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I consider this type of thinking to be a form of tribalism because you're essentially saying there are two tribes. Each tribe has specific values. A person's v

I consider this type of thinking to be a form of tribalism because you're essentially saying there are two tribes. Each tribe has specific values. A person's values are not a dichotomy (i.e. republican or democrat). You simply cannot put people into two buckets that define their overarching moral compass. A person can be transphobic but support abortion so they have always voted Democrat...or hate everything about Republican values except they got burned by Obamacare so they vote Republican. There is virtually an infinite level of nuance that can be a deciding factor in why someone votes for someone.

Spivak 2y ago
> transphobic but support abortion so they have always voted Democrat This is the NYT if you want a high-profile example of this existing in the real world. I worked with a guy who was a goldmine of odd but sincerely held political opinions that subverted the usual narratives. He was (I guess still is) gay but believed that trans people shouldn't serve in the military because he saw that they didn't get the treatment they needed. He wanted everyone to have guns as a protection against crooked cops-- he was from a small town. He was against single-payer healthcare because he thought the government would use it as a political weapon. He was was in theory anti-union because he thought union benefits should just be turned into labor protections for everyone instead of just being for union jobs and supported them only as a stopgap. He was pro-solar/wind and had an electric car not for any environmental reason but because he didn't want to be reliant on the greedy power company.
- GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
  i mean, his views don't sound too odd. he sounds like a communist who's got a dim view of reform or socialism as a means to communism.
- roarcher 2y ago
  To me that just sounds like someone who arrives at his political views by thinking rather than blindly adopting whatever his peers believe. It's only odd because it's (sadly) rare these days.
  - codyb 2y ago
    Yea, holy hell... someone with _nuance_ in their views? Blasphemy!
    - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
      I will admit that this is not only accurate, but also a sad commentary on the current state of things. I know I am now actively avoiding any political discussions ( I mean, realistically, I should have before, but I do hold some opinions I wish to inflict upon others ) for very pragmatic reasons. We are semi-officially in soviet state regime, where your speech can mean your family is excluded from society. It didn't start with Trump or even with Covid, but it is absolutely enraging to see this become not only a default, but encouraged aspect of this society.
- FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
  Realpolitiks... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik
- trentlott 2y ago
  > He was was in theory anti-union because he thought union benefits should just be turned into labor protections for everyone Uh, hmm. So weaker unions result in labor protections for everyone? I gotta say, doesn't seem like that's really how the U.S. is playing out. If weekends off and an 8-hour workday didn't exist they certainly wouldn't be argued for now.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    US has very strong unions, you don't have anything close to SAG-AFTRA in Europe since such strong unions are illegal. European unions are just big, but their are reigned in by laws much more. So yeah I think weakening the protections unions from workers in USA enjoys would lead to more people joining them, since there is less risk in doing so. Most people don't wanna work in an industry dominated by something like the screen actors guild.
calf 2y ago
Tribalism is just bad sociology, that's where the nuance is missing.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> person can be transphobic but support abortion so they have always voted Democrat The term you're looking for is political coherence, i.e. the degree to which you can predict a person's views based on knowing their view on one issue. Political elites tend to be highly coherent. If you know a Congressperson's views on guns, you probably know them on abortion and corporate taxes. In the real world, however, votes tend not to be politically coherent. Instead, what we see in a hyperpartisan polity, is that a diverse set of views collapses after an issue achieves partisan identity status. Talking about a thing through a partisan lens is what causes the partisan collapse. Hence the effects of mass and then social media on the quality of our discussions. (And I agree with OP that the author's "I'm above politics" stance is naively immature.)
- archon1410 2y ago
  > Political elites tend to be highly coherent Coherence might not the word you're looking for. The policies of political parties and groups are born out of historical circumstances and the diverse coalitions they represent. Political elites are "coherent" in the sense that you can expect them to consistently follow the party line, and thus infer all of their views just by knowing one of their views. The party line, i.e. platform of the Democratic and Republican parties, or any other large political party in the world, is, by itself, nothing coherent though. Many of their policies and claims do not make any more sense besides each other than they would make against each other. Realignments on issues are pretty common across the world. What is left-wing in one part of the world at one point of time might be rightist across space and time.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    This is a difference in the subject of coherence. Logical coherence refers to the variation and predictive power of the reasoning. Coherence can also be used to describe the variability and predictability of positions or states themselves. If you measure the characteristics of some photons in a coherent laser, you know what the other photons are doing. They are predictable using a model. Logic is a poor predictive model for politics. Tribe identification is a strong predictive model for politics
ryan_lane 2y ago
You're acting as if people are saying "democrat good, republican bad" as the meaning for associating values with who someone voted for, but missing the part that you can easily associate that someone has poor values if they voted for Trump. Sure, you need to go a bit deeper if someone didn't vote for Trump to know their values, but voting for someone who ran on a platform of mass deportations, retaliation against his enemies, obvious idiotic economic policy, homophobia and transphobia, and racism, makes you a kind of shit person, and it's not really necessary to go any deeper to know their values don't match yours.
- ryaniscool 2y ago
  So you're saying >50% of the USA population are objectively shit people? If you're a member of the other 50%, you aren't automatically shit but you still could be? Seems bleak dude. Also, consider that conservative media has indoctrinated people to think like you do...except in the opposite direction. i.e. if you voted for Kamala or Biden, you're the enemy.
  - 1659447091 2y ago
    Where are you getting >50% of the population from? He did not even get 50% of the votes cast for president. More people in the USA opted out of voting for him than to vote for him.
  - ryan_lane 2y ago
    MAGA isn't 50% of the population. Voter turnout was 63.7% for 2024, so I'm saying that ~32% of the USA population are objectively shit people, in the same way that Germans who supported Hitler were objectively shit people. If you can't see that disappearing people without due process is wrong, you don't have good values. If you can't see that pardoning conmen, and insurrectionists is wrong, you don't have good values. If you can't see the use of Venezuelan prisons and Guantanamo Bay as extralegal black sites as wrong, you don't have good values. If you can't see that a president illegally ignoring the courts and congress is wrong, you don't have good values. You could say that some of the other stuff that's happening is just an extension of the culture war, and that it's a matter of interpretation of whether it's wrong or not (DEI hate, transgender issues, abortion rights, etc). I don't agree, but those topics are harder to give a black and white answer on whether it's wrong or right. Clear violations of the constitution, ignoring basic human rights, and doing straight up crime are black and white issues, and in general, most Trump voters support these things, and these are things he campaigned on, so even if they disagree with them now, they voted to allow it to happen.

