4 ms·

The sad part of all of this is that the folks pushing the polarization in the U.S., the Trumpy right, and the progressive left, represent an extreme minority of

by tharne 4y ago

The sad part of all of this is that the folks pushing the polarization in the U.S., the Trumpy right, and the progressive left, represent an extreme minority of the population. If either of these two groups had an any level of self awareness, they'd realize that no one wants them around.

kodyo 4y ago
Beyond that, a growing number of us have realized that democracy is incompatible with freedom. Once you accept that, the absurdity of politicians claiming to speak for large swaths of your country is just comical. Downvoters are free to explain why unimpressive people have any say over how you think or how you should behave.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  > Beyond that, a growing number of us have realized that democracy is incompatible with freedom. That's an interesting mindset, in theory, but not very grounded in reality. Being a democracy is no guarantee of freedom, but it has let more people live in more freedom than any other system. (The great danger is that tyrants convert democracies into pseudo-democracies, keeping the trappings while removing the freedom, and that makes democracies look bad to those who are unaware.) Seriously, if you've got a system that leads to more freedom, put in into practice somewhere, and show us how it works in the real world. If you can consistently deliver for several decades, we might start to listen. > Once you accept that, the absurdity of politicians claiming to speak for large swaths of your country is just comical. Politicians speak, not for the population, not even for everyone who voted for them, but for everyone who agrees with the politician on that particular point. > Downvoters are free to explain why unimpressive people have any say over how you think or how you should behave. I'm having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say here. But it sounds like you're saying that, in a democracy, "unimpressive people" have a say because they get to vote. Well, I don't know anybody who lets voters decide how they think. How they behave? Well, votes lead to laws, so, yeah. But in a non-democracy, someone was still going to be making the laws, and almost certainly that would be someone who is not you. So it seems to me that you're always going to have other people having a say over how you should behave. (And, in a non-democracy, they can be a lot more serious having say over how you think, too.) The phrase "unimpressive people" I find a bit disturbing. It sounds like you're looking down on them, that there's some contempt there. Frankly, that does not make your position more persuasive.
  - kodyo 4y ago
    You make good points, but I think we would diverge in that I think the western democracies have already crossed into the pseudo-democracy trap and are already tyrannies. However, I want no part of oppressing anybody because I don't find myself to be exceptionally impressive, so don't look at me to come up with a better system of oppression. People go along with this idea of democracy because they believe (read: they've been told) that the possibility of freedom and prosperity exists if they are simply able to convince enough of their unimpressive friends to vote hard enough for the correct team. It's absurd. My belief is simply that nobody else speaks for me. I'm not responsible for the depravity that arises from democracy, just as I'm not responsible for the depravity that arises from authoritarianism. It's all the same thing. Having said that, I could probably be convinced to follow a truly heroic and impressive person if one were to ever appear. Jesus seemed like a good fit, but the mediocre leaders running his local government killed him because he was a pain in their asses.
    - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
