4 ms·

> How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality This is

> How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality This isn't an accurate representation of the US. There are 4 sides: - extreme left - left - right - extreme right The proportion of each is probably around: 5%/45%/45%/5% (maybe 10/40/40/10) The 5% on each extreme are the one making the news on the other side to instill fear from the "other side" (fox news depiction of far left Portland, cnn depiction of far right, etc) And logically, the people who consume news the most have the most distorted view of the other side: https://twitter.com/HiddenTribesUS/status/1143146703693975553 https://twitter.com/HiddenTribesUS/status/114314670369397555... Since media get money from more viewers, and since fear sells, unfortunately they have no incentive to make this better. Finding neutral sources while staying informed is a hard problem.

taurath 6y ago
Politics being a single bar is one of the problems. People have values that do not fit in any one place on the bar.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Yup. Taking a complex, multidimensional space of ideas and beliefs (and by multidimensional I mean something like 100+ dimensions, not 3 or 4) and projecting it into a number line is one of the things that bewilder me about the world the most. Doubly so in countries that don't have a two-party system like the US. And if anything, I think that this classical projected political spectrum isn't a line, it's really a circle. Extreme left and extreme right are the same thing; the particulars of the beliefs don't matter (if you think they do, you can always imagine this being a flat strip of paper glued into a Möbius strip).
  - Izkata 6y ago
    > And if anything, I think that this classical projected political spectrum isn't a line, it's really a circle. Extreme left and extreme right are the same thing; the particulars of the beliefs don't matter (if you think they do, you can always imagine this being a flat strip of paper glued into a Möbius strip). It's not just you - this is named "Horseshoe Theory".
  - dk775 6y ago
    I suggest you check out the political compass. It’s a reliable indicator of political pref over time. We used it a lot in my public policy grad program
hertzrat 6y ago
The idea of left and right comes from having a 2 party system. Politics is not a line. There are n dimensions, where n is the number of issues you care about that have a non-muddled for-against aspect (if the issue is too muddled, it is probably 2 separate issues in this model)
newguy1234 6y ago
Now you see what Trump is talking about when he says fake news. The irony is that fake news is basically both sides of the spectrum. I'm personally on the right-wing side of politics and it just cringes me at how many people on the right-wing buy into baseless conspiracy theories. I always tell people that fighting over a mask is not exactly the hill you want to die on. However, I've also noticed that the left-wing is getting their own share of conspiracy theories as well now too.
mxcrossb 6y ago
I don’t agree with your assessment. The difference between the 5% and 45% isn’t about belief, but opportunity. Look at this poll: https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/06/US-capitol-trump-poll https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... > Supporters of President Trump have stormed the US Capitol to protest lawmakers certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. Based on what you have read or heard about this, do you support or oppose these actions? 45% of Republicans said yes! Now I am not asserting that half of republicans are about to engage in sedition. But is it because they have different beliefs? No, instead I think it’s just that the 5% you describe has nothing to lose.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  If it were limited to "protest" I would support their actions too, no matter how much I disagree with their motives. Everyone has a right to expression. Where the actions are clearly unsupportable is that "stormed" was rather more literal than I suspect some of those 45% realized. Also, is it possible there's a sampling bias in poll respondents? I almost never respond to polls myself because they often seem to be designed to be polarizing.
lasagnaphil 6y ago
I disagree, left-right isn't sufficient enough to capture the peculiarities of current US politics. it's more along these three camps: - Progressives / Left Populists (such as Bernie, AOC, etc...) - they aren't really "extreme left"; they are more moderate lib-left if you ask any Europeans. They don't really want to demolish capitalism as some actual Marxists suggest, they just want to fix/modulate capitalism to be reasonable to the ordinary people, at the expense of large corporations and free market policies. Although some of them are in the Democratic Party, they are still failing to exert any power in there, which is mostly comprised of neoliberals. However, they are gaining an noticeable amount of partisan support these days, up to the point that the neoliberals had to actually strategize a bit to make sure Bernie doesn't win in the DNC primaries. - Neoliberals / Globalists (Obama, Biden, etc...) - this is where the majority of politicians are at, comprising the majority of the Democratic Party, as well as about half of the Republican Party (or even more). Although it seems on the surface that the Dems and Reps are fighting the shit out of each other, many of them are still bind by the common interest of supporting various austerity policies, free reign of large corporations and making sure the global free market economy continue without any problems. Note that the left tends to use the term "neoliberal" more, while the right tends to use the term "globalists" more. From the left and right populist's view they are the source of all evil, and from a neoliberal's view the populist left/right are respectively "communists" and "fascists". - Right Populists / Nationalists (Trump, etc...) - Just like the progressives hate that the neoliberals are looting people with austerity measures and skyrocketing housing/healthcare/education costs, the right populists hate that the globalists are looting people by shutting down former industrial businesses, and imposing some weird liberal cultural hegemony upon them. Though I do not completely know the dynamics inside that camp, there seems to be a common agenda of being oppositional to immigration and being pro local business, as well as a deep hatred of liberal media. They have started to take over the GOP party, which is why there are no-Trump Republicans fighting against it. Trump is kind of an outlier - he was a real-estate neoliberal but was kind of an outcast among them, and he forced his way into politics with many years of reality TV image-shaping. Many on the far-left criticize him being a neoliberal in right populist coating, and some on the far-right are disappointed by Trump about him having achieved nothing (which is a different phenomenon than no-Trump Republicans - I'm talking about actual fascists here!) There are also some on the left (state communists, anarchists) as well as the far-right (fascists, neoreactionaries) which I've excluded, as they are still a bit fringe. It also seems that the right often oversimplifies the left as well as the left oversimplifies the right, and that's partially because there are power struggles inside both of the respective camps that makes the whole situation a bit complicated. For example, if you picked a random BLM protester, chances are you'll get a neoliberal (if their protest was co-opted by the establishment Democrats), a progressive (if their protest wasn't co-opted but are still mainly peaceful and still believe in electorialism), or an anarchist (if they do not believe in electorialism and are more interested in looting and smashing the police). A naive right-populist will see protesters destroying police stations and say that the Democrats are letting this happen and the left are all "cultural Marxists", but in reality it's a situation where anarchists are on the rise and the neoliberals are failing to take control over the "peaceful/orderly protest" narrative. Actually, I don't really know if the protestors participating in the violence are simply "anarchists", maybe they are just uninterested in these labels and just want to wreck shit up as they are fed up by many decades of police suppression.

