[shubb]

From the outside, the way American politics divides people is strange. The psychology of republicans vs democrats, tpartiers vs big staters seems more like the supporters of a sports team.

When you support a sports team, if your player blatantly breaks the rules, you curse when he gets penalized. However badly they perform, you say they are unlucky and will win next season. When you watch a match with other fans, you feel like you are part of a clan, you feel a sense of belonging. Some people support terrible teams because they like that feeling, and they enjoy getting angry at the other team and its supporters. Sometimes they enjoy it so much they have riots, or at least a punch up.

I'm not saying America is unique, and the... sad cynicism you see in other countries is it's own evil. It's just a bit scary watching the fate of the world be decided like a bar room sports argument.

I guess this comment is a dumb generalization, but that debt ceiling thing really freaked me out.

[Hemospectrum]

> From the outside, the way American politics divides people is strange. The psychology of republicans vs democrats, tpartiers vs big staters seems more like the supporters of a sports team.

That's exactly what it's like, and the worst thing (in my opinion) is how it has spread to every facet of American life, so that arguments over factual information are seen the same way. The country as a whole is far more concerned with winning or losing than with the actual significance of the "field" on which their "team" is "playing."

Mind you, given how central sports is to American lifestyles[1], it's not like nobody could have seen this coming. But that doesn't reduce how dangerous it is.

[1] Walk into any American high school. Chances are, the walls are lined with football trophies, and the faculty's letterhead is plastered with logos for the resident teams. The social hierarchy of the students revolves around the star players. Outcasts are called "losers."

[rprospero]

Your experiences with high schools are different than the ones I've encountered. The social hierarchies aren't oriented around the sports team, but rather the standard hierarchy with the wealthy at the top and the poor at the bottom.

Granted, there's some variation, and being athletically talented or aesthetically pleasing can move you up the hierarchy, but being poor and having both of those traits will only raise you as high as the ugliest, clumsiest, wealthy student.

In four years of high school, I could only ever name one basketball player and that was only because he was my debate partner is speech class. I never knew who the quarterback on the football team was, despite hearing of some impressive victories. I was far more aware of the less popular sports (e.g. track, tennis, gymnastics), precisely because the team members in those sports came from higher income families and thus had more popular athletes.

[simonholroyd]

I'm not disagreeing with your point regarding wealth, but football is the most popular men's high school sport (by participation) in the country so your experiences aren't likely the norm. Also track, tennis and gymnastics are mostly individual sports so they're less likely to be the ones driving the same level of school-wide support and pride (logos on the masthead, trophies in the hall, etc).

Also HN readers might be unlikely to have had the average American high school experience.

[drewcrawford]

While I agree with you, I think looking at this through the lens of only "hey look some irrational muggles" belies the fact that hackers do the EXACT SAME THING.

Web vs native? Vi vs emacs? Tabs vs spaces? PHP vs... everybody else? TDD vs anti-TDD? Git vs Mercurial?

I mean sure there are statistics and facts to back these views but there are also statistics and facts behind which sports team is the best or whether the debt ceiling is bad. There's no meaningful difference.

[shubb]

I guess my point is, the difference between sports and politics is that sports don't really matter. Neither do the other things you list.

TDD vs Anti-TDD for a self driving car. That matters. The engineer that decides that based on an online argument is going to jail when someone dies.

Is mental illness real or should people just pull themselves together? Well we can banter about that, but if you are a psychologist deciding whether to release a patient from protective custody, you better follow evidence based best practice or you are in big trouble when they jump onto a freeway.

That last example is kinda important - when we talk about politics, it feels like it is just banter. Like we don't have to have nuanced, well formed opinions because who cares what we think anyway. We only have one tiny little vote right?

But democracy is driven by the average. And if the average views politics as the same as an internet flamewar (which is what you said right?) then democracy says that politics becomes an internet flamewar. And... well, what I'm saying is, oh look, it kinda has.

You know, poor Americans die about 20 years younger than average ones. I'm not saying that is your fault, and I'm not saying the solution is mandatory health insurance or glorious revolution. I'm just saying it's kinda fucked up. And I'm saying the real issues don't seem to get debated. Not really. Because... the public want a flamewar.

See, America needs to do something about it's debt levels. Probably. And the answer to that is probably years of slow deficit reductions, best done when the economy is growing (accepting it will take a chunk out of that growth). And America probably needs to do something about it's poor, because things are becoming less equal, and if you go for a walk around Mexico City late at night looking swag, you will find out that isn't a situation you want to have. But the solution to that is hard an slow and boring and probably involves scaling back this free trade thing a bit.

But the conversation about debt is either continue borrowing like crazy or massively scale back, both of which mean doom, so neither of which happen. The answer to the poor problem is too nuanced to be discussed, except in terms of rage against the rich or people on SSI depending on your team of choice.

I dunno, that was sort of my point. I think it tailed off toward the end...

