| ▲ | JohnFen 12 hours ago |
| We start by rejecting the cartoon labels of "left" and "right" as if all conservatives or all liberals believe the same things and think the same way. The left/right division is a longstanding technique intended to keep us divided. The reality is that outside of the actual extremists, liberals and conservatives agree on 80% of everything. We can, and need to, start there. We are all Americans and have to realize that just because we may disagree about things (particularly a small percentage of things) doesn't have to mean we're enemies. But, if history offers any lessons, then our path is likely set and we're going to have to push through some nightmarish times before we find a way to be better. |
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| ▲ | mikepurvis 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's astonishing how bad the US political apparatus is at making progress even on matters that easily fall within that 80%, though— healthcare reform, childcare, higher education, common sense gun laws, infrastructure investments. All of this stuff should be a slam dunk to implement with broad coalitions no matter who holds which branches, and yet it's all been basically gridlocked for decades, and instead it's never-ending turmoil over meaningless nonsense like who uses what bathrooms. |
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| ▲ | asdff 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >healthcare reform, childcare, higher education, common sense gun laws, infrastructure investments. Funny you imagine there is consensus with any of that. The right doesn't want government healthcare. They don't want government sponsored childcare. They could care less about higher education. They want no gun laws. And they don't want black people to benefit from infrastructure. There is no forming consensus with that position. | | |
| ▲ | mikepurvis 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Outside of the 24hr news bubble, I believe the reality is that there is a lot of common ground on these supposed hot button issues, for example on the guns issue alone there is broad support for universal background checks and an assault weapons ban: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/07/25/poll-majority--supp... But it's hard to make it happen when Fox paints any kind of gun measure as crazy leftist tyranny and then deep-pocketed fringe organizations like the NRA vow to punish any Republican who collaborates on compromise measures. | | |
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| ▲ | nebula8804 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Its not like the US hasn't done big ambitious things before: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Hell didn't they help develop some of the social programs for Post WWII Europe/Japan etc? Post Nixon the government really just got captured and paralyzed and so a generation has grown up not understanding that this is a deliberately broken government, not how a government can operate. Instead people have been raised to think that all government is just ineffective and naturally broken. The only people who actually get it are the subset of Americans who have traveled or lived overseas for some time. As of 2023 only about half of Americans have a passport so there is a large chunk that haven't seen anything else. | |
| ▲ | mrtesthah 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | A small number of extremely wealthy individuals have a vested interest in fomenting that division, because the solutions to those 80% issues happens to conflict with their business interests. |
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| ▲ | wqaatwt 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Statistically almost everyone who is a “conservative” supports Trump whatever he does, though? With very little real infighting The “left” on the other hand seems way more heterogeneous in that sense (which does seem like a significant political disadvantage in practical terms). |
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| ▲ | krisboyz781 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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