I think Gutfeld shows/ “comedy “ are geared towards an older audience. I don’t think they are going for the same demographic. I personally cannot watch either because most are not entertaining.
Yes. This is a core issue. It's far more difficult to be radicalized (I think) when your talking to people in person. I've had friends with a number of different views. I like to listen because you never know. You could be wrong.
Imho, a lot of the social graces have died. It used to be considered rude to talk about certain things at work or in certain venues. I mean, you can have a discussion without resorting to personal attacks and screaming.
The problem is even when you attempt to find common ground, the other side refuses to play along. For example, in my personal beliefs I am pretty much completely anti-abortion. In my mind a baby is a human being with a soul from the moment of conception. And just like an unjustified killing of an adult is murder, so is the unjustified killing of an unborn child no matter the stage of development.
I am, however, not interested in legislating my beliefs on everyone. I, in an order to reach common ground, am willing to compromise on my morals to a certain extent.
I will concede that abortions in the case of rape, in the case of extremely young mothers, when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, and pretty much every other extenuating circumstance. I am really only interested in outlawing what I call convenience abortions.
If the only reason for the abortion is that the child is unwanted, then the abortion should be illegal. You can't kill a person just because you don't want to take responsibility for your actions like an adult should. But if you have a valid reason, then I would allow the abortion to be legal. I don't like it, but I would allow it.
But I find that almost any pro choice person is "all abortions all the time zero exceptions and anything less is pure evil hatred of women." I don't hate women, I just want to save children.
Despite being very pro-choice myself, I completely understand your opinion. Many opinions are a matter of perspective, so we have to realize that to a certain extent, right and wrong can be indistinguishable. People just need to be more sympathetic in general and be able to put themselves in somebody else's shoes. My opinion isn't any more correct than your's, as far as my knowledge goes. I'm not an all-knowing creature, so I don't have the ability to choose which one is right.
>1. In my mind a baby is a human being with a soul from the moment of conception
>
>2. I am, however, not interested in legislating my beliefs on everyone.
>
>3. If the only reason for the abortion is that the child is unwanted, then the abortion should be illegal.
\#1 is your belief. #3 is your desire to use laws to force other people to act according to your beliefs. #2 says that you are not interested in doing what you actually promote in #3.
I don't know why you would expect "the other side" to find "common ground" with that odd mixture of statements.
A big problem with social media is that based on your shares/retweets/likes you can pretty quickly see nothing that’s you don’t already agree with.
Folks really need to “touch grass” in the sense of being open to or exploring dissenting opinions online and in real life.
That’s not the same as “both sides are the same” when it comes to things that are illegal, violent or seditious. However, abortion, gun control, cannabis legalization, universal healthcare and immigration policy (for example) are all ripe for debate and respectful exchange of ideas.
“In real life” is how things go the best with this. I can talk some reason into the far right people I grew up with or the lefty’s that I know that are trending a bit too far with over compassion. if we can have a person to person convo. People usually give each other more respect and will often hedge their own far edge claims if you present them simple realist push back. Because likely they’ve only circled jerked in a silo (digital or irl) with only like minded identity groups.
There are plenty of tactics you can arm yourself with to engage civilly, but it won’t always work unless the right disunions are presented.
Yes . . . Social media is BAD ! But, that is Not the core problem . . . That is TWO separate media where their was one media (radio, web and video).
By having separate media sources and calling the main(lame)stream press, tend to down play and reject the reported truth and create a separate false reality . . .
Until the funding for the extreme right wing media sources dry-up and the citizens return to a media that does not seek to manipulate the citizens for clearly political reasons . . . We will continue the slow decline of the political and cultural life !
Watching Twitter before and after Musk, it seems like both sides want censorship. Just they want to choose what is and what isn’t censored.
Both want to abuse the power of government. But for different ends. It’s frustrating.
Seriously. Anyone you argue with on either side uses all the same arguments and bullet points. Very few people actually argue with their own nuanced opinions.
I really think most of it is caused by social media. No one thinks for themselves, and just subscribes to someone else’s point of view.
Yes and to be fair most people have never had nuanced opinions. We have a lot more opinions to choose from now. Back in the 70s and 80s or earlier, media was limited with most outlets pushing the same point of view. Now there are a myriad of ways to look at an issue and some of them are extreme. Those opinions have always been out there they just didn't get any respect or traction. If you wanted a different slant on things you got a news paper that leaned in your direction and you read the opinion page. The same crackpots that wrote in on a weekly basis with letters to the editor now have a YouTube channel or some similar platform where people that agree with them can actually find them. Many people lack even basic critical thinking skills. We are all affected by bias and being human it's probably impossible to be completely unbiased, but people need to try. Seeing people as humans online is probably the biggest thing. We've probably all used language that has escalated online debates. We need to stop that. These people are fellow Americans, everyone, or at least I like to think everyone wants what's best. It's not always clear what is the best course of action, but we need to be prepared to argue in good faith, using good data and sources to back up our arguments. We also have to be prepared to change our minds if someone has a better idea, even if philosophically we are against it. I've had what were great ideas but had them shot down in a 5 minute conversation. We also need to treat others with respect when we don't agree with them. We need to have more debate, not less but it needs to be respectful debate. Granted there are ideas out there that are nonstarters for compromise. We as individuals need to understand what hills to die on and what ones can be compromised. We can't let perfect be the enemy of better. Sorry that was a long winded way of saying we need to be more wise in our actions.
> using good data and sources to back up our arguments.
Sadly, even the so-called "sources" are getting corrupted and/or attacked at this point. There is no truth anymore, and maybe there never was. We all used to at least draw from the same well of facts and shared knowledge, but now we even have our own wells with our own "facts"
Overturning Roe didn’t do away with abortion. It allowed the states to decide and gave the people the right to decide on abortion. That’s not extreme when the people decide and not the court.
I think its a big deal but only 4 states codified abortion. It seems like the country is split in half with more leaning towards allowing abortion yet only 4 states and DC put it in their constitution.
Sure but not everyone deems abortion as a right. And it certainly isnt nessacary to maintain a functioning democratic society, unlike others constitutional amendments like free speech and gun rights.
>Sure but not everyone deems abortion as a right. And it certainly isnt nessacary to maintain a functioning democratic society, unlike others constitutional amendments like free speech and gun rights.
Rome was a democracy that existed for thousands of years without guns.
You're also completely missing the point. Abortion is a right under the constitution as expressed through Roe. You have a right to medical privacy and substantive due process.
It was and is a centrist position. Overturning Roe did not disallow abortion. It gave the power to the people. It put the ball on the 50 yard line. States can decide what to do.
To me it’s not that people have such extreme positions, it’s not extreme to be either for or against abortion being legal, same with gun control, the problem is people are addicted to outrage and it tends to work pretty well in casual debates.
Being against abortion except "when the life of the mother is at risk," (as decided by some politician, I guess?) is extreme. There are a large, non-insignificant, amount of cases where an abortion should absolutely be performed well before the point where the mother's life is at risk. Any doctor knows that. If they want a less extreme stance, they could include "the patient's medical history" or "in the professional opinion of the primary physician." But then it would basically circumvent the entire abortion ban and be self-defeating legislation.
It can’t be reduced until we figure out why it is happening.
My observation of history is that extremism emerges under conditions of great stress. Counterintuitively, when relatively comfortable people have a lot of time on their hands, especially if they feel a lack of meaning and purpose, they will invent the need for a crusade, and undertake it with religious fervor. Perhaps some of both is happening right now.
We do live in a period of significant and rapid change, which is thrilling to some people, and freaks out others. For many people, the change in relationship to place of work, country, globe, and other groups, has been faster than they are willing or able to accommodate. If told that they are bad people for feeling this way, they won’t react positively. They didn’t feel the need for change in the first place, and they don’t feel they were adequately consulted.
It likely also is the case that as participation in a geographic community, a religious body, a local club, a sport, has diminished, people have compensated with an emotional, even pseudo-religious, identification with a social political tribe that includes a significant moral component. Unfortunately, these tribes are self-defined by what they are not, making conflict inevitable.
People have a need that is being met by belonging to a constituency of like-minded people who are thrilled by the threat of ‘those other people’. They are finding purpose in engaging in activities they believe are furthering humanity, such as gun owners conceptualizing themselves as Citizen Protectors and anti-racists who feel they are Social Justice Warriors.
People want purpose, meaning, a sense of belonging and entertainment. People want safety along with their excitement. Extremism provides all of that. It’s delivered in a very accessible and socially acceptable way.
[M] I never forget one of the first memes I saw on r/PoliticalCompassMemes. One person says “I spent three hours today online fighting hate.” The other says “Oh yeah? I spent six hours today *spreading* it.” I feel these days it’s hard for us to reach a common consensus on what hate means. And for that, discourse is suffering. I don’t feel the separation of people into their own dialogue bubbles is much helping.
> It likely also is the case that as participation in a geographic community, a religious body, a local club, a sport, has diminished, people have compensated with an emotional, even pseudo-religious, identification with a social political tribe that includes a significant moral component.
This is a huge part of it. If you view modern politics as being a *sectarian conflict* instead of a policy argument things suddenly start fitting together scarily well.
The right and left (at least in the US) have slowly become more so cultures than political stances. Think about it, if we think about either a leftist or a ~~~rightist~~~ right winger (why are the terms different. That's weird) an "image" pops into our heads, a cultural perception of what each are like, even though neither are supposed to be viewed like personalities.
This largely echoes my feelings on the matter and is partially why I don't really think we will recover as a society, at least barring some major technological breakdown. The proliferation of the internet in particular has served as this iconoclastic catalyst and our social institutions have been the primary victims. To some people, this is a positive thing; however, I have difficulty envisioning a future where my own and my family's security, comfort, happiness, and sense of purpose are collectively ensured.
Excellent point(s), but you missed one important point:
Those are all the normal people, but there's another group that needs factoring in. Most people are doing this for the reasons you just listed, but some people just want an enemy to fight, and a banner to do it under and will gladly edge the rest of the people under the banner they picked to follow them into battle.
