[brightball]

The polarization is much worse on the left side of the isle. I’d always observed it on the internet with what comes across as belligerent hate of anything done by a conservative, but this recent poll really brings home just how far the brainwashing has gone.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/over-70-of-young...

If your political beliefs prevent you from associating with somebody because you have labeled them so firmly as to write them off entirely as a person, you have jumped the shark and become the problem.

[ilikecakeandpie]

> If your political beliefs prevent you from associating with somebody because you have labeled them so firmly as to write them off entirely as a person, you have jumped the shark and become the problem.

If someone is having their bodily autonomy threatened by legislation pushed and passed by a political party and a choice for potential partner actively supports and votes for those people to gain or retain power, it's not an irrational decision to decide they're probably not compatible.

[claytongulick]

I feel like your comment supports the parent's point.

Lack of tolerance is the issue.

Which is ironic, given that traditionally the left has been known as being much more tolerant than the right.

I don't see that anymore, online or with the people I know personally.

My family has split over it. My brother refuses to ever speak to my father again because he believes my father voted for Trump.

The excuses I hear are similar to your comment, but mostly boil down to:

1) take a wedge issue

2) build a strawman around it and a dramatic case that doesn't reflect reality

3) somehow make it personal and claim victimhood

4) use that victim status to demonize the "attacker"

[brightball]

You’re illustrating my point here. You’re assuming that everyone fully believes and supports anything in the party platform, especially the most extreme elements.

This absolutely works both ways and erases people in favor of a label.

I talk to a lot of conservatives. While many of them oppose abortion, the issue that sent so many of them over the edge is the lack of willingness of Democrats to agree on a limit. The bulk of opposition is to late term abortions.

The lack of reasonable discourse is what sets extremes in place.

Another example: Tim Scott’s police reform bill that he thought could move forward with bipartisan support. It didn’t solely because Democratic leadership wanted to ensure that it remained an election issue.

We still have no movement on an equivalent bill since Biden took office.

Examples like this make it pretty clear that the party leadership doesn’t actually want to resolve issues.

Allowing the people who benefit from division to keep doing it will only make things worse.

[ilikecakeandpie]

> You’re assuming that everyone fully believes and supports anything in the party platform, especially the most extreme elements.

I think it doesn't matter what one personally believes if they're enabling a party/company/base that mostly campaigns and executes on items that are opposite of their views. Claiming that one is in favor of abortion until a certain limit, but then supporting a party that says none at all is the way to go is pretty off base, yeah?

Also, there's just so much trolling/conversing in bad faith that people don't want to waste their time because they feel it's difficult to have reasonable discourse.

[brightball]

> Claiming that one is in favor of abortion until a certain limit, but then supporting a party that says none at all is the way to go is pretty off base, yeah?

Sure there are people who opposed it entirely, but the majority of what is actually proposed and passed are more focused on defining a cutoff time when the baby is alive with rights of its own. “Heartbeat Bills” are a good example.

There’s a reason you see different laws in different states and it’s because people don’t agree.

You’ll always have people who want to eliminate it entirely and you’ll always have people who want no restrictions at all. That will never change.

Simply trying to agree on a point in time where a fetus has a right to life where termination is unacceptable though, that’s the problem. And politicians don’t want that to change because the moment that the bulk of the charge goes out of an issue they can’t use it to divide people anymore.

If that one issue was off the table, would you reevaluate your party platform? Do you agree with all of it? Do you agree with anything at all on the other side of the isle?

[pjc50]

> opposition is to late term abortions

That's not what's actually happened in legislation though, is it? And there wasn't a huge "late term" abortion problem in the first place, was there? And what are you considering "late term"?

[brightball]

3rd trimester

[pjc50]

Again, barely actually happening: https://drjengunter.com/2016/10/27/how-many-late-term-aborti... and used as a pretext for restricting all abortion by dishonest legislators and advocates.

