the reporter starts off with some good ol' "both sides" framing: you see, people on both sides are afraid to put up flags outside their house showing their political beliefs! are they really...
Exemplary
the reporter starts off with some good ol' "both sides" framing:
Kohl did what the couple never dared at their previous house outside Los Angeles — the newly-retired Los Angeles police officer flew a U.S. flag and a Thin Blue Line banner representing law enforcement outside his house.
...
Leah Dean is on the opposite end of the political spectrum, but she knows how the Kohls feel. In Texas, Dean had been scared to fly an abortion rights banner outside her house.
you see, people on both sides are afraid to put up flags outside their house showing their political beliefs!
are they really comparable?
if you fly a flag outside your house for something politically unpopular in that neighborhood, it's possible one of your neighbors might tear down the flag, or vandalize your property in other ways.
but I have a suspicion that cops in LA might take vandalism against a current or retired police officer's house because of a "thin blue line" flag a bit more seriously than cops in Texas would handle vandalism because of a pro-abortion-rights flag.
and separate from the flags themselves...the issues they represent just aren't comparable.
A standard course of medical treatment for an unviable pregnancy at that stage of development is to terminate, and extract the foetus. Waiting to miscarry naturally can put the mother at risk for infection, which can prove fatal.
But doctors told her they couldn't terminate her pregnancy, as under the state's laws, it was a crime to perform an abortion when there was a foetal heartbeat, unless the mother's life was threatened. Essentially, the message was that she was not sick enough yet to legally justify an abortion.
Three days later, Amanda developed a life-threatening infection and went into septic shock.
meanwhile, the thin blue line flag represents...people should be more appreciative of cops, I guess?
getting back to this article:
Businesses catering to conservatives fleeing blue states have sprouted, such as Blue Line Moving, which markets to families fleeing from blue states to Florida. In Texas, a “rainbow underground railroad” run by a Dallas realtor helps LGBTQ+ families flee the state’s increased restrictions targeting that population.
another example of the "both sides" comparison falling flat.
people moving from blue states to Florida are doing it for...lower taxes, I guess? bans on "wokeness" in schools?
meanwhile, LGBT people moving out of Texas aren't moving because they want higher taxes, or a school where their kindergartners will be taught Critical Race Theory...they're moving for their safety. in particular, for trans people facing bans on gender-affirming care, they're moving because they want to continue to exist as trans.
Tim’s police station, in a former hippie colony in the mountains running through West Los Angeles, was firebombed during the George Floyd protests in 2020.
did the AP try to fact-check this? because I did...
neither one mentions a police station in the LA suburbs being firebombed.
the closest thing I could find is this, a man firebombing a police station in May 2021, almost a year after the George Floyd protests. and seemingly as a one-off event, not in connection to any protest. but the location given (Topanga) does match the description of being a former hippie colony in the mountains west of LA.
I don't even think it's fair to suggest there is real pushback. I live in a progressive corner of California, as do my parents. In my neighborhood or theirs I find more Blue Lives Matter flags...
I don't even think it's fair to suggest there is real pushback. I live in a progressive corner of California, as do my parents. In my neighborhood or theirs I find more Blue Lives Matter flags than I do any of the progressive stances such as Black Lives Matter signs or rainbow flags. Those houses aren't targeted and lord knows it would be the first place the cops would actually show up. Hell we couldn't even fire a cop when it came out that he was a 3%er.
We were inundated with tourists this past week and the number of "Try to take 'em", "Let's go Brandon", "If you don't love America GET OUT", or I shit you not "I bathe in liberal tears" was astronomical. The slogans are aggressive on purpose, they are looking to start a fight. They are looking for pushback so they can claim how discriminated against they are. They are looking to get a rise from us.
To a degree, it's not about if they're actually being harmed. They just need to perceive that they're being targeted and discriminated against. I agree with everything you have to say for the...
To a degree, it's not about if they're actually being harmed. They just need to perceive that they're being targeted and discriminated against.
I agree with everything you have to say for the record, but I do think it's important to understand that part of why it's impossible to avoid the "both sides" argument is because the right wing genuinely believes they are victims - they have been bombarded with very powerful propaganda to convince them of it. To dismiss their victimhood guarantees articles like this never reach across the political spectrum as they are a group that self-isolates at the sight of such accusations. That being said, I don't think that's the authors intention in this case, but I do understand opinions like the guy you replied to.
All-in-all, I don't have much more to add than that such as a proposed solution. I'm a far left Marxist and LGBT but also in the social work profession so while my politics are extremely polarizing myself I do have to interact with the entire political spectrum from a stance of empathy at times. The issue is I'm a far left Marxist and know that it's pretty hard to convince my comrades to just humor the racist, horrible people for a moment so we can try to deprogram them. But also, working with the public in a progressive city as someone raised closeted in a very red suburb makes me realize some of these people are truly scared and don't even know why.
In the red areas, they genuinely think an army of Antifa will come to their houses and kill them, but they buy guns and laugh about it, and feel comfort in protecting a community that all sees the same threat as them because they all watch Fox. It might even be a therapeutic experience to imagine such threats and address them with other people in your community.
Imagine believing that same bullshit in a blue area, though, where you're outnumbered and it's harder to get guns and people have literal communist flags outside their house. Unlike the red state friends who convince you of this bullshit in the first place, if "Antifa" actually attacked one day, you're fucked and you might even wonder why this is at all fair that you're treated like this because of your beliefs. In red areas, people even get to discuss these "issues" with strangers as the strangers either agree with them or pretend to because they're used to it. In a blue area, it's so rare to hear that stuff that of course they're going to get looked at like they're crazy.
Maybe this migration is a good thing. The blue state conservatives will inevitably end up complaining about shitty infrastructure and lack of social support in their new homes, while blue regions will gain enough supermajorities to start pushing the Overton window out of corner it's been backed into. If anyone is going to convince the rural conservatives that they're missing out on a lot, it's other conservatives who used to enjoy the "luxury" of the liberal cities and states.
But the poor conservatives are being called bigots just because they passed some laws that banned books and healthcare. It’s totally comparable to the people fleeing said laws. Being called a...
But the poor conservatives are being called bigots just because they passed some laws that banned books and healthcare. It’s totally comparable to the people fleeing said laws. Being called a bigot hurts too you know.
/s
Yeah, I am generally not a fan of the false equivalence fallacy, particularly when it comes to politics. That said, if we give the reporter the benefit of the doubt, I think they were trying to...
Yeah, I am generally not a fan of the false equivalence fallacy, particularly when it comes to politics.
That said, if we give the reporter the benefit of the doubt, I think they were trying to show that both liberals and conservatives are feeling a growing need to move to places that more closely align with their political ideology.
I grew up in a rather rural and very conservative county in California and currently live in the Portland, Oregon metro area. I've been here since just after college, more than 10 years ago. I can't imagine what it would be like if I was still living where I grew up.
That said, there were a few comments in the article that the author could have pushed back on. Like the idea that masks weren't useful during the pandemic unless you were clearly symptomatic. I suppose the author didn't feel that was relevant and wanted to keep the article politically neutral.
I appreciate the asymmetry you're highlighting, but I think you may be missing the point (and I'm not sure what your point is, although you have a compelling start). The take away for me is that...
I appreciate the asymmetry you're highlighting, but I think you may be missing the point (and I'm not sure what your point is, although you have a compelling start).
The take away for me is that people don't feel comfortable expressing their views in their communities, and instead are moving to communities of echo-chambers on both sides.
It might even be good if there is an asymmetry to the significance of views in a community. If a view on something smaller can be discussed (in person) in a civil manner, then it shows people on both sides that it's safe to discuss more impactful issues like law making.
