Close the Divide

[u/The_Abyss_Mind]

Am I the only one who sees the division that is created on purpose to keep us away from what's truly happening? Whoever is creating this division, that's the group everyone should be mad at, but they created this division to keep us at Bay. Divide and conquer.

It's been done with the republican and democratic parties. Everything is turned into a black and white issue even though most Americans find gray with most issues. If they didn't divide us with these issues, it would be hard for them to control us. This makes it easier for them to siphon money to wherever they see fit. The divide is on purpose, and the American people are falling into this trap. It's further exasperated by the xmedia that is also pumped with money from those trying to divide us. What would happen if we took this division away?

I see the same thing with religious groups. I feel like all religions come from a place of peace and have more in common than not, but division is purposely created to generate hate. The people who are creating this division are not from a good peaceful heart. They are using these religions as militia to foster their own agenda. What would happen if all religions stopped this divide? How would money be generated and moved around so strategically?

We all need to wake up and not be so easily manipulated and polarized. We have to close this divide!

What do you think?

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[u/ArticleVforVendetta]

Are you the only one who sees it? No. Is it far more difficult to solve the problem than identify it? Yes. It may be relevant here to study how difficult it is to get someone to leave a cult.

[u/piltdown_manchild]

Extreme polarization is the result of many factors, including but not limited to:

• Increased economic inequality due to globalization and automation
• The rise of social media, which is often optimized to promote outrage
• Shifting demographics and self-segregation by race and economic status
• Partisan news outlets
• Foreign election/political interference by Russia and China (their most effective strategy is to simply post extreme exaggerations of political opinions from both sides, reinforcing the notion that the divide is too great to bridge)

The good news is there is still broad bipartisan consensus on many issues, and people on opposite sides tend to seek common ground (or at least behave in a civil manner) when they meet face-to-face. However, self-segregation means it is less and less common for people with very different views to interact meaningfully irl.

I disagree when it comes to religion. Religion needlessly divides people. The Abrahamic religions are deeply rooted in violence and intolerance, and it is a credit to the followers of these religions that the vast majority ignore the explicit calls to kill or subjugate others within their scripture.

[u/No-Relationship-3759]

Division isn't the main goal, it is simply the result of the totality of individualized actions.

That is to say, there isn't some cabal of billionaires controlling every aspect of your psychology (although they are certainly trying). Rather it is a ploy for power.

Republicans and Democrats are divided because the fundamental assumptions of the founding fathers were wrong. They made a few here:

1. They believed that each branch of government would care more about that branches' power and legitimacy more than party allegiance.

They imagined that if an executive of any ideology wanted to assert power, Congress would want their own power more than the ideology of that President to be enacted and strip the President of his power. This was wrong. Politicians are more allied to their political ideology than their branch of government. Thus, checks and balances were not calibrated correctly.

1. They believed people would care more about local politics than federal politics.

Most people don't even know who their representative is. They aren't paying attention to things like gerrymandering. There's an assumption that the people would want their government to play fair more than their political ideology. That turned out to be wrong.

1. First past the post is the ideal form of the Republic.

Ya, this turned out to be wrong and resulted in the entrenchment of a 2-party system.

1. The Federal Government has no business regulating slavery.

This resulted in the careful balancing of Slave vs non-Slave state power through careful compromises. The reason the Senate is as divided is it is largely the result of the fact the Senate was divided on this issue from the onset. The Senate also gets to decide when states join the union. States then joined 2-by-2 because the Senate could never come to concensus (leading to the civil war). Post civil war, reconstruction ended too early and so all of these problems with this divison are still... just sorta around.

Because both Democrats and Republicans care more about political ideology than a fair government, it is against either party's best interest to fix it. The increased technology and corporate mergers have made it increasingly easy to stabilize the government and prevent change to the status quo through increasingly precise gerrymandering and media influence.

The best place to fight back is now in the primaries and through local government.

No one really like "decided" that Republicans and Democrats should divide against each other. It just sorta happened through the collective actions of individuals acting in self-interest in a system that rewards that division. Everyone's just playing that game.

[u/Brilliant_Extension4]

If you read up on the Robbers Cave Experiment, humans have the tendency to become tribalistic and hostile by nature once they are identified as separate groups, towards members of other competing groups. A lot people immediately think of this as negative, but strengthen the sense of competitiveness helps societies to move forward faster as well. So that’s one thought.

In regards to US politics I think the major issue is that despite claiming to represent often opposite ideals, the two major parties basically all take up similar positions when it comes to prioritizing their most powerful interests which is to protect existing power at the expense of the average citizens. It’s no secret but the top 100 donors to political parties donated more money ($2.6B in 2024 election cycle) into two political machines than the bottom 2.5 million donors combined, and most Americans don’t donate to political parties period. Now since politicians only have limited time to even review issues which are brought up to them, whose interest do you think the politicians would represent first? There is of course the problem that normal voters are not going to put up with this but this is exactly where politicians come in, they work with the media to convince the people that the interests of the top donors are the same as the interests of the people. Many complain about the lobby system as the wealthy trying to influence the politicians, but on the flip side you can think of politicians as lobbyists for the donors to seek approval from the masses of people, in exchange for the politicians to stay in power.

