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Chuck Todd wrote a fantastic op-ed about the current state of our political polarization: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/chuck-todd-unite-nation-trump-harris-election-rcna171303
It comes down to (1) Our acceptance embrace of inflammatory rhetoric to "own the [other side]", (2) our ever-present, chronically online culture, and (3) the spread of inflammatory rhetoric and disinformation propagate by big tech.
Some notable quotes:
"The problem with political discourse in America right now is that we are all stuck in a social media funhouse mirror booth. What we see isn’t what is, and how we’re seen isn’t who we are. And yet, here we are."
"But just because Trump started it doesn’t mean his opponents have the high moral ground when they single out him and some of his supporters for personal derision. I still want to live in a society where “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
"Come Jan. 21, we all are going to be living in the same country and sharing the same group of people as our elected representatives. We need leaders who accept that there are major political differences between us and that governing needs to be incremental and not radical.
"Right now, our political information ecosystem doesn’t reward incrementalism or nuance, instead punishing both and, more to the point, rewarding those who make up the best stories.
"Most Americans have an instinct of de-escalation when things get heated, and yet most elected officials in the modern era are incentivized to behave the opposite way."
Yeah, no one got shot, and no one but law enforcement even got shot at. There's nothing strange about a muted reaction to the Secret Service chasing off an assassin.
Ah, yes, the Trump campaign. That is, the organization whose raison d'etre is to elect Trump as President. It's hardly surprising they're trying to do so.
How many attempts have been made on Harris's life, again?
I don't know what "otherize" is supposed to mean here; I mean, Haitians ARE different in various ways from both Miami natives and other refugrees. But I don't think accusing people of eating wildlife and/or pets is dehumanizing them. It's exactly this sort of overblown meta-rhetoric (and the speech policing which follows from it) that prevents any discussion of this topic across the left-right divide.
Looks like someone never heard of the Arab Spring.
The uncharitable take on this would be that the author and his allies have done wrong and now they want to avoid the blowback.
Trying to get the other side to pre-commit to not actually making major changes in the direction they prefer isn't going to work any more.
And that instinct has been exploited over and over again. If by getting hot you can get the other side to concede, getting hot makes sense. Trump's habit of getting just as hot if not more instead is why he has taken over the GOP. If Todd doesn't like it... that's tough. The alternative to polarization his side offers is "Do it our way", and that will no be agreed to.
People will kill for their pets.
Somebody harming our pets is a sick and severe crime to most of our moral systems.
To accuse an ethnic group of eating our pets is explicitly setting them up to be the targets of violence.
Those people are going to be in harms way, there’s no two ways about it.
I predict that zero Haitians in Springfield will be murdered by someone who is angry about pets.
We’ll see, hopefully not.
But, I don’t think a person has to be murdered to have been dehumanized either.
Can you imagine being a Haitian in Springfield right now?
Can you imagine being a Haitian in Haiti?
I don't think being treated in a dehumanizing manner is anywhere near as bad as what they fled from. They come from literal starvation to a land where there are pets aplenty and delicious wild geese are running around, why not take advantage of the free meat? If there was an endangered elk or buffalo running around Springfield, they'd carve it into steaks too, there's no question about it.
The question isn't about whether racism is an issue, it's about the Springfield community's ability to absorb these people without suffering any deleterious effects. If they assimilate and go to eating packaged precut chicken breast and cheez-wiz, good for them. But you have to prepare for the eventuality that one of them goes 'wait a second, why would I do that when meat is running around for free'?
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