>It shoudn't really be up to the peaceful majority to distance themselves from the vocal minority. I totally see the reasoning behind this, and it feels intuit

>It shoudn't really be up to the peaceful majority to distance themselves from the vocal minority. I totally see the reasoning behind this, and it feels intuitive, but at some point in my life I came to the complete opposite conclusion and I've rarely been so sure of anything since then. I've had numerous bitter interactions with people based only on differences in social politics, and have been mocked for what I don't think are particularly extreme beliefs. Then at some point I started recognizing opinions and ideologies that I strongly disagree with consolidate into subsets within groups of people I otherwise strongly identify with, and instead of just insisting that people outside that group give me "the benefit of the doubt", I started to be just as open about those topics as I was about any other topic. I decided to not let a feeling of allegiance or defensiveness or pride hinder my ability to discuss things that might sound like "attacks" on "my people", as long as I was being honest and level, and not hateful. This decision has created the ability to have useful, personable conversations and connections to people where previously we would have had absolutely nothing to relate to each other with. It's hard for me to describe how much this decision has helped me to feel more optimistic that we all have much more similar feelings and goals than it may seem considering the political atmosphere and the loudness of mocking, hateful sub-groups.