14 ms·

The Polarization Spiral

122 points by mpweiher 5y ago

golemotron 5y ago
Bias alert. The extreme Right is described as "strident, [with] uncompromising views." and the extreme Left is described as "highly sensitive to issues of fairness and equity, particularly with regards to race, gender and other minority group identities.”
- neogodless 5y ago
  I wonder what "true neutral" would look like for describing these groups. And who would actually write in a fashion everyone would agree is neutral.
  - lettergram 5y ago
    I think something like: "there's very fine people on both sides, but extremists on both sides"
  - derbOac 5y ago
    What's interesting to me is you could smoosh those descriptions together and apply the result to both extremes pretty accurately: "strident, [with] uncompromising views... highly sensitive to issues of fairness."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bananabreakfast 5y ago
  That sounds extremely accurate, and not for the extremes either. Newt Gingrich & Rush Limbaugh began the mantra of refusing to compromise on any position. They are anything but extreme and are really more the torch bearers. Rush was even awarded a Presidential medal of Freedom. And sensitivity to issues of fairness is hardly an extreme position. That's probably the most mainstream belief associated with liberalism and just plain being a good human being. What bias?
  - lamp987 5y ago
    Liberalism is not left wing, let alone extreme left. I dont understand your post.
  - Thorrez 5y ago
    >And sensitivity to issues of fairness is hardly an extreme position. There are 2 ways to explain this: (1) the extreme left doesn't exist, or (2) the article is downplaying the extreme left.
  - chuckee 5y ago
    The extreme Right is highly sensitive to issues of fairness, upset that while all other countries enforce their borders, this is denied to the US, and that all ethnic groups except whites have celebrated advocacy groups. The extreme Left is uncompromising, attacking any attempt to enforce the border or limit immigration, and subverting the rule of law by preventing enforcement of current immigration laws, such as by sanctuary cities, legislative limits on cooperation with ICE, and continual deferment of deportation. They even go so far as to attack language, forbidding the accurate term "illegal immigrant", replacing it with the misleading "undocumented" (lack of documentation is clearly not the issue). Oh, sorry! We were talking about the extreme Left, but I seem to have accidentally described current US government and media policies.
    - wffurr 5y ago
      Amazing that anyone can describe the current state of immigration in the US under Biden (or previously under Obama) as “not enforcing borders”. That’s just willful ignorance or plain lying.
      - chuckee 5y ago
        New Guidance Bars Immigration Enforcement in ‘Protected Areas’ -- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/us/politics/biden-immigration-ice-schools-hospitals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/us/politics/biden-immigra... Migrants were encountered 1.7 million times in the last 12 months, the highest number of illegal crossings recorded since at least 1960. -- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/us/politics/border-crossings-immigration-record-high.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/us/politics/border-crossi... “The Biden administration has created a disaster,” added Mr. Morgan [chief of the U.S. Border Patrol in the Obama administration], currently a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “It did so by methodically – and by all indications intentionally – undoing every meaningful border security measure that had been in place.” -- https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/19/bidens-bungled-border-security-is-a-national-secur/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/19/bidens-bung... President Biden Eviscerates Border Security and Immigration Enforcement on Day One [Please try to refute the many specific claims made in the article, instead of attacking the site itself.] -- https://www.fairus.org/legislation/presidential-administration/illegal-immigration/president-biden-eviscerates-border https://www.fairus.org/legislation/presidential-administrati... Attorney General Merrick Garland has rescinded a Trump-era memo blocking so-called sanctuary cities from receiving funding from the Department of Justice. -- https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/550675-doj-rescinds-trump-era-sanctuary-cities-policy https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/550675-doj-resci... Christopher Magnus [..] He is an advocate of Sanctuary cities [..] Magnus was nominated by Joe Biden to become the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Director. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Magnus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Magnus I'm sure I could keep going, but I think I've made my point. At the very least, you should be able to understand how I got the impression that the current administration disfavors border enforcement (as if the record-high legal immigration, that continued even under Trump, was not enough).
afpx 5y ago
LOL, and of course a large chunk of the comments here are down-voted or flagged. With the rise of wealth over the last couple decades, a lot of people have much more time to entertain themselves. News is (practically free) entertainment, and people drink it like sugar water. Luckily, the large majority of them are "Armchair quarterbacks" just rooting for their team. Lots of noise, little action. It sure has made the internet a less-enjoyable place for those not into team sports.
nyanpasu64 5y ago
I happened upon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Civil_War and it feels like it's foreshadowing our current situation. > A first major incident ensued early in 1927, when members of Hermann Hiltl's Frontkämpfervereinigung ("Front Fighters Union" — a paramilitary association likewise affiliated with the conservative camp) shot and killed an eight-year-old boy and a war veteran marching with the Schutzbund in a peaceful counter-demonstration in Schattendorf (Burgenland).[citation needed] In July, three defendants in the case were acquitted, which led to outrage in the left-wing camp. On 15 July 1927, a general strike occurred, and demonstrations took place in the capital. After the storming of a police station, security forces started shooting at demonstrators. An angry group of people then set fire to the Palace of Justice (Justizpalast), seen as a symbol of a flawed and partial judicial system. Altogether, 89 people (85 of them demonstrators) lost their lives in this July revolt, and many hundreds suffered injury. Surprisingly, the violence soon died down and the factions took their battle from the streets back into the political institutions... > On 4 March 1933, Christian Social Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß suspended the Austrian Parliament. In a close vote (on railway workers' wages) in the National Council, each of the three presidents of parliament resigned their position in order to cast a ballot, leaving nobody to preside over the meeting. Even though the bylaws could have resolved this situation, Dollfuss used this opportunity to declare that parliament had ceased to function, and blocked all attempts to reconvene it, also threatening to use military force against the parliamentarians, should they try to reconvene. The Social Democratic Party had thus lost its major platform for political action. The conservatives, facing pressure and violence not only from the left but also from Nazis infiltrating from Germany, could now rule by decree on the basis of a 1917 emergency law, without checks on their power, and began to suspend civil liberties. They banned the Schutzbund and imprisoned many of its members...
- gsk22 5y ago
  In what way do you see this as foreshadowing? (It's a lot of information, and I don't see many strong parallels -- but maybe I'm missing something)
  - nyanpasu64 5y ago
danrocks 5y ago