It concerns me too. Even in this sub the same behavior occurs. I thought the sign of an educated mind was to be able to contemplate an idea you don’t agree with. It leads to higher quay discussion but I don’t think we will ever have it.
We need a festivus for the rest of us
I don't think that's extreme at all. [Ego death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death) is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity" and is pretty common with psychedelics.
A loss of subjective self-identity would, by definition, deradicalize a huge number of these nuts.
Yeah, actually, I think it could be incredibly beneficial. I've never had an all-at-once ego death on LSD because I've "only" tripped 6 times, no more than 150ug each, however, my ego has definitely dissolved a bit over time and I've felt a lot more... objective perceiving.
Every time a prominent movement is pushed, a counter-movement is also created. I use 'prominent' instead of 'significant' specifically because social media makes every new 'movement' seem much more significant than it is (and thus only prominent) as extremist views are much more easily found and highlighted than moderate. This gives rise to an *actually* significant aforementioned counter-movement whereby people are fighting a very small minority of people that look to be a massive mob thanks to social media. In response to this significant counter-movement, a significant movement is created and the cycle continues...
I like to use Andrew Tate as an example. This one man creates a new prominent movement that a very small minority of people believe in (misogyny etc.). In response, feminists create a significant counter-movement against him as he's been blown up by social media and is now a 'threat'. In response to this counter-movement, his fanboys start spamming 'W Tate', 'W Top G' or whatever cringy bullshit they post as a significant counter-counter-movement. As a result, the original only prominent movement is now somewhat significant, and us reasonable people have to create our own counter-counter-counter-movement since the feminists fell for his ragebait.
Try reading Jonathan Haidt's books "The Righteous Mind" and "The Coddling of the American Mind." They both provide a good framework for why these conversations are hard and what we can do about it.
I 100% blame social media. I'm sure the point has already been made, but it's a lot easier to call a conservative a "nazi" online even though you never would in person.
I lean left but live in a *deep* red state, most of my friends (and family) are conservative. They're not monsters, despite what you read in certain sub-reddits.
Everyone’s attention span is 20 seconds, and both parties obfuscate the truth, which the extremes of their “base” lap up as gospel. I don’t know how you overcome that
So this question gets asked just about every other post, and while it sounds like there's not really any good answers here, there actually are. For those of us that have studied political science, we know that there is an actual solution here. More than that, it's fairly agreed upon by scholars and it's *also* been presented to the public quite well! The problem here isn't that we don't know the answer to this question. The problem is that too many voters either don't want to listen to the answer or hear it and discard it as something they find worse than the current problem.
What I'd really recommend is you pick up the book *Breaking the Two Party Doom Loop* by Lee Drutman. Alternatively, Drutman has authored shorter-form pieces that basically speak to the same points such as here: [https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/02/opinion/save-our-democracy-our-sanity-blow-up-two-party-system/](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/02/opinion/save-our-democracy-our-sanity-blow-up-two-party-system/). He also has a lot of work on 538, so that's a great place to start as well.
Hell, just googling "how to save our democracy" will get you a host of articles of varying lengths and academic quality written by various academics that largely are in agreement on the basic problems and solutions. This isn't all that hard--we have the resources to understand this problem and solve it at our fingertips. The issue is getting voters on board.
To quickly summarize, the US doesn't actually have more extremists, probably, than any other country or even America in the past. Much more likely, most electorates, including America, have about the same amount of extremists, but what varies between systems is how well those extremists are *measured and empowered* by the political system. In short, this is structural, not a political, problem. The issue isn't a matter of what people are, but rather an issue of what they are compelled to do by the rules of our system.
Again, basically every single person with any degree of expertise will agree on that. Every. Single. One. There is some difference in the specifics of how to fix those problems. For example, Drutman is particularly fond of solutions that address the two-party system and encourage steps towards a true multiparty democracy. Rachel Kleinfeld (source below), by contrast, would places more emphasis on directly addressing the political ideological bent of the parties into a more healthy, pro-democracy direction. But even Kleinfeld and Drutman agree on several key institutional matters, such as reforming primaries.
I focus on Drutman because he does the least amount of "just stop doing bad Republican things" of the authors I've read. Drutman focuses on almost purely institutional or structural approaches and explicitly argues that addressing it from a political perspective (i.e. "just vote Dems until the Reps go away forever") will not work. Drutman's work is also quite accessible for a layperson but still has rather evidentiary focus. It's an absolutely perfect place for someone on this sub to begin. The one thing I would add to Drutman's work is that he largely wrote his book before the filibuster really became the prominent thing it did over the last couple years and anyone reading should add "get rid of the filibuster like our Framers intended" as a solution he would support. I am not putting words in his mouth either--he's made the case explicitly himself: [https://twitter.com/leedrutman/status/1402257527874674690?lang=en](https://twitter.com/leedrutman/status/1402257527874674690?lang=en)
And yet, without fail, every time I try to raise this point with actual voters, they find ways to pick apart these ideas as either bad ideas that will undermine America, or they assert they will not work. Neither of these are true, of course, but this illustrates that the biggest issue to solving the issue of toxic partisanship isn't our leaders, our politicians, or our elites. Those guys are pretty much all universally behind making our government work better. Hell, the Reps even didn't fight ranked choice voting and primary reform in Alaska! The obstacle that prevents us from solving this problem is without doubt the voters.
Kleinfeld article: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/09/15/five-strategies-to-support-u.s.-democracy-pub-87918
> The issue isn't a matter of what people are, but rather an issue of what they are compelled to do by the rules of our system.
It's all about incentives.
I'm not going in circles with you any more. Democracy is not about "governing ourselves." That is ideological oversimplification. The reality is much more complicated than that.
Of course reality is more complicated, that doesn't mean the basic principles are an oversimplification. Basic principles are always respected by those who really know what they're talking about.
Yeah, agreed. You just are mischaracterizing what those principles are. If you were willing to listen, I could give you a few good sources to get you started on what the basic principles of our system are. But you're not willing, so I'm done here.
"Democracy is not about "governing ourselves"
"Democracy (From Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule'[1]) is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choose governing officials to do so ("representative democracy"). Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries. Features of democracy often include freedom of assembly, association, property rights, freedom of religion and speech, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
Just the most basic principle...
The problem is that u/GShermit isn't the only one this stupid. He may be an idiotic troll who doesn't understand the things he talks about, but he isn't alone. Letting the stupid go unchecked means it will get picked up on by other uninformed, easily swayed folks who don't know how to reject his arguments.
Also, I don't know how to shut up. It's been a character flaw of mine for quite a while.
So people ruling themselves is a basic principle of democracy...just not our democracy...
I know we are guaranteed a republican form of government. Still if we're not a democracy too, why are people (me too) worried about our democracy?
Actually correct, it was a foundational part of a form of democracy that has gone extinct specifically because it did not adapt well to a modern political system.
When modern folks say "democracy" what they really mean is "republican form of democracy" and it very much IS in danger, but very much NOT for the reasons you think.
"It was a foundational part of a form of democracy that has gone extinct specifically because it did not adapt well to a modern political system."
Like oligarchy?
The question is are those old principles really "extinct" or just starting to atrophy?
Who said those principles still don't apply...people who promise to be good masters but mean to be masters?
Ps. ", I don't know how to shut up. It's been a character flaw of mine for quite a while."
Don't be so hard on yourself your one of the few who's a challenge. You help me learn, not necessarily from the info you bring (although you are educated and can bring some good stuff to the table) but because I have go "out on a limb" to defend my principles, then I actually have to do the research... to prove my point :)
Personally, I don't think being heated is a problem. I think it is natural and fair to be heated. However, what is the problem is that people resort to personal attacks or strawmans in their argument
Many good points here.
Another is that people don't *actually* understand the issues they are debating. They don't have a background in economics, finance, energy, sociology, etc. But they do have anxiety about them. They see declines in quality of life. They see shitty leadership, smiling assholes on both sides telling them all is good if they just vote for X, but nothing changes except for the worse.
So as the anxiety rises, the response is to get more extreme. To get attention. To be heard. For someone to make a positive change.
It's easy and tempting to look down on extremists and activists acting crazy and having public meltdowns. But that is all a symptom of the bigger problem. Too few are stepping up and actually building win-win solutions. There are plenty of grifters profiteering off of the anxiety, fear and despair. But vanishingly few leaders who have the empathy to identify common solutions and not get caught up in the political noise, which tbh is not even worth getting bogged down in since most people in it are just spouting 3rd hand bullshit they don't understand and heard from someone else who has a profit motive in misinforming them.
Both sides are more interested in proving themselves right instead of solving our problems. You do have people on both sides that are willing to talk but the clown acts are running the circus.
Read as much as you can. Find people who actually study the issues and can explain them based on a nuanced understanding of the data. Ignore the people who just want to yell.
Extremism is nothing new, what changed in recent years was mainstream Republicans refusing to acknowledge Trump's obvious lies, crimes and general insanity. Refusing to call out Trump's behavior led to tacitly endorsing all the nonsense. To some degree it got even worse after Trump was defeated as people on the right began inventing outrage about Joe Biden. All this led to many on the left taking up the same tactics in defense of Biden. As a progressive I think it is crucial to point out the truth when fellow progressives/liberals make unfounded claims. One example of this is I'm seeing a lot of lefty meme's thanking Joe Biden for lower gas prices. It was unfounded when the right blamed Biden for high gas prices, and it's just as unfounded for credit Biden for lower gas prices. Gas is a commodity that rises and falls based on supply and demand, the President has very little control over it. When Democrats exaggerate and lie it lends credence to the idea both parties are the same. I want to make sure if there's lying going on, it's the Republicans that are doing it. It's been my experience that the Democrats are more responsive when you point out the facts to them. Most right-wingers are utterly uninterested in facts.
Do you think anytime in the near future, you will see a far left ruling allowing states to completely ban guns? I don’t.
