Young Dems more likely to despise the other party

https://www.axios.com/poll-political-polarization-students-a31e9888-9987-4715-9a2e-b5c448ed3e5a.html

by llanowarelves • 5 years ago

33 68 5 years ago

david38• 5 years ago

Like all groups, once a marginalized group comes to power, it seeks to force its ideology on the rest, even if it came to power under the banner of preventing just that.

Human nature, it repeats itself all the time.

derekjdanserl• 5 years ago

marginalized?

raxxorrax3• 5 years ago

Well, a lot of young dems mirror the behavior of conservatives. They have problems with media and depictions that doesn't fit their worldview and don't favor free speech because it was a value by people that partially rejected their ideas.

I think the liberal label is more induced by peer pressure than anything else. Not saying that republicans are flawless at all, but that doesn't even matter anymore.

gizdan• 5 years ago

Young Dems mirror the behaviour of Conservatives how exactly?

They have problems with media and depictions that doesn't fit their worldview and don't favor free speech because it was a value by people that partially rejected their ideas.

This is completely missing the point of what the younger generation want. They don't have problems with media and their depictions. They tend to be more inclusive. They fight for people that haven't had a voice previously, or have been mistreated. What they have problems with is hate speech, not free speech.

voz_3• 5 years ago

I vote very liberal, but the only hate speech I have ever experienced has been from other liberals, primarily on twitter.

raxxorrax3• 5 years ago

A lot of people in that younger generation are one step before becoming Stormfront 2.0 because they despise the sensibilities of naive bubble accademics. Just as with minorities you should at least ask before effecting change in their names. They aren't inclusive, that is their brand. Same group dynamics apply to everyone.

happytoexplain3• 5 years ago

Not saying that republicans are flawless at all, but that doesn't even matter anymore.

How can that be?

satellite2• 5 years ago

[they] argue that modern GOP positions [...] are far outside of the mainstream and polite conversation [and that] human rights, and not just policy differences, are at stake.

swiley• 5 years ago

Some of us feel the same way about the positions of the democrat party.

subsection1h• 5 years ago

By "some of us", do you mean "some of us Liberty University grads"?

Nursie7• 5 years ago

From an outsider's perspective, the leadership of one party recently tried to hang on to power by a variety of underhanded means, and in fact continues to deliberately undermine faith in US democracy itself.

I would have sincere and heartfelt suspicions of those who continued to support that party while this stuff is going on. It's beyond party politics at that point.

0xy2• 5 years ago

How do you contrast the denial of the 2020 election's results by the Republicans with the denial of the 2000 election's results by the Democrats? Both lobbed lawsuits and continue to say it was rigged or unfair.

For example, Hillary Clinton compared the 2000 Florida election recount to rigged elections in Nigeria. [1]

The Democrats continue to believe 2000 was rigged.

How about something more recent? Oh yeah, Hillary Clinton claims the 2016 election was "not on the level". Going much further, she calls the result "illegitimate", citing hacking (never proven) and voter suppression (no evidence). [2] [3] As recently as 4 years ago the Democrats were doing the exact same thing the Republicans are doing now.

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8314204&page=1

[2] https://news.yahoo.com/hillary-clinton-maintains-2016-electi...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum...

thatswrong0• 5 years ago

If you think the magnitude of the response by the Trump campaign to categorically undermine faith in our elections (think 60+ lawsuits, a literal insurrection in the US capitol) is at all equivalent to Democrats being miffed about losing Florida by 537 votes and pointing out Republican voter suppression (which ABSOLUTELY has supporting evidence if you consider that Trump won two swing-states prone to voter suppression by 3% [0][1]), then I don't even know what to tell you.

[0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-republican-push...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite...

zo1• 5 years ago

Both parties do it from the other's perspective. E.g. Republicans complain about the left injecting politics and other issues (e.g. Trans and race topics) into primary school curriculums, which is arguably indoctrination and programming rather than genuine debate. To them this is straight out of the Nazi playbook of using children to control society.

Point is, don't think that only one side has genuine concerns about the other trying to "undermine democracy". The whole thing is broken.

Nursie7• 5 years ago

I'm sorry but none of that is remotely equivalent to the deliberate and overt attempts to undermine democracy that the republican party have been involved in over the last 12 months.

You don't have to commit to the other side, nobody says you have to love the democrats and all they stand for, I surely don't. But you can't look at the actions of the republican party over the last year and see them as anything other than anti-democratic and dangerous?

esarbe6• 5 years ago

I agree that the whole thing is horribly broken. The two party system, the gerrymandering, the legalized bribery of congresspeople, the influence of the media in deciding who's going to participate in debates, ...

The list goes on and on.

left injecting politics and other issues (e.g. Trans and race topics) into primary school

I'm not sure that this is actually a thing. But if you have any - reliable - reporting or study about that, I'd be willing to be - hehe - educated.

jaybrendansmith• 5 years ago

We need to stop the false equivalence. If you are conservative, you may genuinely fear what the Democrats may do if they have enough power. But that fear, no matter how legitimate, does not give you the right to take away somebody's right to vote, or make it more difficult, or overturn elections, or disallow ballots, or give power to overrule vote results through State legislatures, or Gerrymander districts, or force through Supreme Court justices. These are things Republicans have been doing for over 20 years. At this point the minority is now effectively in charge of the judiciary and legislature, blocking and overruling things the majority has wanted for decades. The right to vote is clearly enshrined in our Constitution, full stop. If you don't believe in that, I would encourage you to go out and meet people that are not like you, and free your mind.

sleepysysadmin5• 5 years ago

From an outsider's perspective, the leadership of one party recently tried to hang on to power by a variety of underhanded means, and in fact continues to deliberately undermine faith in US democracy itself.