> It may not surprise you to learn that the Devoted Conservatives were the whitest of all seven groups (88% white), but would you have expected that the Progressive Activists were the second whitest (80%)? I am surprised that the author is surprised by this fact about the Progressive Activists. In my FAANG employer, the people who are always most offended, making denunciations of racism, sexism, -ism, etc. are highly educated whites. One of them told me in all seriousness that no white people should be allowed to do yoga or own yoga studios.
- rajup 5y ago
  I don't know about doing yoga, but when you have some studios promoting "goat" yoga or "beer" yoga or heaven knows what the latest abomination is, maybe he does have a point on the second one.
- golemotron 5y ago
  Naval Ravikant once referred to the culture wars as white on white violence.
  - danrocks 5y ago
    Fabulously well put.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >In my FAANG employer, the people who are always most offended, making denunciations of racism, sexism, -ism, etc. are highly educated whites. See, also, that famous photograph of Huffington Post employees (<https://www.mic.com/articles/144177/this-tweet-from-a-huffington-post-editor-shows-the-problem-with-white-feminism https://www.mic.com/articles/144177/this-tweet-from-a-huffin...>).
- paganel 5y ago
  As far as I can tell most of the black US population living in the poor parts of the American cities were really against the "Defund the police" message from the very beginning, the reason being that people living in there actually need the police more than the (generally white) middle-classes living in the more affluent suburbs.
pphysch 5y ago
> The polarization spiral, which is fed and accelerated by social media, is making extremists on both right and left more extreme, more powerful, and more intimidating. Both sides feed off of each other. Both sides are essential for a polarization spiral. And that means that neither side can win by attacking or humiliating the other side. Such tactics only serve to energize the other side. It's not about who can "win". What would winning this "culture war" even look like? Everyone becomes a leftoid/rightoid and lives happily ever after? That would defeat the purpose of all this, which is to make money. How do you make money on social media? Ads. How do ads work? Engagements. How do you maximize engagements? The best ROI formula is posting polarizing content that begets flame wars and hate-shares and thinkpieces. The "culture war" is an illusion perpetuated by the influencer/grifter industry that monetizes it.
- neogodless 5y ago
  Is this culture war (illusion) dangerous? Are we against it, and if so, how do we end that?
  - pphysch 5y ago
    The solution is more offensive to Americans than the problem. Stricter controls on online content including ads. Alas, that would be censorship.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      Since there is zero chance of it being applied impartially, yes it would be censorship and yes that cure would be worse than the disease.
      - tremon 5y ago
        Yes, that is the point the GP was making.
    - dillondoyle 5y ago
      Leaves out the big elephant in the room, the o.g. Fox news, which is now metastasizing to even crazier alternate reality media outlets. For sure some non digital media examples on the left too but nothing even close to that scale. I do agree social media plays a big role in spreading alternate reality craziness on both sides, but political polarization won't go anywhere imho.
lettergram 5y ago
I think the author is ultimately wrong. * I'll leave a trigger warning * Let's have a real conversation. - Half of the US wants their country, traditions and values - Half of the US doesn't want a country (no border), upended traditions and no values There are two countries and will destroy each other. One country believes the world is going to end from climate change; that COVID19 is 10-100x more deadly than it actually is; that men can transition to women; that abortion is not murder.. I can go on. The other believes the climate is always changing, but humans can adapt over years; that COVID19 is only 5x-10x more deadly than it actually is; and that a man can be a eunuch and dress like a woman, but still is not a woman; that abortion is murder... again, I can go on. The polarization isn't really mend-able. Both sides believe in polar opposites. Only one side believes this is the land of the free where anything is possible. The other side wants believes it needs to impose it's will to "stop climate change", "stop the spread", "stop the hate". Don't you see it!? The hypocrisy of it? Only one side wants to take away peoples ability to work, to travel, to raise a family, to educate your children, even your bodily autonomy. This polarization is driven by hate. Hatred of traditions and of a history. > “With those three words—‘very fine people’—the president showed that he was sympathetic to the men who staged the most highly publicized march for racism and antisemitism in the United States in many decades.” Yes, because there were "many 'very fine people' on both sides", the omitted words are important. "There's no excuse for what happened" indeed. This stops when both sides can admit that last years riots which left at least 38 dead were not "mostly peaceful", but a deadly riot. Similarly, that "January 6" was not an "insurrection", but a deadly riot (as the FBI already stated). Yes, there were and are 'very fine people' on both sides, but the extremes on both sides are violent. We as a free people should not oppress our neighbors and that collaboration is required for us to continue as a civilization ... if we can even agree we want a civilization any more.
- fizzyfizz 5y ago
  You are the kind of person the authors are talking about. You're getting way too much of your information from social media. You think the people who are not in your defined tribe take cartoonishly extreme positions and therefore they must be stopped at all costs.
dmajirb 5y ago
Sad to see that the top comment has been removed. The comment was likely flagged by someone who is over-sensitive and/or over-zealous, either way it pisses me off. There should exist a setting to voluntarily remove the ‘flagged by community’ filter. Just like adult-content filters on search engines, I should be able to opt-in to seeing whatever content is/was available.
- post_from_work 5y ago
  I think there is a "Show Dead" button. Also you can click on a message's timestamp and if you have sufficient karma, you can "Vouch" for a message, and then upvote it.
- gibbonsrcool 5y ago
  Someone could make a site similar to the one that retains deleted Reddit comments. But I agree it would be better to manage our own censorship anywhere online.
- Thorrez 5y ago
  The top comment in HN or the blog post? If HN, what you ask for already exists.
- andrewclunn 5y ago
  You are allowed to have an opinion, so long as its' "the correct" opinion. Otherwise you are censored, silenced, banned, etc... Oh, but why is there so much polarization?
specialist 5y ago
Using polling to identify polarization originally caused by polling. Clever? Or unintentional irony? I stopped reading when the authors identified Facebook's "like" button as the culprit of accelerated polarization (during Obama's 2nd term). Um, what? While I regard Facebook and Twitter as pure unalterated evil, they cannot be held more responsible for today's toxic polarization than corporate media. To believe Haidt's thesis, you'd have to completely ignore the slope of decades of build up. I've read Haidt's prior works with great interest. Alas, his works amount to nothing more than self satisfied just so stories, telling fellow concern trolls want they want to believe. An actual historian's take on the how polling toppled political parties and begat polarization is Jill Lepore's book "If Then", which details the role of Simulatics. For more context, read Ezra Klein's "Why We Are Polarized"; how academics advocated and then reformers inacted polarization to increase accountability (to voters), how sorting and polarization inadvertently led to a "stacking" of our identities, creating "superidentities". As for Facebook and Twitter, their unique crime is using ML -- finding the difference that makes the difference -- to weaponize disinformation and profiting from the resulting lies, hate, outrage, and death. Dorsey and Zuck implemented a totality of rot and destruction that Edward Bernay couldn't dare dream of. PS: "Death" might be too strong. I'm not certain that Zuck directly profitted from genocide or teen suicide. Those might just be collateral damage vs intentional.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jollybean 5y ago
