I’m not sure exactly what the catalyst moment was that could’ve started the tribalism around politics that we all can witness today, but I do believe that the structures in place today, specifically the mainstream media & specific influencers help to ignite further division amongst those with different viewpoints from one another.
The good news is that we are seeing more and more conversations being had amongst those with differing viewpoints and long conversations at that. For a long time, there was not many alternative news sources that one can tune into and that would last a few hours so that nuanced viewpoints can be better fished out.
We are seeing more and more people come out and try to make sense of everything that has been happening all over the world and country overall. These voices are more a mixture of different viewpoints, more reasonable, more tolerable, etc.
Different viewpoints need to be able to have a platform and extremists on both sides need to not have one.
More options are available for everyone to seek multiple opinions on something so that they are not stuck or at the behest of one or two sources that may or may not intentionally contorting or misreporting facts.
My solution to this division?
•Longer conversations amongst differing viewpoints on alternative news platforms.
All we have is conversation and if we don’t have this then we are doomed for further division, destruction, chaos, etc.
What do you think is the cause of the rather extreme political divide and tribalism in the US and what do you think can better it?
In truth, we've been here before. In the 1960s and 70s, we had an era of race riots, a low intensity war, campus radicalism, assassinations, populism, "do your own thing," and political extremism. One need only mention Kent State, the SLA, the Black Panthers, the Kennedy assassinations, and the Martin Luther King assassination, Charles Manson or the year 1968 to be reminded of the recent past.
Then there was the small matter of a civil war. Four years of war fought to the nth degree. The result was over 650,000 Americans, killed at each other's hands. That is an ocean of blood that Americans did not even match in either world war, indeed in both world wars combined.
That said, the current tumult has its roots in many of the same factors. To start, the 1950s were a period of relative - and it is always relative - peace, prosperity and stability because the period before it had been so chaotic. Two economic depressions, one global pandemic, two world wars and the Korean War with only the interval of the 1920s as comparatively quite. Even then, the 20s were the "Ballyhoo Years," because the old Victorian social model had been destroyed by the Great War. So even amidst the comparatively good times there was a sense of social ennui.
So the 50s were quiet, stable and prosperous. A people that had been through so much wanted nothing but peace and quiet and normality. Yet the generation raised in that peace and quiet took it for granted. It assumed that such stability was to be expected and the imperfections it saw around it were intolerable. Thus was born the tumult of the 1960s and 70.
The same is at work again, The reaction to the upheavals of the 60s and 70s was the comparative calm of the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s. Re-play the tape. Thus now much social upheaval.
In that connection, the generation that protested and rioted in the 1960s has now come of age. They run companies, hold high political office and are otherwise the establishment against which they once protested. This setting the stage for an upper middle class populism that rejects authority even as it seeks to impose authority.
In that connection, another factor is the transitioning of the economy from a manufacturing/extractions base to a service/high tech base. This is having the dual effect of putting downward pressure on the working class as it elevates the well-to-do college educated. The result is a split between a working class that saw itself as family oriented, church going and patriotic, but that now feels abandoned and betrayed. On the flip side is a well educated upper and and upper middle class that has the luxury of forcing dynamic social change. Thus a social divide.
Then there is the technology, although this is having a strangely opposite effect to the one it had historically demonstrated. Movies, radio and television were all mass media. They caused everyone who used them, whatever their views, to view the world through more or less the same intellectual prism and thus conduced to social cohesion. Yet with the advent of cable and social media, a reverse effect has come into play. These technologies allow everyone to view the world through a self-selected narrower focus, thus making a commonality of thought and language more problematic.
Thus in the 1960s, when technology seemed to reinforce conformity, there were protests "against the man," and calls to "do your own thing." This putting up a resistance to the conforming factors in society, By contrast, now the calls are for "woke-ism" and "cancel culture." This a resistance to the splintering forces of technology.
These are but a few of the chief factors leading to the current political tumult. The politics follows the culture and the culture is in a period of division and upheaval. Yet as the nation grew weary of the high volume of the 1917 to 1953 and 1960 to 1980 eras, so it may in time grow weary and seek the relative quiet of the 1950s and the 1980s to early 2000s eras. (Just as a fun aside, the evidence already exists in a pop cultural way that the nation is growing weary. What show was the most popular sitcom of the 1970s? "Happy Days," a comedy set in the nostalgia of the 1950s. Flash forward, what movie is blowing it away at the box office right now? "Top Gun - Maverick," A film based on a 1980s file with larger than life heroes and patriotism as the themes. More nostalgia for better times?)