It's not about who is more right or more wrong(ed), it's about making people more empathetic to issues and views of other humans. That doesn't happen on the internet, it happens in communities. That can't happen if communities don't have a diversity of views
this sort of subtle "negging" generally isn't appropriate on Tildes. yes, "echo chambers" are always the boogeyman anytime the topic of political polarization comes up. I have a friend. when this...
I think you may be missing the point (and I'm not sure what your point is, although you have a compelling start).
this sort of subtle "negging" generally isn't appropriate on Tildes.
people don't feel comfortable expressing their views in their communities, and instead are moving to communities of echo-chambers on both sides.
yes, "echo chambers" are always the boogeyman anytime the topic of political polarization comes up.
I have a friend. when this friend and I hang out, we often end up talking about climate change. I tend to be a bit of a doomer on the topic, while my friend is much more optimistic and believes things like geoengineering will be enough to reverse climate change.
my friend and I disagree about that. and that's totally fine. we can disagree about it and remain friends.
meanwhile, I don't have any friends who are climate change deniers, and as far as I know my friend doesn't either. if someone I knew started seriously repeating climate change denial talking points, I'd probe them about it a bit, but if they persisted I might end up cutting them out of my friend circle, or at a minimum just exiting the conversation anytime the subject came up.
this often gets portrayed as a binary, either/or thing. either you're in an echo chamber with people who completely agree with you, or you're outside any echo chamber and exposed to a diversity of opinions and challenges to your ideas.
the reality is that every situation is a mix of both. I'm in an "echo chamber" where all my friends believe climate change is real, and human-caused, and a serious problem.
and that's an echo chamber I'm perfectly happy living in, because it's not actually an echo chamber at all. it's just a baseline set of facts that everyone agrees on. there is still disagreement and debate within the "echo chamber" about what to do based on that shared understanding of reality.
if someone believes climate change is a hoax, but is afraid to talk about it around left-wing people like me because they're worried about losing friends, that is a them problem, not a me problem. life is short and I am under no obligation to spend my time listening to bullshit.
the pattern that seems to repeat itself over and over again is that generally left-of-center people establish an "echo chamber" based on some baseline set of facts. then generally right-of-center people, disagreeing with those baseline facts, argue that they're being excluded from the debate because of the liberal echo chamber. it ends up being a convenient way to sidestep the facts in question, and instead have a meta-debate about how much of baseline reality you can disagree with and still be included in the debate.
(conservatives do this too, of course, but in general the criticism I see from the left isn't about conservatives being in "echo chambers", it's just simply that they're wrong about said factual reality)
I'm reminded of "teach the controversy", the campaign to have public schools teach evolution and Biblical creationism side-by-side. we should expose students to both sides and let them make up their own mind, the argument went. because after all, middle school science teachers are in an echo chamber of believing that evolution is real and the Bible is not a literal scientific document. why are they so afraid of debate and having their ideas challenged???
I'm not familiar with negging in this context (I only know it in the context of dating, and have only heard enough to know that I didn't care to know more), but I think it means partially agreeing...
this sort of subtle "negging" generally isn't appropriate on Tildes.
I'm not familiar with negging in this context (I only know it in the context of dating, and have only heard enough to know that I didn't care to know more), but I think it means partially agreeing with/acknowledging/complementing someone while disagreeing with them overall (or the inverse, agreeing with someone overall but partially disagreeing with/insulting them?). If that's correct then noted, I'll avoid doing that in the future (and sorry, if that's appropriate).
to topic
if someone I knew started seriously repeating climate change denial talking points, I'd probe them about it a bit, but if they persisted I might end up cutting them out of my friend circle, or at a minimum just exiting the conversation anytime the subject came up.
I think I'd respond similarly. I agree it's not binary. I think it's a bit of a spectrum on two axis.
On one side you've got a range from people being afraid to let others know things about them or what they think, to people obsessing and evangelizing over an issue.
On the other side you've got a range from issues that don't really affect them at all, to things that very deeply impact them day to day.
If an issue affects someone more personally then I'm probably going to be more willing to entertain it regularly, even if I don't align with them.
"echo chamber" seems like it was too loaded of a phrase. What I meant was that it's bad to have a community where you're never exposed to a perspective that you don't align with. Either because people are afraid to reveal themselves or because there are no different perspectives. For example I'm not particularly religious, yet I find my friend's spirituality to be refreshing from time to time and don't want them to feel like they need to move elsewhere to feel accepted.
Climate change is an interesting example because it also brings up locality. If an issue deals with how you want your community to work then everyone does need to get on some baseline set of facts and it's reasonable to move somewhere where others view reality the same as me. Then our respective communities can figure out how they want to move forward.
But if the issue is national or global then relocating doesn't help anyone. I find this the most exhausting because when it comes time to vote, anyone's view is (roughly) as valid as anyone else's. So I feel obliged to engage that kind of conversation (in person, at least once but not indefinitely, per person).
I would call it a BS as well. Excluding real crazies1, no one on the left would destroy the US flag, and I don't think they would even with the thin blue line flag. I live in LA and I see some...
I would call it a BS as well. Excluding real crazies1, no one on the left would destroy the US flag, and I don't think they would even with the thin blue line flag. I live in LA and I see some neighbors having flags outside and never seen them damaged by someone.
It feels like this text tries to continue that ridiculous stereotype fueled by conservative media that "the left hates America."
1 for example I got recently a tire slashed for no apparent reason, I don't have bumper stickers of any kind, parked at random location away from home (so not like someone who knew me would know car's location), and the residential building had own garage, so I don't think it was its residents (although if any of the above, then this would be the most likely reason)
I’m not sure the article did a great job at proving their claim. They did a case study with Colorado and Idaho, but even in that limited purview their statistical evidence was weak, and of course...
I’m not sure the article did a great job at proving their claim. They did a case study with Colorado and Idaho, but even in that limited purview their statistical evidence was weak, and of course that’s two out of the 50 states.
I think a lot of liberals move to red states for economic reason. Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee. Of course, by doing so they make the states less red - Georgia went from solid red to voting for Biden, Warnock, Ossof, then Warnock again in a row - that’s 4 state wide elections won by Democrats in a row.
That’s the opposite of state level polarization. Now, there may still be local polarization, as the blue inroads in Georgia are all in the suburbs of Atlanta.
Anecdotally, I know a lot of late 20-something and early 30-something singles and couples in STEM who have moved from here in the NYC-area where it's too expensive to buy a house to states like...
I think a lot of liberals move to red states for economic reason.
Anecdotally, I know a lot of late 20-something and early 30-something singles and couples in STEM who have moved from here in the NYC-area where it's too expensive to buy a house to states like Texas and Arizona where there are good jobs and the cost of living is low enough that they can start a family.
Many of them would much prefer to be in a blue state and would live in one if they felt they could afford it.
That being said, some who left the northeast to settle down in red states and plan on having kids are thinking of leaving their red states due to maternal health concerns, but they aren't sure how they will be able to afford it.
There are others, though, who won't even entertain the idea of moving to a red state, even if that means they'll have to delay starting a family (these people seem to be single, so they probably view family as a "far-future" thing rather than a "near-future" thing).
Well, it depends on what you count as a "liberal state". Many states traditionally considered "liberal" are fairly saturated economically (mostly self-inflicted imo from decades of not building...
Well, it depends on what you count as a "liberal state". Many states traditionally considered "liberal" are fairly saturated economically (mostly self-inflicted imo from decades of not building new housing), like California and New York mostly famously (but also, say, Seattle).
An example of a state with high growth is Virginia, which can probably call liberal now. It's been solidly blue for a while, and I wouldn't be surprised to see residents from nearby "conservative" states move to the DC metro area for jobs. That being said, Virginia was a conservative state not that long ago.
Looking at the states overall population changes, it is the case that many liberal states have either straight up population decline or slower population growth. But many conservative states are quite literally dying out as well. That's why I felt picking Idaho is somewhat not representative from AP.