      > I think we would diverge in that I think the western democracies have already crossed into the pseudo-democracy trap and are already tyrannies. I disagree, but less strongly than I wish I did. You could be right. Even if you're wrong now, you could be right soon. > People go along with this idea of democracy because they believe (read: they've been told) that the possibility of freedom and prosperity exists if they are simply able to convince enough of their unimpressive friends to vote hard enough for the correct team. It's absurd. Agreed. There was a reason that the original American idea was for a strictly limited government. The current belief seems to be that freedom is getting the government to do what you want to "the others". > My belief is simply that nobody else speaks for me. I'm not responsible for the depravity that arises from democracy, just as I'm not responsible for the depravity that arises from authoritarianism. It's all the same thing. I agree or disagree, depending on the specifics of how you mean this. In both cases the depravity comes out of the selfishness in people; so far I agree. If you mean that democracy and authoritarianism are equally depraved, then no, I don't agree. (If you mean authoritarianism and "fake democracy" authoritarianism are equally depraved, then maybe I do agree.) Re your last paragraph: You know, following Jesus is still an option today. (I mean, his goal then wasn't political power, but you sound like that fits you...)
082349872349872 4y ago
If the US had an equivalent of lib dems and/or proportional representation and/or ranked choice, would it still be so polarised? Sure, a 2-party state is preferable to a 1-party state, but that's a pretty low bar. Lagniappe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Warren#Election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Warren#Election
- tharne 4y ago
  > If the US had an equivalent of lib dems and/or proportional representation and/or ranked choice, would it still be so polarised I don't think this would be a panacea, but it would definitely help things quite a bit. The largest voting block in the U.S. isn't Democrats or Republicans, but voters that have chosen not to be affiliated with either party.
  - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
    There are plenty of voters who are registered independent/unaffiliated, but most of them still lean strongly toward one of the major parties. The number of consistent swing/split voters is much smaller. Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center.
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      > Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center. I've heard a lot of people say this, I've never seen any good data on this. Every analysis I've seen that compared how moderate and more extreme candidates did compared to the president consistently showed the moderates did better than the extreme. I'd be curious to see your analysis/commentary that shows the opposite.
      - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
        I shouldn't have phrased it as "appealing to the center", but rather something like "appealing to true independents" or "appealing to swing voters". There is significant ideological breadth within the parties, and it's clear that appealing to more center-leaning voters can be a winning strategy, but that's less because there's a big chunk of the electorate composed of nonpartisan centrists and more because the most extreme candidates also tend to polarize and demotivate parts of their own party coalition while unifying and motivating the opposing party. Swing voters are far from nonexistent, it's just that their numbers are small compared to partisan (again: not necessarily registered party-affiliated) voters unless you define "swing voter" incredibly broadly [1]. Capturing their votes is clearly good for a campaign, but only if it can be in a way that is also sensitive to their partisan voters. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/just-how-many-swing-voters-are-there/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/just-how-many-swing-vot...
nathanaldensr 4y ago
You can't really say "no one" when Trump won the 2016 election and nearly won the 2020 election. You should probably check your assertions.
- bediger4000 4y ago
  In neither case did he get even a simple majority of the votes. He won/almost won due to a quirky US presidential system that overrepresents small population states. That fact supports the "no one" generalization.
  - kevinventullo 4y ago
    Ok, but it’s not like he got 10% of the vote. In my mind, there isn’t that big of a difference between say 45% and 55% when drawing conclusions about society. Still, I’m not sure I would consider everyone who voted for Trump as part of the “Trumpy right” any more than I would consider myself part of the radical left just because I voted for Biden.
- tharne 4y ago