To the extent that it does happen it's often in situations where the mother's life is in danger, and it was a particularly nasty death in such situation that _finally_ got Ireland to change its constitution.

[s1artibartfast]

>I talk to a lot of conservatives. While many of them oppose abortion, the issue that sent so many of them over the edge is the lack of willingness of Democrats to agree on a limit.

I have found that the vast majority of "pro-life" republicans and "pro-choice" democrats I have spoken with have literally no substantive difference in opinion on abortion law. It is astounding.

Neither group has an actual answer for where the limit should be. Most are uninformed on what the current laws are. Only few outliers are all or nothing, eg life at conception Catholics, or late term abortion radical feminists.

[gruez]

seems like you can pull out this explanation for either side. Just replace "bodily autonomy" issue from "abortions" to "vaccine mandates"

[oceanplexian]

Think of how much of a better world we would live in if everyone respected the individual private choices of others (What drugs you want to consume, what medical procedures you want to take part in, who you are allowed to marry and fall in love with). Unfortunately both the Left and the Right salivate at the thought of using the government's monopoly on violence to control people depending on what they think is for the good of "society".

[tomjen3]

That is my main political issue, but it comes with a major cavaet: where do you put the dividing line between humans? It is not as obvious as you might think, as both sides of the abortion comes down to the rights of the individual.

Same thing, but with opposite supports on a vaccine mandate.

[ninorata]

The left talking about body autonomy in 2021... the irony.

[JohnWhigham]

OP presents a perfectly reasonable statement and your rebuttal is to strawman/argue in bad faith. You are exactly who they are talking about. You are part of the problem.

[ilikecakeandpie]

I'm not arguing in bad faith. I'm stating that it's not unreasonable to want to disassociate from a person who is actively supporting a movement/platform/party that actively works to harm/negatively affect them, especially when it's at a legislative level.

EDIT: Also, to be clear, my original comment was intended for the stat presented that people are saying they wouldn't date someone that voted Republican. I think it's even less unreasonable to not romantically pursue a stranger with political incompatibilities

[Clubber]

>If your political beliefs prevent you from associating with somebody because you have labeled them so firmly as to write them off entirely as a person, you have jumped the shark and become the problem.

If you get the population to focus on wedge issues that laws can't really remedy, they won't focus on your hand stealing money from their pockets. In other words, if you can get them to fight each other, they won't fight you, the power class.

It's all wrestling, these guys fighting each other on the news, talking about things that get people all riled up, go have a beer together after the show.

[dorchadas]

> The polarization is much worse on the left side of the isle.

It's interesting, and I wonder if this has more to do with who controls the discourse the majority of us see. I lived in and grew up in a deep red area. Like, literally, in 2016 and 2020 the state was called for Trump before voting had even ended across it (multiple time zones). I had to actively hide my leftist views from most people, as I immediately got verbally abused if it comes out (it's often quite funny, as I'm in no way an American 'liberal', but that's what they end up resorting to). As a teacher, I've seen left-leaning students get verbally abused too, not to mention I've seen kids get punched simply because they were homosexual (and this was from teenagers).

It becomes quite easy to see why the left wouldn't want to associate with these people, and would write them off, especially if they've had even half of the experiences I've seen. But it happens the exact opposite way in places where right-wing views tend to dominate. Thankfully, it's made it super easy to give me an excuse to keep any political discussion out of my classroom (and, thankfully, the views among the kids are starting to shift to more reasonable ones).

[Mezzie]

It's both.

I'm from a purple area and have half a foot in red land and half a foot in blue land. No matter where I am, I hide more about myself than I used to.

If I'm in a left/blue/urban type space, nobody gets to know that I converted to Christianity as an adult, that I disagree with intersectionality as a lens outside of a legal context, that I think some of the gender activism is crazy, that language has a science to it and we should defer to it, that I shoot as a hobby and think the 2nd Amendment should include digital weaponry, etc.

