Divisive times will cause damage. Either as the collateral you mentioned when trying to stop it, otherwise when the winning side will change society. Ignoring p

Divisive times will cause damage. Either as the collateral you mentioned when trying to stop it, otherwise when the winning side will change society. Ignoring problems generally increases the damage they cause, so not tackling it earlier might be the bigger fault. Sure, we can hope this will all blow over, but I don't see reliable mechanisms encouraging this outcome while I really don't want to risk another 1930s germany to repeat itself. Thus I don't see any other way than fighting for (the important parts of) the status quo. Even if it won't be easy. > Delegating in modern democracies is actually one of the reasons people disengage even when they do have a stake or opinion on the topic. I was rather talking about using appeals to authority/expertise when forming & defending your opinion. "I'm a for Positions A, B & C cause Person X I respect on some podcast is for it" is fine as defense. You now only have to defend choosing X instead of A, B & C individually. Yeah, the US two party system seems especially bad. But I'd also look for other factors, since divisiveness seems to generally be on the rise. At least here in germany, with a fresh neo-nazi party worryingly drastically, even with more options available, some of them fitting e.g. your position a lot better than just "left vs right" of the US. Non the less do people still feel ignored and left behind. Though while looking for more direct counter-examples, the 2019 swiss election does look very similar to their 2007 one. I don't feel confident to form an opinion on that datum alone without knowing the broader context. At the same time, articles about "these places manage to keep their divisiveness in check" would probably not do very well in current media and thus I'd probably not notice them in the first place.