  When you have two choices in a polarized country, one of them is going to win and the other is going to "almost win". That's what makes this situation so ugly.
convolvatron 4y ago
since every issue apparently has two quite defined and non-overlapping 'sides', what is a moderate? someone who chooses Ala-carte?
- tharne 4y ago
  A moderate has more to do with a mindset and epistemological stance than it does with specific views. A moderate, regardless of where they stand on a particular issue, will ask themselves "What if I'm wrong?", or "Wow this issue is very complicated, I'm not 100% certain on the answer". Extremists, by contrast, tend to be absolutely certain of whatever opinion they happen to hold at the moment and nothing can shake them of that. There has been a lot written about the alleged differences between the conservative mind and the liberal mind, but I think that completely misses it. Extremists, even those on opposite ends of the political spectrum, have a lot more in common with one another than they do with moderates and other normal people.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    This is just the "enlightened centrism" theory I think. There's no inherent virtue in neutrality between abstract issues. And acknowledging uncertainty or being flexible to reevaluation doesn't necessarily lead you to neutrality either. You're also trying to frame it so that anyone who does consistently choose a side is inherently an extremist, and that these two extremes are "liberal" and "conservative." The idea that political extremes are more similar to each other than to a moderate position is called horseshoe theory, and it has very little support among political scientists. It doesn't even apply in this case because, again, the two "sides" in american politics aren't even opposite extremes. In most peer countries the democrats would be solidly center-right and the republicans are off to their right. On the far left is a gaping hole where communists, anarcho-syndicalists, revolutionary socialists etc would be. In practice people who call themselves moderate are usually consistently aligned with one of the two major parties, they just don't want to incur the social costs of that alignment in at least one context. Or and relatedly, they want to present themselves as being morally and intellectually superior to both, too "enlightened" to be duped into taking sides like inferior thinkers. There's nothing wrong with understanding yourself and your world well enough to pick a side on an issue, or find allies for it. Again the self-questioning you describe isn't unique to centrists nor the reason for their centrism. My positions are extreme, as are those of many of my friends and associates. We doubt too. Yet we find that we must act anyway, and risk being wrong or foolish.
benlivengood 4y ago
I don't think it's normal people pushing the polarization, at least not in the root cause analysis. The political parties are playing the meta-political game of continuing to exist and the game theory there is to slice and dice the electorate along advantageous lines in every voting district/region. The more divisive an issue, the more predictable and reliable as a tool for staying in power. Political parties have no external goals; they are self-interested and use the people within them to achieve that goal by offering carrots (which result in fulfilling the external values of normal people) or sticks (which punish defection or opposing party members). Progressivism and conservativism are not opposed on a single axis. Political parties lay claim to and label particular issues which benefits both major U.S. parties in the long run by giving them each a grab bag of issues for a particular set of voters. This is why, for example, guns and wombs have opposite signs in the personal-freedom axis for both parties. As long as the shared belief exists that an issue "belongs" to "one side" it remains useful as a political tool but nearly worthless as a policy tool for normal people. Finally, it is not the extremes leading this charge. The core DNC and RNC execute this strategy because they are locked in a struggle for survival. The DNC and RNC have successfully used the threat of the least-aligned party to trap moderate and progressive voters within the party structures. Non-partisan primaries and ranked-choice/runoff voting are starting to show moderate success (AK and NH) at changing the game theory to favor politicians who compromise on multivariate issues versus enforcing party platforms.

