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> Life is about so much more than politics As someone who isn't from the US, it is very hard to comprehend. There is a meme about Americans. You meet an Ameri

> Life is about so much more than politics As someone who isn't from the US, it is very hard to comprehend. There is a meme about Americans. You meet an American, and ten minutes later they are drilling you about politics. And I understand why US society is like this, I am familiar with US political history. But it is very, very, very weird at a personal level. Like why do this? You are breaking a person's whole reality down to their politics...it doesn't seem like a good idea, it seems like the opposite of diversity or just accepting someone's humanity.

jacobr1 5y ago
How recent is that meme? Politics has long been decisive in America, but it seems like only in the past 20 years has it become something people have been become forward and culturally tribal about. Does that impression hold up for non-Americans too?
- hogFeast 5y ago
  The standard interpretation is that politics became more divisive in the mid-90s...but, imo, that doesn't hold merit. Clinton worked with Republicans after he lost Congress. Obama worked with a Republican Congress. And you can go further back and point to someone like McGovern (or Goldwater on the other side) as reactionary/divisive candidates. You had Eisenhower Democrats and the like but there has always been a spectrum in both parties (and that is still the case today i.e. Manchin). I think two things have changed. One, the media. Politics in the media is different from the practice of politics, the latter largely about compromise. Because of bandwidth of media/politics as entertainment, the fringes of both parties have become more extreme (it has gotten so bad, you wonder whether some politicians know they are actors anymore). Two, diversity. Countries that have diverse populations will always have divisive politics. The US system is the most robust in the world but it is moving towards problem territory (for example, the Democrats seem to have settled on always electing a man and woman for P/VP...this is basically the segregated politics you see in Lebanon or other places with fairly massive political issues, the "our turn to eat" politics is more common to Africa than the developed world). My impression is heavily coloured by studying American history/politics for a long time. But other people I know just find American politics very weird...it is just very weird, everything is politicised...like Germany pre-Hitler.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The standard interpretation is that politics became more divisive in the mid-90s No, its not, at least not as a step-change, which is what you seem to be arguing against. The common interpretation is that it began to get sharply more divisive over time starting in the mid-1990s, not that the current level of division established itself then. > for example, the Democrats seem to have settled on always electing a man and woman for P/VP. 2 sequential nominations (2016, 2020) is a pretty weak basis for a conclusion of “always”.
    - hogFeast 5y ago
      > The common interpretation is that it began to get sharply more divisive over time starting in the mid-1990s, not that the current level of division established itself then. I didn't say anything about the current level of division, or the quantum. I am not arguing against a step change either. Again, I said that people believe politics became more divisive in the mid-90s. I understand that people need to read things into the statements of others...there is nothing here (you are focusing on the least interesting part of the argument). And the "always" came after "Democrats seem to have settled on". I did not say anything about what happened in the past, and did not use that evidence. My point was that Democrats have said a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future. I did not imply that some Democrats have the power to bind every other decision in the future, but that some wanted to use the system in the future. Simple points of comprehension here.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > I didn’t say anything about the current level of division, or the quantum. I am not arguing against a step change either. The examples you used from the 1990s make no sense at all as an argument against a change starting in the 1990s resulting in the current situation, though they make some sense as an argument against a rapid step change in the 1990s. “Misdirected but coherent” was, I thought, the most generous interpretation. > And the “always” came after “Democrats seem to have settled on”. I did not say anything about what happened in the past, and did not use that evidence. So what is your argument based on? Pure fantasy? > My point was that Democrats have said a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future. (1) That’s not what you claimed, you said they seemed to have settled on a fixed 1 woman + 1 man ticket for the President and Vice President, not “a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future”. (2) The Democrats have not, in fact, said that anything other than the votes of the delegates at the nominating convention, without gender or racial quotas, will be used in the future to select presidential and vice-presidential nominees, and, starting with the 2020 election cycle, changed the rules so that party insiders who might want to impose such a quota-based system would not be able to do so over the votes of the delegates whose votes are set by the primary and caucus system, because superdelegates were banned from first-round voting unless their votes could not effect the outcome. So, insofar as that claim which you did not state was what you intended, it is false.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > but it seems like only in the past 20 years has it become something people have been become forward and culturally tribal about. It’s been about 20 years since the longest continuous period of partisan realignment (and thus absence of clear association of ideological groups with party labels) ended; since then, US culture has been reverting to the political tribalism that has been the historical norm (possibly toward a situation worse, in terms of daily life, than the historical norm, because historically there has been a much stronger geographic component to the tribal divide.) The situation during the overlapping realignments triggered by the New Deal Coalition and Johnson’s support for Civil Rights was not a stable equilibrium.

