ahah triggered much
im so intelligent

Hive mind.

We must all think and do as one.

We must be one, make us whole.

This post was edited by kclla on Jan 23 2021 01:40pm

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-radicalized-republic/

A great article all around, but one chart struck me in particular:


When almost 40% of the country say they have no friends who support the other party, overcoming rampant polarization will be a tough nut to crack.

polling bias is a bit at play too. i have republican friends that i wouldnt categorize as "supporting trump". when i read that question i think of a maga hat wearing person with a dozen bumper stickers, not "republican voter" or even strictly "voted for trump".

Yeah that's weird to me. My best friend is a die hard capitalism teet sucking neoliberal. My second is a die hard trumper. Third is a trump out of necessity voting Ron paul fanboy. Other close friends range from AnComs to AnCaps. Politics isn't how you choose friends, it's just a decent indicator of your morals. The key factor across all of them is they agree the system is broken.

Being willing to compromise.

The subtitle says "share of registered voters who say that....", so I would assume that the pollster divided his sample into "trump/biden supporters" based on their vote in 2020, although a lot of them might be moderates or independents, or partisans who voted for their party's candidate without actually supporting him on a personal or policy level.




Wrong. This has been a recent and very central finding of political science: yes, in recent decades, people increasingly tend to choose their peer group in line with their partisan identity. Conservatives are drawn toward other conservatives and, when given a choice, will tend to socialize with them over liberals. Dito for liberals, for pro-status quo guys, or for anti-establishment guys like you and your circle of friends. This effect is also driven by geographic self-sorting and, of course, by the rise of internet echo chambers.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jan 25 2021 09:45am

there will be no such thing as genuine 'unity' in america - and that's by design. as long as the pitchfork people think the torch people are their enemies, the push for meaningful change can and will always be portrayed as the sinister attempt of the other side to destroy the country. that has worked like a charm in the past and successfully turned the US into a de facto oligarchy.

what biden will aim to accomplish is a state of affairs where everyone in their respective camp more or less just quietly accepts that, content with supporting the 'lesser' evil. despite the hilarious attempts of right-wing media to portray biden as a radical leftist, in the real world he explicitly opposed a fundamental overhaul of policing, campaign financing, and has not committed to universal healthcare. he maintained close ties with the fossil fuel industry, wall street, and the military-industrial complex, and most of his cabinet picks reflect that. that's why he's willing to reach out to the very people who have consistently violated rules, integrity, and precedent to fuck dems over whenever they had power - and will continue to do so once they regain it. it will be his way of justifying his "failure" to address some of the core problems of american society, despite dems being in charge of house and senate.

think of trumptards what you will - and i for one am certainly not a fan of their general ignorance, bigotry, and credulousness - but some of the underlying grievances he was able to tap into, the economic despair, the unprecedented inequality, and the feeling that their political leaders don't give a shit about them, those are real. of course he had no solutions, and directed their anger primarily at groups that suffer from the same exploitation and flaws, but still - if anyone wanted to achieve ACTUAL unity, those are the issues they'd have to address. not happening though.