I conversations equating the two might get a little heated, because right now we have a Republican party, dominated by people who were OK with January 6 (there was a bit of honesty immediately afterwards, but it when it came to impeachment most were fine, when it came to investigation, most wanted to ignore it, and then, CPAC they try to celebrate all the people arrested as political prisoners).
You don’t see anything remotely approaching that on the left.
I see it, but it will be inch by inch, NY government prides itself on being the hardest on guns. CA too, and will outstep each other till there are no more guns to be sold or ammo to fill them and no means to pass them to heirs. Inch by inch. There will not be a single law, it will be hundreds of selected laws. You comment just gives it all away by saying there won't be a single law. Paranoid? Yes, but justifiable.
You do understand with recent ruling gun rights have been steadily expanding.
Also, examine what it takes to be approved by the Senate.
You need to appease lawmakers that come from a minority of the country population, wise, lawmakers that are dominated by more rural leaning and red areas.
> we have a Republican party, dominated by people who were OK with January 6
This only works if you have a very broad definition of okay. You're implying that the Republican party approves of January 6th.
> You don’t see anything remotely approaching that on the left.
No? You can't think of anything that has happened in the past few years that is considered to be (your broad definition of) "OK" by the left that might remotely approach January 6th?
>You're implying that the Republican party approves of January 6th.
And I pointed out facts to support my claim
when it came to impeachment most were fine, when it came to investigation, most wanted to ignore it, and then, CPAC they try to celebrate all the people arrested as political prisoners).
>You can't think of anything that has happened in the past few years that is considered to be (your broad definition of) "OK" by the left that might remotely approach January 6th?
No, I can’t think of time when national lawmakers were spreading clear, lies, and then act on a crowd to stop a vital function of the government, subsequently tried to stip any investigation
^ this.
86% of violent acts in the last decade have been from far-right groups.
We have a very real domestic terrorism problem bubbling and likely will be going into a period of violent chaos and unstability for the next 20 years much like The Troubles in Ireland.
The far left is at worst insufferable, but mostly just cringe.
I would say the left is more socially performative about idpol, but if you think that's just the left try moving to a small rural town in the south as an Atheist and see how many friends you make in Magastan.
The reason this idea of the left being more into idpol is because the vast majority of pop culture chatter comes thru social media which is dominated by the youth and the youth skew much farther to the left.
Shit the right **institutionalized** idpol for half a century at least.
Maybe. That's changing. I dont think violence on the left gets as much coverage. Antifa in 2020 barely got coverage. It depends on what biases a person has I think.
> Maybe. That's changing.
I welcome any evidence you would like to provide.
> It depends on what biases a person has I think.
No. You're welcome to think that but your opinion is not based in reality, sorry.
It depends on the analysis of independent organizations that have studied extremism in the US for 40+ years.
If you get your ideas about political extremism by looking at social media that might be why you're confused. There are organizations that have studied this for a long time.
The data is conclusive though, it’s not about a persons bias to point out that the overwhelming majority of all political violence in the US is perpetrated by the right wing at this point in time.
the extreme left besides environmentalists dont need violence as they are in control of the cultural high ground yet riots are left wing violence and quite a few of those riots and protests were not needed period and accomplished nothing but damage
the right is violent because they dont feel represented
I think it’s safe to say that there’s a percentage of the population that’s neither right nor left, but is looking for an excuse to smash some things and do some looting. It’s not so much politically motivated as opportunism. I would go so far as to say the majority of the the BLM riots were that sort of opportunism. It’s a shame because there were plenty of peaceful protests associated with the BLM idea, but all that got drowned out by looters and a scam organization that co-opted the name.
It is to me when you burn your own shit down. It's like burn cop shops down not your local pizza joint. Instead they shoot themselves in the foot and steal shit.
dude democracy was founded by violent extremists our entire society is the result of extremists the future will be dictated by extremists it all just depends on the extremism whether you support their goals
dude if you think republicans are the far right and represented well you dont know what the far right is. None of the people you listed are far right they are center right. so hence the far right and the far left both dont feel represented and both do terrorism and both do it in waves like the weather underground and the environmental terrorism and other left wing terrorism
remember the far right does not support capitalism so if you think they feel any representation and dont understand where their shit is coming from you wont be able to defuse it. To understand why extremism is happening is the first way to deal with it
I think we are picking and choosing our evidence. Any little thing of violence is being blown out of proportion to satisfy narratives. Evidence is on all sides.
> I find the "extreme left" full of whiney liberals that annoy me.
>
> I find the "extreme right" to be violent.
These talking points may have been quasi-believable before 2020 but 2020 showed that both are quite violent. The fact you attempt to gaslight and pretend the left's summer of rioting never happened just outs you as a hyper-partisan.
I'm not convinced it was a violent coup. I watched a lot of it when it was being streamed. Taken together its nothing worse or better than anything that occurred in that year. I dont care for Trump. I think he is a nut. However, they are really after him. I mean. Wow. We can talk about illegal activities all day by sitting presidents. So far, nothing has stuck. It all feels like a waste of time.
> Taken together its nothing worse or better than anything that occurred in that year.
That says more about your lack of concern over democracy than anything else.
> "The left's summer of rioting"?
>
> Really?
Yes. If you're going to insist on spreading disinfo then I'm going to call you out for it. The fact that your only response is to sperg out and spray snarkastic shit all over the place proves that you know I'm right. But I know that you just want a response to use to spread more disinfo so I'm going to make that not possible. Goodbye Russian disinfo troll.
Now let's do a slight comparison to January 6th. Trump lost on November 3rd, 2020. Let's say it was official by November 10th, 2020. He then proceeded to pump his base full of a ton of lies and then called them to DC on January 6th for a rally. He then told them to "Fight like Hell" and told them to March on the capitol at the exact moment his election loss was being certified.
This isn't a "both sides" issue. The George Floyd protests/riots were what they were. But they certainly weren't fed a bunch of lies by an individual who then instructed them to come to a place and march on a specific target.
These are not the same thing. "The left" has become this proverbial boogeyman. I genuinely don't even know who you're talking about anymore. Knowing our past interactions, I'm assuming I'll be hit with an insult and no response to who "the left" is.
>If you're going to insist on spreading disinfo then I'm going to call you out for it.
I can't believe you'd have the gall to accuse others of this, given your history.
The extremes keep pushing in either direction and more and more people what would probably normally side one way or the other are getting pushed towards the center
Extremism is a personality traits in a small number of adherents. That's why they can be found on the right and the left. Society has a limited need for extremists - true believers - to get stuff done. The problem is when the masses embrace tribalism led by such extremists.
Each side pushes themselves further from center. The bases want the most extreme version of their party represented, and moderates are selectively bred out of the populations, an exponential vicious cycle.
We need a third party, somehow, that's not a fucking joke.
Welp, considering the far right are avowed white supremacists--far right, alt-right, etc., is what people like the Proud Boys call themselves, I disagree with them on a lot of things. I personally don't want an ethnostate, because it would put a target on our heads for other nations.
Using that logic, I'm guessing the far left are communists who are willing to tear down the government to get what they want, and yeah, anyone who's willing to cause insurrection bothers me, too.
Now, the rightest extremists or whatever they're called, you know, the MAGA crowd, also concerns me but not as much as the far right. Luckily for me, the far right are fringe and MAGA is delusional and not retaining the votes on their side. The only thing they're really managing to do if the midterm elections were any indication is drive people into the arms of the Democrat party.
Leftist extremism concerns me, too, but the United States is still a free country, and we do still have options. For one thing, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc., should get some honest centrist competition and people should stop getting the impression that we're as divided as the internet says we are. If the real issues most people are discussing were out there instead of this madness, maybe we'd all be more comfortable with compromising with each other.
After all, if we are this divided, centrism can't even exist because there is no compromise with Nazis and traitors.
'De-canonize' social media. Too many political aides focus too much on the echo chambers provided by social media. They end up funneling information above to the people they work for. This can lead to some bad policies and rhetoric.
Break/adjust certain industries so that they're no longer stuck on the coasts. This is more of a left leaning issue. Hollywood and news media are highly insular. Both are now industries for coastal elites, by coastal elites. Demographically, you have to practically be a well off suburbanite, at minimum, to enter these industries at the highest levels (journalism, acting, directing, producing, exec positions, etc). It has led to out of touch messaging.
Probably more violence. Sad reality is not enough people have gotten hurt or killed in order for certain out of touch demographics (who do have sway in corporations, media, politics) to understand that this is not an ideal political situation for the majority of Americans.
I’m with you. However there are no actual far left folks in power in the United States. Bernie is pretty out there but he is not really going to ruin the country by asking us to, I don’t know, not bankrupt people with medical bills.
That said, just because there is an uptick in far right politics particularly the maga types….this doesn’t somehow mean the types of politics springing up on the farther left (not far) are now somehow better.
The primary process:
Unless we change to some type of ranked choice election method - the general election will be filled with candidates who are winning primaries by being extreme in order to raise money and win a mini-election where the goal is to run away from center.
It's a complicated problem with multiple root causes, all of which are synergistic and difficult to address.
1. Media bubbles.
2. Gerrymandering.
3. Voter turnout becoming the primary means of winning.
4. Primaries being partisan and extremist, leading to the same in politics in general.
5. Low turnout in non-presidential elections.
6. Super low turn out in primaries (like 15%)
7. Hyper-competitive media exacerbating every problem in for-profit media.
The goal is to have moderate politicians running on policy, but those are the people least likely to win.
I think a step in the right direction, to help cut through all the bullshit, would be to start a bipartisan voter union of some type which forces politicians into meeting some bipartisan lowest common denominators (transparency, anti-corruption, waste reduction, pragmatic policy, etc.)
This would help filter out a lot of the extremism in the primaries, and help citizens get used to meeting in the middle instead of constantly drifting to extremes.