If I'm in a right/red/rural type space, nobody gets to know that I'm a lesbian who hates femininity, that my Christianity is heretical/liberal, that I think transgenderism is real, etc.

[SavantIdiot]

Only one side picked up torches and marched for white supremecy, and had an entire news network support them.

This is why all these articles on "why can't we just get along" are almost impossible to take seriously.

If you look at the situation, the left is finally admitting that it is tired of trying to "get along," and it is hard to blame them.

[s1artibartfast]

Not every republican was in that crowd marching for white supremacy. Similarly, not every democrat participates in burning down churches and court buildings.

[brightball]

And you saw no similar behavior from the left in the preceding months to that event?

[SavantIdiot]

No, because there wasn't any. But go ahead and try to make that comparison, it'll be great to have your words on the record forever.

[brightball]

Again, illustrating my point.

You’re essentially trying to threaten me if I dare disagree with your position. This is what I mean by jump the shark.

[Karawebnetwork]

As an outsider to American politics, it makes sense to me that the party that strives to legislate against certain human rights is not considered attractive by the population it targets.

Either way, it's a moot point.

This title has been editorialized.

Where this news article says "Over 70% of young Democrats wouldn't date Republicans" and the Axios blog post "Young Dems more likely to despise the other party" the actual data says:

"Would you go on a date with someone that voted for the opposing presidential candidate?

Democrats:

Definitely 7%

Probably 22%

Probably Not 41%

Definitely Not 30%"

I would argue that this is this far from extreme polarization and does not fit under the "despise" verb. It also doesn't provide the thinking behind that answer and doesn't go into detail as to the source of that response. Do the people who responded not want to date the person who voted differently themselves, or do they think that this other person would not consider the idea in the first place? Could the expectation of what happens on a date also be different (expectation of sex vs. expectation of a casual meeting)?

It's also a matter of perception. Where is the line between a "probably" and a "probably not"? "Probably not" was counted as a no, while "probably" was counted as a yes. Could it be that people in a certain demographics are more likely to speak without restraint?

All the other parameters of this question do not take into account the political divide.

But they do consider identity and income.

When it comes to "Race ID", each demographic group gave similar responses, with the exception of "White", who have a lower rate of "Definitely not" (only 15% where "Asian" has 29%)

The "Female" demographic is also notable, coming in at 24% "Definitely Not" versus only 8% for "Male." This to me makes sense when you take into account the fact that women's rights are debated right now. I would have been curious to see metrics about LGBTQ+ issues here has it was a hot topic during the recent elections.

It is when we look at income that we get a clearer picture. All income levels are similar, with the exception of the 50k-80k bracket where the percentage of "Definitely not" is 33% (where all other brackets are close to 15%).

> If your political beliefs prevent you from associating with somebody because you have labeled them so firmly as to write them off entirely as a person, you have jumped the shark and become the problem.

It's also very important to say that the study also contains "Would you be friends with someone that voted for the opposing presidential candidate?" and "Would you work for someone that voted for the opposing presidential candidate?" where results show a similar trend but are a lot more forgiving. Asking for someone to get intimate and build a family is not the same as asking to associate with someone despite different beliefs.

The methodology is also worth mentioning: "This study was conducted Nov. 18-22 from a representative sample of 850 students nationwide from 2-year and 4-year schools".

Source for data: https://www.generationlab.org/partisanship

[a4isms]

TL;DR:

“The problem with polarization is all those brainwashed people over there."

[brightball]

Oh, no question it’s both. I’m independent, always have been.

Lately, the pendulum has swung much farther to one direction. There’s a reason that Jon Stewarts Daily Show was so popular for so long and that’s because there was simply so much material to work with.

Now you have conservative comedy outlets that Elon Musk is tweeting about and everything from the left just seems like yelling at the sky by comparison.

I’ve yet to hear stories of right leaning children refusing to associate with their left leaning families. Only the opposite. That tells you something.