It's a big problem for the left because numerically they are now the minority of voters, but are still trending away from the center, and shedding their more moderate members.
On the right, you can be shunned by MAGA or shunned by the religious right, but still be welcome within the republican party.
On the left, you cannot challenge with any of the tent pole policies without being shunned entirely.
The opposite is true for the left and the Democratic Party. Those circles tend to be very orthodox if you live in a lefty urban area. Disagree with one major platform issue and you're immediately suspected. If you're in the suburbs or a rural area you'll find that left-leaning people are much more heterodox.
Purity spirals are most intense in enclaves, which are echo chambers.
You'll find the same phenomenon online with regard to echo chambers. If you're in a left or right wing echo chamber, the purity spiral phenomenon is intense.
It's a complete social poison pill in the city to have voted a certain way. Have had the same look of "how could you be that dumb" from people ranging from strippers to lawyers.
All I want is love and belonging, not sure how to feel love when I've heard the word "barbarian" to describe certain types of people. Not sure how to feel love when men's loneliness and suicide problems aren't being prioritized
Yeah, the hurt turns into anger sometimes, but yes, I need them too. For me to exist, my opposite has to exist, and I should love us both.
And it can hurt me so much when I see people in my life attack people very hard for voting for Trump. The ones in my life who voted for him sometimes seem to be the ones who are craving the most social connection, the most interaction, and don't get it. They seem to want to engage with people and sometimes the best way to engage is to say something controversial. Like the kid who can't get the mom's attention and so starts hitting her in the leg.
People on the right are not a basket of deplorables, they're human beings who want love and attention, often from those who they fear think they're better than them. Often from those they admire the most, who keep ignoring them and running away from them.
So thank you for sharing this and helping me see this even more deeply and lovingly.
People have despaired of making common cause, because bipartisanship IS punished within the republican party, and by FOX.
I can apprecaite my fellow man, but I must also answer the question posed by the success of their tactics. I know that during the Bush era, the republicans would be AGHAST at someone like him. Someone who openly doubted McCain?? Good gravy, that would have been something to see.
But reality has drifted, and political success has dependend more and more on extremism and animosity. They can dispute the existence of evolution, and succeed in making it an issue!
Today, all that seems to matter is poltical efficiency. People have voted for Trump even KNOWING that he is going to be terrible, but because he is better for their goals.
I can feel for everyone, but as the right likes to say - who gives a frig about your feelings?
What matters is winning.
Make emapthy win. Make bipartisanship work again, then you have a chance. But why should the republicans ever do that? Their approach has given them everything they have ever desired.
Their primary focus should be retaining voters, by broadening the range of opinions which are acceptable within the party.
They are a decade down a purity spiral, which has resulted in the range of acceptable opinions within the party shrinking considerably, and the shunning of many individuals unnecessarily, who either stop voting altogether or find company on the right.
I gave the example above of how the republican party is able to accomodate a significant number of both pro-life and pro-choice members. The Democrats will similarly need to learn to expand their umbrella as well. Perhaps not with abortion rights, but maybe by shedding some of their zero-sum economic thinking, or race-centric thinking.
If they can fix this, they will grow, because their biggest source of new members is young adults becoming eligible to vote, not people they pull away from the right. The Democrats just need to stop churning so many people away.
I think this is the big one here. Race and gender, this seems to be the only thing Dems can even talk about. I just saw videos from the recent DNC winter meeting. Watch for just 75 seconds starting here: https://youtu.be/1pHvkq4ehkE?t=93
I guess this apparently plays well among the tiny base that the DNC still has, but when most independents and moderates look at this nonsense, this party is a caricature of itself.
And my point isn't that they need to pull the far right into their tent somehow. But rather that most people including the average first-time voters, are much more moderate than the current DNC has positioned itself now, and it seems like Dems mostly just want to shock them rather than win their hearts.
The Bush era has been the worst disaster for the right wing this century in both the US and potentially globally. He was a warmonger, an economic vandal and an unprincipled man at the helm of a state that flubbed any chance at setting up for meaningful long term success in favour of the patriot act and slaughtering goat herders in the middle east. Under his eye the Republicans exiled the right from cultural relevance for around a decade.