  True, but I wonder if you might be missing the participatory aspect of Social Media. Everyone gets to have a voice and put in their 2 bits of nonsense. Social Media also allows for the purposeful characterization something via slander, comedy, insult, quip etc. - basically, plebes trolling plebes, and that low form of communication tends to fire us up. As bad as mainstream news has become, at leas they have to remain mostly civil, and when the TV is off, it's off.
  - specialist 5y ago
    Please say more. > True, but I wonder if you might be missing the participatory aspect of Social Media. My mental model for social media is feedback loops. Much as I hated prior corporate media (a la Chomsky, Ad Busters, others), I acknowledge that the editorial filter squelched virality (runaway positive feedback loops). Of course, we humans have always had fads, trends, groupthink. Social medias changed the filters (using Chomsky's term). Gone are the Advertiser and Publisher filters. Replaced with algorithms which boost engagement. To a degree prior medias couldn't even dream of. Like Stalin said, quantity has its own quality. What I still don't understand is how the social medias transmuted from connecting peers within my monkey sphere (family, friends, acquaintances, people with shared interests, and so on) to coordinating mass action and inciting mobs. > ... purposeful characterization something via slander, comedy, insult, quip etc I'm very interested in the repercussions of the Sandy Hook parent's defamation case against Alex Jones. Rights comes with responsibilities. Meaning speech has consequences. Perhaps if the courts allow individuals harmed by Freedom Speeches™, we won't need draconian hate speech laws and such. That'd be progress.
roenxi 5y ago
Interestingly, the actually concerning part of this has nothing to do with the left, the right or polarisation. > The early chapters of our book, The Coddling of the American Mind, are about a set of destructive and illiberal ideas that emerged on American college campuses in the years 2014-2016. That is still the big issue here. It doesn't matter whether they are left or right wing, countries controlled by people who reject liberal values tend to go badly for the people who live there. The people coming out of these institutions are being put on the easy path to the levers of power. Whether or not they hold left- or right- wing or even centrist views, this is worrying.
nostromo 5y ago
> Kalmoe and Mason found that nearly one out of five Republicans and Democrats agree with the statement that their political adversaries “lack the traits to be considered fully human — they behave like animals.” > Their line of questioning did not stop there. How about: “Do you ever think: ‘we’d be better off as a country if large numbers of the opposing party in the public today just died’?” > Some 20 percent of Democrats (that translates to 12.6 million voters) and 16 percent of Republicans (or 7.9 million voters) do think on occasion that the country would be better off if large numbers of the opposition died. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hate-politics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hate-politics.htm...
- dash2 5y ago
  I dunno man. This is indeed scary, but I wouldn't take it literally. I would translate it more as: "when asked by a pollster, 'do you ever think [etc.], 20 percent of Democrats said 'yes'". Whether they ever really think that... Well now, what does "really think" mean? If they had the chance to painlessly euthanize several millions of the other side, would they do it? Or does "really think" mean "gosh sometimes I get really angry and I - I just wish those scumbags were dead!" By that standard, I "really think" that it would be better if some of the drivers of my home town just died.
  - potatoman22 5y ago
    I'm not sure we can make those assumptions given we only have access to their poll responses, not the inner workings of their minds.
- jgeada 5y ago
  Have any of you ever answered a poll? And answered truthfully? I'm inherently suspicious of most polls because everyone I know either refuses to participate in polls or deliberately lies to the pollster, either for fun or to get taken off the spam call list.
deleted 5y ago
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jollybean 5y ago
Seems to me that someone who is deeply conservative and cares about Constitution, Rule of Law etc. would be very concerned that Trump on Jan. 5 tried to push his VP to throw an election and also concerned that the President of the US would lie so flagrantly in his attempts to stay in office. Seems to me that people who actually cared about Social Justice would contemplate the complexity and nuance in all of this policing, that much of the issues are general/social issues not policing, that reducing policing is risky and has apparently caused a lot of harm to vulnerable communities, and that working class White people, who have been 'at the bottom' and basically serfs for their entire family history, should be objects of sympathy not hatred. And, that even if we respect power imbalances, bigotry can be had by 'all sides', and a lot of the rhetoric from supposed 'anti racists' seem quite bigoted. I think that these warring tribes are not actually political in the classical sense, I think there is something else going on, and those are the camps/flags that they ended up under, and that classical political orientation actually doesn't really describe what is going on. Liberals are not Liberals or even Left, they seem to have a kind of post-modern, intellectual, ideological kind of anger. Trumpers are neither Conservative nor conservative, more like angry loud nationalists. I think both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney represent more or less traditional notions of Left/Right (roughly of course). But Clintons/Obamas are at war with the far left (you can see this infighting between camps at NY Times), and the right is at war with itself vis-a-vis traditional Republicans and The Trumpers. If you use the Wayback Machine to look at CNN from 2001 you'll notice that it seems downright tame. And since 2016, they've become even worse for editorializing. The entire press landscape has become tilted, I don't even trust PBS/NPR anymore, and I also think social media and the internet has really inflamed a lot of people. Since Trump is gone and COVID is passing a little bit, I do wonder if things will settle down maybe a little bit.
yobbo 5y ago
> The polarization spiral, which is fed and accelerated by social media Social media is not the root cause. The problem is rather that "wokeness" (or whatever the appropriate term) is having effects in the real brick-and-mortar world, and people are getting employed or fired based on belief confessions. For this to be possible, employment wouldn't need to be based on productivity or competence. It could be purely symbolic, like honorary medals. With too many bullshit jobs, America might be in this state.
yosito 5y ago
The only way to win the game is not to play.
- stronglikedan 5y ago
  Even then, you're not likely to win. As a centrist/apolitical, it's hard to "just grill" when the extremists on both sides consider compromise to be tantamount to violence, and will attack you for even suggesting such a thing.
  - ladyattis 5y ago
    Well as someone who I think most would consider a leftist (I oppose any restrictions on abortion. I oppose intellectual property and much more.), I've tried to offer people on the right of me alternative proposals which should be starting points to find compromise, as I never assume what I propose is the compromise but rather an avenue to one, and just have it thrown back at me. It's really one of those hard situations when you honestly reach out to someone across the table and their answer is: no we want it this way and nothing else.
  - yosito 5y ago
    > extremists on both sides consider compromise to be tantamount to violence My strategy is to block them on social media, and avoid them in real life. It's worked for me so far. I've surrounded myself only with people who don't consume themselves with political battles, and my world has been peaceful.
