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Funny, if you look at actual polling and look at how people feel around certain issues, there isn't that big of a divide between Republicans and Democrats. Per

Funny, if you look at actual polling and look at how people feel around certain issues, there isn't that big of a divide between Republicans and Democrats. Perception Gap made an awesome quiz that you can use to see this -> https://perceptiongap.us/ https://perceptiongap.us/ It's moreso media corporations like TheGuardian, the NY Times, Fox News, CNN, etc. who are profiting off baiting their preferred side and increasing the hatred of their side for the other (and these companies make a great profit doing it!) The Perception Gap (same link as above) found that the more news people consumed, the larger their perception gap (the more they overestimated the amount of extremist views in the other political party)

atoav 4y ago
I last had that thought when we had the discussion a out a "divided public opinion on the COVID response" in Germany. Polls suggested roughly 80% were supportive of the measures. If a political party would win with an 80:20 majority everybody would call it an absolute domination of the minority vote, yet somehow when it comes to vocal minorities we let them trample on us like this.
- LewisVerstappen 4y ago
  Agreed. Relevant Taleb - https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
cmurf 4y ago
There is very real and consequential disconnect between actual policy and polling, however. A fringe minority is setting policy for the majority, and will for the foreseeable future. If only more people were voting, the outcome would match the polling. Most Americans don't vote, and there are consequences for them and everyone else too. Lincoln established in his 1st inaugural address that the judiciary did not have a monopoly on constitutional interpretation. if the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent, practically resigned their government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Second, Lincoln asserts the importance of majority rule. The majority is the only true sovereign of the people. Unanimity is impossible, therefore either the majority or minority must acquiesce in a dispute, or the government ceases, he said. And it is untenable long term for the majority to acquiesce to the minority in anything approximating a representative democracy. Yet this has happened twice in a decade, two presidents elected by a minority (not even a plurality), with consequences that directly results in the three justices on the Court today completely out of touch with either 20th or 21st century women's rights, calling back to the 19th century by their repugnant reference to Sir Matthew Hale and self evidently misogynist founders. Third, Lincoln asserted the federal government is the sovereign of the nation and of the national people, that the Union cannot be dissolved for it would be a government terminating itself. And in effect it was turtles all the way down if a precedent is set that minorities can cause the termination of a country.

atoav 4y ago

I last had that thought when we had the discussion a out a "divided public opinion on the COVID response" in Germany. Polls suggested roughly 80% were supportive of the measures. If a political party would win with an 80:20 majority everybody would call it an absolute domination of the minority vote, yet somehow when it comes to vocal minorities we let them trample on us like this.

LewisVerstappen 4y ago
Agreed. Relevant Taleb - https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

cmurf 4y ago

There is very real and consequential disconnect between actual policy and polling, however. A fringe minority is setting policy for the majority, and will for the foreseeable future. If only more people were voting, the outcome would match the polling. Most Americans don't vote, and there are consequences for them and everyone else too. Lincoln established in his 1st inaugural address that the judiciary did not have a monopoly on constitutional interpretation. if the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent, practically resigned their government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Second, Lincoln asserts the importance of majority rule. The majority is the only true sovereign of the people. Unanimity is impossible, therefore either the majority or minority must acquiesce in a dispute, or the government ceases, he said. And it is untenable long term for the majority to acquiesce to the minority in anything approximating a representative democracy. Yet this has happened twice in a decade, two presidents elected by a minority (not even a plurality), with consequences that directly results in the three justices on the Court today completely out of touch with either 20th or 21st century women's rights, calling back to the 19th century by their repugnant reference to Sir Matthew Hale and self evidently misogynist founders. Third, Lincoln asserted the federal government is the sovereign of the nation and of the national people, that the Union cannot be dissolved for it would be a government terminating itself. And in effect it was turtles all the way down if a precedent is set that minorities can cause the termination of a country.