[418tpot]

> if in public life I am a well-known conservative Evangelical, but I donate to a cause (say abortion education) that I privately support, I might prefer avoiding any chance that the donee leak my information in an attempt to 'out' me.

This sentence really stood out to me as an example of why politics has become so polarized.

If you have political ideals {A, B, C} and there are others who have ideals {A, B, !C}, and you allow your shared beliefs of {A, B} to either sway your opinion on C, or be not willing to communicate openly about it, then you are exacerbating the problem.

This forces people to try to try to identify with the group that they have the largest intersection with, and usually assume the ideals that that group has. Which means that a majority may silently be in support of C, but are so set in an us-vs-them mindset, that they allow !C to become part of their ideology.

[Pigo]

I always thought people who just agreed with me on everything were boring, or afraid to admit otherwise. I'm no debate master, but I enjoy sparring with someone who knows more than I do, or has a view I hadn't considered.

Do schools even have debate anymore?

[alasdair_]

>Which means that a majority may silently be in support of C, but are so set in an us-vs-them mindset, that they allow !C to become part of their ideology.

This seems a natural byproduct of the type of voting system used. If every individual could vote secretly on every proposed bill, rather than having to vote for someone to publicly do our voting for us, we'd no longer need to have an us versus them system in politics.