Florida went from purple to pink largely due to in-migration by conservatives from out of state. Libertarians have also had a similar effect in New Hampshire, but they’re not as sharply partisan...
Florida went from purple to pink largely due to in-migration by conservatives from out of state.
Libertarians have also had a similar effect in New Hampshire, but they’re not as sharply partisan so the effect is harder to register.
I also didn't find the anecdotes in the article very convincing, so I went looking for some data. I ended up looking at voting. It seems like for US Congress Idaho has voted ~30% Democrat for the...
I also didn't find the anecdotes in the article very convincing, so I went looking for some data. I ended up looking at voting. It seems like for US Congress Idaho has voted ~30% Democrat for the past few elections. Their state legislature composition hasn't changed much in the past decade, with 6-7 Democrats in the senate (total 35 members) and 11-14 Democrats in the House (70 members). It seems like there were consistently more Democrats in the state legislature prior to 1995, but that's about 30 years ago, so doesn't really pertain to recent trends.
I guess if something suddenly changed last year as suggested by the surveys cited by the article, that wouldn't show up in a lot of voting records yet. I kind of wonder if it's just that the discourse changed though.
Most of the population shift here has happened since the pandemic, and would only be about 1-2% of a state's population. Not enough to noticeably affect things, since there are more than 1-2% of...
Most of the population shift here has happened since the pandemic, and would only be about 1-2% of a state's population. Not enough to noticeably affect things, since there are more than 1-2% of swing voters (so how swing voters go would be far more impactful than the population shifts).
I would rather be polarized than compromise. I do find leftist views morally superior and will certainly not apologize for that. As long as LGBTQIA+ are being put in danger, the thoughts of some...
I would rather be polarized than compromise. I do find leftist views morally superior and will certainly not apologize for that. As long as LGBTQIA+ are being put in danger, the thoughts of some faux-civility non-polarized middle ground can miss me
My area's recent rightward turn definitely has me re-analyzing if this is where I want to geographically be long-term.
I'm not convinced we were ever less polarized, we're just more vocal now.
exactly, if trans people say "we have a right to exist" and the far right says "you should all be removed from society, incarcerated or killed" there's no morally superior middle ground there.
exactly, if trans people say "we have a right to exist" and the far right says "you should all be removed from society, incarcerated or killed" there's no morally superior middle ground there.
I feel like back then we were forced to spend more time with folks who had different viewpoints. It's possible I'm off on that because I've gone from teenager to adult in that timespan, but really...
I feel like back then we were forced to spend more time with folks who had different viewpoints. It's possible I'm off on that because I've gone from teenager to adult in that timespan, but really I've spent less and less time physically with people from outside my household unless I make an actual effort to do so. This obviously spiked during quarantine.
We also had politicians who at least pretended to be honest and didn't want to be disgraced. A lot of what's happening at the top now is happening because we depended so heavily on the assumption that the folks in charge would try to do the right thing. There isn't really anything in place to deal with the opposite happening in a large number of people in control.
People didn't watch partisan news 24/7. That's all it is. Partisan flacks on the news spin stories and create narratives to suit an agenda. People marinate in those narratives and come out with...
I feel like back then we were forced to spend more time with folks who had different viewpoints.
People didn't watch partisan news 24/7. That's all it is. Partisan flacks on the news spin stories and create narratives to suit an agenda. People marinate in those narratives and come out with very simple thought-terminating cliches to support their views. This makes it easy to dismiss basically everyone else as ignorant or malicious. Once you do that you get more and more saturated in a specific ideological ecosystem to where your views about what the world looks like, how things work, what's important or not, etc. start to diverge from any sort of "consensus reality."
I noticed this really during the George Floyd protests. I live in one of the cities that conservative media kept characterizing as being a chaotic firepit due to "antifa." But. . . it was fine. Like, 1 cop car got torched maybe. But people who lived out in the middle of nowhere kept insisting to me that the place where I live is surely a bombed out war-zone and simply would not listen to me asserting that there were like, 4 teenagers who went around doing graffiti and smashing car windows and that was it.
It's hard to reason with people when they're operating with a funhouse mirror perspective on reality. If the world actually looked as they imagined it does, with roving gangs of terrorists running amok and burning down neighborhoods, then some of their politics might actually make sense. But the premises they are operating on are absurd fantasies.
Yea, people talk about STL and chicago like its a free for all. Then think im being paranoid about not wanting to go to florida because i can't legally use the bathroom there.
Yea, people talk about STL and chicago like its a free for all. Then think im being paranoid about not wanting to go to florida because i can't legally use the bathroom there.
As someone who visits family in FL a lot, the vibe there has definitely shifted in a weird way. It varies a lot based on where you are, and I don't think your typical person is much of a jerk or...
As someone who visits family in FL a lot, the vibe there has definitely shifted in a weird way. It varies a lot based on where you are, and I don't think your typical person is much of a jerk or cares very much, but it's like the subpopulation of crazy people (who probably exist everywhere) just seem particularly emboldened to act like shits.
I live in the Portland metro area and so does my dad. He had Facebook friends from the conservative city I grew up in that we've moved away from asking how he was surviving the whole city being...
I live in the Portland metro area and so does my dad. He had Facebook friends from the conservative city I grew up in that we've moved away from asking how he was surviving the whole city being burnt down in protest. As far as they knew, the protests that were largely confined to a single block in reality were, instead, a Mad Max hellscape spread out over a 20 mi radius.
It's ridiculous.
So you have partisan right wing media like Fox News pushing this narrative, and then you get it reinforced in social media echo chambers. Particularly Facebook for Boomers.
What also gets me, is that beyond the sentiment that politicians would try to do the right thing, there's the idea that, in the past, if a politician had a significant transgression, they would...
What also gets me, is that beyond the sentiment that politicians would try to do the right thing, there's the idea that, in the past, if a politician had a significant transgression, they would either be ousted or resign.
I remember when Gary Heart dropped out of the presidential race because it was found out he had an affair. Clinton was impeached over lying about an affair. Today the republican front-runner is quoted as saying one should "grab them by the pussy" in regards to beauty contestants. And furthermore, is under investigation for using political funds to pay off the porn star he had an affair with. Not that he did it, but WHICH FUNDS he used to do it.
I don't think that it's about believing in anyone doing the right thing anymore, it's about who's moral outrage is the loudest.
Edit: Rereading this, it sounds less like I had hoped. My overall point is that I am incredulous about the fact that in recent history, the idea was that while everyone KNEW politicians were slimy (see every politician joke ever), there was at least this facade that they were upstanding citizens. They at least TRIED. Today, it feels more like reality TV, they want the shock value. There's something built into the engagement, to the tune of "any publicity is good publicity".
I think the internet has homogenized viewpoints and culture. You still have some stratification but we've never been more grouped up than before, which is why it feels like we're so much more...
I think the internet has homogenized viewpoints and culture. You still have some stratification but we've never been more grouped up than before, which is why it feels like we're so much more politicized and polarized.
IIRC younger people are less stratified and more monocultured than ever.
more mono cultured? i would say less, with the internet they can see what is happening and not a cherry picked news blurb by their parents. They can talk about what they are feeling online without...
more mono cultured? i would say less, with the internet they can see what is happening and not a cherry picked news blurb by their parents. They can talk about what they are feeling online without being told to move out for not voting for a republican.
Yeah and the "moral majority" and a lot of other disastrous conservative religion+politics mixtures has long been an accelerant of pushing us in increasingly dangerous directions- and that was in '79
Yeah and the "moral majority" and a lot of other disastrous conservative religion+politics mixtures has long been an accelerant of pushing us in increasingly dangerous directions- and that was in '79
I agree. If modern conservative politics were just about economic and political theory...maybe I would feel comfortable sharing tables and chalk it all up to a simple difference of opinion (their...
I agree.
If modern conservative politics were just about economic and political theory...maybe I would feel comfortable sharing tables and chalk it all up to a simple difference of opinion (their economic theories are still hurting people) but I can't in good conscience do it as they are now.