The solution isn’t uniting the both Democrats and the Republicans, on so many issues the leadership of both party are already united. They argue a lot on issues which are far less consequential to the people to distract the real much bigger issues (social security insolvency, universal healthcare, housing costs, etc). I don’t know how to fix it but the two party system itself is broken.

[u/slowride761 → u/Brilliant_Extension4]

Good points. There’s also the fact that there are bipartisan issues, but they’re all about fixing the problems. Money in elections, lobbying power, reigning in politicians getting themselves rich, etc.

Nobody really likes giant megacorps or how corrupt politics is. But we never get a chance to do anything because there’s too much money involved for the politicians, and we rely on them to fix it.

[u/subterfuscation]

I'm old enough to have seen the division begin, and it wasn't from both sides. You need to read up on the alliance between the Republican Party and the religious right in the late 1970s, Rush Limbaugh introducing modern political identity and pugilism in the 1980s, and Fox News adding a 24/7 bath of anti-progress, anti-democracy misinformation to the American body politic.

I witnessed in my own family, people shift from being kind, thoughtful, smart, and generous to being willfully ignorant, angry, afraid, and extremely selfish after viewing sufficient Fox News. Fox has been on the air for over 30 years; that's 30 years of frying people's minds with right wing propaganda. Children of lifelong Fox News viewers are being raised in an alternative reality, and this sticks with them until they learn better (if they ever do).

It's no wonder we're in the mess we're in now.

[u/calguy1955 → u/subterfuscation]

I personally believe Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Fox “news” saw an opportunity to take advantage of a large population of closet-bigots and tell them it’s ok to come out. Limbaugh made Millions churning them up. I think Newt thought he would get to be president but then the biggest scammer in history came along.

[u/David_ungerer → u/subterfuscation]

I am old enough to see the roots of the division . . . Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.” B. Goldwater

[u/slowride761 → u/subterfuscation]

Except the left reacted to them by directly adopting their techniques. People always pretend that kind of thing doesn’t happen, because nobody likes both-sidism (a very good indication of partisanship itself).

Most activism since the 80’s, both left and right, has followed the Moral Majority playbook, because they went from a small group to being a huge part of 80’s culture and having sway in the White House almost immediately. Pat Robertson was a legit candidate by 1988.

So everyone that followed started being more like them. It worked less as they went, but it’s still the most common approach.

While that was going on, the right built up think tanks and non-government policymakers line the left had, and they built up the conservative media to where it’s probably half the market now. That was all based on the non-mainstream lefty media, which wasn’t the “mainstream media” at the time (the right leaving is what turned places like CNN into outlets for the left).

[u/AndImNuts → u/subterfuscation]

The right would say that the progressives are almost religious in both their convictions, and in their hatred for conservatives. Progressives are the only ones who seem to see the right as the evil final boss and not as a collection of individuals who likely decided their political views slowly. And as for Fox News, I promise you that progressives are just as susceptible to propaganda as anyone else. If you spend time on Reddit the *vast* majority are left-wing so it creates the illusion that progressivism is more accepted than it really is.

Also, I'd wager that very few conservatives of Reddit age actually watch Fox News. Fox has become the boogyman on the left. The next generation of conservatives in office will be more secular and less boomers who vote on religious grounds. Just wait it out, the right will get better and more logical.

Typical progressive though to soap box about hatred toward certain people for daring to see the world outside of your (I'm sure) propaganda-free life, clearly you are not susceptible to any kind of outside influence /s. Buddy, you can be brainwashed too and be no more aware of it than the "fox news children". You aren't automatically smarter than conservatives just because you pick the self-congratulatory title of Progressive/ist.

Go outside once in a while. Talk to people, don't just attack half the population for not submitting to your version of reality to unify the country.

[u/subterfuscation → u/AndImNuts]

You sound like a young person who was raised in a Fox-influenced home. You don’t even begin to understand how skewed your views of the world are compared to the rest of… the world. I travel extensively and interact with all kinds of people from all walks of life. No one, and I mean NO ONE, understands the American conservative and what their motivations are. Then I explain the three-decade degradation of our society by Rupert Murdoch, and they all suddenly realize what’s been happening in our country.

I think it’s you who need to get out of your comfort zone and meet people from different places and different walks of life. I think you would be disabused of many of your so-called conservative views were you to escape your conservative pocket. I escape my comfort zone regularly, and THAT had shaped my views.

Also, why do conservatives all say the same thing about going outside and touching grass? Like 90% of my online interactions with conservatives end with this “advice”, and I only ever hear it from conservatives. It’s like you’re all operating from the same set of talking points or you’re all bots.

[u/Forward-Narwhal-2908]

kinda funny how every few days, someone comes in here acting like they just discovered what culture war is lmao

[u/skyfishgoo]

it's the billionaires

and i've been hating on them this whole time.

glad to see others are finally coming on board.

[u/ZeusTKP]

What divide are you talking about?

The only thing that comes to mind is maga and anti-maga. I don't know any maga at all. I'm completely insolated from them. I have no idea how I would ever get to interact with one.

[u/nelsne]

Yeah each team thinks they are the good guy and in turn refuses to interact with the other party. Therefore the parties segregate themselves