The US was never going to win a contest that calls for unity and obedience. I’ve usually found it admirable, though not right now.

I can take a guess. People consume different information sources, and have different ideologies. So, they may arrive at different conclusions than you. I suspect this is more heavily on the ideology side because it's hard to deny the body count.

It was more of a rhetorical question. I know why it's happening, it's just ridiculous and infuriating that it is happening.

Anyone who comes in with good faith and actually objectively looks at the statistics and response can't possibly come to a different conclusion. The problem comes down to the "good faith" and "objective" parts of that sentence.

Don't discount the power of our filter bubbles. Someone can have good faith but their objectivity goes out the window because of the information they consume.

I can't help but wonder if the nature of the US being a 'melting pot' doesn't result in more difficulty in achieving agreement on national policy decisions. I'm not saying that diversity is bad. In most cases, we benefit enormously from being a melting pot. However, on some national policy topics it makes me wonder.