Broadly, I agree. And on top of that, the behavior of the American right during the pandemic was loathsome. Hell, the example in this article one of the conservatives gave (his belief that masks...
Broadly, I agree. And on top of that, the behavior of the American right during the pandemic was loathsome. Hell, the example in this article one of the conservatives gave (his belief that masks were useless based upon, presumably, nothing) is a prime example.
Having said that, I am also a bit reluctant to assign 100% of the blame for the political polarization to my side's political enemies. Certainly, it feels like the right has completely lost their minds—that their positions are based upon maintaining privilege and/or feelings over facts and data. But I'm sure they also feel the same way (that we on the left are crazy and it's all our fault), so it makes me uncomfortable to wash my hands of the issue.
More than that, I'm concerned about things becoming increasingly entrenched and everyone retreating into echo chambers. Both because of the effects upon politics but also because it feels like the run up to a civil war.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like an extraordinarily surprising development. Political polarization in the United States (and elsewhere in the developed world, near as I can tell) has been...
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like an extraordinarily surprising development. Political polarization in the United States (and elsewhere in the developed world, near as I can tell) has been snowballing rather dramatically.
As an older Millennial, I have a hard time remembering when the country wasn't highly politically polarized. I've seen various explanations for this, some of them were plausible than others. Certainly, I would say that there is a broad lack of trust in shared institutions. It's my understanding that, for example, in the '60s, when Walter Cronkite said something had happened on the news, virtually every American believed it. If we can't even agree on what's happening in the country/world, it's not surprising that we no longer feel like we can communicate with or, as in this case, live near our "political rivals," so to speak.
One of my friends moved away from her home state because she no longer felt safe. She's trans and is worried about getting thrown in prison as a pedophile because someone who doesn't like her can...
One of my friends moved away from her home state because she no longer felt safe. She's trans and is worried about getting thrown in prison as a pedophile because someone who doesn't like her can call the bathroom Gestapo. The "polite disagreement of matters of opinion" is rapidly disappearing. People are arguing the merits of child labor and child marriage. Religious protections are superseding human rights.
I don't blame anyone for trying to escape to a state that supports their views, let alone to a state that supports their very existence. Snowballing is right, it's not just about finding like-minded people at the bar to talk to, it's about escaping this growing sunset town culture, it's about caring what you and your kids futures will look like 5-10 years down the line. Will they be ready to go to college? Will they learn about history, sociology, or anatomy, or will they be denied that knowledge? Politics has become existential for way more people.
Science and objectivity became opt-in with "alternative facts" and it that was the straw that broke this camel's back I think. People no longer needed to support their claims, they could just garner faith.
People want to believe they're "good" and will apparently adopt extreme views to justify their goodness. Because you got an abortion, and because you're a good person, then abortion should be...
People want to believe they're "good" and will apparently adopt extreme views to justify their goodness.
Because you got an abortion, and because you're a good person, then abortion should be celebrated as a good thing? You still killed your baby. You can have good reasons to do a terrible thing.
Because you served as a police officer you're a good person, then police everywhere must be supported? Police abuse their power. Not everyone has honor and integrity.
With that in mind, it's not surprising that people are moving to the places where their neighbors and community can affirm their beliefs as the "right" ones.
(Meanwhile I feel like a piece of shit if I stop to think about it. Every creature's existence is predicated on the suffering of other conscious creatures. A thousandfold more so if you are a Homo sapiens sapiens that consumes animal products created via industrial animal agriculture.)
I understand the point you're making with your two contrasting paragraphs, but this seems hyperbolic where the police one does not. I don't think I've ever heard a pro choice advocate celebrate...
then abortion should be celebrated as a good thing? You still killed your baby
I understand the point you're making with your two contrasting paragraphs, but this seems hyperbolic where the police one does not. I don't think I've ever heard a pro choice advocate celebrate the actual act of abortion, only the right to access abortion services.
I'll admit I'm critiquing a caricature of the character of Leah Dean from her photo in the article. I don't know what she really thinks. The positive vibes clash with the seriousness I think...
I'll admit I'm critiquing a caricature of the character of Leah Dean from her photo in the article. I don't know what she really thinks.
The positive vibes clash with the seriousness I think should be given to abortion as a topic.
I have never in my life heard of someone celebrating abortion as a "good thing." On the contrary, it is often the least bad option in a life/death situation. A fetus is not a baby. It is a clump...
Because you got an abortion, and because you're a good person, then abortion should be celebrated as a good thing?
I have never in my life heard of someone celebrating abortion as a "good thing." On the contrary, it is often the least bad option in a life/death situation.
You still killed your baby.
A fetus is not a baby. It is a clump of cells that may or may not one day develop into a baby.
I celebrate abortion as a good thing. I think it’s one of the best bits of healthcare that we have. I think being afraid to say this and to always frame it as the hardest decision someone has to...
I celebrate abortion as a good thing. I think it’s one of the best bits of healthcare that we have. I think being afraid to say this and to always frame it as the hardest decision someone has to make, or to frame it in life and death terms, really plays into the anti-choice rhetoric of it being a terrible thing to do. I’m obviously not saying it’s always an easy decision, or that it can’t be a devastating choice, I’m just saying it isn’t always hard - sometimes it’s an easy choice and a relief and gives someone their future back.
Small pedantic correction here: a blastocyst is a clump of cells that is not a baby. An embryo and a fetus are also not babies but not clumps of cells any more than an adult is.
A fetus is not a baby. It is a clump of cells that may or may not one day develop into a baby.
Small pedantic correction here: a blastocyst is a clump of cells that is not a baby. An embryo and a fetus are also not babies but not clumps of cells any more than an adult is.
Thanks for the correction. My biology knowledge is a bit weak. If it counts for anything, I do kind of perceive people as "clumps of cells," given that we are made of cells and are kind of clumpy.
Thanks for the correction. My biology knowledge is a bit weak.
If it counts for anything, I do kind of perceive people as "clumps of cells," given that we are made of cells and are kind of clumpy.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written a number of articles suggesting that social media is largely to blame for political polarization, as here. Perhaps that's excessively reductive, but I think...
People want to believe they're "good" and will apparently adopt extreme views to justify their goodness.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written a number of articles suggesting that social media is largely to blame for political polarization, as here.
It’s not just the waste of time and scarce attention that matters; it’s the continual chipping-away of trust. An autocracy can deploy propaganda or use fear to motivate the behaviors it desires, but a democracy depends on widely internalized acceptance of the legitimacy of rules, norms, and institutions. Blind and irrevocable trust in any particular individual or organization is never warranted. But when citizens lose trust in elected leaders, health authorities, the courts, the police, universities, and the integrity of elections, then every decision becomes contested; every election becomes a life-and-death struggle to save the country from the other side. The most recent Edelman Trust Barometer (an international measure of citizens’ trust in government, business, media, and nongovernmental organizations) showed stable and competent autocracies (China and the United Arab Emirates) at the top of the list, while contentious democracies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, and South Korea scored near the bottom (albeit above Russia).
Recent academic studies suggest that social media is indeed corrosive to trust in governments, news media, and people and institutions in general. A working paper that offers the most comprehensive review of the research, led by the social scientists Philipp Lorenz-Spreen and Lisa Oswald, concludes that “the large majority of reported associations between digital media use and trust appear to be detrimental for democracy.” The literature is complex—some studies show benefits, particularly in less developed democracies—but the review found that, on balance, social media amplifies political polarization; foments populism, especially right-wing populism; and is associated with the spread of misinformation.
Perhaps that's excessively reductive, but I think he has a point. Social media ends up pushing a lot of people to engage in a sort of Purity Olympics, increasing polarization and pushing people to adopt the most extreme positions of their side of the political spectrum. To your point, people are likely to be publicly shamed if they profess political views that are unpopular in their social circles.
