> the right assumes that the positions people on the left take are insincere "virtue signaling" because they can't believe someone would sincerely hold these po

> the right assumes that the positions people on the left take are insincere "virtue signaling" because they can't believe someone would sincerely hold these positions. The left knows that arguing policy with statistics, studies, and appeals to claimed national values isn't going to work with most of the right, but they don't really have a better strategy. This is one of the more beautifully succinct ways I know of to describe this. The moral hole of the right wing (and, well, I'm sure 'iammisc will again rend their shirt, but I've read their comment history and I've spent plenty of time in that swamp more generally, I'm confident in my assessment on both scales) is such that it assumes their opposite numbers must share it because there is no way their epistemic closure can countenance any alternative. And as you say, the left absolutely understands that pointing out reality won't matter--but lacks the capacity to communicate because to do so abrogates our core values. (There is an obvious path to, say, socialism in America, if it's only for white people. We know, because our right wing like socialism-for-white-people. They will fight their representatives to defend it. It's when other people get hold of it that there are objections. And that's a bridge we certainly won't cross for them.) The divide is inescapable. For a while we could hope that kids wouldn't share their parents' behavior, but--well. Gamergate happened, the MRA movement happened, and they funneled their dupes straight into the machine. It is sad.