jacobr1 5y ago

How recent is that meme? Politics has long been decisive in America, but it seems like only in the past 20 years has it become something people have been become forward and culturally tribal about. Does that impression hold up for non-Americans too?

hogFeast 5y ago
The standard interpretation is that politics became more divisive in the mid-90s...but, imo, that doesn't hold merit. Clinton worked with Republicans after he lost Congress. Obama worked with a Republican Congress. And you can go further back and point to someone like McGovern (or Goldwater on the other side) as reactionary/divisive candidates. You had Eisenhower Democrats and the like but there has always been a spectrum in both parties (and that is still the case today i.e. Manchin). I think two things have changed. One, the media. Politics in the media is different from the practice of politics, the latter largely about compromise. Because of bandwidth of media/politics as entertainment, the fringes of both parties have become more extreme (it has gotten so bad, you wonder whether some politicians know they are actors anymore). Two, diversity. Countries that have diverse populations will always have divisive politics. The US system is the most robust in the world but it is moving towards problem territory (for example, the Democrats seem to have settled on always electing a man and woman for P/VP...this is basically the segregated politics you see in Lebanon or other places with fairly massive political issues, the "our turn to eat" politics is more common to Africa than the developed world). My impression is heavily coloured by studying American history/politics for a long time. But other people I know just find American politics very weird...it is just very weird, everything is politicised...like Germany pre-Hitler.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The standard interpretation is that politics became more divisive in the mid-90s No, its not, at least not as a step-change, which is what you seem to be arguing against. The common interpretation is that it began to get sharply more divisive over time starting in the mid-1990s, not that the current level of division established itself then. > for example, the Democrats seem to have settled on always electing a man and woman for P/VP. 2 sequential nominations (2016, 2020) is a pretty weak basis for a conclusion of “always”.
  - hogFeast 5y ago
    > The common interpretation is that it began to get sharply more divisive over time starting in the mid-1990s, not that the current level of division established itself then. I didn't say anything about the current level of division, or the quantum. I am not arguing against a step change either. Again, I said that people believe politics became more divisive in the mid-90s. I understand that people need to read things into the statements of others...there is nothing here (you are focusing on the least interesting part of the argument). And the "always" came after "Democrats seem to have settled on". I did not say anything about what happened in the past, and did not use that evidence. My point was that Democrats have said a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future. I did not imply that some Democrats have the power to bind every other decision in the future, but that some wanted to use the system in the future. Simple points of comprehension here.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I didn’t say anything about the current level of division, or the quantum. I am not arguing against a step change either. The examples you used from the 1990s make no sense at all as an argument against a change starting in the 1990s resulting in the current situation, though they make some sense as an argument against a rapid step change in the 1990s. “Misdirected but coherent” was, I thought, the most generous interpretation. > And the “always” came after “Democrats seem to have settled on”. I did not say anything about what happened in the past, and did not use that evidence. So what is your argument based on? Pure fantasy? > My point was that Democrats have said a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future. (1) That’s not what you claimed, you said they seemed to have settled on a fixed 1 woman + 1 man ticket for the President and Vice President, not “a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future”. (2) The Democrats have not, in fact, said that anything other than the votes of the delegates at the nominating convention, without gender or racial quotas, will be used in the future to select presidential and vice-presidential nominees, and, starting with the 2020 election cycle, changed the rules so that party insiders who might want to impose such a quota-based system would not be able to do so over the votes of the delegates whose votes are set by the primary and caucus system, because superdelegates were banned from first-round voting unless their votes could not effect the outcome. So, insofar as that claim which you did not state was what you intended, it is false.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> but it seems like only in the past 20 years has it become something people have been become forward and culturally tribal about. It’s been about 20 years since the longest continuous period of partisan realignment (and thus absence of clear association of ideological groups with party labels) ended; since then, US culture has been reverting to the political tribalism that has been the historical norm (possibly toward a situation worse, in terms of daily life, than the historical norm, because historically there has been a much stronger geographic component to the tribal divide.) The situation during the overlapping realignments triggered by the New Deal Coalition and Johnson’s support for Civil Rights was not a stable equilibrium.