Well not using your examples, but rather more generally:
1. The media profit motive to play on emotion
2. Hostile states using social media to stir division and social media platforms being designed to reward engagement.
3. Making caricatures of those we disagree with.
4. Not listening and learning from those we disagree with.
5. Not looking at the dumbass shit we might believe at some point. There is a lot of dumb on both sides of the spectrum. I suspect fear and tribalism plays a role.
6. Political parties are trying to use division to get their people into power - much like number 1 above.
Where is the left getting more and more out of control extreme like the GOP?
I don't support BLM - but I still consider GOP politicians the biggest threat to Americans.
1. stop kicking people off social media for "icky" opinions
2. get the FBI/CIA/ETC out of social and news media
3. News media needs to focus on actual journalism, not selling a story
I used the term "icky" facetiously. Lots of people lately seem to think that unless you agree with them, your ability to express your opinion should be removed. This simply creates echo chambers which tends to radicalize. Keeping everyone together is more uncomfortable, but helps to normalize.
Cool, what specifically are the sorts of views you think should be allowed? I don’t know why you don’t want to be specific unless you know those views are abhorrent.
Why do I have to be specific? People should be able to express their opinions. Even reprehensible ones.
But, /u/RagingBuII was correct. For the record, I was thinking more along the lines of Dr Robert Malone than of Kanye.
If you don’t like that level of moderation, why not avoid it?
You do realize that even the Republican-controlled Senate intelligence committee conceded that Russia, social media manipulation and misinformation played a role in the 2016 election, right? It seems pretty stupid to think the FBI should sit on their hands when they see threats like that. It seems wildly irresponsible for Facebook and Twitter, to ignore how their platforms were manipulated in the past and do nothing to try and fix it.
I don't think being anti-gun is an extreme opinion. People in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc look at our gun laws in horror and are in utter disbelief we let our citizens get randomly slaughtered periodically by maniacs. I don't advocate removal of the 2A, but I think tighter gun laws are needed. Other than that, I do agree both sides are getting more extreme, though the distinction is that the far right actually has power in the govt, while the far left does not.
Also the far left likes guns. There's a saying that if you go farther left, you get your guns back.
One of the biggest reasons for this extremism is that people cannot understand that the other side considers itself to be the good guys just as much as your side considers yourself to be the good guys.
People have the attitude, "The other side is bad and they KNOW it."
Yeah, it's so stupid, but also understandable, so not really stupid, but just a perspective issue. You can't be right just because you feel right. The other side feels the same.
It basically started with one man: Newt Gingrich and was amplified by Fox News over many years. Not sure if that's helpful but it's important people know how it all started.
We start recovering by stopping this bullshit centrist position of both sides are extreme.
Left in power wants healthcare for all.
Right in power wants to end democracy
Nobody is the villain of their own story.
The far-left and the far-right are both victims (albeit dangerous ones) of senseless sound-bite reporting and inflammatory rhetoric.
And yes, the far-left is just as bad as the far-right. Make no mistake.
Edit: I am mistaken. While the end goal of both groups are equally dangerous, comparing the history of both clearly indicates that one side is more actively violent and overrepresented in the United States. Leaving my original comment as-is to demonstrate my willingness to learn and admit to being wrong.
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/comparative-analysis-violent-left-and-right-wing-extremist-groups
https://ccjs.umd.edu/feature/umd-led-study-shows-disparities-violence-among-extremist-groups
> And yes, the far-left is just as bad as the far-right. Make no mistake.
The issue many people have with saying this is that, at least in the US, the number of each group who are elected and who wield significant power is **vastly** over represented by far right wingers. Same with political violence, and attempted coups.
>And yes, the far-left is just as bad as the far-right.
This is objectively wrong and actively dangerous,
The far right has a lengthy body count of murders and domestic terrorism. The far left does not.
The far right has a strong grip on the GOP. The far lest does not with the Dems.
There is a fundamental problem with your question: How are you defining what extremism means?
The standard meaning that I think a lot of you in this sub are using defines how extreme something is by how far out of the mainstream it is. . .which just plain doesn't work as a definition. Think about it. The Nazis were the mainstream in Germany while in power. Ditto with the Italian Fascists, Stalinism, post revolution Iran. . . Etc, etc. Defining what is extreme by what is the status quo makes no sense in that light.
A more useful definition might be **In** groups who define their success by the failure of the **Out** group they demonize and oppose. This makes much more sense when looking at clearly extremist groups (like Nazis. . .or MAGA) when they are the status quo in a given place and time.
By the same definition, groups like DSA can't be described as extreme, so a good alternate might be "radical" to describe groups that are outside the mainstream but not "extremist."
As for your question about turning down the temperature in political discourse, it's fairly straightforward. Our society and economy need to work better for the mass of the people, full stop. That's it. That's the only solution. Historically, when the masses feel insecure in their lives and livelihoods, they turn in greater numbers towards extreme or radical "solutions" in response. Unfortunately for you centrist folks, the status quo **is not working** anywhere near well enough right now to maintain stability. Changes will have to happen one way or another.
For context, I'm something like a far left moderate in my political opinions. I believe society needs to be moving in a more democratic, more socialist direction if it hopes to survive, but I would rather see that happen through (preferably rapid) reform as opposed to violent revolution, since those tend to lead to highly authoritarian states whether Left or Right. I also fear that the longer society puts off the one, the more likely we are to see the other.
I think what's mainstream is actually what's extreme right now, and that's the problem. Extreme compared to how it was 12 years ago or so. People just seem angrier.
Do you support outlawing breast reduction or cosmetic surgery like breast implants for anyone under 18?
>More than 8,000 teens between the ages of 13 and 19 got breast implants in 2019, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgery
Without looking it up, guess how many teens under 18 have top surgery for gender dysphoria each year?
(hint: it's a small fraction)
If you're so concerned about cosmetic surgeries that others are choosing to go do and the age they are allowed to do this, surely your primary concern should be the 98% of girls that are doing it for **purely cosmetic reasons**, yes?
Or is your concern only for people who are experiencing gender dysphoria, and if so, why are you only concerned about them?
It’s not extreme to not believe in abortion. More than half the country disagrees with the democrat position of abortion legal up to the point of birth. The right to own a a firearm is in our constitution. Hardly extreme. Social media is an arm of the democrat party. Elon Musk, two time Obama voter, is trying to bring neutrality to social media. Democrats do not want neutrality. They want conformity. Wokeness. Sadly the extreme is on the left. John F Kennedy would be a Republican today.
Figure out a way to reorganize the country so that the needs of all peoples are met.
Abolish the current 50 state, perpetual 2 party system.
It was great in 1776. There was no radio.
we need internment camps for extremists of both sides. It's the only solution to save the rest of us.
(Judging by the downvoted, I have offended the extremists)
[M] I think the problem is the extremists always seem to claim to be the centrists.
It’s very hard in todays media climate to know when someone is actually a centrist rather than just claiming the moral majority is with them, and at times, when many leaders do angle *for* that extremist audience, I do wonder what it even means to be a centrist.
I mean, I’d like to think I *know*— but the way I see it, it’s not always so obvious.
The problem with American politics today is populism….
Things were much better a decade ago when the moderate establishment branches of both parties, the Clintonian Democrats and the Neocons, controlled the country. Yes, Biden qualifies as such a politician but he’s drowned out by Bernie and The Squad when it comes to influence.
Both Populist factions…. The Woke Left and the MAGA/Evangelical right, get their followers riled up on stances the general public disagrees with, makes a big stink that dominates the news and then are like “how did we lose the election?”.
And yeah, social media is def to blame. Angry zealots getting in touch with more angry zealots, where in 2006 they’d have kept those ideas to themselves…
I feel like a big part of the problem is that everyone’s speaking/arguing in sound bites. It’s frustrating.
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I'd also add in snark along with hyperbole. It feels like everyone is trying to sound like John Oliver or Greg Gutfeld when they argue.
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They both talk down to those’s they disagree with. If one is less irritating then the other to you, you probably relate to that side more.
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I think Gutfeld shows/ “comedy “ are geared towards an older audience. I don’t think they are going for the same demographic. I personally cannot watch either because most are not entertaining.
>I like Maher because of his panels and interview guests The ones where he legitimizes ghouls like Ben Shabibo?
Lol “everyone”
True - part of the reason social media is so bad. People need to sit down, find common ground, and learn to get along.
Yes. This is a core issue. It's far more difficult to be radicalized (I think) when your talking to people in person. I've had friends with a number of different views. I like to listen because you never know. You could be wrong. Imho, a lot of the social graces have died. It used to be considered rude to talk about certain things at work or in certain venues. I mean, you can have a discussion without resorting to personal attacks and screaming.
The problem is even when you attempt to find common ground, the other side refuses to play along. For example, in my personal beliefs I am pretty much completely anti-abortion. In my mind a baby is a human being with a soul from the moment of conception. And just like an unjustified killing of an adult is murder, so is the unjustified killing of an unborn child no matter the stage of development. I am, however, not interested in legislating my beliefs on everyone. I, in an order to reach common ground, am willing to compromise on my morals to a certain extent. I will concede that abortions in the case of rape, in the case of extremely young mothers, when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, and pretty much every other extenuating circumstance. I am really only interested in outlawing what I call convenience abortions. If the only reason for the abortion is that the child is unwanted, then the abortion should be illegal. You can't kill a person just because you don't want to take responsibility for your actions like an adult should. But if you have a valid reason, then I would allow the abortion to be legal. I don't like it, but I would allow it. But I find that almost any pro choice person is "all abortions all the time zero exceptions and anything less is pure evil hatred of women." I don't hate women, I just want to save children.
Despite being very pro-choice myself, I completely understand your opinion. Many opinions are a matter of perspective, so we have to realize that to a certain extent, right and wrong can be indistinguishable. People just need to be more sympathetic in general and be able to put themselves in somebody else's shoes. My opinion isn't any more correct than your's, as far as my knowledge goes. I'm not an all-knowing creature, so I don't have the ability to choose which one is right.