  - rawTruthHurts 5y ago
    "As a centrist/apolitical" Let's not forget that the radical center is a thing.
koprulusector 5y ago
[flagged]
- LocalH 5y ago
  The view that there are only two "sides" is part of the problem
calebm 5y ago
As someone who grew up in a very traditional fundamentalist church (preacher's kid), I think the religious extremism mindset is the problem - the "We're the right ones, and they other people are evil" mindset. Both sides have virtues and flaws. And as long as both sides are demonizing each other, the amplitude will continue to increase.
- arnoooooo 5y ago
  You're conflating religion with the use of it by some to get, maintain or increase their power. Most religions emphasize humility and have at their best been used to prevent tyranny. Judging is definitely OK, it's actually needed. But you know you might be wrong and you don't impose your views on others. That's how we got liberalism. For instance, all the Abrahamic monotheisms have at their core the idea of the intrinsic value of each individual human as they are made "in the image of God".
  - calebm 5y ago
    I'm not meaning to bash spiritual beliefs (I believe we're all part of One God - "members of the body of Christ"). But I believe darkness works strongly in many religious groups (both traditional and progressive). Here's the sort of darkness I'm speaking of: Things demons say: * This life doesn't matter. * Don't think for yourself. * How could anyone be so stupid? * The darkness is dangerous - don't explore those dark corners - don't ask questions. * Nothing is how it should be - everything is wrong. * Truth is very simple - I have no need to look any further.
  - danielsju6 5y ago
    "Most religions emphasize humility" for real? You read the same history books as I have? I think you're conflating theology with religion. Religion is a blood soaked tool to control the masses.
rosmax_1337 5y ago
Free speech and democracy was on it's deathbed when free speech became less about the cultural phenomena of respecting ideas opposite to yours, and more about wether or not the FBI is going after you or not for your ideas. That was a while ago, and since things have not been getting better, things keep polarizing. The only way to reverse it would be to once again invigorate the idea of radically free speech. But neither side wants that anymore. Maybe it is for the better. Sometimes society needs to heat up in order to improve.
ladyattis 5y ago
I think the whole thing is more about how the Internet allows people to mingle from various groups and so there's going to be higher friction than they normally would have. Also, social media allows for people to get the dopamine high from people liking, sharing, and even mocking their posts. There's always something dangerous about how the feedback loop on social media works and I've noticed it when I've gotten into some spats or gotten a post go viral out of nowhere. As the notifications roll in on your device it becomes more of a game to see who gets the most praise or jeers from the crowd and less about finding like minded or not-so-like minded folks to discuss topics. It just turns into sports hooliganism where your side, whatever that is, is battling it out with the other side of the so-called argument. And all the while social media companies just rake in the money from the advertising revenue based on engagement metrics which may or may not even make said advertising useful for the firms who order it. Ultimately, I think this will have to be resolved through other means than just more regulations. Just like how we use to teach folks to not believe anything you see online. We need to teach folks that getting likes online doesn't make you better or right or anything of the sort of moral judgements.
Pxtl 5y ago
Ah, another "enlightened centrist" article that effectively absolves the groups that proliferate extremists by stating it's a universal problem. When one side denies objective reality and allows extremism into the topmost echelons of their organization and the other preaches moderation and respect for political norms, creating false equivalences puts you on the side of the extremists.
deleted 5y ago
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steveBK123 5y ago
Western democracies over the last ~30 years have seen their traditional labor parties shift from class based differentiation to a more race/gender/educational/cultural diversity based differentiation. Whether this was supply or demand driven as we have had a massive influx of highly educated high status workers moving back to coastal cities or not.. is unclear. So now we have high income, highly educated, high cost of living area people driving the narrative of the traditional labor parties. In the US there is something of a coalition holding between the highly educated/income whites & African Americans in general. The Democrats had banked on a "demographics is destiny" as the country becomes more diverse. This bet has clearly not been paying off, as Latin American immigrants follow the path of Italian American immigrants - fast assimilation and self-identification as "white". This should have been predictable given that they are generally - more family oriented, religious and conservative than the average American. You can see this in the 2016 -> 2020 voter share in which Latin American voters actually net shifted towards Trump. A good encapsulation of the current mood for me was during NYC mayor primaries. A (white female, very politically active) friend told my (non-white) wife that she was racist for voting for the (black male) candidate, because he was NOT going to defund the police. This was an otherwise serious mid-40s adult person. On prodding about recent crime stats showing increases in homicide, anti-asian hate crimes and shootings in the city, said (very politically active) friend admitted she "didn't read local news" and "wasn't aware". And this is what you would consider an "intra party" squabble, as everyone in the conversation votes blue.. it was just a matter of the the intensity of the hue. :-)
- tcbawo 5y ago
  Vocalizing casual judgements and self-righteous moralizing seems to have become the norm. I guess we're relearning the hard way what previous generations knew: don't talk about religion or politics in polite company. Unfortunately, being tolerant of this typically means just tuning it out. So, we sit and suffer through our relatives arguing with each other over Thanksgiving dinner.
  - steveBK123 5y ago
    Yes, but also just the deep irony & lack of self awareness of part of that end of the fringe. The white person casually judging non-white voter as racist for voting FOR the black guy? Wait until you see who the cities black voters voted for.. they must also be racist! I'm sorry I don't know better than them what they need, like you do.. Chris Arnade writes about this stuff a lot - front row & back row America. Sometimes front row liberal white America wants different things for "back row", especially non-white, America .. than they want for themselves.. Sometimes theres a weird horseshoe where extreme anti-racism & racism wrap around and meet each other.
golergka 5y ago
I think this is the most important part of the text: It was only when Jon teamed up with the technology writer Tobias Rose-Stockwell that we found what we believe is the thing that warped the fabric of social space-time. It was the introduction of the “like” button, by Facebook, in 2009, which Twitter promptly copied, combined with the introduction of the “retweet” button by Twitter that same year, which Facebook copied in 2011. Before 2009, social media feeds were almost entirely chronological—content was mostly personal (rather than political) and social media was not particularly polarizing. But once users had two super-fast ways to say what they liked, and could do so many times a minute, the social media companies had vastly more information on each user’s behavior, and they began to optimize people’s newsfeeds using algorithms that continuously improved the platform’s ability to engage users and keep them clicking.
xyzzy21 5y ago
Ah, wanting to maintain the US as a Constitutional Republic with Democracy is NOT a radical position! Destroying that absolutely is.

