I wasn’t making any attempt to find equally-popular views on the other side, just some that I felt I couldn’t see how to compromise with. The latter one really came from a discussion here on the SDMB, and I’m pretty sure even in this fairly left-leaning circle, the majority of the opinions were decidedly against it. I never even opened that thread because it was such a ridiculous idea. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/95 "2017-06-17T00:35:36Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Speaking for myself, the _tiniest shred of acknowledgement_ that Trump may not be that great for everyone would be a start. I’ll start: As someone who voted for Trump in the 2016 general election, I acknowledge that he may not be that great for everyone. 🙂 ETA: sorry about your parents. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/96 "2017-06-17T00:35:40Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > 😕 > > This is probably going to become a topic for another thread, but … what? Things could get ugly > [@](#): > > AUTHOR: Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (1894–1971) > QUOTATION: The living will envy the dead. > ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to NIKITA S. KHRUSHCHEV, speaking of nuclear war. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/97 "2017-06-17T00:42:34Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Things could get ugly Sure, OK, fine, but we agree that “possibly kill us all, literally” isn’t really plausible, _right_? ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/98 "2017-06-17T00:46:37Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Sure, OK, fine, but we agree that “possibly kill us all, literally” isn’t really plausible, _right_? I guess the only thing that would do that would be some kind of “runaway greenhouse effect” No clue if such a thing is plausible. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/99 "2017-06-17T00:47:31Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Sure, OK, fine, but we agree that “possibly kill us all, literally” isn’t really plausible, _right_? Are you serious? It’s pretty much between that and nuclear war which thing wipes us off the map. Mass extinction is a pretty likely result of climate change, [as evidenced by the earth’s history.](http://www.ibtimes.com/mass-extinction-timeline-prehistoric-climate-change-caused-three-extinction-events-2511761) Why would it be any different now? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/100 "2017-06-17T00:58:59Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Are you serious? It’s pretty much between that and nuclear war which thing wipes us off the map. Mass extinction is a pretty likely result of climate change, [as evidenced by the earth’s history.](http://www.ibtimes.com/mass-extinction-timeline-prehistoric-climate-change-caused-three-extinction-events-2511761) Why would it be any different now? Yeah, I’m serious. There isn’t much of anything that could “kill us all”. Even if we were trying specifically to accomplish that goal with all the nuclear weapons the various nations of the Earth possess. There are simply to many of us, spread too far and wide, for a nuclear war to “kill us all”. Ditto for global warming, at least as far as I understand it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112.md?page=6)