It's difficult when one side has a clear disinterest in using facts to back up their arguments. See evgen's comment in this thread for an immediate example. How do you have a reasonable discussion with someone whose standard of evidence for truth is conspiracy theory Youtube videos and right-wing conspiracy theory websites?

AFAICT, the one who brought up the Project Veritas was a European who is not very likely to fall cleanly into one "side" or another of our politics.

It seemed to me to be a legitimate question for an outsider to ask: these videos seem to be showing evidence of voter fraud, so how do American liberals defend their opposition to voter ID? Whether this is a credible source or not is one thing, but the guy who brought them up seemed to be making a good-faith attempt at fact-based reasoning and understanding. In any case, he clearly is not in any way representative of the side you seem to be referring to (American conservatives).

I mostly consider myself a liberal, but this cycle I see BOTH sides almost entirely divesting themselves of facts. For Trumpites, this takes the form of making up random shit, and for liberals, this takes the form of screaming racist/homophobic/xenophobic/Islamophobic at the slightest provocation, even when there's no necessary logical connection to make that claim. For instance, the idea that anyone who wants proper borders and citizenship procedures to be followed must be a racist. Not only is it illogical, that kind of name-calling directly contributes to Trump's success by making "normal" people in "flyover country" feel like they have nowhere else to go.

In short, it is not really constructive or true to pretend like all the facts are on one side and all the problems are on the other.

I understand your point, but please don't equate a poor kneejerk reaction from citizens with "making up random shit" by elected officials. They are not equivalent and "both sides are equally bad!" is bullshit.

I'm not saying both sides' arguments have equal merit. The problem I'm talking about is that we don't hear the arguments, facts, and logic anymore, from either side. Just name-calling and vitriol, for the most part.

I am not just talking about the actions of "some Democrats" here. It's more than just some, but HRC herself is not at all innocent of inciting racial and gender-based tension for her own political gain. I can provide numerous examples if you need them.

I think the Democrats would win on the merits on most issues, but neither they nor their opponents are even discussing the issues anymore.

As for the question of "who is worse" on non-factual issues, like the many despicable antics of Trump versus the hypocrisies and distortions of HRC, it's not a question I'm interested in or a game I wish to play. It seems to me that partisans on both sides will conclude the other side is worse, and there is no available standard for resolving it.

Presumably the same way as you have a reasonable discussion with someone whose standard of evidence is an unheard-of dating website that claims to be a UN member which is being conspired against by the UN, and who thinks anyone who finds this fishy is an evil Nazi rape supporter.

What?

That was my general reaction too, followed by wondering if I should start backing away slowly - this was an actual situation I got an unexpected view of yesterday as a result of a whole bunch of Clinton supporters latching onto some dubious claims and refusing to let go, no-one on that side being willing to challenge it, and their claims spilling over slightly into the HN comments. This election is pretty well post-truth.

There seems to be a bimodal distribution occurring.

In previous election cycles, I've been party to some passionate discussions. This time around, it seems that there are a bunch of people shouting vitriol, but there also some who are making an effort to be dispassionate and rational, even more so than in past elections.

So in elections past, there would always be moderately vigorous disagreement, now we have either really nasty stuff, or people honestly trying to understand each other.

That latter group is promising. On the other hand, does it portend a two-tier electorate, one that's really trying to do democracy, and the other (larger) group just shouting populist shibboleth?

I agree. I had a conversation last night trying to remember if any other time in recent history was this bad. GWB was compared to Hitler quite a lot on the fringe and MSNBC, and Obama had the whole muslim/birther thing on the other fringe and FOX, but on whole most people were pretty level headed.

I wonder if social media, where you gain followers with extreme comments, has led to this? My FB feed is story after story of either Trump will launch nukes his first day in office or the terrorist will take out the US on Clintons first day. The hyperbole just drowns out any rational argument.

> People aren't even talking to each other anymore or listening.

In fairness to "people," a perfectly open minded person could have lost patience with "This Clinton scandal will totally blow your mind!" way back in the nineties. If you've been carefully parsing the soundness of every manufactured Clinton scandal since the early nineties, I feel for you.

Having "lost patience" isn't being "a perfectly open-minded person", especially in light of the wikileaks etc. The media collusion, the FBI info, Combetta/Stonetear, the obvious health issues, etc.

The main issue is whether or not you believe that's business as usual. And it might be, I'm not discounting that.

> Having "lost patience" isn't being "a perfectly open-minded person"

Having lost patience is a function of applying heuristics to the never-ending, time-consuming task of evaluating information. I'd say open-mindedness refers more to an outlook, a goal or an attitude. They're not mutually exclusive. I get that the language is imprecise.

A person who simply dismissed every incoming datum which fell into the "This Clinton scandal will totally blow your mind!" category would have been right very close to 100% of the time, which is a pretty good heuristic. If need be, that same person can simply wait for the evidence to mount and then alter their opinion.

I have pity for anyone who really feels obligated to separate the wheat from the chaff (in the interest of open-mindedness!) when it comes to every outraged Clinton news item.