122 points by mpweiher 5y ago

Bias alert. The extreme Right is described as "strident, [with] uncompromising views." and the extreme Left is described as "highly sensitive to issues of fairness and equity, particularly with regards to race, gender and other minority group identities.”

neogodless 5y ago
I wonder what "true neutral" would look like for describing these groups. And who would actually write in a fashion everyone would agree is neutral.
- lettergram 5y ago
  I think something like: "there's very fine people on both sides, but extremists on both sides"
- derbOac 5y ago
  What's interesting to me is you could smoosh those descriptions together and apply the result to both extremes pretty accurately: "strident, [with] uncompromising views... highly sensitive to issues of fairness."
deleted 5y ago
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bananabreakfast 5y ago
That sounds extremely accurate, and not for the extremes either. Newt Gingrich & Rush Limbaugh began the mantra of refusing to compromise on any position. They are anything but extreme and are really more the torch bearers. Rush was even awarded a Presidential medal of Freedom. And sensitivity to issues of fairness is hardly an extreme position. That's probably the most mainstream belief associated with liberalism and just plain being a good human being. What bias?
- lamp987 5y ago
  Liberalism is not left wing, let alone extreme left. I dont understand your post.
- Thorrez 5y ago
  >And sensitivity to issues of fairness is hardly an extreme position. There are 2 ways to explain this: (1) the extreme left doesn't exist, or (2) the article is downplaying the extreme left.
- chuckee 5y ago
  The extreme Right is highly sensitive to issues of fairness, upset that while all other countries enforce their borders, this is denied to the US, and that all ethnic groups except whites have celebrated advocacy groups. The extreme Left is uncompromising, attacking any attempt to enforce the border or limit immigration, and subverting the rule of law by preventing enforcement of current immigration laws, such as by sanctuary cities, legislative limits on cooperation with ICE, and continual deferment of deportation. They even go so far as to attack language, forbidding the accurate term "illegal immigrant", replacing it with the misleading "undocumented" (lack of documentation is clearly not the issue). Oh, sorry! We were talking about the extreme Left, but I seem to have accidentally described current US government and media policies.
  - wffurr 5y ago
    Amazing that anyone can describe the current state of immigration in the US under Biden (or previously under Obama) as “not enforcing borders”. That’s just willful ignorance or plain lying.
    - chuckee 5y ago
      New Guidance Bars Immigration Enforcement in ‘Protected Areas’ -- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/us/politics/biden-immigration-ice-schools-hospitals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/us/politics/biden-immigra... Migrants were encountered 1.7 million times in the last 12 months, the highest number of illegal crossings recorded since at least 1960. -- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/us/politics/border-crossings-immigration-record-high.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/us/politics/border-crossi... “The Biden administration has created a disaster,” added Mr. Morgan [chief of the U.S. Border Patrol in the Obama administration], currently a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “It did so by methodically – and by all indications intentionally – undoing every meaningful border security measure that had been in place.” -- https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/19/bidens-bungled-border-security-is-a-national-secur/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/19/bidens-bung... President Biden Eviscerates Border Security and Immigration Enforcement on Day One [Please try to refute the many specific claims made in the article, instead of attacking the site itself.] -- https://www.fairus.org/legislation/presidential-administration/illegal-immigration/president-biden-eviscerates-border https://www.fairus.org/legislation/presidential-administrati... Attorney General Merrick Garland has rescinded a Trump-era memo blocking so-called sanctuary cities from receiving funding from the Department of Justice. -- https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/550675-doj-rescinds-trump-era-sanctuary-cities-policy https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/550675-doj-resci... Christopher Magnus [..] He is an advocate of Sanctuary cities [..] Magnus was nominated by Joe Biden to become the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Director. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Magnus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Magnus I'm sure I could keep going, but I think I've made my point. At the very least, you should be able to understand how I got the impression that the current administration disfavors border enforcement (as if the record-high legal immigration, that continued even under Trump, was not enough).

afpx 5y ago

LOL, and of course a large chunk of the comments here are down-voted or flagged. With the rise of wealth over the last couple decades, a lot of people have much more time to entertain themselves. News is (practically free) entertainment, and people drink it like sugar water. Luckily, the large majority of them are "Armchair quarterbacks" just rooting for their team. Lots of noise, little action. It sure has made the internet a less-enjoyable place for those not into team sports.

nyanpasu64 5y ago

I happened upon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Civil_War and it feels like it's foreshadowing our current situation. > A first major incident ensued early in 1927, when members of Hermann Hiltl's Frontkämpfervereinigung ("Front Fighters Union" — a paramilitary association likewise affiliated with the conservative camp) shot and killed an eight-year-old boy and a war veteran marching with the Schutzbund in a peaceful counter-demonstration in Schattendorf (Burgenland).[citation needed] In July, three defendants in the case were acquitted, which led to outrage in the left-wing camp. On 15 July 1927, a general strike occurred, and demonstrations took place in the capital. After the storming of a police station, security forces started shooting at demonstrators. An angry group of people then set fire to the Palace of Justice (Justizpalast), seen as a symbol of a flawed and partial judicial system. Altogether, 89 people (85 of them demonstrators) lost their lives in this July revolt, and many hundreds suffered injury. Surprisingly, the violence soon died down and the factions took their battle from the streets back into the political institutions... > On 4 March 1933, Christian Social Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß suspended the Austrian Parliament. In a close vote (on railway workers' wages) in the National Council, each of the three presidents of parliament resigned their position in order to cast a ballot, leaving nobody to preside over the meeting. Even though the bylaws could have resolved this situation, Dollfuss used this opportunity to declare that parliament had ceased to function, and blocked all attempts to reconvene it, also threatening to use military force against the parliamentarians, should they try to reconvene. The Social Democratic Party had thus lost its major platform for political action. The conservatives, facing pressure and violence not only from the left but also from Nazis infiltrating from Germany, could now rule by decree on the basis of a 1917 emergency law, without checks on their power, and began to suspend civil liberties. They banned the Schutzbund and imprisoned many of its members...

gsk22 5y ago
In what way do you see this as foreshadowing? (It's a lot of information, and I don't see many strong parallels -- but maybe I'm missing something)
- nyanpasu64 5y ago

danrocks 5y ago

> It may not surprise you to learn that the Devoted Conservatives were the whitest of all seven groups (88% white), but would you have expected that the Progressive Activists were the second whitest (80%)? I am surprised that the author is surprised by this fact about the Progressive Activists. In my FAANG employer, the people who are always most offended, making denunciations of racism, sexism, -ism, etc. are highly educated whites. One of them told me in all seriousness that no white people should be allowed to do yoga or own yoga studios.