Haidt co-wrote The Coddling of the American Mind, a foundational text of the "liberals on college campuses are weak little snowflakes demanding safe spaces and trigger warnings for everything"...
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written a number of articles suggesting that social media is largely to blame for political polarization
Haidt co-wrote The Coddling of the American Mind, a foundational text of the "liberals on college campuses are weak little snowflakes demanding safe spaces and trigger warnings for everything" subgenre of political polarization. (I'd recommend this If Books Could Kill podcast episode for the best criticism I've heard of it)
when he's had such a direct role in creating polarization, I'm not sure how much weight I assign to his opinions about other causes of polarization. big "we're all looking for the guy who did this" energy.
Oh, don't get me wrong. He embarrassed the hell out of himself on the Ezra Klein show years ago, too, because he's very defensive. He has an enormous axe to grind with the culture of college...
Oh, don't get me wrong. He embarrassed the hell out of himself on the Ezra Klein show years ago, too, because he's very defensive. He has an enormous axe to grind with the culture of college campuses.
That said, I still think that he might be on to something in terms of the effect of social media on our culture. There's an Idiological Purity Olympics going on constantly on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, and Reddit that I think spills over into offline life.
Thanks for that podcast link. I was actually just talking about my criticisms of the book over here. @skybrian, you might be interested in listening to it as an additional perspective on the book....
Thanks for that podcast link. I was actually just talking about my criticisms of the book over here.
@skybrian, you might be interested in listening to it as an additional perspective on the book. Some of their banter doesn't come across as entirely good faith and falls into culture war posture, but that's standard podcast fare (and also fair-play turnabout when the book itself does the same thing). Many of their points are still valuable though, and several of them are quite salient. The most compelling parts for me were where they bring up some glaring omissions from some of the specific situations that are detailed in the book, which helps affirm my assessment that the book is partisan hokum.
If you were to quantify polarization, you could break it up into different effects and the "social media effect" would be a very significant part of it. There's certainly more at play, but I don't...
If you were to quantify polarization, you could break it up into different effects and the "social media effect" would be a very significant part of it. There's certainly more at play, but I don't think that makes Haidt's argument reductionist.
I think the frustrating part of this process is that red states tend to maintain smaller populations which in turn have grossly overpowered political power. 2 Senators for CA and 2 Senators for...
I think the frustrating part of this process is that red states tend to maintain smaller populations which in turn have grossly overpowered political power. 2 Senators for CA and 2 Senators for Wyoming?!?! I'd love to see a movement to get progressive voters into smaller states and start changing the political landscape of the Senate and House.
Oh, that's a whole separate matter that drives me crazy. The democratic processes in this country don't make nearly enough sense. Some of that's not surprising, considering we are still largely...
Oh, that's a whole separate matter that drives me crazy.
The democratic processes in this country don't make nearly enough sense. Some of that's not surprising, considering we are still largely using a system that was invented in the late eighteenth century, at the dawn of constitutional democracy. But the status quo has so much power that there's very little hope that we would ever attempt to fix any of it. Constitutional amendments that would improve our current voting systems for something more logical and that would more accurately reflect the preferences of the country would never fly.
If someone were to sit down and create a clean sheet constitution, there's no doubt that idiotic institutions like the Electoral College would not exist. First-past-the-post voting is also stupid for a wide variety of reasons and clearly should go. But a lot of people don't understand why it's bad and efforts to remove it in other countries haven't always gone well (for example, the UK).
To your point, I completely agree that the Senate is an antidemocratic institution. I understand the idea behind it and why it was important to the original 13 colonies, but it's an archaicism that needs to go. I'm not certain that we need a bicameral legislature, but if we were to have one, the structure of the Senate is certainly not one I would ever choose. I rather like the idea of a mixed-member proportional representation system for a national legislature. But that feels like it would fit the House a lot more than the Senate. Probably the easiest way to "fix" to the Senate (if you were to keep it at all) would be to weigh the votes by population. So, yeah, California and Wyoming both have two senators each, but they don't have equal voting power. However, given that you would have to pass a constitutional amendment to affect that change through the Senate, it's easy to see why smaller states would never approve knee capping their own power.
With regard to the premise of the article, I'm not sure any of this gets any better if people continue to self-segregate into different states on ideological lines.
I'm doing my part, I guess. I moved to a red state (because my partner lived there and because of a good job offer) and have already voted once. I also spitefully throw some of my relatively large...
I'm doing my part, I guess. I moved to a red state (because my partner lived there and because of a good job offer) and have already voted once.
I also spitefully throw some of my relatively large software engineering salary at topical progressive PACs whenever someone annoys me.
Balanization here we come!!. So at what point do we then decidee that a federal government doesn't and can't represent both of us and start fighting over it?
Balanization here we come!!. So at what point do we then decidee that a federal government doesn't and can't represent both of us and start fighting over it?
the reporter starts off with some good ol' "both sides" framing:
you see, people on both sides are afraid to put up flags outside their house showing their political beliefs!
are they really comparable?
if you fly a flag outside your house for something politically unpopular in that neighborhood, it's possible one of your neighbors might tear down the flag, or vandalize your property in other ways.
but I have a suspicion that cops in LA might take vandalism against a current or retired police officer's house because of a "thin blue line" flag a bit more seriously than cops in Texas would handle vandalism because of a pro-abortion-rights flag.
and separate from the flags themselves...the issues they represent just aren't comparable.
abortion rights in Texas is a life-or-death issue. from June: She was denied an abortion in Texas - then she almost died
meanwhile, the thin blue line flag represents...people should be more appreciative of cops, I guess?
getting back to this article:
another example of the "both sides" comparison falling flat.
people moving from blue states to Florida are doing it for...lower taxes, I guess? bans on "wokeness" in schools?
meanwhile, LGBT people moving out of Texas aren't moving because they want higher taxes, or a school where their kindergartners will be taught Critical Race Theory...they're moving for their safety. in particular, for trans people facing bans on gender-affirming care, they're moving because they want to continue to exist as trans.
did the AP try to fact-check this? because I did...
wikipedia has two pretty thorough articles: George Floyd protests in California and George Floyd protests in Los Angeles County, California
neither one mentions a police station in the LA suburbs being firebombed.
the closest thing I could find is this, a man firebombing a police station in May 2021, almost a year after the George Floyd protests. and seemingly as a one-off event, not in connection to any protest. but the location given (Topanga) does match the description of being a former hippie colony in the mountains west of LA.
right, they're both experiencing some sort of pushback for their beliefs, but to equivocate them is highly irresponsible
I don't even think it's fair to suggest there is real pushback. I live in a progressive corner of California, as do my parents. In my neighborhood or theirs I find more Blue Lives Matter flags than I do any of the progressive stances such as Black Lives Matter signs or rainbow flags. Those houses aren't targeted and lord knows it would be the first place the cops would actually show up. Hell we couldn't even fire a cop when it came out that he was a 3%er.
We were inundated with tourists this past week and the number of "Try to take 'em", "Let's go Brandon", "If you don't love America GET OUT", or I shit you not "I bathe in liberal tears" was astronomical. The slogans are aggressive on purpose, they are looking to start a fight. They are looking for pushback so they can claim how discriminated against they are. They are looking to get a rise from us.
To a degree, it's not about if they're actually being harmed. They just need to perceive that they're being targeted and discriminated against.
I agree with everything you have to say for the record, but I do think it's important to understand that part of why it's impossible to avoid the "both sides" argument is because the right wing genuinely believes they are victims - they have been bombarded with very powerful propaganda to convince them of it. To dismiss their victimhood guarantees articles like this never reach across the political spectrum as they are a group that self-isolates at the sight of such accusations. That being said, I don't think that's the authors intention in this case, but I do understand opinions like the guy you replied to.