This pendulum swinging back and forth until - as with all things mortal and imperfect - it stops swinging altogether. That being said, "we know not the day nor the hour" and so the obligation of any good citizen is to recall the words of Rudyard Kipling. "If you can keep your head about you when all others are losing theirs', then you will be a man, my son."
Well…to start with, I don’t think we have very good people in our country, by and large. Almost everyone sucks, and has completely wrong priorities and goals, like we have the point of life all fucked up. I’m not going to pretend that I for sure know “the point of life”, but what we seem to think it is, I feel very confident that this ain’t it.
I think we also have a problem where there isn’t a true separation of church and state, or maybe even we need more of a separation between church and SOCIETY. There seems to be a hardcore Christian faction (no broad disrespect to Christians, just talking about the more absolutist ones) that thinks Christian values have to be everybody’s values, basically “because God/Jesus says so.” It’s tough to explain to the devoutly religious that their core fundamental beliefs about literally everything in existence are simply conjecture, as are all religions, and therefore cannot be the guiding light of your country’s system of values. Not everyone is Christian. It doesn’t make you a bad person to be a Christian, it doesn’t make you a bad person to NOT be a Christian. But it’s just simply not a universally accepted truth, no matter how much one might believe it to be or want it to be (or even how correct they may be if the Christians happen to be correct), so it just can’t be the baseline for your standards of broad society about anything. Remember, most of us don’t need God or threat of punishment in another life to agree that certain things are dick moves, societally. I don’t need that hanging over my head to NOT murder or rape or rob, just lmfao, that’s not exclusive to Christian values.
And I bring this all up just because I feel like so many of our Christian faction have this attitude that we can’t run afoul of THEIR Bible, none of us, and they’re going to make what all of us are doing THEIR business, and that’s the start of a huge problem, right there. Worse, I feel like some Christians feel that they can do no wrong as long as they believe they’re doing it in their religion’s name, so they loudly and proudly go after individuals or groups they don’t like, and they feel bulletproof with this “God is on my side” attitude, so they think it’s their way or the highway. And you just can’t have a supposedly “free” country that has a large amount of people like that affecting outcomes in society, not on religious grounds anyway.
No matter how much you love Jesus, you do America, allegedly “the land of the free”, a HUGE disservice when you can’t suspend those beliefs in your law-making (as a politician), in your voting (as a voter), and when interacting with others in society (as a citizen). AMERICA IS NOT A WHITE, CHRISTIAN COUNTRY, bottom line. Anyone who wants that, look elsewhere, that’s not what we are, and it’s not a bad thing, either. America should be plenty comfortable for those who ARE Christian (and white, if applicable), I’m just saying you need to keep that to yourself, as anyone should with their religious beliefs. If you create, observe, or seek out reasons for division, you’ll find them. Right now, given our diversity of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, all that…. you just can’t have this place exist without being accepting of everyone. This is where we are, like it or not. It’s never going to be run by white Christians on exclusively and deliberately Christian values, with a small smattering of others to do the shitty work we don’t want to do, ever again. Those days have gone by. You can’t make abortion illegal “because Jesus”, you can’t permit anti-LGBTQ attitudes “because Jesus”, you can’t refuse to abandon things that aren’t working because “it’s my God-given right.” We have to operate as if all of that is a fairy tale, because it’s just not what everyone is rooted in, and you can’t make it so, even if YOU believe it to be unequivocally true and correct.
I think one group believes that their belief on the value of human beings is threatened by the exclusionary remarks and attitudes of political leaders and another group believes their belief on social functions and roles is threatened because of the radical creativity of newly clustered gender identity acceptance, both groups want to respect human society and human freedoms but they have different priorities on how to achieve those goals.
Seems to me it is due to some people thinking the government should handle everything in life, and others thinking it should not.
One side thinks everything should be free, total socialism... the other is the complete opposite, that everyone should have to work for everything they want in life.
I think the genegis of the great divide started with the Jimmy Carter Administration. He is such an honorable man that we all wanted to like him, but he was an absolutely horrible President, reminescent of Biden, and the public blamed him for the horrible inflation at that time (13.5% in 1980!) He GAVE the Panama Canal back to Panama. We had energy shortages. He tried to withdraw military forces from South Korea. Iranian students seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days!