rajup 5y ago
I don't know about doing yoga, but when you have some studios promoting "goat" yoga or "beer" yoga or heaven knows what the latest abomination is, maybe he does have a point on the second one.
golemotron 5y ago
Naval Ravikant once referred to the culture wars as white on white violence.
- danrocks 5y ago
  Fabulously well put.
TMWNN 5y ago
>In my FAANG employer, the people who are always most offended, making denunciations of racism, sexism, -ism, etc. are highly educated whites. See, also, that famous photograph of Huffington Post employees (<https://www.mic.com/articles/144177/this-tweet-from-a-huffington-post-editor-shows-the-problem-with-white-feminism https://www.mic.com/articles/144177/this-tweet-from-a-huffin...>).
paganel 5y ago
As far as I can tell most of the black US population living in the poor parts of the American cities were really against the "Defund the police" message from the very beginning, the reason being that people living in there actually need the police more than the (generally white) middle-classes living in the more affluent suburbs.

pphysch 5y ago

> The polarization spiral, which is fed and accelerated by social media, is making extremists on both right and left more extreme, more powerful, and more intimidating. Both sides feed off of each other. Both sides are essential for a polarization spiral. And that means that neither side can win by attacking or humiliating the other side. Such tactics only serve to energize the other side. It's not about who can "win". What would winning this "culture war" even look like? Everyone becomes a leftoid/rightoid and lives happily ever after? That would defeat the purpose of all this, which is to make money. How do you make money on social media? Ads. How do ads work? Engagements. How do you maximize engagements? The best ROI formula is posting polarizing content that begets flame wars and hate-shares and thinkpieces. The "culture war" is an illusion perpetuated by the influencer/grifter industry that monetizes it.

neogodless 5y ago
Is this culture war (illusion) dangerous? Are we against it, and if so, how do we end that?
- pphysch 5y ago
  The solution is more offensive to Americans than the problem. Stricter controls on online content including ads. Alas, that would be censorship.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    Since there is zero chance of it being applied impartially, yes it would be censorship and yes that cure would be worse than the disease.
    - tremon 5y ago
      Yes, that is the point the GP was making.
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Leaves out the big elephant in the room, the o.g. Fox news, which is now metastasizing to even crazier alternate reality media outlets. For sure some non digital media examples on the left too but nothing even close to that scale. I do agree social media plays a big role in spreading alternate reality craziness on both sides, but political polarization won't go anywhere imho.

lettergram 5y ago

I think the author is ultimately wrong. * I'll leave a trigger warning * Let's have a real conversation. - Half of the US wants their country, traditions and values - Half of the US doesn't want a country (no border), upended traditions and no values There are two countries and will destroy each other. One country believes the world is going to end from climate change; that COVID19 is 10-100x more deadly than it actually is; that men can transition to women; that abortion is not murder.. I can go on. The other believes the climate is always changing, but humans can adapt over years; that COVID19 is only 5x-10x more deadly than it actually is; and that a man can be a eunuch and dress like a woman, but still is not a woman; that abortion is murder... again, I can go on. The polarization isn't really mend-able. Both sides believe in polar opposites. Only one side believes this is the land of the free where anything is possible. The other side wants believes it needs to impose it's will to "stop climate change", "stop the spread", "stop the hate". Don't you see it!? The hypocrisy of it? Only one side wants to take away peoples ability to work, to travel, to raise a family, to educate your children, even your bodily autonomy. This polarization is driven by hate. Hatred of traditions and of a history. > “With those three words—‘very fine people’—the president showed that he was sympathetic to the men who staged the most highly publicized march for racism and antisemitism in the United States in many decades.” Yes, because there were "many 'very fine people' on both sides", the omitted words are important. "There's no excuse for what happened" indeed. This stops when both sides can admit that last years riots which left at least 38 dead were not "mostly peaceful", but a deadly riot. Similarly, that "January 6" was not an "insurrection", but a deadly riot (as the FBI already stated). Yes, there were and are 'very fine people' on both sides, but the extremes on both sides are violent. We as a free people should not oppress our neighbors and that collaboration is required for us to continue as a civilization ... if we can even agree we want a civilization any more.

fizzyfizz 5y ago
You are the kind of person the authors are talking about. You're getting way too much of your information from social media. You think the people who are not in your defined tribe take cartoonishly extreme positions and therefore they must be stopped at all costs.

dmajirb 5y ago

Sad to see that the top comment has been removed. The comment was likely flagged by someone who is over-sensitive and/or over-zealous, either way it pisses me off. There should exist a setting to voluntarily remove the ‘flagged by community’ filter. Just like adult-content filters on search engines, I should be able to opt-in to seeing whatever content is/was available.

post_from_work 5y ago
I think there is a "Show Dead" button. Also you can click on a message's timestamp and if you have sufficient karma, you can "Vouch" for a message, and then upvote it.
gibbonsrcool 5y ago
Someone could make a site similar to the one that retains deleted Reddit comments. But I agree it would be better to manage our own censorship anywhere online.
Thorrez 5y ago
The top comment in HN or the blog post? If HN, what you ask for already exists.
andrewclunn 5y ago
You are allowed to have an opinion, so long as its' "the correct" opinion. Otherwise you are censored, silenced, banned, etc... Oh, but why is there so much polarization?

specialist 5y ago

Using polling to identify polarization originally caused by polling. Clever? Or unintentional irony? I stopped reading when the authors identified Facebook's "like" button as the culprit of accelerated polarization (during Obama's 2nd term). Um, what? While I regard Facebook and Twitter as pure unalterated evil, they cannot be held more responsible for today's toxic polarization than corporate media. To believe Haidt's thesis, you'd have to completely ignore the slope of decades of build up. I've read Haidt's prior works with great interest. Alas, his works amount to nothing more than self satisfied just so stories, telling fellow concern trolls want they want to believe. An actual historian's take on the how polling toppled political parties and begat polarization is Jill Lepore's book "If Then", which details the role of Simulatics. For more context, read Ezra Klein's "Why We Are Polarized"; how academics advocated and then reformers inacted polarization to increase accountability (to voters), how sorting and polarization inadvertently led to a "stacking" of our identities, creating "superidentities". As for Facebook and Twitter, their unique crime is using ML -- finding the difference that makes the difference -- to weaponize disinformation and profiting from the resulting lies, hate, outrage, and death. Dorsey and Zuck implemented a totality of rot and destruction that Edward Bernay couldn't dare dream of. PS: "Death" might be too strong. I'm not certain that Zuck directly profitted from genocide or teen suicide. Those might just be collateral damage vs intentional.

