You've reduced this to only two possible positions: support the police or don't support them. How polarizing is that?

What about supporting the need for police while also supporting a need for reforming the police? I doubt there are even many cops that would disagree with a need for reform to some degree.

But creating two extreme positions, and then lumping everyone into those positions, is called politics and is considered mostly harmful.

> But creating two extreme positions, and then lumping everyone into those positions, is called politics

American politics. The amount of bipartisan countries in the world can be counted on one hand. But I get what you're saying and I agree completely.

America is certainly not the only country that divides things into "us vs them". I can think of several notable events in the past few years in various European countries that were exactly "us vs them" subjects. Even when there are multiple political parties in European politics the parties still tend to split into one of two major coalitions and those coalitions cause the people who support people in those coalitions to also divide.

Sure, fair enough. But then again those coalitions aren't generally static, but formed around circumstances, and thus don't necessarily create the same kind of blind team mentality that we see in sports for example. And the parties within the coalitions are still aware of their internal differences, they just choose to work together for a common cause, for a period of time.

That’s how it works in the U.S. as well. The political parties are made up of coalitions of voters and over time certain groups shift or change affiliation.

In Europe, you have coalitions of parties. This means voters have many choices along multiple spectra, as opposed to the US where it's one of R or D.

At least where I've voted in the US, there are rarely only two viable choices for a state or national legislature position. Some states resolve this using primaries for D/R candidates, and a few use stricter runoffs where there are frequently several D/R candidates. At least in the towns where I've lived, there were noticeable policy differences between many of these candidates within each party, although I will readily admit that I doubt this holds for most of the US. Also, it's still generally not as widely varying in views as in countries with 3+ parties (if made viable through proportional or similar voting) instead of the multiple rounds system popular in the US.

Going back to the original point someone made in this thread, I think this two-party multiple-views system in the US actually helps a bit to drive polarization. Seemingly disparate views are drawn together under a banner of [party] with an obvious (not actually clear or cohesive) enemy in the [other party].

America is one of maybe half a dozen countries in the world with a two-party system. The others are Malta, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, and a few other Caribbean countries.

What's your source? That seems extremely specious to me, for two reasons.

First, the US does not technically have a two-party system. If your standard is how many parties have seats in the national legislature or parliament, the US has three parties represented since Justin Amash is now affiliated with the Libertarian Party, as well as a few independents.

Secondly, many countries only have two parties that really matter in terms of having a realistic chance of forming a government--the UK and Canada are two examples that spring to mind. The third largest parties in those countries are the SNP and Bloc Quebecois, respectively--parties who want some specific part of the country to have greater autonomy if not independence. If your complaint is that the US doesn't have a Texas Independence Party winning seats in Congress, weird flex but okay.

Virtually every polity that uses a first-past-the-post voting system will end up with a two-party system. That's Duverger's Law. The primary counterexamples only prove the point, because they more or less replace one of the two national parties on a local level. (I used to live in Seattle, and while Seattle politics are officially non-partisan, Seattle has actually developed a de facto two-party system between mainstream Democrats and socialists.)

I personally favor multiparty systems with proportional representation, but that's no guarantee of anything. Israel (which somehow still ends up with a de facto two party system anyway) and Belgium have both notoriously failed to form majority governments for long periods of time.

The typical third party in Canada is NDP, which has had support between 15-25% of the vote within the last decade depending on the election. Which is quite different and quite more than the Libertarian party in the USA which has a very negligible influence. They also have been in power within a few provinces quite frequently. I don't think Canada was your best pick to make your point.

Canada has only ever been ruled by the liberal or conservative parties

NDP won fewer seats than Bloc Québécois in the last election. And it’s worth pointing out, I think, that the most prominent US politician who would be aligned with the NDP ideologically, Bernie Sanders, is actually an independent rather than a Democrat.

> NDP won fewer seats than Bloc Québécois

That's mostly because Bloc Québécois is concentrated in a specific province, and often specific parts of that province, while the NDP's support is spread across all the provinces.

It's the same in the UK, where the Lib Dems got triple the vote of the SNP, but less than a quarter of the seats.

Yes, as I pointed out, this is an artifact of how Duverger’s Law guarantees that first-past-the-post voting systems lead to two-party systems. BQ is one of the two parties in Quebec just as SNP is one of the two parties in Scotland.

Independents won almost 20% of the popular vote in the 1992 U.S. general election. Also hold more seats in Congress. That’s a more apt comparison, not the Libertarian Party.

You're only seeing these for specific issues that have become polarized because normal organic growth/reform/development/etc. has been halted. If it were not for the insular and unaccountable behavior of police, we would not be in a position where "abolish them entirely" would have more-than-fringe support.

Ask someone what they think of something as "political" as the H-1B program, let alone, oh, federal cheese labeling standards, and you'll see a lot of people who say "There are good and bad parts, I think we should keep the good parts and reform the bad ones, and my opinion on which specific parts are good or bad can be influenced by quality journalism."

> Ask someone what they think of something as "political" as the H-1B program, let alone, oh, federal cheese labeling standards, and you'll see a lot of people who say "There are good and bad parts, I think we should keep the good parts and reform the bad ones, and my opinion on which specific parts are good or bad can be influenced by quality journalism."

Nah. That's what I would say, but everyone else is a rabid partisan who will slavishly push whichever side their tribe is taking right now on skilled immigration. Or cheese.

Both the positions that police should completely cease to exist and that no reform should ever be carried out are so rare that they represent straw men.

When people talk about "support for the police" they are either referring to the degree to which they are comfortable with reform, or disingenuously trying to portray the situation as more partisan than it is.

"But creating two extreme positions, and then lumping everyone into those positions, is called politics"

Nice definition. Sadly, way too accurate.

Very few people outside the anarchocommunist subreddits think police are unnecessary. Reform vs police-are-untouchable are the two major wings in the US.

It’s not necessarily a binary though, is it? Articles like that enrich the discussion with new information, and may act to shift policy and perspectives over time. Expecting one article to turn someone’s opinions around completely is usually expecting too much. It’s a common expectation that “this story will change everything” but it seems to me that it takes time for things like this to sink in and change the momentum.