by tharne 4y ago

kodyo 4y ago

Beyond that, a growing number of us have realized that democracy is incompatible with freedom. Once you accept that, the absurdity of politicians claiming to speak for large swaths of your country is just comical. Downvoters are free to explain why unimpressive people have any say over how you think or how you should behave.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
> Beyond that, a growing number of us have realized that democracy is incompatible with freedom. That's an interesting mindset, in theory, but not very grounded in reality. Being a democracy is no guarantee of freedom, but it has let more people live in more freedom than any other system. (The great danger is that tyrants convert democracies into pseudo-democracies, keeping the trappings while removing the freedom, and that makes democracies look bad to those who are unaware.) Seriously, if you've got a system that leads to more freedom, put in into practice somewhere, and show us how it works in the real world. If you can consistently deliver for several decades, we might start to listen. > Once you accept that, the absurdity of politicians claiming to speak for large swaths of your country is just comical. Politicians speak, not for the population, not even for everyone who voted for them, but for everyone who agrees with the politician on that particular point. > Downvoters are free to explain why unimpressive people have any say over how you think or how you should behave. I'm having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say here. But it sounds like you're saying that, in a democracy, "unimpressive people" have a say because they get to vote. Well, I don't know anybody who lets voters decide how they think. How they behave? Well, votes lead to laws, so, yeah. But in a non-democracy, someone was still going to be making the laws, and almost certainly that would be someone who is not you. So it seems to me that you're always going to have other people having a say over how you should behave. (And, in a non-democracy, they can be a lot more serious having say over how you think, too.) The phrase "unimpressive people" I find a bit disturbing. It sounds like you're looking down on them, that there's some contempt there. Frankly, that does not make your position more persuasive.
- kodyo 4y ago
  You make good points, but I think we would diverge in that I think the western democracies have already crossed into the pseudo-democracy trap and are already tyrannies. However, I want no part of oppressing anybody because I don't find myself to be exceptionally impressive, so don't look at me to come up with a better system of oppression. People go along with this idea of democracy because they believe (read: they've been told) that the possibility of freedom and prosperity exists if they are simply able to convince enough of their unimpressive friends to vote hard enough for the correct team. It's absurd. My belief is simply that nobody else speaks for me. I'm not responsible for the depravity that arises from democracy, just as I'm not responsible for the depravity that arises from authoritarianism. It's all the same thing. Having said that, I could probably be convinced to follow a truly heroic and impressive person if one were to ever appear. Jesus seemed like a good fit, but the mediocre leaders running his local government killed him because he was a pain in their asses.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    > I think we would diverge in that I think the western democracies have already crossed into the pseudo-democracy trap and are already tyrannies. I disagree, but less strongly than I wish I did. You could be right. Even if you're wrong now, you could be right soon. > People go along with this idea of democracy because they believe (read: they've been told) that the possibility of freedom and prosperity exists if they are simply able to convince enough of their unimpressive friends to vote hard enough for the correct team. It's absurd. Agreed. There was a reason that the original American idea was for a strictly limited government. The current belief seems to be that freedom is getting the government to do what you want to "the others". > My belief is simply that nobody else speaks for me. I'm not responsible for the depravity that arises from democracy, just as I'm not responsible for the depravity that arises from authoritarianism. It's all the same thing. I agree or disagree, depending on the specifics of how you mean this. In both cases the depravity comes out of the selfishness in people; so far I agree. If you mean that democracy and authoritarianism are equally depraved, then no, I don't agree. (If you mean authoritarianism and "fake democracy" authoritarianism are equally depraved, then maybe I do agree.) Re your last paragraph: You know, following Jesus is still an option today. (I mean, his goal then wasn't political power, but you sound like that fits you...)

082349872349872 4y ago

If the US had an equivalent of lib dems and/or proportional representation and/or ranked choice, would it still be so polarised? Sure, a 2-party state is preferable to a 1-party state, but that's a pretty low bar. Lagniappe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Warren#Election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Warren#Election

tharne 4y ago
> If the US had an equivalent of lib dems and/or proportional representation and/or ranked choice, would it still be so polarised I don't think this would be a panacea, but it would definitely help things quite a bit. The largest voting block in the U.S. isn't Democrats or Republicans, but voters that have chosen not to be affiliated with either party.
- 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
  There are plenty of voters who are registered independent/unaffiliated, but most of them still lean strongly toward one of the major parties. The number of consistent swing/split voters is much smaller. Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center.
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    > Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center. I've heard a lot of people say this, I've never seen any good data on this. Every analysis I've seen that compared how moderate and more extreme candidates did compared to the president consistently showed the moderates did better than the extreme. I'd be curious to see your analysis/commentary that shows the opposite.
    - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
      I shouldn't have phrased it as "appealing to the center", but rather something like "appealing to true independents" or "appealing to swing voters". There is significant ideological breadth within the parties, and it's clear that appealing to more center-leaning voters can be a winning strategy, but that's less because there's a big chunk of the electorate composed of nonpartisan centrists and more because the most extreme candidates also tend to polarize and demotivate parts of their own party coalition while unifying and motivating the opposing party. Swing voters are far from nonexistent, it's just that their numbers are small compared to partisan (again: not necessarily registered party-affiliated) voters unless you define "swing voter" incredibly broadly [1]. Capturing their votes is clearly good for a campaign, but only if it can be in a way that is also sensitive to their partisan voters. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/just-how-many-swing-voters-are-there/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/just-how-many-swing-vot...

nathanaldensr 4y ago

You can't really say "no one" when Trump won the 2016 election and nearly won the 2020 election. You should probably check your assertions.