Spivak 2y ago

> transphobic but support abortion so they have always voted Democrat This is the NYT if you want a high-profile example of this existing in the real world. I worked with a guy who was a goldmine of odd but sincerely held political opinions that subverted the usual narratives. He was (I guess still is) gay but believed that trans people shouldn't serve in the military because he saw that they didn't get the treatment they needed. He wanted everyone to have guns as a protection against crooked cops-- he was from a small town. He was against single-payer healthcare because he thought the government would use it as a political weapon. He was was in theory anti-union because he thought union benefits should just be turned into labor protections for everyone instead of just being for union jobs and supported them only as a stopgap. He was pro-solar/wind and had an electric car not for any environmental reason but because he didn't want to be reliant on the greedy power company.

GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
i mean, his views don't sound too odd. he sounds like a communist who's got a dim view of reform or socialism as a means to communism.
roarcher 2y ago
To me that just sounds like someone who arrives at his political views by thinking rather than blindly adopting whatever his peers believe. It's only odd because it's (sadly) rare these days.
- codyb 2y ago
  Yea, holy hell... someone with _nuance_ in their views? Blasphemy!
  - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
    I will admit that this is not only accurate, but also a sad commentary on the current state of things. I know I am now actively avoiding any political discussions ( I mean, realistically, I should have before, but I do hold some opinions I wish to inflict upon others ) for very pragmatic reasons. We are semi-officially in soviet state regime, where your speech can mean your family is excluded from society. It didn't start with Trump or even with Covid, but it is absolutely enraging to see this become not only a default, but encouraged aspect of this society.
FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
Realpolitiks... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik
trentlott 2y ago
> He was was in theory anti-union because he thought union benefits should just be turned into labor protections for everyone Uh, hmm. So weaker unions result in labor protections for everyone? I gotta say, doesn't seem like that's really how the U.S. is playing out. If weekends off and an 8-hour workday didn't exist they certainly wouldn't be argued for now.
- Jensson 2y ago
  US has very strong unions, you don't have anything close to SAG-AFTRA in Europe since such strong unions are illegal. European unions are just big, but their are reigned in by laws much more. So yeah I think weakening the protections unions from workers in USA enjoys would lead to more people joining them, since there is less risk in doing so. Most people don't wanna work in an industry dominated by something like the screen actors guild.