deleted 5y ago
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jollybean 5y ago
True, but I wonder if you might be missing the participatory aspect of Social Media. Everyone gets to have a voice and put in their 2 bits of nonsense. Social Media also allows for the purposeful characterization something via slander, comedy, insult, quip etc. - basically, plebes trolling plebes, and that low form of communication tends to fire us up. As bad as mainstream news has become, at leas they have to remain mostly civil, and when the TV is off, it's off.
- specialist 5y ago
  Please say more. > True, but I wonder if you might be missing the participatory aspect of Social Media. My mental model for social media is feedback loops. Much as I hated prior corporate media (a la Chomsky, Ad Busters, others), I acknowledge that the editorial filter squelched virality (runaway positive feedback loops). Of course, we humans have always had fads, trends, groupthink. Social medias changed the filters (using Chomsky's term). Gone are the Advertiser and Publisher filters. Replaced with algorithms which boost engagement. To a degree prior medias couldn't even dream of. Like Stalin said, quantity has its own quality. What I still don't understand is how the social medias transmuted from connecting peers within my monkey sphere (family, friends, acquaintances, people with shared interests, and so on) to coordinating mass action and inciting mobs. > ... purposeful characterization something via slander, comedy, insult, quip etc I'm very interested in the repercussions of the Sandy Hook parent's defamation case against Alex Jones. Rights comes with responsibilities. Meaning speech has consequences. Perhaps if the courts allow individuals harmed by Freedom Speeches™, we won't need draconian hate speech laws and such. That'd be progress.

roenxi 5y ago

Interestingly, the actually concerning part of this has nothing to do with the left, the right or polarisation. > The early chapters of our book, The Coddling of the American Mind, are about a set of destructive and illiberal ideas that emerged on American college campuses in the years 2014-2016. That is still the big issue here. It doesn't matter whether they are left or right wing, countries controlled by people who reject liberal values tend to go badly for the people who live there. The people coming out of these institutions are being put on the easy path to the levers of power. Whether or not they hold left- or right- wing or even centrist views, this is worrying.

nostromo 5y ago

> Kalmoe and Mason found that nearly one out of five Republicans and Democrats agree with the statement that their political adversaries “lack the traits to be considered fully human — they behave like animals.” > Their line of questioning did not stop there. How about: “Do you ever think: ‘we’d be better off as a country if large numbers of the opposing party in the public today just died’?” > Some 20 percent of Democrats (that translates to 12.6 million voters) and 16 percent of Republicans (or 7.9 million voters) do think on occasion that the country would be better off if large numbers of the opposition died. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hate-politics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hate-politics.htm...

dash2 5y ago
I dunno man. This is indeed scary, but I wouldn't take it literally. I would translate it more as: "when asked by a pollster, 'do you ever think [etc.], 20 percent of Democrats said 'yes'". Whether they ever really think that... Well now, what does "really think" mean? If they had the chance to painlessly euthanize several millions of the other side, would they do it? Or does "really think" mean "gosh sometimes I get really angry and I - I just wish those scumbags were dead!" By that standard, I "really think" that it would be better if some of the drivers of my home town just died.
- potatoman22 5y ago
  I'm not sure we can make those assumptions given we only have access to their poll responses, not the inner workings of their minds.
jgeada 5y ago
Have any of you ever answered a poll? And answered truthfully? I'm inherently suspicious of most polls because everyone I know either refuses to participate in polls or deliberately lies to the pollster, either for fun or to get taken off the spam call list.

deleted 5y ago

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jollybean 5y ago

Seems to me that someone who is deeply conservative and cares about Constitution, Rule of Law etc. would be very concerned that Trump on Jan. 5 tried to push his VP to throw an election and also concerned that the President of the US would lie so flagrantly in his attempts to stay in office. Seems to me that people who actually cared about Social Justice would contemplate the complexity and nuance in all of this policing, that much of the issues are general/social issues not policing, that reducing policing is risky and has apparently caused a lot of harm to vulnerable communities, and that working class White people, who have been 'at the bottom' and basically serfs for their entire family history, should be objects of sympathy not hatred. And, that even if we respect power imbalances, bigotry can be had by 'all sides', and a lot of the rhetoric from supposed 'anti racists' seem quite bigoted. I think that these warring tribes are not actually political in the classical sense, I think there is something else going on, and those are the camps/flags that they ended up under, and that classical political orientation actually doesn't really describe what is going on. Liberals are not Liberals or even Left, they seem to have a kind of post-modern, intellectual, ideological kind of anger. Trumpers are neither Conservative nor conservative, more like angry loud nationalists. I think both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney represent more or less traditional notions of Left/Right (roughly of course). But Clintons/Obamas are at war with the far left (you can see this infighting between camps at NY Times), and the right is at war with itself vis-a-vis traditional Republicans and The Trumpers. If you use the Wayback Machine to look at CNN from 2001 you'll notice that it seems downright tame. And since 2016, they've become even worse for editorializing. The entire press landscape has become tilted, I don't even trust PBS/NPR anymore, and I also think social media and the internet has really inflamed a lot of people. Since Trump is gone and COVID is passing a little bit, I do wonder if things will settle down maybe a little bit.

yobbo 5y ago

> The polarization spiral, which is fed and accelerated by social media Social media is not the root cause. The problem is rather that "wokeness" (or whatever the appropriate term) is having effects in the real brick-and-mortar world, and people are getting employed or fired based on belief confessions. For this to be possible, employment wouldn't need to be based on productivity or competence. It could be purely symbolic, like honorary medals. With too many bullshit jobs, America might be in this state.

yosito 5y ago

The only way to win the game is not to play.

stronglikedan 5y ago
Even then, you're not likely to win. As a centrist/apolitical, it's hard to "just grill" when the extremists on both sides consider compromise to be tantamount to violence, and will attack you for even suggesting such a thing.
- ladyattis 5y ago
  Well as someone who I think most would consider a leftist (I oppose any restrictions on abortion. I oppose intellectual property and much more.), I've tried to offer people on the right of me alternative proposals which should be starting points to find compromise, as I never assume what I propose is the compromise but rather an avenue to one, and just have it thrown back at me. It's really one of those hard situations when you honestly reach out to someone across the table and their answer is: no we want it this way and nothing else.
- yosito 5y ago
  > extremists on both sides consider compromise to be tantamount to violence My strategy is to block them on social media, and avoid them in real life. It's worked for me so far. I've surrounded myself only with people who don't consume themselves with political battles, and my world has been peaceful.
- rawTruthHurts 5y ago
  "As a centrist/apolitical" Let's not forget that the radical center is a thing.