Then, in 1980, Ronald Reagan became president and the country prospered and conservatism seems to have taken a strong hold on the country. Once Reagan was reelected in 1984, the MSM began to see that the situation looked bleak for the left. When the Nicaraguan scandal of arms shipped to the Contras, the MSM saw this as similar to Watergate and assumed it was an opportunity to topple Reagan and pave the way for a Democrat to win the 1988 election. Political campaigns were becoming more dependent on television and it fed the MSM need for power to make things happen.
So, in that time, the MSM turned from reporting the news to trying to influence and shape the news, and it has become increasingly more acrid since then.
Why conservatives allowed it to happen, I do not know, but the left was left unchallenged as it maneuvered for control of public education. This allowed the left to begin indoctrinating the youngest Americans and prepared them to be led by the political activists in the MSM.
The taste of power has fueled the desire for even more power and the result is what you see today. We don't have political contests, we have political terrorism, unabashed, with the rationale that the ends justfies the means.
A concerted effort among most institutions both public and private to work towards the “glorious revolution” of state communism in the west. Brainwashing in the schools, 24/7 media blitz otherwise. The ideas put forward by these institutions such mainstream media (locked into the hard left, even the controlled opposition known as Fox), public education (owned wholesale by leftist teachers unions who have made it nearly impossible to get into teaching or stay in teaching without mouthing the right sounds and avoiding even the appearance of divergence from the union’s agenda which function as their gatekeepers. Don’t join the union you say? It’s legal for them to deduct from your paycheck an amount of money equal to their dues but you don’t get benefits or their protection, and that’s if you can find a district that will hire outside the union to begin with), public discourse (see Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat etc kicking people off for political reasons while still hiding behind section 230), and conservatives rights to assemble and petition the government for the redress of grievances. When official response is so blatantly biased, it is understandable that people on the losing side of that bias are going to have a reaction to that. Both major parties refer to the other as idiots, incompetent, thieves, liars, cheats, etc. while these accusations are provable in some cases, they do not foster a sense that dialogue is possible. Elected officials and media mouthpieces conspire to create civil violence on a regular basis. Pelosi, Waters, and Schumer as examples (though I’m sure there are others) have overtly incited their followers to violence, which is certainly not helping the situation.
As for solutions, I think your ideas about dialogue are a great starting point. Stubborn refusal on either side to negotiate in situations where tension is wound as tight as it is right now has historically led to blood, and I think we can agree that is the last thing any of us want.
I disagree. I think most people want blood right now. Assassination is way to much of a talking point these days.
Personally Ide love to see biden shot on live tv XD. I think he’s a traitor that wants to destroy this country. At best he’s incompetent and that incompetence is costing lives. He needs to be held responsible. But that’s just my views. More violence won’t solve this issue and if we escalate to civil war with people as divided and hateful as they are now… oh god the streets will run like blood.
@VanillaSalt It won’t be a long war between people armed to the teeth and people who get offended and cry if they don’t get what they want. Charitably, I think the American people needed an object demonstration of how bad leftist rule is, to provide sufficient motivation to hold people and institutions accountable. Whether that accountability is in the form of dumping the entire cohort of elected officials or a civil war if they won’t go peacefully remains to be seen. The elites are already declaring war on our bank accounts and food supplies to force us to become dependent on them, once that threshold is crossed there will be no coming back. It’s now or never to prevent the fundamental restructuring of America. We’ll know by the end of the year how the American experiment turns out.
No we won’t. Just cause America does dont mean Americans will just go back to being 2nd class. I don’t think enough Americans are strong enough to refuse to bow for privilege but I know too many are coddled to the point if you take their comfort they will rage.
I believe conspiracy. I think someone is actively trying to destroy governments as we know them. The United States have never been weaker. Such a systematic attack against the country and its people all at once? You can only claim coincidence and incompetence for so long before I can’t help but think your doing it on purpose.
Let’s look at the problems we face. Division between the sexes. Division between races. Division between politics. Why? Too much too fast. Covid and lockdowns took everything from 100 to 0 instantly. Everyone’s lives changed and people were forced into new situations. People either forced into their homes with family for months on end or single people separated even more from society. Children without friends lovers either separated or forced into tough situations. Finances struggling.
This lead to losing work ethic and homelessness and depression furthering the divide between the classes. People don’t trust anymore… others, the government, their own partners.
It’s was society that maintained this country and the downfall of society means the downfall of the country as we know it.
It is a way to keep people divided so we don't unite against the real cause of our troubles. It has become way to obvious recently. They don't even try to hide how they use it.
