I think the only… slight divergence of the situation from reality is that the bad guys figured out most of this stuff already (though I doubt they did so explicitly).
There has been a lot of talk about how “the political divide has grown harsher than ever” as if this kind of shift just happened because of random cosmic variations.
What exactly happened is that, invariably in different country, the local “bag guy” wannabe grabs the loudest mic it can get and starts saying something absolutely hateful over and over, doing everything he can to poison the well and just stop people from talking with each other, instead getting the two parties to yell insults at the other one.
Pretty sure democrats didn’t just went “hey, you know that Trump guy? For no real reason, I really hate him and his supporters way more than I hated Romney and his supporters, even though I don’t perceive his communications have taken a harsh shift away from democracy and basic human decency. Let’s abandon debate and go tell them what ignorant dumb faces they have”.
It’s a scarily effective trap, and a strong argument in favour of the tactic the post suggest.
And yes, I know it’s not a helpful argument to say if you want to propose “look, maybe we’d just better agree to sit down and talk politics civilly” to a “bad guy supporter” but I think it would be great if somehow an agreement about how wonderful it would be if we could just agree to shun the next politician who tries to poison the well, no matter which party is he from, also ended up in the discussion.
I think the only… slight divergence of the situation from reality is that the bad guys figured out most of this stuff already (though I doubt they did so explicitly).
There has been a lot of talk about how “the political divide has grown harsher than ever” as if this kind of shift just happened because of random cosmic variations.
What exactly happened is that, invariably in different country, the local “bag guy” wannabe grabs the loudest mic it can get and starts saying something absolutely hateful over and over, doing everything he can to poison the well and just stop people from talking with each other, instead getting the two parties to yell insults at the other one.
Pretty sure democrats didn’t just went “hey, you know that Trump guy? For no real reason, I really hate him and his supporters way more than I hated Romney and his supporters, even though I don’t perceive his communications have taken a harsh shift away from democracy and basic human decency. Let’s abandon debate and go tell them what ignorant dumb faces they have”.
It’s a scarily effective trap, and a strong argument in favour of the tactic the post suggest.
And yes, I know it’s not a helpful argument to say if you want to propose “look, maybe we’d just better agree to sit down and talk politics civilly” to a “bad guy supporter” but I think it would be great if somehow an agreement about how wonderful it would be if we could just agree to shun the next politician who tries to poison the well, no matter which party is he from, also ended up in the discussion.