Before everyone predictably jumps to their battle stations - “It’s Trump’s fault !!” , “It’s liberals fault !!” “Yeah but what about blah blah blah”, it’s worthy of note that the percentage of these is remarkable equal on both sides of the aisle.
And if you dive deeper into the analysis, it’s those who identify on far ends of the spectrum “very liberal/conservative” who are most likely to take that position. It supports something that I’ve read a while ago from Alan Watts and that is the most dangerous people in the world are those who are most convinced that they are right and others are wrong.
Both parties have been stoking division for years. This isn’t new. What is new is now our leaders are no longer even trying to hide it. Talks of seceding from the Union on one side, martial law on the other, and Civil War on both. Scary.
Yes, I have been saying for a while that both parties use to fight for the middle but for the better part of the last decade they both seem to be throwing the middle finger at the middle and forcing us to pick one or not they don’t care.
It’s the same old same old that’s been going on since the 60s (probably longer). It used to be patriots and hard working Americans versus draft dodging hippies. Now it’s Conservatives who want to make America like it was again versus Liberals who want to destroy it. The more things change the more they stay the same. New boss same as the old boss.
So one-third of Americans are honest with themselves and two-thirds are still fooled into thinking that the policies they like aren’t backed with violence. We still have work to do.
“Policies I like are backed with (usually implicit threat of) violence” is not at all the same as “I think it’s fine to be violent against those who don’t agree with my politics”
I bet there are some very intelligent high-IQ people who are just willing to go that far simply because they’re convinced that their worldview is right and others’ is wrong and they’ll do whatever it takes to defend it.
