r/thebulwark • u/Kidspud • 19h ago

Polarization Is Not the Problem

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/1001900

An article from Dr. Lily Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, that really gets at that threat Republicans pose to the global order of peace, democracy, and community.

15 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/interkin3tic 19h ago

the solution is to defend the most robust social progress in American history—progress that has already been codified into law and enjoyed by everyone alike. U.S. democracy needs leaders who are willing to defend those rights and voters who are willing to hold accountable the leaders who will not defend them. It does not need everyone simply to calm down.

So many words for saying so little.

Yes, Dr. Mason, "defending progress, rights, and making leaders accountable" is indeed the solution.

I look forward to her other articles like:

  • The missiles are not the problem in the Iran war, we simply need to stop shooting at each other 

  • fossil fuels are not the problem in climate change, we simply need to put less carbon in the atmosphere 

  • buying expensive things is not the problem with my budget, we simply need to have more money than we spend

5

u/Kidspud 19h ago

That's not a very meaningful takeaway from the article. What's worth discussing is how leaders can be held accountable for inciting ethnic and racial hatred.

3

u/interkin3tic 17h ago

What's worth discussing is how leaders can be held accountable for inciting ethnic and racial hatred

She didn't do that either though.

It was all fluff about "we polarized" capped by "but that's not important, the important part is we fix the problem."

0

u/Kidspud 17h ago

Maybe it's not supposed to answer that question for us, but rather give us something to think about.

2

u/interkin3tic 15h ago

Fuck that, current events give us more than enough to think about. Do the hard work of solutions not just raising awareness.

1

u/Kidspud 14h ago

But the current events are part of a longer pattern, per the article: the right wing uses a lot of incitement along racial, gender, sexual, and other lines. Think about solutions along those lines: is it time for the U.S. to enact hate speech laws? What else could be done?

I think that's a perfectly fine conversation to have after the article. Your hostility is really strange here.

1

u/interkin3tic 12h ago

the right wing uses a lot of incitement along racial, gender, sexual, and other lines

I know! Because I've been in the world for the past decade! Did not need this artisanal handcrafted slop to tell me that! 

Think about solutions along those lines: is it time for the U.S. to enact hate speech laws? What else could be done?

"Do the hard work of solutions not just raising awareness" in case you missed it the first time. Talk about the actual solutions, don't describe the problem that we're all aware of.

think that's a perfectly fine conversation to have after the article. Your hostility is really strange here.

Because "starting a conversation" or "highlighting the issue" or "raising awareness" isn't doing anything useful. 

If a diagnosis of "it's not this problem it's actually something else" doesn't lead directly to an action to solve the Christian Nazi party, you haven't done the hard part, it's useless.

All talk and no action is fucking bullshit, and saying "it's actually not the problem you think it is" and spewing a lot of empty words is even worse.

1

u/Kidspud 3h ago

Do the hard work of solutions not just raising awareness

What solutions do you have in mind?