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Not here to disagree, and I say this all the time, but I feel it bears repeating in this context: Left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative are ridiculously re

Not here to disagree, and I say this all the time, but I feel it bears repeating in this context: Left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative are ridiculously reductive ways of categorizing people's political opinions. Even allowing for people "in the middle" is reductive. That people are so attached to the idea of a single-axis political spectrum in the US plays into the two party system very well and helps keep voters from having any meaningful impact. We ought to be able to place ourselves independently on many axes, i.e. data privacy, gun ownership, taxation, consumer protection, energy policy, and so on. If we didn't lean so hard into the partisan tribalism then you might see movement on more of these issues where it's not such an even split of public opinion. My intuition is that the inutility of voting afforded by the left vs. right meme may be the end-goal for many reinforcing it, perhaps in support of those with the most money sloshing around in political spheres. If I intended to buy certain unpopular policy with political donations, I wouldn't want voters breaking out of their ideological silos and crossing party lines to oppose the candidates doing my bidding. Maybe that thinking is a bit too conspiratorial, though.

kbenson 4y ago
If nothing else, it's a way to lock down a large swath of the demographic you must appeal to, and lets you then pander to only those are are sensitive to an actual position, and not just being endorsed by a group (or even just professing memborship in a group). In some respect this is useful for the average person because there's just so much going on that being fully aware of the the different candidates stances on many different topics and trying to juggle all that is hard, and doing a good job of it in some cases is next to impossible. That said, it's taken advantage of in the extreme by politicians (of all groups) now, who seem to have purposefully divided the populace so they can rely on this. To all of our detriment.

kbenson 4y ago

If nothing else, it's a way to lock down a large swath of the demographic you must appeal to, and lets you then pander to only those are are sensitive to an actual position, and not just being endorsed by a group (or even just professing memborship in a group). In some respect this is useful for the average person because there's just so much going on that being fully aware of the the different candidates stances on many different topics and trying to juggle all that is hard, and doing a good job of it in some cases is next to impossible. That said, it's taken advantage of in the extreme by politicians (of all groups) now, who seem to have purposefully divided the populace so they can rely on this. To all of our detriment.