35 Quotes About Polarization

It is the nature of humankind to idealize, to indulge in excessive praise as well as unjust condemnation.

The underlying problem is that we aren't arguing policies; we're arguing about identities, and therefore compromise is never considered a principled realization that they might have some legitimate concerns. It is, at best, a Machiavellian strategy forced on us by the bad group.

The follies that produced the loss of American virtue following Vietnam begin with continuous overreacting, in the invention of endangered national security, the invention of vital interest, the invention of a commitment which rapidly assumed a life of its own .

particular rootlessness of the society had always lent itself to powerful extremes of both the left and the right, there was, in the volatility and evanescence of the culture an atmosphere ripe for extremism, each side with its own Utopian dreams, each side driving the other to a more polarized position.

You thought polarization and conspiracy theories were bad before corpses started reanimating and eating folks? It got a hell of a lot worse afterwards.

page 81-82... As polarization gets underway, the group members become more reluctant to bring up items of information they have about the subject that might contradict the emerging group consensus. The result is a biased discussion in which the group has no opportunity to consider all the facts, because the members are not bringing them up.The Psychology of the Internet by Patricia Wallace

There are not enough purple states. No one votes in primaries, except the most ideological. And big money comes in to support or oppose the candidates in those primaries.

My Subaru friends are upstanding members of the Creative Class. They also for burnt Democrats. As it turns out, Republicans in their neighborhood are about as rare as Cadillacs.