calf 2y ago

Tribalism is just bad sociology, that's where the nuance is missing.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> person can be transphobic but support abortion so they have always voted Democrat The term you're looking for is political coherence, i.e. the degree to which you can predict a person's views based on knowing their view on one issue. Political elites tend to be highly coherent. If you know a Congressperson's views on guns, you probably know them on abortion and corporate taxes. In the real world, however, votes tend not to be politically coherent. Instead, what we see in a hyperpartisan polity, is that a diverse set of views collapses after an issue achieves partisan identity status. Talking about a thing through a partisan lens is what causes the partisan collapse. Hence the effects of mass and then social media on the quality of our discussions. (And I agree with OP that the author's "I'm above politics" stance is naively immature.)

archon1410 2y ago
> Political elites tend to be highly coherent Coherence might not the word you're looking for. The policies of political parties and groups are born out of historical circumstances and the diverse coalitions they represent. Political elites are "coherent" in the sense that you can expect them to consistently follow the party line, and thus infer all of their views just by knowing one of their views. The party line, i.e. platform of the Democratic and Republican parties, or any other large political party in the world, is, by itself, nothing coherent though. Many of their policies and claims do not make any more sense besides each other than they would make against each other. Realignments on issues are pretty common across the world. What is left-wing in one part of the world at one point of time might be rightist across space and time.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  This is a difference in the subject of coherence. Logical coherence refers to the variation and predictive power of the reasoning. Coherence can also be used to describe the variability and predictability of positions or states themselves. If you measure the characteristics of some photons in a coherent laser, you know what the other photons are doing. They are predictable using a model. Logic is a poor predictive model for politics. Tribe identification is a strong predictive model for politics

ryan_lane 2y ago

You're acting as if people are saying "democrat good, republican bad" as the meaning for associating values with who someone voted for, but missing the part that you can easily associate that someone has poor values if they voted for Trump. Sure, you need to go a bit deeper if someone didn't vote for Trump to know their values, but voting for someone who ran on a platform of mass deportations, retaliation against his enemies, obvious idiotic economic policy, homophobia and transphobia, and racism, makes you a kind of shit person, and it's not really necessary to go any deeper to know their values don't match yours.

ryaniscool 2y ago
So you're saying >50% of the USA population are objectively shit people? If you're a member of the other 50%, you aren't automatically shit but you still could be? Seems bleak dude. Also, consider that conservative media has indoctrinated people to think like you do...except in the opposite direction. i.e. if you voted for Kamala or Biden, you're the enemy.
- 1659447091 2y ago
  Where are you getting >50% of the population from? He did not even get 50% of the votes cast for president. More people in the USA opted out of voting for him than to vote for him.
- ryan_lane 2y ago
  MAGA isn't 50% of the population. Voter turnout was 63.7% for 2024, so I'm saying that ~32% of the USA population are objectively shit people, in the same way that Germans who supported Hitler were objectively shit people. If you can't see that disappearing people without due process is wrong, you don't have good values. If you can't see that pardoning conmen, and insurrectionists is wrong, you don't have good values. If you can't see the use of Venezuelan prisons and Guantanamo Bay as extralegal black sites as wrong, you don't have good values. If you can't see that a president illegally ignoring the courts and congress is wrong, you don't have good values. You could say that some of the other stuff that's happening is just an extension of the culture war, and that it's a matter of interpretation of whether it's wrong or not (DEI hate, transgender issues, abortion rights, etc). I don't agree, but those topics are harder to give a black and white answer on whether it's wrong or right. Clear violations of the constitution, ignoring basic human rights, and doing straight up crime are black and white issues, and in general, most Trump voters support these things, and these are things he campaigned on, so even if they disagree with them now, they voted to allow it to happen.