[dutchCourage]

> the democrats won house, senate, and presidency very much focusing on identity politics.

I'd say the republicans did that. And even after the 4 years of gaslighting and bigotry, they almost did it again. I wouldn't say it's the democrats who make topics like wearing a mask or the destruction of the environment political.

Now you have democrats who play that game too, but since they have the facts "in their favor" it's to their detriment (I'm putting quotes here because covid and global warming being real isn't to anyone's favor, but it's facts). Mud fights benefit those without good arguments.

That said, I agree with your post, antagonizing people doesn't help changing minds.

[Noos]

See, its easier to accuse people of bigotry than look at their actual problems. Trump didn't win because the modern left sucked hard at actually helping the poor, they did because they were gaslighted by bigots.

[dutchCourage]

Haha, I realized the irony of my comment writing it. I definitely would word it differently if I was trying to convince someone.

> See, its easier to accuse people of bigotry than look at their actual problems.

That's true. But I strongly believe that bigotry is the problem. Blaming the left for the rise of populism and conspiracies is like blaming the firefighters for the fire. I'm putting the blame on the arsonists.

We should be debating how to fix issues instead of "Is the issue real?". All the politics who participated in spreading misinformation and dividing the western world should be voted out of their positions.

It's a systemic failure that brought us here. Our system allowed selfish leaders (from all sides tbh) to get in power.

But fixing the systemic issues touches on personal liberties (who decides what can and cannot be said?), so it cannot be done lightly. Additionally, politics wants to be re-elected, so not only they won't do anything against misinformation, they sometimes encourage it.

I blame the leaders more than the followers, but the followers have a personal responsibility in it as well.