[drewcrawford]

> the difference between sports and politics is that sports don't really matter

I have some news for you. The sports industry is something like $400bn. If the Lakers have a bad night or whatever, it matters.

You may not understand why moving players around a field matters, but it seems to me that this is roughly the same sort of ignorance that would be behind the view that pushing pixels around a screen "doesn't matter". The fact that X is a hundred billion dollar industry is primate facie evidence that it is important. You may not want it to matter but this is a different thing than determining whether or not it actually does.

I guess what I'm trying to get across is that there is a certain sentiment of "silly other people, stop being bad!" that easily occurs in these conversations. The TDD debate sounds important for cars but .001% of engineers are working on the self-driving cars. Most software is mundane and these debates are 99.9% academic and are even had in the abstract without affecting any tangible software at all! In many ways, the hacker arguments are far more tribal and less practical than anything going on in sports or politics.

[grey-area]

This is not particular to American society, you can see the same in France (where the left and right divide originated), the UK or any other country or indeed religion - people are tribal, and don't really care about details enough - the sense of belonging to a group and the rewards that brings trumps judging issues individually on their merits.

[vidarh]

I've always found the US high school obsession with sports teams very fascinating. Growing up in Norway, I can say that I don't even know if my school had any sports teams. It is possible - some do - but to the extent they do it's usually something pretty much only those on the teams care about.

[bmelton]

Oddly enough, I get a lot of flack from my friends for being an openly fair weather fan.

With politics, I support policies, not politicians. I understand the draw for rooting for the guy who 'thinks like you', or, if you find somebody who 'gets it', but the flip side of that is that it's hard to reconcile where they're wrong. A lot of people will actually conform their own beliefs to match the beliefs of a politician they like.

Polls of the NSA surveillance highlighted some of this; many Democrats who hated the PATRIOT Act under Bush didn't mind its abuses under Obama, and similarly, many Republicans who were okay with the law under Bush hated its uses by the Obama administration. Same law, same nonsense, and admittedly, Obama made at least a token effort to instate the FISA court, if only to give it the appearance of fairness.

With sports though, I'm exactly the same. I'm a Ravens fan, but if we don't make the playoffs, I'll pick another team that's convenient and start rooting for them. If we have a years' long streak of bad luck, like the Bills, or the Browns, I'll jump ship and root for a better team.

Yes, that makes me a 'traitor' to many 'real fans', but the counter is that I don't get anything out of being a fan other than some manufactured emotions. If it were Green Bay, and I owned shares, that'd be a little bit different, I suppose, but until and unless I get some kind of perk for a winning season (beyond the one I want most, which is to see my team make the playoffs), I just don't see the logic in being wed to them arbitrarily.

[niels_olson]

> Polls of the NSA surveillance highlighted some of this

citation?

[vidarh]

http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/10/pew-democrats-cool-with-ns...

[leokun]

Well it's not really about party identification, at least for me. I think poverty and health services are basic rights a rich country can afford. It has nothing to do with who is for it or against it. It's the principle of it, and Freedom works and tea party types are very much on the complete opposite of it. The disagreement on these points are considerable. I am not likely to be convinced that not helping others out is not a matter of social justice and a requirement for participating in our society. Those on the other side seem about as likely to change as I am. I happen to agree with Freedomworks and the Tea party on NSA/and other social-liberty stuff like the war on drugs and not fighting in foreign countries, but that's pretty much the end of it.

[penrod]

You may believe that you have taken a principled stand on these issues, but unless your psychology is different from everyone else it's probable that your elevation of these specific issues, and the solutions you advocate, owes more to your social environment and the opinions which are considered acceptable within that milieu.

[leokun]

...more to my social environment than rational thought? Not sure what your point is or if you're just trying to blow up and discredit a view point with some pop-psychology/anthropology 101 that could apply to everything equally and thus be a completely meaningless statement.

[trebor]

You need to understand that the division in American politics is intentional. It's the entire intent of making a dual-party system: to make government less efficient. An efficient government structure with a centralized power base could quickly and easily transform into a tyranny, in theory a decentralized multi-branch dual-/multi- party government would require more time.

[shubb]

If you are saying the division is by original design, that is kind of awesome. Did one of the founders say anything about it in a speech? That would actually be pretty cool.

I guess what I object to is the black and whiteness of the discussion. About 20% of the US electorate are swing voters. That's a lot of people who would never vote republicrat, regardless of policy. They will vote Democrat after 2 terms of drone strikes, or Republican after the tea party nearly caused an econopocalypse. That is really sad.

It also means that only the swing voters count. And the only swing voters worth trying to persuade are the ones with simple priorities, i.e. the nutty ones. It's not very healthy.

[JunkDNA]

Initially, the founders did not want political parties. But factions quickly formed anyway. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_parties_in_the_United...

[trebor]

It's at least a strong tradition, if not by design. But I believe it's actually by design. I wish I had time while at work to find a link for you, but I'll give it a shot when I get home in a few hours.

[biafra]

It would be even better if the two parties would be different.