koprulusector 5y ago

[flagged]

LocalH 5y ago
The view that there are only two "sides" is part of the problem

calebm 5y ago

As someone who grew up in a very traditional fundamentalist church (preacher's kid), I think the religious extremism mindset is the problem - the "We're the right ones, and they other people are evil" mindset. Both sides have virtues and flaws. And as long as both sides are demonizing each other, the amplitude will continue to increase.

arnoooooo 5y ago
You're conflating religion with the use of it by some to get, maintain or increase their power. Most religions emphasize humility and have at their best been used to prevent tyranny. Judging is definitely OK, it's actually needed. But you know you might be wrong and you don't impose your views on others. That's how we got liberalism. For instance, all the Abrahamic monotheisms have at their core the idea of the intrinsic value of each individual human as they are made "in the image of God".
- calebm 5y ago
  I'm not meaning to bash spiritual beliefs (I believe we're all part of One God - "members of the body of Christ"). But I believe darkness works strongly in many religious groups (both traditional and progressive). Here's the sort of darkness I'm speaking of: Things demons say: * This life doesn't matter. * Don't think for yourself. * How could anyone be so stupid? * The darkness is dangerous - don't explore those dark corners - don't ask questions. * Nothing is how it should be - everything is wrong. * Truth is very simple - I have no need to look any further.
- danielsju6 5y ago
  "Most religions emphasize humility" for real? You read the same history books as I have? I think you're conflating theology with religion. Religion is a blood soaked tool to control the masses.

rosmax_1337 5y ago

Free speech and democracy was on it's deathbed when free speech became less about the cultural phenomena of respecting ideas opposite to yours, and more about wether or not the FBI is going after you or not for your ideas. That was a while ago, and since things have not been getting better, things keep polarizing. The only way to reverse it would be to once again invigorate the idea of radically free speech. But neither side wants that anymore. Maybe it is for the better. Sometimes society needs to heat up in order to improve.

ladyattis 5y ago

I think the whole thing is more about how the Internet allows people to mingle from various groups and so there's going to be higher friction than they normally would have. Also, social media allows for people to get the dopamine high from people liking, sharing, and even mocking their posts. There's always something dangerous about how the feedback loop on social media works and I've noticed it when I've gotten into some spats or gotten a post go viral out of nowhere. As the notifications roll in on your device it becomes more of a game to see who gets the most praise or jeers from the crowd and less about finding like minded or not-so-like minded folks to discuss topics. It just turns into sports hooliganism where your side, whatever that is, is battling it out with the other side of the so-called argument. And all the while social media companies just rake in the money from the advertising revenue based on engagement metrics which may or may not even make said advertising useful for the firms who order it. Ultimately, I think this will have to be resolved through other means than just more regulations. Just like how we use to teach folks to not believe anything you see online. We need to teach folks that getting likes online doesn't make you better or right or anything of the sort of moral judgements.

Pxtl 5y ago

Ah, another "enlightened centrist" article that effectively absolves the groups that proliferate extremists by stating it's a universal problem. When one side denies objective reality and allows extremism into the topmost echelons of their organization and the other preaches moderation and respect for political norms, creating false equivalences puts you on the side of the extremists.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

steveBK123 5y ago

Western democracies over the last ~30 years have seen their traditional labor parties shift from class based differentiation to a more race/gender/educational/cultural diversity based differentiation. Whether this was supply or demand driven as we have had a massive influx of highly educated high status workers moving back to coastal cities or not.. is unclear. So now we have high income, highly educated, high cost of living area people driving the narrative of the traditional labor parties. In the US there is something of a coalition holding between the highly educated/income whites & African Americans in general. The Democrats had banked on a "demographics is destiny" as the country becomes more diverse. This bet has clearly not been paying off, as Latin American immigrants follow the path of Italian American immigrants - fast assimilation and self-identification as "white". This should have been predictable given that they are generally - more family oriented, religious and conservative than the average American. You can see this in the 2016 -> 2020 voter share in which Latin American voters actually net shifted towards Trump. A good encapsulation of the current mood for me was during NYC mayor primaries. A (white female, very politically active) friend told my (non-white) wife that she was racist for voting for the (black male) candidate, because he was NOT going to defund the police. This was an otherwise serious mid-40s adult person. On prodding about recent crime stats showing increases in homicide, anti-asian hate crimes and shootings in the city, said (very politically active) friend admitted she "didn't read local news" and "wasn't aware". And this is what you would consider an "intra party" squabble, as everyone in the conversation votes blue.. it was just a matter of the the intensity of the hue. :-)

tcbawo 5y ago
Vocalizing casual judgements and self-righteous moralizing seems to have become the norm. I guess we're relearning the hard way what previous generations knew: don't talk about religion or politics in polite company. Unfortunately, being tolerant of this typically means just tuning it out. So, we sit and suffer through our relatives arguing with each other over Thanksgiving dinner.
- steveBK123 5y ago
  Yes, but also just the deep irony & lack of self awareness of part of that end of the fringe. The white person casually judging non-white voter as racist for voting FOR the black guy? Wait until you see who the cities black voters voted for.. they must also be racist! I'm sorry I don't know better than them what they need, like you do.. Chris Arnade writes about this stuff a lot - front row & back row America. Sometimes front row liberal white America wants different things for "back row", especially non-white, America .. than they want for themselves.. Sometimes theres a weird horseshoe where extreme anti-racism & racism wrap around and meet each other.

golergka 5y ago

I think this is the most important part of the text: It was only when Jon teamed up with the technology writer Tobias Rose-Stockwell that we found what we believe is the thing that warped the fabric of social space-time. It was the introduction of the “like” button, by Facebook, in 2009, which Twitter promptly copied, combined with the introduction of the “retweet” button by Twitter that same year, which Facebook copied in 2011. Before 2009, social media feeds were almost entirely chronological—content was mostly personal (rather than political) and social media was not particularly polarizing. But once users had two super-fast ways to say what they liked, and could do so many times a minute, the social media companies had vastly more information on each user’s behavior, and they began to optimize people’s newsfeeds using algorithms that continuously improved the platform’s ability to engage users and keep them clicking.

xyzzy21 5y ago

Ah, wanting to maintain the US as a Constitutional Republic with Democracy is NOT a radical position! Destroying that absolutely is.