bediger4000 4y ago
In neither case did he get even a simple majority of the votes. He won/almost won due to a quirky US presidential system that overrepresents small population states. That fact supports the "no one" generalization.
- kevinventullo 4y ago
  Ok, but it’s not like he got 10% of the vote. In my mind, there isn’t that big of a difference between say 45% and 55% when drawing conclusions about society. Still, I’m not sure I would consider everyone who voted for Trump as part of the “Trumpy right” any more than I would consider myself part of the radical left just because I voted for Biden.
tharne 4y ago
When you have two choices in a polarized country, one of them is going to win and the other is going to "almost win". That's what makes this situation so ugly.

convolvatron 4y ago

since every issue apparently has two quite defined and non-overlapping 'sides', what is a moderate? someone who chooses Ala-carte?

tharne 4y ago
A moderate has more to do with a mindset and epistemological stance than it does with specific views. A moderate, regardless of where they stand on a particular issue, will ask themselves "What if I'm wrong?", or "Wow this issue is very complicated, I'm not 100% certain on the answer". Extremists, by contrast, tend to be absolutely certain of whatever opinion they happen to hold at the moment and nothing can shake them of that. There has been a lot written about the alleged differences between the conservative mind and the liberal mind, but I think that completely misses it. Extremists, even those on opposite ends of the political spectrum, have a lot more in common with one another than they do with moderates and other normal people.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  This is just the "enlightened centrism" theory I think. There's no inherent virtue in neutrality between abstract issues. And acknowledging uncertainty or being flexible to reevaluation doesn't necessarily lead you to neutrality either. You're also trying to frame it so that anyone who does consistently choose a side is inherently an extremist, and that these two extremes are "liberal" and "conservative." The idea that political extremes are more similar to each other than to a moderate position is called horseshoe theory, and it has very little support among political scientists. It doesn't even apply in this case because, again, the two "sides" in american politics aren't even opposite extremes. In most peer countries the democrats would be solidly center-right and the republicans are off to their right. On the far left is a gaping hole where communists, anarcho-syndicalists, revolutionary socialists etc would be. In practice people who call themselves moderate are usually consistently aligned with one of the two major parties, they just don't want to incur the social costs of that alignment in at least one context. Or and relatedly, they want to present themselves as being morally and intellectually superior to both, too "enlightened" to be duped into taking sides like inferior thinkers. There's nothing wrong with understanding yourself and your world well enough to pick a side on an issue, or find allies for it. Again the self-questioning you describe isn't unique to centrists nor the reason for their centrism. My positions are extreme, as are those of many of my friends and associates. We doubt too. Yet we find that we must act anyway, and risk being wrong or foolish.

benlivengood 4y ago

I don't think it's normal people pushing the polarization, at least not in the root cause analysis. The political parties are playing the meta-political game of continuing to exist and the game theory there is to slice and dice the electorate along advantageous lines in every voting district/region. The more divisive an issue, the more predictable and reliable as a tool for staying in power. Political parties have no external goals; they are self-interested and use the people within them to achieve that goal by offering carrots (which result in fulfilling the external values of normal people) or sticks (which punish defection or opposing party members). Progressivism and conservativism are not opposed on a single axis. Political parties lay claim to and label particular issues which benefits both major U.S. parties in the long run by giving them each a grab bag of issues for a particular set of voters. This is why, for example, guns and wombs have opposite signs in the personal-freedom axis for both parties. As long as the shared belief exists that an issue "belongs" to "one side" it remains useful as a political tool but nearly worthless as a policy tool for normal people. Finally, it is not the extremes leading this charge. The core DNC and RNC execute this strategy because they are locked in a struggle for survival. The DNC and RNC have successfully used the threat of the least-aligned party to trap moderate and progressive voters within the party structures. Non-partisan primaries and ranked-choice/runoff voting are starting to show moderate success (AK and NH) at changing the game theory to favor politicians who compromise on multivariate issues versus enforcing party platforms.