taurath 6y ago

Politics being a single bar is one of the problems. People have values that do not fit in any one place on the bar.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Yup. Taking a complex, multidimensional space of ideas and beliefs (and by multidimensional I mean something like 100+ dimensions, not 3 or 4) and projecting it into a number line is one of the things that bewilder me about the world the most. Doubly so in countries that don't have a two-party system like the US. And if anything, I think that this classical projected political spectrum isn't a line, it's really a circle. Extreme left and extreme right are the same thing; the particulars of the beliefs don't matter (if you think they do, you can always imagine this being a flat strip of paper glued into a Möbius strip).
- Izkata 6y ago
  > And if anything, I think that this classical projected political spectrum isn't a line, it's really a circle. Extreme left and extreme right are the same thing; the particulars of the beliefs don't matter (if you think they do, you can always imagine this being a flat strip of paper glued into a Möbius strip). It's not just you - this is named "Horseshoe Theory".
- dk775 6y ago
  I suggest you check out the political compass. It’s a reliable indicator of political pref over time. We used it a lot in my public policy grad program

hertzrat 6y ago

The idea of left and right comes from having a 2 party system. Politics is not a line. There are n dimensions, where n is the number of issues you care about that have a non-muddled for-against aspect (if the issue is too muddled, it is probably 2 separate issues in this model)

newguy1234 6y ago

Now you see what Trump is talking about when he says fake news. The irony is that fake news is basically both sides of the spectrum. I'm personally on the right-wing side of politics and it just cringes me at how many people on the right-wing buy into baseless conspiracy theories. I always tell people that fighting over a mask is not exactly the hill you want to die on. However, I've also noticed that the left-wing is getting their own share of conspiracy theories as well now too.

