Perhaps we can discuss how this might be avoided, particularly, what can be done by citizens now, while keeping as off topic any discussion of the politics.
Engagement across ideologies seems to be part of the solution but when, where and how does this happen?
Know someone who was just wrong about COVID? to the point you cut them off? see if you can talk to them again.
That person you un-followed because they're so blind about $WAR and totally on the wrong side? Perhaps realize that neither of you are actually involved int hat war, and you share many things that are totally unrelated to it, too. You can still talk about those things.
Basically embrace "we can agree to disagree" and explore all of those areas of dialogue other than the things you find contentious with someone.
It can be done. It doesn't "pollute your mind with both-sideism" or anything like that. People used to consider it a worthy habit, even.
> Know someone who was just wrong about COVID? to the point you cut them off? see if you can talk to them again.
I knew someone like that. I cut him off (just in that conversation, not the whole relationship). Turns out that, as we learned more about COVID, he was not completely wrong like I thought he was.
But I can't talk to him again. He was my father, and he died last year.
No, you'll just be another keyboard warrior of the internet operating in an echo chamber
Do it IRL with people whom you have rapport with
I've been doing something like "If America is to be great again... what did it do when it was great? What would happen if the US slinks away into isolationism? Who would fill that power vacuum? (hint, China)... related arguments for Ukraine, but also it's very cheap comparatively"
My belief, is we can't, because it is ingrained in half the population's mind that violence is indeed an answer to disputes and conflict.
This is why people support the 2nd amendment, to keep government "in check" (although the SCOTUS recently changed their reading to "self defense", too tangent for this discussion). If they feel they aren't getting their way, they have guns to back up their voices. I don't agree with this mentality, but it's the mentality I've seen and experienced.
When you talk with your friends and neighbors, how is the tough part. I've been trying to understand and sway a MAGA friend. It ain't easy, because you have to see their MAGA viewpoint first, then show them how their talking points are counter-productive to their goals, and how what they are against will actually do better. I'm mainly working on their Ukraine | isolationist ideas right now.
The strongman / populism is difficult to deal with, I haven't figured out how, so I don't push on it so much now. Hopefully the orange man digs a hole too deep for himself he cannot crawl out, but it seems to be shaping up for a rerun of 2020...
> Engagement across ideologies seems to be part of the solution
I don't know why people say this, as if such engagement wouldn't cause people to dislike each other more.
If you take two opposed people who are firmly on different ideological sides, they would have to be pretty intelligent and capable of above-average emotional control and awareness to truly or productively engage, and then, in the best case, they realize their normative views about things are fundamentally incompatible and maybe it would be better if they didn't share a country after all.
Take the average progressive Manhattanite and have them talk to an upper middle class businessman from suburban Ohio or something who continues to vote Republican; I think their worldviews would be totally distinct and divergent in a way that no good faith attempt could bridge. And of course one can imagine various pairings who might be even more divergent.
Contemporary America is really testing the kind of normative gap people can have while being part of the same country, and I worry we will find out that you really can't have that.
Engagement across ideologies seems to be part of the solution but when, where and how does this happen?