There is a reason the modern Republican party went with Trump rather than another person who looked like Bush. The entire Trump story has been the Republicans - without too much recrimination - attempting to purge the remains of the Bush era because they were a gross embarrassment whos legacy has been little short of a disaster. If the US Democrats had undertaken the same purge instead of embracing the leadership of the same era then they wouldn't have tried to run Biden then Kamala.
And how those standards don’t matter on the right.
Bush was an idiot, does stating that satisfy you ? Would that allow you the peace to reconnect with the point ? (Also yeah. Warmongers suck. Surprisingly something everyone agrees on. The anti war position is the OG leftie position, so it’s great to see it on the right.)
That isn't what is happening; if they were focused on winning at all costs they wouldn't ever nominate Trump. The man has some of the most dedicated enemies out there short of those found in a multi-generational religious war and he doesn't poll especially well. The female half of the population tend to be a bit lukewarm towards him and that doesn't help win elections either since there are a lot of them.
The Republicans are engaged in an ideological reform to clear out specifically the people who were active in the Bush years. That happens to be a broader election winner too.
All that matters is that Trump wins elections. This isn’t even a secret, this is literally what many Trump voters have said.
And since when do Repubs care 1 whit about enemies?
Finally - you are free to believe what you like. If this makes you feel better, so be it. I have no desire to take it from you.
I see that in politics in a lot of ways. I'm still figuring out my concept model for it, but the experience of religious exit is showing similarities.
No, they fear they are no longer above the people that used to be below them, specifically women and people with darker skin tones.
> And it can hurt me so much when I see people in my life attack people very hard for voting for Trump.
And it actually hurts my children when my daughter loses access to women’s healthcare, and kids lose protection from diseases that had effectively been eradicated by vaccines.
As a libertarian who voted conservative (democratic) nationally for the first time in 2020, this narrative is so upside down. The overriding dynamic is that of the wedge issue, where republicans dredge up things our society either took for granted or at least agreed to disagree on and reanimate the old arguments. They find or craft the worst hyperbolic instances that appeal to thirty second attention spans, and then harp on them until there are enough "independent thinkers" staking out a contrarian position to make it an "issue".
The democratic party has its problems and is still fundamentally working to serve the corporate status quo. But contrast the soul searching that's been going on even since November, to the unapologetic doubling down of "stop the steal" in response to an objectively disastrous first Trump term.
The real answer is that people are squeezed, angry, don't know how good they actually have it, don't want to listen to reason, and just want to fuck shit up. Well, now we're all going to get it good and hard.
(edit: added /s tag to mitigate Poe's law, as it's 2025)
This mindset, these words, are the exact reason why you lost and Trump is now in office.
In the short term, I am sure I will benefit greatly from Trump’s leadership, just like I did last time. In the long term, I need to plan for what is best for my family to live in a country (world?) with less and less societal trust/cohesion (including family members).
Maybe the reality of this level of tribalism was always there, temporarily hidden from me by my youth and economic momentum from previous decades.
Some things are black and white.
I used to think we were a little better, though.
For the record, I actually like some of Trump’s ideas, like no (earned) income tax, about Gaza, and I would still buy a Tesla (although I would prefer if a different automaker that isn’t led by someone who makes Nazi salutes would make buying a car as easy as Tesla).
But he’s not the guy I want my kids to see as the leader of their country, both for his character and his support of other policies/traitors/racism/general chaotic nature.
The one issue voter who only cares about free speech on the internet isn't "opposed" to women's rights.
In you're way of thinking it sounds like you support killing babies... it's pretty black and white...
Literally no one is killing babies who can survive outside of their moms for fun. They are all medically necessary healthcare procedures.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/04/raw-data-abor...
Or someone can have the courage to change the situation. The nice benefit is that by ridding the hate in ourselves, we feel better even if the other side doesn't.
Ultimately, the left numerically cannot win an election until they escape it. It’s up to them whether they do.
> A purity spiral is a theory which argues for the existence of a form of groupthink in which it becomes more beneficial to hold certain views than to not hold them, and more extreme views are rewarded while expressing doubt, nuance, or moderation is punished (a process sometimes called "moral outbidding").[1] It is argued that this feedback loop leads to members competing to demonstrate the zealotry or purity of their views.[2][3]
I believe the problem is that people need to learn how to feel loved. To realize that even our enemies are trying their best and most likely care about us a lot more than they would ever admit. Both sides struggle with this. People on the current left tend to just resign and give up on the relationships. People on the right tend to seek vengeance.