mxcrossb 6y ago

I don’t agree with your assessment. The difference between the 5% and 45% isn’t about belief, but opportunity. Look at this poll: https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/06/US-capitol-trump-poll https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... > Supporters of President Trump have stormed the US Capitol to protest lawmakers certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. Based on what you have read or heard about this, do you support or oppose these actions? 45% of Republicans said yes! Now I am not asserting that half of republicans are about to engage in sedition. But is it because they have different beliefs? No, instead I think it’s just that the 5% you describe has nothing to lose.

nitrogen 6y ago
If it were limited to "protest" I would support their actions too, no matter how much I disagree with their motives. Everyone has a right to expression. Where the actions are clearly unsupportable is that "stormed" was rather more literal than I suspect some of those 45% realized. Also, is it possible there's a sampling bias in poll respondents? I almost never respond to polls myself because they often seem to be designed to be polarizing.

lasagnaphil 6y ago

I disagree, left-right isn't sufficient enough to capture the peculiarities of current US politics. it's more along these three camps: - Progressives / Left Populists (such as Bernie, AOC, etc...) - they aren't really "extreme left"; they are more moderate lib-left if you ask any Europeans. They don't really want to demolish capitalism as some actual Marxists suggest, they just want to fix/modulate capitalism to be reasonable to the ordinary people, at the expense of large corporations and free market policies. Although some of them are in the Democratic Party, they are still failing to exert any power in there, which is mostly comprised of neoliberals. However, they are gaining an noticeable amount of partisan support these days, up to the point that the neoliberals had to actually strategize a bit to make sure Bernie doesn't win in the DNC primaries. - Neoliberals / Globalists (Obama, Biden, etc...) - this is where the majority of politicians are at, comprising the majority of the Democratic Party, as well as about half of the Republican Party (or even more). Although it seems on the surface that the Dems and Reps are fighting the shit out of each other, many of them are still bind by the common interest of supporting various austerity policies, free reign of large corporations and making sure the global free market economy continue without any problems. Note that the left tends to use the term "neoliberal" more, while the right tends to use the term "globalists" more. From the left and right populist's view they are the source of all evil, and from a neoliberal's view the populist left/right are respectively "communists" and "fascists". - Right Populists / Nationalists (Trump, etc...) - Just like the progressives hate that the neoliberals are looting people with austerity measures and skyrocketing housing/healthcare/education costs, the right populists hate that the globalists are looting people by shutting down former industrial businesses, and imposing some weird liberal cultural hegemony upon them. Though I do not completely know the dynamics inside that camp, there seems to be a common agenda of being oppositional to immigration and being pro local business, as well as a deep hatred of liberal media. They have started to take over the GOP party, which is why there are no-Trump Republicans fighting against it. Trump is kind of an outlier - he was a real-estate neoliberal but was kind of an outcast among them, and he forced his way into politics with many years of reality TV image-shaping. Many on the far-left criticize him being a neoliberal in right populist coating, and some on the far-right are disappointed by Trump about him having achieved nothing (which is a different phenomenon than no-Trump Republicans - I'm talking about actual fascists here!) There are also some on the left (state communists, anarchists) as well as the far-right (fascists, neoreactionaries) which I've excluded, as they are still a bit fringe. It also seems that the right often oversimplifies the left as well as the left oversimplifies the right, and that's partially because there are power struggles inside both of the respective camps that makes the whole situation a bit complicated. For example, if you picked a random BLM protester, chances are you'll get a neoliberal (if their protest was co-opted by the establishment Democrats), a progressive (if their protest wasn't co-opted but are still mainly peaceful and still believe in electorialism), or an anarchist (if they do not believe in electorialism and are more interested in looting and smashing the police). A naive right-populist will see protesters destroying police stations and say that the Democrats are letting this happen and the left are all "cultural Marxists", but in reality it's a situation where anarchists are on the rise and the neoliberals are failing to take control over the "peaceful/orderly protest" narrative. Actually, I don't really know if the protestors participating in the violence are simply "anarchists", maybe they are just uninterested in these labels and just want to wreck shit up as they are fed up by many decades of police suppression.