Tribalism is normal. we all need support and to belong as part of something bigger to have more power. However there is no need for the bounders we have bought into. If the powers that be can keep the tribes small and at each others throat with some kind of visible distinction we will keep it going on our own.
Thing is today most people have seen through it. We realize that race is a made up concept. it does not exist. And people have found that common ground in the struggles we all face together.
As long as we stop buying into their labels and let them dictate through slanted media and propaganda they will lose that power. They should be afraid, very afraid. Because we the one tribe will no longer take their elitist tribes trampling.
With these powers combined... you get a bunch of corrupt politicians and a media that makes sure we think the OTHER is the "corrupt party", and then makes us hate our fellow American rather than the politicians.
Though I'll say something about Fox News, Trump, and the GOP. Their corrupt asses actually represent the right wing of this country. The DNC hasn't represented the left wing in ages. They just get votes because they are to the left of the GOP. So Republicans tend to root for their politicians. But you don't see someone storming the capitol flying some "Biden" flag because we don't worship our damned politicians.
Ok then mr leftie… what was your sides response every time you felt your candidate won? There was a lot of digging into the 2016 election and bad behavior from your side. They insisted trump didn’t win. I can’t remember which state but the Democrat governor claimed to win but the count said otherwise. Spent months claiming this. Did you care enough to respond?
And when trump wanted the elections verified why wasn’t the first choice to recount? If I’m fact getting lost it shoulda be fine to recount to verify. Many many people on the right feel it was stolen. You could've resolved a lot of the problem by doing the damn recount.
We’re struggling while a Democrat sends 44 billion to Ukraine… gas prices up and biden shuts down oil leases. Your guys trash and deserves to be shot in the face… ironically most of the country agrees lmao.
Big question I need to know. If the country was in the state it’s in and trump was president… what would you recommend? Impeachment? Assassination? Tough it out for 2 more years? How much more damage can he do at this point?
Idc about sides. But when I see your side as at best incompetent at worst traitors I fee I have to pick the GOP… ironically it’s your fault we have to choose between trump and DeSantis in 2024…
A). The US is stuck with a two party system. B). The two parties go opposite each other on nearly every issue. C) 3rd party voting to rarer parties usually splits the competition and the opposite major party wins, fear control voting. My solution, start rank choice voting like in Australia and other countries which can break the two political monopolies we're inevitably tied to. Also, like in France, stop all political adds and televised events one week before until the election is over. That lowers the consternation of picking each ranked choice.
I think the divide is caused by the power the Government has. if the Government is weak then your idiot neighbor voting for the idiot that wants to raise your taxes or limit your rights doesn't really matter if the person elected can never achieve those goals. now if your idiot neighbor can vote for a person that DOES have the power to do those things well then your idiot neighbor is now your enemy. this is where we are now and not everyone can move out of Pennsylvania to Texas to get away from those idiots.
When left tried to do away with Constitution and he people's rights. This is Guns, Abortion, freedom of speech, and trying to destroy the White male. Not to mention replacing God with the Environment. If Democrats got their way , you would have a job at a corporation controlled by Democrats. Not allowed to give opinions. Child limits with abortion for any other kids. No one could work for themselves. Everyone would be made to dress alike. Same pay , hardly nothing. Could only own a battery car. No oil or gas. One religion based on Environment.
People like you are the cause of the political divide. Many people have traditional values similar to people had in the past in our country. They always existed, they still exist. Then someone decided diversity and weird lifestyles and more viewpoints was a good thing... "The good news is that we are seeing more and more conversations being had amongst those with differing viewpoints..." this is not a "good" thing. I am a normal Christian man for the most part such that i would have mostly always fit into America and therefore i can never get along with someone who wants to mutilate a childs genitalia. So introducing this "differing viewpoint" to the norm is the cause of the political divide, not a way to get over it. Smh.
the democrats have moved farther and farther left. there is no compromising with them as they will just take more. this is a one sided problem. people will try to look for a "both sides" explanation but that's an illusion people default to when they don't really want to take sides.
civilizations go through 3 phases barbarism -we do violence to establish the social norms stability -we are done with the violence but we have norms we seek to defend, so we use intolerance to maintain to defend those norms decadence -we have lived in peace so long we forget the danger of not having norms, so we lose them as we stop doing violence as it just doesn't feel necessary... and things fall apart as tolerance rips society apart with too many different groups
Democrats will never be happy unless all straight White men and all Christians are dead. They hate us, they hate America. They like people to suffer that did good deeds. They like crime, drugs, and infidelity/promiscuity.