All-in-all, I don't have much more to add than that such as a proposed solution. I'm a far left Marxist and LGBT but also in the social work profession so while my politics are extremely polarizing myself I do have to interact with the entire political spectrum from a stance of empathy at times. The issue is I'm a far left Marxist and know that it's pretty hard to convince my comrades to just humor the racist, horrible people for a moment so we can try to deprogram them. But also, working with the public in a progressive city as someone raised closeted in a very red suburb makes me realize some of these people are truly scared and don't even know why.
In the red areas, they genuinely think an army of Antifa will come to their houses and kill them, but they buy guns and laugh about it, and feel comfort in protecting a community that all sees the same threat as them because they all watch Fox. It might even be a therapeutic experience to imagine such threats and address them with other people in your community.
Imagine believing that same bullshit in a blue area, though, where you're outnumbered and it's harder to get guns and people have literal communist flags outside their house. Unlike the red state friends who convince you of this bullshit in the first place, if "Antifa" actually attacked one day, you're fucked and you might even wonder why this is at all fair that you're treated like this because of your beliefs. In red areas, people even get to discuss these "issues" with strangers as the strangers either agree with them or pretend to because they're used to it. In a blue area, it's so rare to hear that stuff that of course they're going to get looked at like they're crazy.
Maybe this migration is a good thing. The blue state conservatives will inevitably end up complaining about shitty infrastructure and lack of social support in their new homes, while blue regions will gain enough supermajorities to start pushing the Overton window out of corner it's been backed into. If anyone is going to convince the rural conservatives that they're missing out on a lot, it's other conservatives who used to enjoy the "luxury" of the liberal cities and states.
But the poor conservatives are being called bigots just because they passed some laws that banned books and healthcare. It’s totally comparable to the people fleeing said laws. Being called a bigot hurts too you know.
/s
Yeah, I am generally not a fan of the false equivalence fallacy, particularly when it comes to politics.
That said, if we give the reporter the benefit of the doubt, I think they were trying to show that both liberals and conservatives are feeling a growing need to move to places that more closely align with their political ideology.
I grew up in a rather rural and very conservative county in California and currently live in the Portland, Oregon metro area. I've been here since just after college, more than 10 years ago. I can't imagine what it would be like if I was still living where I grew up.
That said, there were a few comments in the article that the author could have pushed back on. Like the idea that masks weren't useful during the pandemic unless you were clearly symptomatic. I suppose the author didn't feel that was relevant and wanted to keep the article politically neutral.
I appreciate the asymmetry you're highlighting, but I think you may be missing the point (and I'm not sure what your point is, although you have a compelling start).
The take away for me is that people don't feel comfortable expressing their views in their communities, and instead are moving to communities of echo-chambers on both sides.
It might even be good if there is an asymmetry to the significance of views in a community. If a view on something smaller can be discussed (in person) in a civil manner, then it shows people on both sides that it's safe to discuss more impactful issues like law making.
It's not about who is more right or more wrong(ed), it's about making people more empathetic to issues and views of other humans. That doesn't happen on the internet, it happens in communities. That can't happen if communities don't have a diversity of views
this sort of subtle "negging" generally isn't appropriate on Tildes.
yes, "echo chambers" are always the boogeyman anytime the topic of political polarization comes up.
I have a friend. when this friend and I hang out, we often end up talking about climate change. I tend to be a bit of a doomer on the topic, while my friend is much more optimistic and believes things like geoengineering will be enough to reverse climate change.
my friend and I disagree about that. and that's totally fine. we can disagree about it and remain friends.
meanwhile, I don't have any friends who are climate change deniers, and as far as I know my friend doesn't either. if someone I knew started seriously repeating climate change denial talking points, I'd probe them about it a bit, but if they persisted I might end up cutting them out of my friend circle, or at a minimum just exiting the conversation anytime the subject came up.
this often gets portrayed as a binary, either/or thing. either you're in an echo chamber with people who completely agree with you, or you're outside any echo chamber and exposed to a diversity of opinions and challenges to your ideas.
the reality is that every situation is a mix of both. I'm in an "echo chamber" where all my friends believe climate change is real, and human-caused, and a serious problem.
and that's an echo chamber I'm perfectly happy living in, because it's not actually an echo chamber at all. it's just a baseline set of facts that everyone agrees on. there is still disagreement and debate within the "echo chamber" about what to do based on that shared understanding of reality.
if someone believes climate change is a hoax, but is afraid to talk about it around left-wing people like me because they're worried about losing friends, that is a them problem, not a me problem. life is short and I am under no obligation to spend my time listening to bullshit.
the pattern that seems to repeat itself over and over again is that generally left-of-center people establish an "echo chamber" based on some baseline set of facts. then generally right-of-center people, disagreeing with those baseline facts, argue that they're being excluded from the debate because of the liberal echo chamber. it ends up being a convenient way to sidestep the facts in question, and instead have a meta-debate about how much of baseline reality you can disagree with and still be included in the debate.
(conservatives do this too, of course, but in general the criticism I see from the left isn't about conservatives being in "echo chambers", it's just simply that they're wrong about said factual reality)
I'm reminded of "teach the controversy", the campaign to have public schools teach evolution and Biblical creationism side-by-side. we should expose students to both sides and let them make up their own mind, the argument went. because after all, middle school science teachers are in an echo chamber of believing that evolution is real and the Bible is not a literal scientific document. why are they so afraid of debate and having their ideas challenged???
I'm not familiar with negging in this context (I only know it in the context of dating, and have only heard enough to know that I didn't care to know more), but I think it means partially agreeing with/acknowledging/complementing someone while disagreeing with them overall (or the inverse, agreeing with someone overall but partially disagreeing with/insulting them?). If that's correct then noted, I'll avoid doing that in the future (and sorry, if that's appropriate).
to topic
I think I'd respond similarly. I agree it's not binary. I think it's a bit of a spectrum on two axis.
On one side you've got a range from people being afraid to let others know things about them or what they think, to people obsessing and evangelizing over an issue.
On the other side you've got a range from issues that don't really affect them at all, to things that very deeply impact them day to day.
If an issue affects someone more personally then I'm probably going to be more willing to entertain it regularly, even if I don't align with them.
"echo chamber" seems like it was too loaded of a phrase. What I meant was that it's bad to have a community where you're never exposed to a perspective that you don't align with. Either because people are afraid to reveal themselves or because there are no different perspectives. For example I'm not particularly religious, yet I find my friend's spirituality to be refreshing from time to time and don't want them to feel like they need to move elsewhere to feel accepted.
Climate change is an interesting example because it also brings up locality. If an issue deals with how you want your community to work then everyone does need to get on some baseline set of facts and it's reasonable to move somewhere where others view reality the same as me. Then our respective communities can figure out how they want to move forward.
But if the issue is national or global then relocating doesn't help anyone. I find this the most exhausting because when it comes time to vote, anyone's view is (roughly) as valid as anyone else's. So I feel obliged to engage that kind of conversation (in person, at least once but not indefinitely, per person).
I would call it a BS as well. Excluding real crazies1, no one on the left would destroy the US flag, and I don't think they would even with the thin blue line flag. I live in LA and I see some neighbors having flags outside and never seen them damaged by someone.
It feels like this text tries to continue that ridiculous stereotype fueled by conservative media that "the left hates America."
1 for example I got recently a tire slashed for no apparent reason, I don't have bumper stickers of any kind, parked at random location away from home (so not like someone who knew me would know car's location), and the residential building had own garage, so I don't think it was its residents (although if any of the above, then this would be the most likely reason)
I’m not sure the article did a great job at proving their claim. They did a case study with Colorado and Idaho, but even in that limited purview their statistical evidence was weak, and of course that’s two out of the 50 states.
I think a lot of liberals move to red states for economic reason. Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee. Of course, by doing so they make the states less red - Georgia went from solid red to voting for Biden, Warnock, Ossof, then Warnock again in a row - that’s 4 state wide elections won by Democrats in a row.
