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> The pendulum swings back by the middle looking at the extreme and saying "No, you're insane, we aren't going to walk down your road." Why do you believe that

> The pendulum swings back by the middle looking at the extreme and saying "No, you're insane, we aren't going to walk down your road." Why do you believe that this will happen?

AnimalMuppet 1y ago
Because I believe that there are online zealots, and those zealots are very loud, and they are persuading people to agree (or at least go along), but most of those people are not themselves zealots. As they have to live with the consequences of the zealotry, they're going to not like it - not like it enough to be persuaded that it is not the answer. At that point you still have a bunch of zealots yammering online, but with a lot fewer people listening, and a lot fewer people voting the way the zealots want.
- btilly 1y ago
  I consider this optimistic. The usual response for people whose ideologies have lead to problems, is to double down on their ideologies. After which cognitive dissonance makes it easy to reject all evidence of their own mistakes. But your point is that most people are not zealots. True. But we live in a country which, thanks to gerrymandering, mostly sees politicians lose re-election in the primary. And since primaries bring out the most motivated people in your own party, that means that you are most likely to be replaced by someone who is more to the taste of zealots. And the sight of the other party becoming more extreme, breeds future zealots to continue the process. This dynamic is one of the key reasons why politicians have become more extreme over the last couple of decades. With the result that, despite the fact that most of us would gladly vote for a more moderate person, in an election we're forced to choose between extremes. And for over 80% of us, our choice truly doesn't matter. We live in districts that have a sufficient partisan lean that the outcome is essentially predetermined.

> The pendulum swings back by the middle looking at the extreme and saying "No, you're insane, we aren't going to walk down your road." Why do you believe that this will happen?

AnimalMuppet 1y ago

Because I believe that there are online zealots, and those zealots are very loud, and they are persuading people to agree (or at least go along), but most of those people are not themselves zealots. As they have to live with the consequences of the zealotry, they're going to not like it - not like it enough to be persuaded that it is not the answer. At that point you still have a bunch of zealots yammering online, but with a lot fewer people listening, and a lot fewer people voting the way the zealots want.

btilly 1y ago
I consider this optimistic. The usual response for people whose ideologies have lead to problems, is to double down on their ideologies. After which cognitive dissonance makes it easy to reject all evidence of their own mistakes. But your point is that most people are not zealots. True. But we live in a country which, thanks to gerrymandering, mostly sees politicians lose re-election in the primary. And since primaries bring out the most motivated people in your own party, that means that you are most likely to be replaced by someone who is more to the taste of zealots. And the sight of the other party becoming more extreme, breeds future zealots to continue the process. This dynamic is one of the key reasons why politicians have become more extreme over the last couple of decades. With the result that, despite the fact that most of us would gladly vote for a more moderate person, in an election we're forced to choose between extremes. And for over 80% of us, our choice truly doesn't matter. We live in districts that have a sufficient partisan lean that the outcome is essentially predetermined.