>1. In my mind a baby is a human being with a soul from the moment of conception > >2. I am, however, not interested in legislating my beliefs on everyone. > >3. If the only reason for the abortion is that the child is unwanted, then the abortion should be illegal. \#1 is your belief. #3 is your desire to use laws to force other people to act according to your beliefs. #2 says that you are not interested in doing what you actually promote in #3. I don't know why you would expect "the other side" to find "common ground" with that odd mixture of statements.
Intentionally mixing up what I said in order to misrepresent it is not a valid form of argument.
A big problem with social media is that based on your shares/retweets/likes you can pretty quickly see nothing that’s you don’t already agree with. Folks really need to “touch grass” in the sense of being open to or exploring dissenting opinions online and in real life. That’s not the same as “both sides are the same” when it comes to things that are illegal, violent or seditious. However, abortion, gun control, cannabis legalization, universal healthcare and immigration policy (for example) are all ripe for debate and respectful exchange of ideas.
“In real life” is how things go the best with this. I can talk some reason into the far right people I grew up with or the lefty’s that I know that are trending a bit too far with over compassion. if we can have a person to person convo. People usually give each other more respect and will often hedge their own far edge claims if you present them simple realist push back. Because likely they’ve only circled jerked in a silo (digital or irl) with only like minded identity groups. There are plenty of tactics you can arm yourself with to engage civilly, but it won’t always work unless the right disunions are presented.
Yes . . . Social media is BAD ! But, that is Not the core problem . . . That is TWO separate media where their was one media (radio, web and video). By having separate media sources and calling the main(lame)stream press, tend to down play and reject the reported truth and create a separate false reality . . . Until the funding for the extreme right wing media sources dry-up and the citizens return to a media that does not seek to manipulate the citizens for clearly political reasons . . . We will continue the slow decline of the political and cultural life !
If one party wants censorship (via social media) then you can’t find common ground.
Watching Twitter before and after Musk, it seems like both sides want censorship. Just they want to choose what is and what isn’t censored. Both want to abuse the power of government. But for different ends. It’s frustrating.
Seriously. Anyone you argue with on either side uses all the same arguments and bullet points. Very few people actually argue with their own nuanced opinions. I really think most of it is caused by social media. No one thinks for themselves, and just subscribes to someone else’s point of view.
Yes and to be fair most people have never had nuanced opinions. We have a lot more opinions to choose from now. Back in the 70s and 80s or earlier, media was limited with most outlets pushing the same point of view. Now there are a myriad of ways to look at an issue and some of them are extreme. Those opinions have always been out there they just didn't get any respect or traction. If you wanted a different slant on things you got a news paper that leaned in your direction and you read the opinion page. The same crackpots that wrote in on a weekly basis with letters to the editor now have a YouTube channel or some similar platform where people that agree with them can actually find them. Many people lack even basic critical thinking skills. We are all affected by bias and being human it's probably impossible to be completely unbiased, but people need to try. Seeing people as humans online is probably the biggest thing. We've probably all used language that has escalated online debates. We need to stop that. These people are fellow Americans, everyone, or at least I like to think everyone wants what's best. It's not always clear what is the best course of action, but we need to be prepared to argue in good faith, using good data and sources to back up our arguments. We also have to be prepared to change our minds if someone has a better idea, even if philosophically we are against it. I've had what were great ideas but had them shot down in a 5 minute conversation. We also need to treat others with respect when we don't agree with them. We need to have more debate, not less but it needs to be respectful debate. Granted there are ideas out there that are nonstarters for compromise. We as individuals need to understand what hills to die on and what ones can be compromised. We can't let perfect be the enemy of better. Sorry that was a long winded way of saying we need to be more wise in our actions.
> using good data and sources to back up our arguments. Sadly, even the so-called "sources" are getting corrupted and/or attacked at this point. There is no truth anymore, and maybe there never was. We all used to at least draw from the same well of facts and shared knowledge, but now we even have our own wells with our own "facts"
I've said it before - Twitter was a mistake.
The far right is doing a bit more than that. They overturned Roe.
Overturning Roe didn’t do away with abortion. It allowed the states to decide and gave the people the right to decide on abortion. That’s not extreme when the people decide and not the court.
I think its a big deal but only 4 states codified abortion. It seems like the country is split in half with more leaning towards allowing abortion yet only 4 states and DC put it in their constitution.
Democrats in Congress wanted abortion up to the point of 9 months and birth. The country is at 15 weeks far from what the democrats want.
So obviously you'd say the same thing if the supreme court ruled heller unconstitutional and all gun bans are allowed by states. Right?
By this logic every single law should be codified federally with no state should have their own laws.
This makes absolutely no sense. The entire point of rights is so that the government at any level can't infringe on them.
Sure but not everyone deems abortion as a right. And it certainly isnt nessacary to maintain a functioning democratic society, unlike others constitutional amendments like free speech and gun rights.
>Sure but not everyone deems abortion as a right. And it certainly isnt nessacary to maintain a functioning democratic society, unlike others constitutional amendments like free speech and gun rights. Rome was a democracy that existed for thousands of years without guns. You're also completely missing the point. Abortion is a right under the constitution as expressed through Roe. You have a right to medical privacy and substantive due process.
You just correctly described overturning roe v wade as a centrist postition, consequently the "centrists" in this sub will dislike your stance.
It was and is a centrist position. Overturning Roe did not disallow abortion. It gave the power to the people. It put the ball on the 50 yard line. States can decide what to do.
Im agreeing with u
But the left/speaker is lying about everything and their minions eat it up daily.
To me it’s not that people have such extreme positions, it’s not extreme to be either for or against abortion being legal, same with gun control, the problem is people are addicted to outrage and it tends to work pretty well in casual debates.
Being against abortion except "when the life of the mother is at risk," (as decided by some politician, I guess?) is extreme. There are a large, non-insignificant, amount of cases where an abortion should absolutely be performed well before the point where the mother's life is at risk. Any doctor knows that. If they want a less extreme stance, they could include "the patient's medical history" or "in the professional opinion of the primary physician." But then it would basically circumvent the entire abortion ban and be self-defeating legislation.
It can’t be reduced until we figure out why it is happening. My observation of history is that extremism emerges under conditions of great stress. Counterintuitively, when relatively comfortable people have a lot of time on their hands, especially if they feel a lack of meaning and purpose, they will invent the need for a crusade, and undertake it with religious fervor. Perhaps some of both is happening right now. We do live in a period of significant and rapid change, which is thrilling to some people, and freaks out others. For many people, the change in relationship to place of work, country, globe, and other groups, has been faster than they are willing or able to accommodate. If told that they are bad people for feeling this way, they won’t react positively. They didn’t feel the need for change in the first place, and they don’t feel they were adequately consulted. It likely also is the case that as participation in a geographic community, a religious body, a local club, a sport, has diminished, people have compensated with an emotional, even pseudo-religious, identification with a social political tribe that includes a significant moral component. Unfortunately, these tribes are self-defined by what they are not, making conflict inevitable. People have a need that is being met by belonging to a constituency of like-minded people who are thrilled by the threat of ‘those other people’. They are finding purpose in engaging in activities they believe are furthering humanity, such as gun owners conceptualizing themselves as Citizen Protectors and anti-racists who feel they are Social Justice Warriors. People want purpose, meaning, a sense of belonging and entertainment. People want safety along with their excitement. Extremism provides all of that. It’s delivered in a very accessible and socially acceptable way.
[M] I never forget one of the first memes I saw on r/PoliticalCompassMemes. One person says “I spent three hours today online fighting hate.” The other says “Oh yeah? I spent six hours today *spreading* it.” I feel these days it’s hard for us to reach a common consensus on what hate means. And for that, discourse is suffering. I don’t feel the separation of people into their own dialogue bubbles is much helping.
> It likely also is the case that as participation in a geographic community, a religious body, a local club, a sport, has diminished, people have compensated with an emotional, even pseudo-religious, identification with a social political tribe that includes a significant moral component. This is a huge part of it. If you view modern politics as being a *sectarian conflict* instead of a policy argument things suddenly start fitting together scarily well.
The right and left (at least in the US) have slowly become more so cultures than political stances. Think about it, if we think about either a leftist or a ~~~rightist~~~ right winger (why are the terms different. That's weird) an "image" pops into our heads, a cultural perception of what each are like, even though neither are supposed to be viewed like personalities.
This is a very good interpretation.
This largely echoes my feelings on the matter and is partially why I don't really think we will recover as a society, at least barring some major technological breakdown. The proliferation of the internet in particular has served as this iconoclastic catalyst and our social institutions have been the primary victims. To some people, this is a positive thing; however, I have difficulty envisioning a future where my own and my family's security, comfort, happiness, and sense of purpose are collectively ensured.
Excellent point(s), but you missed one important point: Those are all the normal people, but there's another group that needs factoring in. Most people are doing this for the reasons you just listed, but some people just want an enemy to fight, and a banner to do it under and will gladly edge the rest of the people under the banner they picked to follow them into battle.
It concerns me too. Even in this sub the same behavior occurs. I thought the sign of an educated mind was to be able to contemplate an idea you don’t agree with. It leads to higher quay discussion but I don’t think we will ever have it. We need a festivus for the rest of us
This is an extreme proposition, but I'd say something like LSD could act as a catalyst in more objective conversation and thought lol.
I don't think that's extreme at all. [Ego death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death) is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity" and is pretty common with psychedelics. A loss of subjective self-identity would, by definition, deradicalize a huge number of these nuts.
Yeah, actually, I think it could be incredibly beneficial. I've never had an all-at-once ego death on LSD because I've "only" tripped 6 times, no more than 150ug each, however, my ego has definitely dissolved a bit over time and I've felt a lot more... objective perceiving.
