4 ms·

What is with Americans viewing every issue through a red/blue, republicans/democrats or conservative/progressive lens?

jimmygrapes 5y ago
We don't all do so, and the above poster is showing their bigotry with this assumption (and I'm sure I'll get some polling result to "prove" their assertion). Their last sentence could have and should have been left out.
- vkou 5y ago
  It's not bigotry to observe that there's a significant portion of the population that believes things like 'COVID tests infect you with COVID.' It's just an observation of fact. My friend's parents (Stockton, CA) aren't getting tested for this reason. They didn't get tested the first time they came down with 'Valley Fever', back in 2020, either. (They also quit their jobs because of vaccination requirements, and believe that Trump won in 2020, and that he will reclaim the presidency on <a number of dates that have long passed>. It doesn't make me a bigot to point this sort of thing out, or that these beliefs tend to cluster.)
shepherdjerred 5y ago
Because it’s the dominant division of people here
vmception 5y ago
Because the union is barely hanging together like in the 1850s on very binary topics
liquidise 5y ago
Excuse the rant but i have a working theory that it is an unchecked feedback cycle that's decades old, only now based on political party. People generally hold sweeping, often negative, opinions of "those people". Over the decades, "those people" has been defined by race, religion, ethnicity, etc. Today in the US it is which political party people perceive you to be affiliated with. I call this a feedback cycle because in my experience the people using this sort of rhetoric aren't interested in being proven wrong. They have chosen consciously or otherwise to vilify a group, or buy into preexisting vilification. Undoing that is hard work so it just doesn't happen. Absent any pressure, people assume themselves correct and chalk up another datapoint confirming their own biases. This is readily apparent in response to any mass killing/tragedy. My more politically extreme friends seem to race for any evidence they can find that they perpetrator is Democrat/Republican. Of course this boils down to pure speculation (gun ownership, smokes pot, etc), but the urgency and desire is there all the same. In summary it is little surprise that the politicians in Washington are so hardlined on their stances and party affiliations. This is effectively the government the voters have demanded. When the citizens of a country start vilify half the country, their representatives reaching across the isle is political suicide. And thus we sit.
- awb 5y ago
  > the people using this sort of rhetoric aren't interested in being proven wrong. They have chosen consciously or otherwise to vilify a group, or buy into preexisting vilification. I’d love to be proven wrong on this point. Any data you can share that red/blue is not the most efficient segmentation for pro/anti-vaxx and/or pro/anti-test?
  - liquidise 5y ago
    Off the cuff: Blacks in the US are the lowest vaccinated racial group (44%) in spite of voting the strongest for Biden/Harris (87%)[1]. This is part of the problem with the broad strokes approach, it completely erases trends like this. I tried making a trend line comparing Vax % by state to Biden vote %. Interesting result[1] that i think supports both of our arguments. A trend line exists to support your claim, though i would argue it's not a great fit and the data is quite scattered. I should also say i didn't mean to harsh address your comment specifically. I don't dispute the trend you claimed i was more ranting about the larger categorization that my parent comment was asking about. Linking my sources[2][3] as well. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia... 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rieowmakzvfzuv/vax%20vs%20demo%20vote.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rieowmakzvfzuv/vax%20vs%20demo%20... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Results_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia... 4: https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/ https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-st...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
_-david-_ 5y ago
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  Lol. I know plenty of Republicans and Democrats who agree with eachother as to who is male and female. In both directions. Party affiliation is more about what your priorities are rather than where you lie on any random issue.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    I was using the trans issue as an example. It is harder to come together when we start from completely different starting points.

We don't all do so, and the above poster is showing their bigotry with this assumption (and I'm sure I'll get some polling result to "prove" their assertion). Their last sentence could have and should have been left out.

vkou 5y ago
It's not bigotry to observe that there's a significant portion of the population that believes things like 'COVID tests infect you with COVID.' It's just an observation of fact. My friend's parents (Stockton, CA) aren't getting tested for this reason. They didn't get tested the first time they came down with 'Valley Fever', back in 2020, either. (They also quit their jobs because of vaccination requirements, and believe that Trump won in 2020, and that he will reclaim the presidency on <a number of dates that have long passed>. It doesn't make me a bigot to point this sort of thing out, or that these beliefs tend to cluster.)

shepherdjerred 5y ago

Because it’s the dominant division of people here

vmception 5y ago

Because the union is barely hanging together like in the 1850s on very binary topics

liquidise 5y ago

Excuse the rant but i have a working theory that it is an unchecked feedback cycle that's decades old, only now based on political party. People generally hold sweeping, often negative, opinions of "those people". Over the decades, "those people" has been defined by race, religion, ethnicity, etc. Today in the US it is which political party people perceive you to be affiliated with. I call this a feedback cycle because in my experience the people using this sort of rhetoric aren't interested in being proven wrong. They have chosen consciously or otherwise to vilify a group, or buy into preexisting vilification. Undoing that is hard work so it just doesn't happen. Absent any pressure, people assume themselves correct and chalk up another datapoint confirming their own biases. This is readily apparent in response to any mass killing/tragedy. My more politically extreme friends seem to race for any evidence they can find that they perpetrator is Democrat/Republican. Of course this boils down to pure speculation (gun ownership, smokes pot, etc), but the urgency and desire is there all the same. In summary it is little surprise that the politicians in Washington are so hardlined on their stances and party affiliations. This is effectively the government the voters have demanded. When the citizens of a country start vilify half the country, their representatives reaching across the isle is political suicide. And thus we sit.

awb 5y ago
> the people using this sort of rhetoric aren't interested in being proven wrong. They have chosen consciously or otherwise to vilify a group, or buy into preexisting vilification. I’d love to be proven wrong on this point. Any data you can share that red/blue is not the most efficient segmentation for pro/anti-vaxx and/or pro/anti-test?
- liquidise 5y ago
  Off the cuff: Blacks in the US are the lowest vaccinated racial group (44%) in spite of voting the strongest for Biden/Harris (87%)[1]. This is part of the problem with the broad strokes approach, it completely erases trends like this. I tried making a trend line comparing Vax % by state to Biden vote %. Interesting result[1] that i think supports both of our arguments. A trend line exists to support your claim, though i would argue it's not a great fit and the data is quite scattered. I should also say i didn't mean to harsh address your comment specifically. I don't dispute the trend you claimed i was more ranting about the larger categorization that my parent comment was asking about. Linking my sources[2][3] as well. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia... 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rieowmakzvfzuv/vax%20vs%20demo%20vote.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rieowmakzvfzuv/vax%20vs%20demo%20... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Results_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia... 4: https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/ https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-st...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

_-david-_ 5y ago

bcrosby95 5y ago
Lol. I know plenty of Republicans and Democrats who agree with eachother as to who is male and female. In both directions. Party affiliation is more about what your priorities are rather than where you lie on any random issue.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  I was using the trans issue as an example. It is harder to come together when we start from completely different starting points.