The old democrat party is long gone. All that is left are immoral, evil people from what I have seen, whether that is the politicians, media, or people IRL, that is what I have seen from them.
Well cause number 1 is unsustainable levels of ethnic diversity.
Number 2 is a deeply anti-intellectual and anti-Christ foundational mythos that has no respect for the philosophy and wisdom of the Old World.
The solution is to destroy the American Empire, and partition North America into a new series of nation-states that better suit the ecology of the people who inhabit the continent.
The fact that media organisations make billions from election advertising, and that goes up if the race is close. It's in their interests to make it a close race, even if one side is objectively wrong and would be defeated if people knew that.
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thus has devolved from the basic premise of the people who live off of government assistance VS. the taxpayers. The democrats have made it all about race. Obama started the hate the police movement. Giving subsidies to one group but not others further divided the country. Giving key government positions on the basis of race or sexual orientation instead of merit also further divided the country.
Term limits, holding elected officials accountable for their corrupt ways, everybody voting, and reminding ourselves that we are a REPUBLIC vice democracy. Doing these four simple, civic duties will go a very long way in maintaining a standard of life we all deserve.
I think it's time that we have a change in politics. There's a bunch of bitter people that is running are country. We need to lose the career politicians. Put a stop to insider trading. And we the people need to start doing our homework and studying out who is running for our leadership.
Misinformation. I hate to be bias but most of the right's points are based in fiction. Not saying the other facets are perfect but I mean, wow, fox news is literally some guy telling people what to think.
Realy let's examine this. Trayvon Martin was false Covington kids was false The very fine people statement was false. Russian collusion was false Kyle ritten house was a false narrative, I heard for months how he gunned down 3 black people because of racism when in fact he shot 3 white people in a clear cut case of self defense. The hunter biden laptop got covered up Joe biden using quid pro qou to halt investigations into berisma where hunter worked was covered up.
So which side is the one slinging falsehoods around and twisting facts.
This is what I get for being bias. Yea not every side is perfect but I mean common, none of those had as extreme of an impact as q and the attack on the capitol or the fox rhetoric that's being used to justify information quarantining and exclusionary policies. The left might get a little overenthusiastic but the right is doing straight up Nazi shit
May 29 2020 the political left tried to invade the whitehouse and burned down a guard shack and tried to burn down a church close by. Anti caused 2 billion in damages in 2020 and urdered 39 people in cold blood and injured 10, s of thousands
The right are pro freedom. The left are the ones acting like fascists. Constantly wanting to censor social media and take your right to self defense away. The left is Constantly advocating to violate your 1st , 2nd, and 4th amendment rights
@captain_voidwalker Are you insane? He was walking along a street minding his own business, coming back from shopping. Are you getting your murders of black people who weren't breaking the law mixed up? You're thinking of Ahmaud Arbery, who wasn't doing anything illegal either, aren't you?
It's been building for decades, arguably before even Nixon.
Nothing short of violent revolution or heavy reforms will have an impact. And even then, it will take centuries for the US to reattain cohesion if it ever does.
there is only two parties in power... who pretend to be divided, but they actually work quite actively and TOGETHER, to keep people divided so it benefits their bipartisan control of the situation
The media and the slow transformation of Republicans And Democrats into social wedge issues but they both enrich companies. So the companies then fund both sides because Pepsi doesn’t care about gay marriage or abortion, people will still want Pepsi
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It began with the spoiled Boomers of the Woodstock 60's. It got horribly grown under Obama and Biden. It's going to take blood in the streets fix anything. And it's coming in under 50 years.
It's not just politics it's any viewpoint. People think if someone is different or think differently they should be hated. Hardly anyone can just have a conversation and when it's over just leave it alone.
The division is psychological as political science discovered it’s more effective to make someone vote Against someone than vote For someone. One way to help is get involved in local politics and get to know our representatives and local issues
Then was Germany a good place during world war 2 for German people? Your arguing a stupid argument. It could be worse! Please. We are literally talking about assassination, “peaceful divorce”, civil war… this not the talking of a stable and successful society.
There was a time when a Classical Liberal would say, "I disagree with everything you said, but I will defend you right to say it". That is gone. There are no "Liberals" left. It is all Progressivism and hate.
Home > Society & Politics > Questions > What do you think is the cause of the rather extreme political divide and tribalism in the US and what do you think can better it?
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