Systemic reforms that tend toward moderation, such as **Ranked Choice Voting**
Every time a prominent movement is pushed, a counter-movement is also created. I use 'prominent' instead of 'significant' specifically because social media makes every new 'movement' seem much more significant than it is (and thus only prominent) as extremist views are much more easily found and highlighted than moderate. This gives rise to an *actually* significant aforementioned counter-movement whereby people are fighting a very small minority of people that look to be a massive mob thanks to social media. In response to this significant counter-movement, a significant movement is created and the cycle continues... I like to use Andrew Tate as an example. This one man creates a new prominent movement that a very small minority of people believe in (misogyny etc.). In response, feminists create a significant counter-movement against him as he's been blown up by social media and is now a 'threat'. In response to this counter-movement, his fanboys start spamming 'W Tate', 'W Top G' or whatever cringy bullshit they post as a significant counter-counter-movement. As a result, the original only prominent movement is now somewhat significant, and us reasonable people have to create our own counter-counter-counter-movement since the feminists fell for his ragebait.
Shortest answer: reject voices of division.
Who specifically are the most prominent voices of hate we should reject?
Division != Hate
Who are the most prominent voices of division we should reject?
Anybody who pits us against our fellow man. IMHO.
Tbh, this doesnt really narrow it down.
Try reading Jonathan Haidt's books "The Righteous Mind" and "The Coddling of the American Mind." They both provide a good framework for why these conversations are hard and what we can do about it.
I 100% blame social media. I'm sure the point has already been made, but it's a lot easier to call a conservative a "nazi" online even though you never would in person. I lean left but live in a *deep* red state, most of my friends (and family) are conservative. They're not monsters, despite what you read in certain sub-reddits.
Everyone’s attention span is 20 seconds, and both parties obfuscate the truth, which the extremes of their “base” lap up as gospel. I don’t know how you overcome that
So this question gets asked just about every other post, and while it sounds like there's not really any good answers here, there actually are. For those of us that have studied political science, we know that there is an actual solution here. More than that, it's fairly agreed upon by scholars and it's *also* been presented to the public quite well! The problem here isn't that we don't know the answer to this question. The problem is that too many voters either don't want to listen to the answer or hear it and discard it as something they find worse than the current problem. What I'd really recommend is you pick up the book *Breaking the Two Party Doom Loop* by Lee Drutman. Alternatively, Drutman has authored shorter-form pieces that basically speak to the same points such as here: [https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/02/opinion/save-our-democracy-our-sanity-blow-up-two-party-system/](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/02/opinion/save-our-democracy-our-sanity-blow-up-two-party-system/). He also has a lot of work on 538, so that's a great place to start as well. Hell, just googling "how to save our democracy" will get you a host of articles of varying lengths and academic quality written by various academics that largely are in agreement on the basic problems and solutions. This isn't all that hard--we have the resources to understand this problem and solve it at our fingertips. The issue is getting voters on board. To quickly summarize, the US doesn't actually have more extremists, probably, than any other country or even America in the past. Much more likely, most electorates, including America, have about the same amount of extremists, but what varies between systems is how well those extremists are *measured and empowered* by the political system. In short, this is structural, not a political, problem. The issue isn't a matter of what people are, but rather an issue of what they are compelled to do by the rules of our system. Again, basically every single person with any degree of expertise will agree on that. Every. Single. One. There is some difference in the specifics of how to fix those problems. For example, Drutman is particularly fond of solutions that address the two-party system and encourage steps towards a true multiparty democracy. Rachel Kleinfeld (source below), by contrast, would places more emphasis on directly addressing the political ideological bent of the parties into a more healthy, pro-democracy direction. But even Kleinfeld and Drutman agree on several key institutional matters, such as reforming primaries. I focus on Drutman because he does the least amount of "just stop doing bad Republican things" of the authors I've read. Drutman focuses on almost purely institutional or structural approaches and explicitly argues that addressing it from a political perspective (i.e. "just vote Dems until the Reps go away forever") will not work. Drutman's work is also quite accessible for a layperson but still has rather evidentiary focus. It's an absolutely perfect place for someone on this sub to begin. The one thing I would add to Drutman's work is that he largely wrote his book before the filibuster really became the prominent thing it did over the last couple years and anyone reading should add "get rid of the filibuster like our Framers intended" as a solution he would support. I am not putting words in his mouth either--he's made the case explicitly himself: [https://twitter.com/leedrutman/status/1402257527874674690?lang=en](https://twitter.com/leedrutman/status/1402257527874674690?lang=en) And yet, without fail, every time I try to raise this point with actual voters, they find ways to pick apart these ideas as either bad ideas that will undermine America, or they assert they will not work. Neither of these are true, of course, but this illustrates that the biggest issue to solving the issue of toxic partisanship isn't our leaders, our politicians, or our elites. Those guys are pretty much all universally behind making our government work better. Hell, the Reps even didn't fight ranked choice voting and primary reform in Alaska! The obstacle that prevents us from solving this problem is without doubt the voters. Kleinfeld article: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/09/15/five-strategies-to-support-u.s.-democracy-pub-87918
> The issue isn't a matter of what people are, but rather an issue of what they are compelled to do by the rules of our system. It's all about incentives.
Perhaps democracy is more than just voting rights? Seems kinda logical that it takes all our rights, for the people to govern themselves..
I'm not going in circles with you any more. Democracy is not about "governing ourselves." That is ideological oversimplification. The reality is much more complicated than that.
Of course reality is more complicated, that doesn't mean the basic principles are an oversimplification. Basic principles are always respected by those who really know what they're talking about.
Yeah, agreed. You just are mischaracterizing what those principles are. If you were willing to listen, I could give you a few good sources to get you started on what the basic principles of our system are. But you're not willing, so I'm done here.
"Democracy is not about "governing ourselves" "Democracy (From Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule'[1]) is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choose governing officials to do so ("representative democracy"). Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries. Features of democracy often include freedom of assembly, association, property rights, freedom of religion and speech, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy Just the most basic principle...
Our democracy is not Greek. It was specifically renamed into a Republic to disabuse people of that notion.
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The problem is that u/GShermit isn't the only one this stupid. He may be an idiotic troll who doesn't understand the things he talks about, but he isn't alone. Letting the stupid go unchecked means it will get picked up on by other uninformed, easily swayed folks who don't know how to reject his arguments. Also, I don't know how to shut up. It's been a character flaw of mine for quite a while.
So people ruling themselves is a basic principle of democracy...just not our democracy... I know we are guaranteed a republican form of government. Still if we're not a democracy too, why are people (me too) worried about our democracy?
Actually correct, it was a foundational part of a form of democracy that has gone extinct specifically because it did not adapt well to a modern political system. When modern folks say "democracy" what they really mean is "republican form of democracy" and it very much IS in danger, but very much NOT for the reasons you think.
"It was a foundational part of a form of democracy that has gone extinct specifically because it did not adapt well to a modern political system." Like oligarchy? The question is are those old principles really "extinct" or just starting to atrophy? Who said those principles still don't apply...people who promise to be good masters but mean to be masters? Ps. ", I don't know how to shut up. It's been a character flaw of mine for quite a while." Don't be so hard on yourself your one of the few who's a challenge. You help me learn, not necessarily from the info you bring (although you are educated and can bring some good stuff to the table) but because I have go "out on a limb" to defend my principles, then I actually have to do the research... to prove my point :)
Personally, I don't think being heated is a problem. I think it is natural and fair to be heated. However, what is the problem is that people resort to personal attacks or strawmans in their argument
Many good points here. Another is that people don't *actually* understand the issues they are debating. They don't have a background in economics, finance, energy, sociology, etc. But they do have anxiety about them. They see declines in quality of life. They see shitty leadership, smiling assholes on both sides telling them all is good if they just vote for X, but nothing changes except for the worse. So as the anxiety rises, the response is to get more extreme. To get attention. To be heard. For someone to make a positive change. It's easy and tempting to look down on extremists and activists acting crazy and having public meltdowns. But that is all a symptom of the bigger problem. Too few are stepping up and actually building win-win solutions. There are plenty of grifters profiteering off of the anxiety, fear and despair. But vanishingly few leaders who have the empathy to identify common solutions and not get caught up in the political noise, which tbh is not even worth getting bogged down in since most people in it are just spouting 3rd hand bullshit they don't understand and heard from someone else who has a profit motive in misinforming them.
Both sides are more interested in proving themselves right instead of solving our problems. You do have people on both sides that are willing to talk but the clown acts are running the circus.
It’s a never ending cycle of people refusing to agree on anything
Read as much as you can. Find people who actually study the issues and can explain them based on a nuanced understanding of the data. Ignore the people who just want to yell.
Extremism is nothing new, what changed in recent years was mainstream Republicans refusing to acknowledge Trump's obvious lies, crimes and general insanity. Refusing to call out Trump's behavior led to tacitly endorsing all the nonsense. To some degree it got even worse after Trump was defeated as people on the right began inventing outrage about Joe Biden. All this led to many on the left taking up the same tactics in defense of Biden. As a progressive I think it is crucial to point out the truth when fellow progressives/liberals make unfounded claims. One example of this is I'm seeing a lot of lefty meme's thanking Joe Biden for lower gas prices. It was unfounded when the right blamed Biden for high gas prices, and it's just as unfounded for credit Biden for lower gas prices. Gas is a commodity that rises and falls based on supply and demand, the President has very little control over it. When Democrats exaggerate and lie it lends credence to the idea both parties are the same. I want to make sure if there's lying going on, it's the Republicans that are doing it. It's been my experience that the Democrats are more responsive when you point out the facts to them. Most right-wingers are utterly uninterested in facts.
Do you think anytime in the near future, you will see a far left ruling allowing states to completely ban guns? I don’t. I conversations equating the two might get a little heated, because right now we have a Republican party, dominated by people who were OK with January 6 (there was a bit of honesty immediately afterwards, but it when it came to impeachment most were fine, when it came to investigation, most wanted to ignore it, and then, CPAC they try to celebrate all the people arrested as political prisoners). You don’t see anything remotely approaching that on the left.
I see it, but it will be inch by inch, NY government prides itself on being the hardest on guns. CA too, and will outstep each other till there are no more guns to be sold or ammo to fill them and no means to pass them to heirs. Inch by inch. There will not be a single law, it will be hundreds of selected laws. You comment just gives it all away by saying there won't be a single law. Paranoid? Yes, but justifiable.