That’s the opposite of state level polarization. Now, there may still be local polarization, as the blue inroads in Georgia are all in the suburbs of Atlanta.
Anecdotally, I know a lot of late 20-something and early 30-something singles and couples in STEM who have moved from here in the NYC-area where it's too expensive to buy a house to states like Texas and Arizona where there are good jobs and the cost of living is low enough that they can start a family.
Many of them would much prefer to be in a blue state and would live in one if they felt they could afford it.
That being said, some who left the northeast to settle down in red states and plan on having kids are thinking of leaving their red states due to maternal health concerns, but they aren't sure how they will be able to afford it.
There are others, though, who won't even entertain the idea of moving to a red state, even if that means they'll have to delay starting a family (these people seem to be single, so they probably view family as a "far-future" thing rather than a "near-future" thing).
I wonder if there are any opposite trends of conservatives moving to liberal states. That sounds unlikely on face value.
Well, it depends on what you count as a "liberal state". Many states traditionally considered "liberal" are fairly saturated economically (mostly self-inflicted imo from decades of not building new housing), like California and New York mostly famously (but also, say, Seattle).
An example of a state with high growth is Virginia, which can probably call liberal now. It's been solidly blue for a while, and I wouldn't be surprised to see residents from nearby "conservative" states move to the DC metro area for jobs. That being said, Virginia was a conservative state not that long ago.
Looking at the states overall population changes, it is the case that many liberal states have either straight up population decline or slower population growth. But many conservative states are quite literally dying out as well. That's why I felt picking Idaho is somewhat not representative from AP.
Florida went from purple to pink largely due to in-migration by conservatives from out of state.
Libertarians have also had a similar effect in New Hampshire, but they’re not as sharply partisan so the effect is harder to register.
I also didn't find the anecdotes in the article very convincing, so I went looking for some data. I ended up looking at voting. It seems like for US Congress Idaho has voted ~30% Democrat for the past few elections. Their state legislature composition hasn't changed much in the past decade, with 6-7 Democrats in the senate (total 35 members) and 11-14 Democrats in the House (70 members). It seems like there were consistently more Democrats in the state legislature prior to 1995, but that's about 30 years ago, so doesn't really pertain to recent trends.
Wikipedia source
I guess if something suddenly changed last year as suggested by the surveys cited by the article, that wouldn't show up in a lot of voting records yet. I kind of wonder if it's just that the discourse changed though.
Most of the population shift here has happened since the pandemic, and would only be about 1-2% of a state's population. Not enough to noticeably affect things, since there are more than 1-2% of swing voters (so how swing voters go would be far more impactful than the population shifts).
I would rather be polarized than compromise. I do find leftist views morally superior and will certainly not apologize for that. As long as LGBTQIA+ are being put in danger, the thoughts of some faux-civility non-polarized middle ground can miss me
My area's recent rightward turn definitely has me re-analyzing if this is where I want to geographically be long-term.
I'm not convinced we were ever less polarized, we're just more vocal now.
exactly, if trans people say "we have a right to exist" and the far right says "you should all be removed from society, incarcerated or killed" there's no morally superior middle ground there.
I feel like back then we were forced to spend more time with folks who had different viewpoints. It's possible I'm off on that because I've gone from teenager to adult in that timespan, but really I've spent less and less time physically with people from outside my household unless I make an actual effort to do so. This obviously spiked during quarantine.
We also had politicians who at least pretended to be honest and didn't want to be disgraced. A lot of what's happening at the top now is happening because we depended so heavily on the assumption that the folks in charge would try to do the right thing. There isn't really anything in place to deal with the opposite happening in a large number of people in control.
People didn't watch partisan news 24/7. That's all it is. Partisan flacks on the news spin stories and create narratives to suit an agenda. People marinate in those narratives and come out with very simple thought-terminating cliches to support their views. This makes it easy to dismiss basically everyone else as ignorant or malicious. Once you do that you get more and more saturated in a specific ideological ecosystem to where your views about what the world looks like, how things work, what's important or not, etc. start to diverge from any sort of "consensus reality."
I noticed this really during the George Floyd protests. I live in one of the cities that conservative media kept characterizing as being a chaotic firepit due to "antifa." But. . . it was fine. Like, 1 cop car got torched maybe. But people who lived out in the middle of nowhere kept insisting to me that the place where I live is surely a bombed out war-zone and simply would not listen to me asserting that there were like, 4 teenagers who went around doing graffiti and smashing car windows and that was it.
It's hard to reason with people when they're operating with a funhouse mirror perspective on reality. If the world actually looked as they imagined it does, with roving gangs of terrorists running amok and burning down neighborhoods, then some of their politics might actually make sense. But the premises they are operating on are absurd fantasies.
Yea, people talk about STL and chicago like its a free for all. Then think im being paranoid about not wanting to go to florida because i can't legally use the bathroom there.
As someone who visits family in FL a lot, the vibe there has definitely shifted in a weird way. It varies a lot based on where you are, and I don't think your typical person is much of a jerk or cares very much, but it's like the subpopulation of crazy people (who probably exist everywhere) just seem particularly emboldened to act like shits.
Yea, just now with the "law" on their side I'm not bringing myself into that fight if i don't have to.
I live in the Portland metro area and so does my dad. He had Facebook friends from the conservative city I grew up in that we've moved away from asking how he was surviving the whole city being burnt down in protest. As far as they knew, the protests that were largely confined to a single block in reality were, instead, a Mad Max hellscape spread out over a 20 mi radius.
It's ridiculous.
So you have partisan right wing media like Fox News pushing this narrative, and then you get it reinforced in social media echo chambers. Particularly Facebook for Boomers.
What also gets me, is that beyond the sentiment that politicians would try to do the right thing, there's the idea that, in the past, if a politician had a significant transgression, they would either be ousted or resign.
I remember when Gary Heart dropped out of the presidential race because it was found out he had an affair. Clinton was impeached over lying about an affair. Today the republican front-runner is quoted as saying one should "grab them by the pussy" in regards to beauty contestants. And furthermore, is under investigation for using political funds to pay off the porn star he had an affair with. Not that he did it, but WHICH FUNDS he used to do it.
I don't think that it's about believing in anyone doing the right thing anymore, it's about who's moral outrage is the loudest.
Edit: Rereading this, it sounds less like I had hoped. My overall point is that I am incredulous about the fact that in recent history, the idea was that while everyone KNEW politicians were slimy (see every politician joke ever), there was at least this facade that they were upstanding citizens. They at least TRIED. Today, it feels more like reality TV, they want the shock value. There's something built into the engagement, to the tune of "any publicity is good publicity".
I think the internet has homogenized viewpoints and culture. You still have some stratification but we've never been more grouped up than before, which is why it feels like we're so much more politicized and polarized.
IIRC younger people are less stratified and more monocultured than ever.
more mono cultured? i would say less, with the internet they can see what is happening and not a cherry picked news blurb by their parents. They can talk about what they are feeling online without being told to move out for not voting for a republican.
Yeah and the "moral majority" and a lot of other disastrous conservative religion+politics mixtures has long been an accelerant of pushing us in increasingly dangerous directions- and that was in '79
I agree.
If modern conservative politics were just about economic and political theory...maybe I would feel comfortable sharing tables and chalk it all up to a simple difference of opinion (their economic theories are still hurting people) but I can't in good conscience do it as they are now.
Broadly, I agree. And on top of that, the behavior of the American right during the pandemic was loathsome. Hell, the example in this article one of the conservatives gave (his belief that masks were useless based upon, presumably, nothing) is a prime example.
Having said that, I am also a bit reluctant to assign 100% of the blame for the political polarization to my side's political enemies. Certainly, it feels like the right has completely lost their minds—that their positions are based upon maintaining privilege and/or feelings over facts and data. But I'm sure they also feel the same way (that we on the left are crazy and it's all our fault), so it makes me uncomfortable to wash my hands of the issue.
