> To your example, there are many places where public day care would be extremely controversial because people just don't believe in taxes nor the government taking care of kids. They are already often skeptical of public schools. Frankly, the main difference between Colorado in 2012 and 2018 is probably more to do with demographic shifts than how "radial" the policy is.

> In a nutshell I'm saying, all of it, everything comes down to these basic beliefs. There can be no conversation about what the government do if one side believes the government should be trusted with nothing. There can be no conversation about what we should do with tax dollars if one side believes there should be no taxes. There can be no conversation about how to reform drug policy if one side only believes in strict punishment.

I wonder how true memes like this really are. Indeed, various statistics and observations of what people literally say can easily lead one to form this sort of conclusion, without being terribly unreasonable. However....if one had the means of sitting down with literally each individual in these groups for a very long, non-combative heart to heart discussion, would one find that the heuristic estimates of them are completely bang on, or might there be some noteworthy differential between how we perceive people to be, and how they really are (or could be after some high quality discussion)?