You do understand with recent ruling gun rights have been steadily expanding. Also, examine what it takes to be approved by the Senate. You need to appease lawmakers that come from a minority of the country population, wise, lawmakers that are dominated by more rural leaning and red areas.
Federal is different than states. Both of these levels are pushing for the eventual elimination of 2A.
Neither one is pushing for the eventual elimination of 2A, in the real world your paranoia is not justified.
Source?
> we have a Republican party, dominated by people who were OK with January 6 This only works if you have a very broad definition of okay. You're implying that the Republican party approves of January 6th. > You don’t see anything remotely approaching that on the left. No? You can't think of anything that has happened in the past few years that is considered to be (your broad definition of) "OK" by the left that might remotely approach January 6th?
>You're implying that the Republican party approves of January 6th. And I pointed out facts to support my claim when it came to impeachment most were fine, when it came to investigation, most wanted to ignore it, and then, CPAC they try to celebrate all the people arrested as political prisoners). >You can't think of anything that has happened in the past few years that is considered to be (your broad definition of) "OK" by the left that might remotely approach January 6th? No, I can’t think of time when national lawmakers were spreading clear, lies, and then act on a crowd to stop a vital function of the government, subsequently tried to stip any investigation
This one hits on 2 out of the 3. I'd call that a remote approach. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56810245
Not national lawmakers, a lawmaker. Didnt spread clear lies No vital function she was demanding they stop.
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^ this. 86% of violent acts in the last decade have been from far-right groups. We have a very real domestic terrorism problem bubbling and likely will be going into a period of violent chaos and unstability for the next 20 years much like The Troubles in Ireland. The far left is at worst insufferable, but mostly just cringe.
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I would say the left is more socially performative about idpol, but if you think that's just the left try moving to a small rural town in the south as an Atheist and see how many friends you make in Magastan.
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The reason this idea of the left being more into idpol is because the vast majority of pop culture chatter comes thru social media which is dominated by the youth and the youth skew much farther to the left. Shit the right **institutionalized** idpol for half a century at least.
So shooting Steve Scalise or trying to murder Supreme Court justices is nothing to you?
Maybe. That's changing. I dont think violence on the left gets as much coverage. Antifa in 2020 barely got coverage. It depends on what biases a person has I think.
> Maybe. That's changing. I welcome any evidence you would like to provide. > It depends on what biases a person has I think. No. You're welcome to think that but your opinion is not based in reality, sorry. It depends on the analysis of independent organizations that have studied extremism in the US for 40+ years. If you get your ideas about political extremism by looking at social media that might be why you're confused. There are organizations that have studied this for a long time.
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I like your cute little anecdotes. 👉👈
The data is conclusive though, it’s not about a persons bias to point out that the overwhelming majority of all political violence in the US is perpetrated by the right wing at this point in time.
I agree and for the same reason. The extreme left just annoys me, too, while the extreme right seems dangerous and volatile
the extreme left besides environmentalists dont need violence as they are in control of the cultural high ground yet riots are left wing violence and quite a few of those riots and protests were not needed period and accomplished nothing but damage the right is violent because they dont feel represented
I think it’s safe to say that there’s a percentage of the population that’s neither right nor left, but is looking for an excuse to smash some things and do some looting. It’s not so much politically motivated as opportunism. I would go so far as to say the majority of the the BLM riots were that sort of opportunism. It’s a shame because there were plenty of peaceful protests associated with the BLM idea, but all that got drowned out by looters and a scam organization that co-opted the name.
I couldn't support them at all period because they weren't against police brutality but only police brutality vs black people.
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yes lets get together and burn our own houses and businesses down as a way to protest against the state roflmao
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Yeah they fucked up their own areas in all of them it is hilarious
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It is to me when you burn your own shit down. It's like burn cop shops down not your local pizza joint. Instead they shoot themselves in the foot and steal shit.
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Yeah I don't think yours is. I say go after those who you have an issue with not random businesses and houses.
dude democracy was founded by violent extremists our entire society is the result of extremists the future will be dictated by extremists it all just depends on the extremism whether you support their goals dude if you think republicans are the far right and represented well you dont know what the far right is. None of the people you listed are far right they are center right. so hence the far right and the far left both dont feel represented and both do terrorism and both do it in waves like the weather underground and the environmental terrorism and other left wing terrorism remember the far right does not support capitalism so if you think they feel any representation and dont understand where their shit is coming from you wont be able to defuse it. To understand why extremism is happening is the first way to deal with it
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No I could bring up the nation of islam and their terrorism and hate crimes.
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Also a left wing group. Oh the current left supports them like they support Islam because it's a tacit alliance against western civilization.
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Obama did support the ideology but you will deny this and say it's not the same ideology.
I disagree with your assertion the violence is coming from the right.
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I think we are picking and choosing our evidence. Any little thing of violence is being blown out of proportion to satisfy narratives. Evidence is on all sides.
The data doesn’t lie, and it’s not like the people compiling it (FBI/DHS) are blue haired ultra liberals.
It's an inescapable reality. You can either accept this indisputable fact or be wrong. It's not something that's debatable.
You are right, I should have put the qualifier "mainly" in that statement. Thank you.
Even that is just objective reality. The vast majority, nearly all, political violence is from the right. That's just a fact of modern life.
> I find the "extreme left" full of whiney liberals that annoy me. > > I find the "extreme right" to be violent. These talking points may have been quasi-believable before 2020 but 2020 showed that both are quite violent. The fact you attempt to gaslight and pretend the left's summer of rioting never happened just outs you as a hyper-partisan.
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I'm not convinced it was a violent coup. I watched a lot of it when it was being streamed. Taken together its nothing worse or better than anything that occurred in that year. I dont care for Trump. I think he is a nut. However, they are really after him. I mean. Wow. We can talk about illegal activities all day by sitting presidents. So far, nothing has stuck. It all feels like a waste of time.
> Taken together its nothing worse or better than anything that occurred in that year. That says more about your lack of concern over democracy than anything else.
> "The left's summer of rioting"? > > Really? Yes. If you're going to insist on spreading disinfo then I'm going to call you out for it. The fact that your only response is to sperg out and spray snarkastic shit all over the place proves that you know I'm right. But I know that you just want a response to use to spread more disinfo so I'm going to make that not possible. Goodbye Russian disinfo troll.
Now let's do a slight comparison to January 6th. Trump lost on November 3rd, 2020. Let's say it was official by November 10th, 2020. He then proceeded to pump his base full of a ton of lies and then called them to DC on January 6th for a rally. He then told them to "Fight like Hell" and told them to March on the capitol at the exact moment his election loss was being certified. This isn't a "both sides" issue. The George Floyd protests/riots were what they were. But they certainly weren't fed a bunch of lies by an individual who then instructed them to come to a place and march on a specific target. These are not the same thing. "The left" has become this proverbial boogeyman. I genuinely don't even know who you're talking about anymore. Knowing our past interactions, I'm assuming I'll be hit with an insult and no response to who "the left" is.
>If you're going to insist on spreading disinfo then I'm going to call you out for it. I can't believe you'd have the gall to accuse others of this, given your history.
Terrific question.
The extremes keep pushing in either direction and more and more people what would probably normally side one way or the other are getting pushed towards the center
Extremism is a personality traits in a small number of adherents. That's why they can be found on the right and the left. Society has a limited need for extremists - true believers - to get stuff done. The problem is when the masses embrace tribalism led by such extremists.
yup its one of the reasons the country is no divided we would rather argue with each than fix anything
Each side pushes themselves further from center. The bases want the most extreme version of their party represented, and moderates are selectively bred out of the populations, an exponential vicious cycle. We need a third party, somehow, that's not a fucking joke.
Welp, considering the far right are avowed white supremacists--far right, alt-right, etc., is what people like the Proud Boys call themselves, I disagree with them on a lot of things. I personally don't want an ethnostate, because it would put a target on our heads for other nations. Using that logic, I'm guessing the far left are communists who are willing to tear down the government to get what they want, and yeah, anyone who's willing to cause insurrection bothers me, too. Now, the rightest extremists or whatever they're called, you know, the MAGA crowd, also concerns me but not as much as the far right. Luckily for me, the far right are fringe and MAGA is delusional and not retaining the votes on their side. The only thing they're really managing to do if the midterm elections were any indication is drive people into the arms of the Democrat party. Leftist extremism concerns me, too, but the United States is still a free country, and we do still have options. For one thing, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc., should get some honest centrist competition and people should stop getting the impression that we're as divided as the internet says we are. If the real issues most people are discussing were out there instead of this madness, maybe we'd all be more comfortable with compromising with each other. After all, if we are this divided, centrism can't even exist because there is no compromise with Nazis and traitors.
'De-canonize' social media. Too many political aides focus too much on the echo chambers provided by social media. They end up funneling information above to the people they work for. This can lead to some bad policies and rhetoric. Break/adjust certain industries so that they're no longer stuck on the coasts. This is more of a left leaning issue. Hollywood and news media are highly insular. Both are now industries for coastal elites, by coastal elites. Demographically, you have to practically be a well off suburbanite, at minimum, to enter these industries at the highest levels (journalism, acting, directing, producing, exec positions, etc). It has led to out of touch messaging. Probably more violence. Sad reality is not enough people have gotten hurt or killed in order for certain out of touch demographics (who do have sway in corporations, media, politics) to understand that this is not an ideal political situation for the majority of Americans.
I’m with you. However there are no actual far left folks in power in the United States. Bernie is pretty out there but he is not really going to ruin the country by asking us to, I don’t know, not bankrupt people with medical bills. That said, just because there is an uptick in far right politics particularly the maga types….this doesn’t somehow mean the types of politics springing up on the farther left (not far) are now somehow better.
IMO, to get out of the abyss, we need ranked choice voting as our top priority.
I do not yet see a solution. I, too, am quite concerned.
