A lot of this comes from the way that US system of government creates a zero-sum game that realistically only allows 2 factions.
You are certainly allowed not to like it. I don’t like it either. But everyone has to realize that if one sees one faction has gone off the deep end and wants to institute fascism, then a unified and fully partisan opposition is the only chance to beat it. In an ideal world everyone could have their a-la-carte politics and join the coalition that best suits them. Until then, we have what we have.
Every political question has two answers: A lazy one that makes one’s opponents look cartoonishly evil, and a diligent one that makes them look more reasonable.
Example: A pro-lifer can look at the pro-choice side and either choose to conclude, “They just love murdering babies and having a fetus Holocaust,” or instead think, “Well, they believe that abortion reduces crime, poverty, reduces the societal burden, that a woman should decide what she does with her body.”
The reason we’re so polarized today is because, for decades, America has been going with the former rather than the latter - consistently choosing the lazy-easy route until now both sides are firmly convinced the other are monsters.
In a way, things online look more polarized than they are, because there is an illusion of mass participation when in fact the conversations are being driven by a tiny percentage of the public, and they are the most radical and reactionary.
I would be curious what the lurker to poster ratio is on the SDMB. On Twitter something like 90% of all traffic comes from 5% of members. The other 95% just consume, and we really don’t know if they are more polarized, because they are lost in the noise of the shouty 5%.
The fact that Democrats and Republicans together barely make up a majority of the country might be a clue thatb there’s a silent majority/large minority not as polarized as the rest.
There seems to uneven moderation in this thread. On the one hand abortion and trans rights are off the table,
but on the other hand statements like the above are allowed to remain unchallenged. The absolutism in the trans debate has become almost absurd. There are many issues that are unclear to me and the left seem to be careening ahead with no real thought. Not sure if I can even mention it, but criminalizing mis-gendering seems completely unhinged.
Sometimes it reminds me of when Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza were pitching a show to “NBC” and George kept angrily insisting that it was a “show about nothing”. It got to the point where he alienated the Network and the show was rejected.
Just because you find things unclear doesn’t mean everyone else does. And it definitely doesn’t mean everybody has to sit down and wait until you’re clear what their rights ought to be.
This not a real thing. It’s a scare tactic and you’ve bought into it.
If you want to be more clear on what’s going on, be more critical in the media you consume. Don’t accept at face value when a podcaster says “They’re criminalizing misgendering and you’re not allowed to talk about it!” Demand examples and you’ll find that nobody’s criminalized misgendering, and somehow you’re talking about it.
And don’t fall into the other trap of lies “well they want to do it!” You can find extremes on both sides of the fence, it doesn’t mean this is the norm or there’s any kind of slippery slope.
[quote=“HMS_Irruncible, post:67, topic:998918”]
This not a real thing. It’s a scare tactic and you’ve bought into it.
[/quote,]
More millennials think referring to a transgender person by the wrong pronouns should be a criminal offense than think it should be legal, according to new polling conducted exclusively for Newsweek.[/quote,]
Here in North Carolina, the Democratic candidate for state superintendent of education has decades of experience in public schools. He was superintendent for one of the largest districts in the state. He is a very standard candidate: experienced, well-regarded by those he’s worked for, in favor of increasing school funding and improving the quality of services.
The Republican candidate has called schools “socialist indoctrination centers.” She’s homeschooled all her kids. She’s never worked inside a public school. And, more relevantly to this thread, she’s called for the pay-per-view live execution of Obama.
The state GOP’s response to her candidacy? At first they were silent about whether they would support her. But what I’m finding now (and it’s paywalled, so I’m looking for another link) is that they’re finally calling the candidate a radical extremist.
To be clear: they’re calling the Democratic candidate a radical extremist.
You’re kind of exemplifying exactly why I started the thread. There IS middle ground on some aspects of trans rights or abortion. Neither issue is an all-or-nothing one, and I tend to believe that there’s a lot of nuance there.
Take some of the more gray areas like sports participation or limitations on abortion without outlawing it. Those are areas where there’s a lot of room for a more middle stance than all-or-nothing.
And I for one, don’t really like either side telling me I’m a godless heathen or a hateful bigot if I choose not to go all-in on one extreme or the other.
If you repeat the same rhetoric about trans people that is promoted by virulent transphobes - particularly while amplifying those narratives that portray trans people as a material threat to others - that’s not occupying the “middle ground”.
There are certainly topics that do need proper consideration, but this is not the way to go about them.
I haven’t repeated any rhetoric at all, just pointed out that there are gray areas and that they’re valid.
That’s my point - when people say there aren’t gray areas about anything, that’s a sure-fire way to identify an extremist. And more and more, I feel like I’m being pushed to choose and endorse one the extremes, lest I be tarred as someone from the “other side”.
I don’t think it’s all Russia; though Russia is no doubt cheering it on, and may be actively contributing. But I do think that it’s to a very large extent the result of deliberate campaigns to get people riled up, for the purpose of political and/or financial gain by the campaigners.
Yeah, I mean, there’s middle ground on all sorts of things. Why let all women vote, can’t we find middle ground and just let the responsible ones vote? Why just open the door to a crazy thing like letting all the African-Americans vote, can’t we strike a middle ground and insist that they pass a literacy test so that we know they’re informed? Why do people need to be absolutist and extreme about everything?
When you automatically assume that the “middle” is better, you are serving the extreme here, because the further a faction goes in one direction, the further they pull the “middle” toward the extreme.
Centrism for its own sake is deluded. It only makes sense when we’re trying to pass a law that you can’t pass with only one side. In that case you must find a middle ground, or else the law doesn’t get passed. But that doesn’t mean the law represents any newly identified “middle virtue” in the debate. The only virtue is that the democratic process was consulted, which is important, but says nothing at all about the morality of whatever was passed.
I mean, sure, there’s middle ground on a lot of issues.
I’m very pro-public-schools and anti-vouchers. But when folks support charter schools, I don’t necessarily think they’re doing so out of a racist desire to resegregate schools (even though that’s one of the effects of charters). I think there are legitimate reasons to want charter schools, and even to want vouchers. I can disagree with the proponents without thinking they’re necessarily evil.
And when it comes to the Israel/Gaza war, I think there’s genocide going on. But I understand how many people–especially Israelis–are so horrifically traumatized by the 10/7 attacks that they think IDF’s actions may be justified. I can talk with many folks about this issue without thinking they’re deliberately promulgating genocide. (although I find myself decreasingly tolerant of support for IDF as the famine grows worse).
And when it comes to domestic policy, it seems pretty clear to me that increased taxes on the wealthy will result in better outcomes for society at large; and that universal health care will result in a better society; and that police reform will result in a better society; and so on. But people who disagree with me on these positions aren’t necessarily diminishing anyone’s humanity.
But when it comes to trans rights? When it comes to women’s bodily autonomy? When it comes to questions of whether our next president should be dictator for a day? No. I’m not interested in non polarized positions. These are fundamental questions of rights and liberty.
This gets back to what the OP is asking about - that when certain issues are framed as “fundamental questions of rights and liberties”, it’s a recipe for extreme polarization.
Imagine if a pro-life person said, “When it comes to baby murder…” (which they do, in fact, say.)… you can see why not an inch can be yielded and we’ve become so entrenched.