More than that, I'm concerned about things becoming increasingly entrenched and everyone retreating into echo chambers. Both because of the effects upon politics but also because it feels like the run up to a civil war.
Maybe one needs to happen if they want to go back to the "good ol days" beating queers and women not being able to live their own life.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like an extraordinarily surprising development. Political polarization in the United States (and elsewhere in the developed world, near as I can tell) has been snowballing rather dramatically.
As an older Millennial, I have a hard time remembering when the country wasn't highly politically polarized. I've seen various explanations for this, some of them were plausible than others. Certainly, I would say that there is a broad lack of trust in shared institutions. It's my understanding that, for example, in the '60s, when Walter Cronkite said something had happened on the news, virtually every American believed it. If we can't even agree on what's happening in the country/world, it's not surprising that we no longer feel like we can communicate with or, as in this case, live near our "political rivals," so to speak.
One of my friends moved away from her home state because she no longer felt safe. She's trans and is worried about getting thrown in prison as a pedophile because someone who doesn't like her can call the bathroom Gestapo. The "polite disagreement of matters of opinion" is rapidly disappearing. People are arguing the merits of child labor and child marriage. Religious protections are superseding human rights.
I don't blame anyone for trying to escape to a state that supports their views, let alone to a state that supports their very existence. Snowballing is right, it's not just about finding like-minded people at the bar to talk to, it's about escaping this growing sunset town culture, it's about caring what you and your kids futures will look like 5-10 years down the line. Will they be ready to go to college? Will they learn about history, sociology, or anatomy, or will they be denied that knowledge? Politics has become existential for way more people.
Science and objectivity became opt-in with "alternative facts" and it that was the straw that broke this camel's back I think. People no longer needed to support their claims, they could just garner faith.
People want to believe they're "good" and will apparently adopt extreme views to justify their goodness.
Because you got an abortion, and because you're a good person, then abortion should be celebrated as a good thing? You still killed your baby. You can have good reasons to do a terrible thing.
Because you served as a police officer you're a good person, then police everywhere must be supported? Police abuse their power. Not everyone has honor and integrity.
With that in mind, it's not surprising that people are moving to the places where their neighbors and community can affirm their beliefs as the "right" ones.
(Meanwhile I feel like a piece of shit if I stop to think about it. Every creature's existence is predicated on the suffering of other conscious creatures. A thousandfold more so if you are a Homo sapiens sapiens that consumes animal products created via industrial animal agriculture.)
I understand the point you're making with your two contrasting paragraphs, but this seems hyperbolic where the police one does not. I don't think I've ever heard a pro choice advocate celebrate the actual act of abortion, only the right to access abortion services.
I'll admit I'm critiquing a caricature of the character of Leah Dean from her photo in the article. I don't know what she really thinks.
The positive vibes clash with the seriousness I think should be given to abortion as a topic.
I have never in my life heard of someone celebrating abortion as a "good thing." On the contrary, it is often the least bad option in a life/death situation.
A fetus is not a baby. It is a clump of cells that may or may not one day develop into a baby.
I celebrate abortion as a good thing. I think it’s one of the best bits of healthcare that we have. I think being afraid to say this and to always frame it as the hardest decision someone has to make, or to frame it in life and death terms, really plays into the anti-choice rhetoric of it being a terrible thing to do. I’m obviously not saying it’s always an easy decision, or that it can’t be a devastating choice, I’m just saying it isn’t always hard - sometimes it’s an easy choice and a relief and gives someone their future back.
Small pedantic correction here: a blastocyst is a clump of cells that is not a baby. An embryo and a fetus are also not babies but not clumps of cells any more than an adult is.
Thanks for the correction. My biology knowledge is a bit weak.
If it counts for anything, I do kind of perceive people as "clumps of cells," given that we are made of cells and are kind of clumpy.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written a number of articles suggesting that social media is largely to blame for political polarization, as here.
Perhaps that's excessively reductive, but I think he has a point. Social media ends up pushing a lot of people to engage in a sort of Purity Olympics, increasing polarization and pushing people to adopt the most extreme positions of their side of the political spectrum. To your point, people are likely to be publicly shamed if they profess political views that are unpopular in their social circles.
Haidt co-wrote The Coddling of the American Mind, a foundational text of the "liberals on college campuses are weak little snowflakes demanding safe spaces and trigger warnings for everything" subgenre of political polarization. (I'd recommend this If Books Could Kill podcast episode for the best criticism I've heard of it)
when he's had such a direct role in creating polarization, I'm not sure how much weight I assign to his opinions about other causes of polarization. big "we're all looking for the guy who did this" energy.
Oh, don't get me wrong. He embarrassed the hell out of himself on the Ezra Klein show years ago, too, because he's very defensive. He has an enormous axe to grind with the culture of college campuses.
That said, I still think that he might be on to something in terms of the effect of social media on our culture. There's an Idiological Purity Olympics going on constantly on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, and Reddit that I think spills over into offline life.
Thanks for that podcast link. I was actually just talking about my criticisms of the book over here.
@skybrian, you might be interested in listening to it as an additional perspective on the book. Some of their banter doesn't come across as entirely good faith and falls into culture war posture, but that's standard podcast fare (and also fair-play turnabout when the book itself does the same thing). Many of their points are still valuable though, and several of them are quite salient. The most compelling parts for me were where they bring up some glaring omissions from some of the specific situations that are detailed in the book, which helps affirm my assessment that the book is partisan hokum.
If you were to quantify polarization, you could break it up into different effects and the "social media effect" would be a very significant part of it. There's certainly more at play, but I don't think that makes Haidt's argument reductionist.
I think the frustrating part of this process is that red states tend to maintain smaller populations which in turn have grossly overpowered political power. 2 Senators for CA and 2 Senators for Wyoming?!?! I'd love to see a movement to get progressive voters into smaller states and start changing the political landscape of the Senate and House.
Oh, that's a whole separate matter that drives me crazy.
The democratic processes in this country don't make nearly enough sense. Some of that's not surprising, considering we are still largely using a system that was invented in the late eighteenth century, at the dawn of constitutional democracy. But the status quo has so much power that there's very little hope that we would ever attempt to fix any of it. Constitutional amendments that would improve our current voting systems for something more logical and that would more accurately reflect the preferences of the country would never fly.
If someone were to sit down and create a clean sheet constitution, there's no doubt that idiotic institutions like the Electoral College would not exist. First-past-the-post voting is also stupid for a wide variety of reasons and clearly should go. But a lot of people don't understand why it's bad and efforts to remove it in other countries haven't always gone well (for example, the UK).
To your point, I completely agree that the Senate is an antidemocratic institution. I understand the idea behind it and why it was important to the original 13 colonies, but it's an archaicism that needs to go. I'm not certain that we need a bicameral legislature, but if we were to have one, the structure of the Senate is certainly not one I would ever choose. I rather like the idea of a mixed-member proportional representation system for a national legislature. But that feels like it would fit the House a lot more than the Senate. Probably the easiest way to "fix" to the Senate (if you were to keep it at all) would be to weigh the votes by population. So, yeah, California and Wyoming both have two senators each, but they don't have equal voting power. However, given that you would have to pass a constitutional amendment to affect that change through the Senate, it's easy to see why smaller states would never approve knee capping their own power.
With regard to the premise of the article, I'm not sure any of this gets any better if people continue to self-segregate into different states on ideological lines.
I'm doing my part, I guess. I moved to a red state (because my partner lived there and because of a good job offer) and have already voted once.
I also spitefully throw some of my relatively large software engineering salary at topical progressive PACs whenever someone annoys me.
Balanization here we come!!. So at what point do we then decidee that a federal government doesn't and can't represent both of us and start fighting over it?