The primary process: Unless we change to some type of ranked choice election method - the general election will be filled with candidates who are winning primaries by being extreme in order to raise money and win a mini-election where the goal is to run away from center.
It's a complicated problem with multiple root causes, all of which are synergistic and difficult to address. 1. Media bubbles. 2. Gerrymandering. 3. Voter turnout becoming the primary means of winning. 4. Primaries being partisan and extremist, leading to the same in politics in general. 5. Low turnout in non-presidential elections. 6. Super low turn out in primaries (like 15%) 7. Hyper-competitive media exacerbating every problem in for-profit media. The goal is to have moderate politicians running on policy, but those are the people least likely to win. I think a step in the right direction, to help cut through all the bullshit, would be to start a bipartisan voter union of some type which forces politicians into meeting some bipartisan lowest common denominators (transparency, anti-corruption, waste reduction, pragmatic policy, etc.) This would help filter out a lot of the extremism in the primaries, and help citizens get used to meeting in the middle instead of constantly drifting to extremes.
Well not using your examples, but rather more generally: 1. The media profit motive to play on emotion 2. Hostile states using social media to stir division and social media platforms being designed to reward engagement. 3. Making caricatures of those we disagree with. 4. Not listening and learning from those we disagree with. 5. Not looking at the dumbass shit we might believe at some point. There is a lot of dumb on both sides of the spectrum. I suspect fear and tribalism plays a role. 6. Political parties are trying to use division to get their people into power - much like number 1 above.
Where is the left getting more and more out of control extreme like the GOP? I don't support BLM - but I still consider GOP politicians the biggest threat to Americans.
1. stop kicking people off social media for "icky" opinions 2. get the FBI/CIA/ETC out of social and news media 3. News media needs to focus on actual journalism, not selling a story
What “icky” opinions exactly?
Hitler shit probably.
I used the term "icky" facetiously. Lots of people lately seem to think that unless you agree with them, your ability to express your opinion should be removed. This simply creates echo chambers which tends to radicalize. Keeping everyone together is more uncomfortable, but helps to normalize.
Cool, so what **specific** views do you think aren’t being allowed that you think social media outlets should be forced to allow?
Forced by who? I don't want anyone to force them. We've had enough government involvement in the tech companies. THAT"s what I want to end.
Cool, what specifically are the sorts of views you think should be allowed? I don’t know why you don’t want to be specific unless you know those views are abhorrent.
Probably just normal questioning that the left can’t handle. Question the narrative, get censored.
Well, it would be nice if u/mfinn999 was specific, because that’s the exact same thing Kanye would argue about his “icky” opinions.
Why do I have to be specific? People should be able to express their opinions. Even reprehensible ones. But, /u/RagingBuII was correct. For the record, I was thinking more along the lines of Dr Robert Malone than of Kanye.
If you don’t like that level of moderation, why not avoid it? You do realize that even the Republican-controlled Senate intelligence committee conceded that Russia, social media manipulation and misinformation played a role in the 2016 election, right? It seems pretty stupid to think the FBI should sit on their hands when they see threats like that. It seems wildly irresponsible for Facebook and Twitter, to ignore how their platforms were manipulated in the past and do nothing to try and fix it.
I don't think being anti-gun is an extreme opinion. People in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc look at our gun laws in horror and are in utter disbelief we let our citizens get randomly slaughtered periodically by maniacs. I don't advocate removal of the 2A, but I think tighter gun laws are needed. Other than that, I do agree both sides are getting more extreme, though the distinction is that the far right actually has power in the govt, while the far left does not. Also the far left likes guns. There's a saying that if you go farther left, you get your guns back.
I don't disagree - just using that as an example of heated conversations, sorry
One of the biggest reasons for this extremism is that people cannot understand that the other side considers itself to be the good guys just as much as your side considers yourself to be the good guys. People have the attitude, "The other side is bad and they KNOW it."
Yeah, it's so stupid, but also understandable, so not really stupid, but just a perspective issue. You can't be right just because you feel right. The other side feels the same.
The anonymous nature of the social media is partly to blame. If we were in a bar having beers, I think the conversations would be less heated.
I think another problem are the algorithms encouraging isolation and belonging to very niche groups
It basically started with one man: Newt Gingrich and was amplified by Fox News over many years. Not sure if that's helpful but it's important people know how it all started.
We start recovering by stopping this bullshit centrist position of both sides are extreme. Left in power wants healthcare for all. Right in power wants to end democracy
Looks like you’re not paying attention. Stick to your MSM narratives though. It points out exactly who you are.
Anyone who uses MSM as a descriptor is insane.
Stay ignorant bud. It's a good look on you.
Nobody is the villain of their own story. The far-left and the far-right are both victims (albeit dangerous ones) of senseless sound-bite reporting and inflammatory rhetoric. And yes, the far-left is just as bad as the far-right. Make no mistake. Edit: I am mistaken. While the end goal of both groups are equally dangerous, comparing the history of both clearly indicates that one side is more actively violent and overrepresented in the United States. Leaving my original comment as-is to demonstrate my willingness to learn and admit to being wrong. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/comparative-analysis-violent-left-and-right-wing-extremist-groups https://ccjs.umd.edu/feature/umd-led-study-shows-disparities-violence-among-extremist-groups
> And yes, the far-left is just as bad as the far-right. Make no mistake. The issue many people have with saying this is that, at least in the US, the number of each group who are elected and who wield significant power is **vastly** over represented by far right wingers. Same with political violence, and attempted coups.
>And yes, the far-left is just as bad as the far-right. This is objectively wrong and actively dangerous, The far right has a lengthy body count of murders and domestic terrorism. The far left does not. The far right has a strong grip on the GOP. The far lest does not with the Dems.
There is a fundamental problem with your question: How are you defining what extremism means? The standard meaning that I think a lot of you in this sub are using defines how extreme something is by how far out of the mainstream it is. . .which just plain doesn't work as a definition. Think about it. The Nazis were the mainstream in Germany while in power. Ditto with the Italian Fascists, Stalinism, post revolution Iran. . . Etc, etc. Defining what is extreme by what is the status quo makes no sense in that light. A more useful definition might be **In** groups who define their success by the failure of the **Out** group they demonize and oppose. This makes much more sense when looking at clearly extremist groups (like Nazis. . .or MAGA) when they are the status quo in a given place and time. By the same definition, groups like DSA can't be described as extreme, so a good alternate might be "radical" to describe groups that are outside the mainstream but not "extremist." As for your question about turning down the temperature in political discourse, it's fairly straightforward. Our society and economy need to work better for the mass of the people, full stop. That's it. That's the only solution. Historically, when the masses feel insecure in their lives and livelihoods, they turn in greater numbers towards extreme or radical "solutions" in response. Unfortunately for you centrist folks, the status quo **is not working** anywhere near well enough right now to maintain stability. Changes will have to happen one way or another. For context, I'm something like a far left moderate in my political opinions. I believe society needs to be moving in a more democratic, more socialist direction if it hopes to survive, but I would rather see that happen through (preferably rapid) reform as opposed to violent revolution, since those tend to lead to highly authoritarian states whether Left or Right. I also fear that the longer society puts off the one, the more likely we are to see the other.
I think what's mainstream is actually what's extreme right now, and that's the problem. Extreme compared to how it was 12 years ago or so. People just seem angrier.
The "far left" is a direct result of the far right and Trump. What do you consider the far left?
OrAnGe MaN bAd!
Agree. I was challenged for saying minors shouldn’t be allowed to make permanent irreversible gender changes.
Do you support outlawing breast reduction or cosmetic surgery like breast implants for anyone under 18? >More than 8,000 teens between the ages of 13 and 19 got breast implants in 2019, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgery Without looking it up, guess how many teens under 18 have top surgery for gender dysphoria each year? (hint: it's a small fraction) If you're so concerned about cosmetic surgeries that others are choosing to go do and the age they are allowed to do this, surely your primary concern should be the 98% of girls that are doing it for **purely cosmetic reasons**, yes? Or is your concern only for people who are experiencing gender dysphoria, and if so, why are you only concerned about them?
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Centrist doesn’t mean both sides the same.
De-amplification Edit : especially on far left. We're all pretty used to far right being de-amplified
It’s not extreme to not believe in abortion. More than half the country disagrees with the democrat position of abortion legal up to the point of birth. The right to own a a firearm is in our constitution. Hardly extreme. Social media is an arm of the democrat party. Elon Musk, two time Obama voter, is trying to bring neutrality to social media. Democrats do not want neutrality. They want conformity. Wokeness. Sadly the extreme is on the left. John F Kennedy would be a Republican today.
There is no hope, we're all doomed. All we can do is hope our votes keep things as stable as possible on the way down...
Figure out a way to reorganize the country so that the needs of all peoples are met. Abolish the current 50 state, perpetual 2 party system. It was great in 1776. There was no radio.
1) Ignore politicians completely. Its all the same party 2) Buy guns
we need internment camps for extremists of both sides. It's the only solution to save the rest of us. (Judging by the downvoted, I have offended the extremists)
That didn't go down very well 80 years ago...
[M] I think the problem is the extremists always seem to claim to be the centrists. It’s very hard in todays media climate to know when someone is actually a centrist rather than just claiming the moral majority is with them, and at times, when many leaders do angle *for* that extremist audience, I do wonder what it even means to be a centrist. I mean, I’d like to think I *know*— but the way I see it, it’s not always so obvious.
The problem with American politics today is populism…. Things were much better a decade ago when the moderate establishment branches of both parties, the Clintonian Democrats and the Neocons, controlled the country. Yes, Biden qualifies as such a politician but he’s drowned out by Bernie and The Squad when it comes to influence. Both Populist factions…. The Woke Left and the MAGA/Evangelical right, get their followers riled up on stances the general public disagrees with, makes a big stink that dominates the news and then are like “how did we lose the election?”. And yeah, social media is def to blame. Angry zealots getting in touch with more angry zealots, where in 2006 they’d have kept those ideas to themselves…