I am also an outsider. You have to be careful with this. You clearly don't see the bigger picture and it's bad to push the narrative that it was just Trump.

The probability that the election was fraudulent is in question. Biden is the most popular president in history, as per his own words. Though also from his own mouth he has the most extensive voting fraud org. They never quite explained that one.

It's beyond party politics at that point.

If the election was fraudulent. What was the actions taken?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/30/politics/voter-suppression-re...

CNN is obviously biased and is portraying it as 'voting rights under attack' but what does it say? It says the republicans as a whole saw the election was fraudulent and needed to fix voting rules. The republicans cant just say the election was fraudulent and leave the country or something. You go and do exactly what CNN is describing.

Nursie7• 5 years ago

The probability that the election was fraudulent is in question.

No, it's not. There has been nothing but hot air on this, I've followed it closely, there is no evidence of fraud.

Though also from his own mouth he has the most extensive voting fraud org.

Oh jesus, that was a quote about a voter protection program taken out of context, this is stupid. You accuse me of not seeing the bigger picture and then you use a meme as evidence.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-biden-voter-pr...

It says the republicans as a whole saw the election was fraudulent

Republicans saw fraud because their leaders have lied to them, over and over again. They think voting rules need to be fixed because their leaders have, absent any evidence at all, repeatedly lied to them about fraud that they once again, have no evidence for.

The republican party have gone off the rails and Trump explicitly attempted to overturn the democratic process.

zoe4883• 5 years ago

They despise even their own party.

esarbe6• 5 years ago

Well, no wonder.

"The other side" in this case supported a misogynistic, conspiracy-theory spewing, authoritarian grifter with a publicly acknowledged disdain for scientific consensus for president that was disregarding any established limitations on his office and was (and still is) actively trying to undermine a legitimate election.

It's hard to be open for "the other side"'s viewpoints when that other sides viewpoint includes undermining the very system in place to promote consensus.

burntbridge• 5 years ago

The asymmetry here is really interesting. Seems maybe Democrats take things more seriously.

Not passing judgement either way I'm a left wing Australian.

chronicsunshine• 5 years ago

This is insane. One side is doing everything they can to rig elections and even tried to overthrow the government and end the democratic process. And then the other side is judged for being taken aback by that? Are we supposed to pretend like nothing is happening?

raxxorrax3• 5 years ago

I firmly believe that people from the old establishment abused intelligence work against a political opposition with lies that were picked up by media without a single ounce of sensible criticism. This was such a huge scandal that I cannot condemn anyone that seriously believed that elections were manipulate, maybe Trump himself believed it since it was rather blatant. You are allowed to dislike Trump of course and his behavior relating to giving up power. But that is very much shadowed by using federal agencies to get dirt on people. That isn't democratic at all, it is dirtiest political play and I think more than some people have lost their mask.

voz_3• 5 years ago

I've lost the thread, can you explain what you mean? Who used which agencies?

tshaddox• 5 years ago

Whatever accusations you’re hinting at in your first sentence, they don’t seem to have anything to do with rigging an election even if they’re true.

isoskeles2• 5 years ago

I honestly can't tell the difference between when people are talking about QAnon or BlueAnon unless a specific event is stated that would give me more context. Seems like others cannot tell the difference either.

lucian1900• 5 years ago

Mostly aesthetic and cultural differences. Both lie about other countries, threaten war, perform coups and bomb other countries.

The US democrats exist to divert any worker resistance into channels they can then sabotage. In many ways they're more right wing than the US Republicans, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

belorn2• 5 years ago

It is about framing the issue. A lot of people perceived the event as a bunch of hillbillies dressed up like Indians that illegally stormed a building, rather than an actually believable threat to the democratic process. They don't see anything that is even look like the end of the democratic process.

It is one of the many political topics that has a strong polarizing effect, which in turn results in hate and anger.

Nursie7• 5 years ago

"The Event" isn't the whole of it though, Trump tried a lot of different ways to try to get the result overturned. The events of Jan 6th are only a small part of the picture.

They may not have been a believable threat. But trying to strong-arm more votes out of various places, refusal to concede, throwing around unfounded allegations of mass cheating, constantly, and then the mountain of lawsuits and talking heads... it's beyond the pale.

If they don't see that threat, when would they? Because from here it looks far more like they don't care so long as it's their guy. And that's scary.

sleepysysadmin5• 5 years ago

This is insane. One side is doing everything they can to rig elections

The democrats? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGRnhBmHYN0

that's not a gaffe. If you assert it's a gaffe, you must now explain a ton more.

And then the other side is judged for being taken aback by that? Are we supposed to pretend like nothing is happening?

Someone could blame the media but that's beside the point. The USA is more divided today that I have ever seen it. According to articles ive read, the divide is larger today than it has been since the civil war. Thusly probable that another civil war is coming but oh boy is this one ever going to be one sided.

ryandvm• 5 years ago

Of course it's a gaffe. Biden is visibly affected by senility. How could you think it's anything but a gaffe? Do you really think that if he was aware of systematic voter fraud strategy being developed that he would actually give a speech about it?

yed• 5 years ago

If you look at the actual questions in the study, they were all phrased in reference to “someone that voted for the opposing presidential candidate”, not “the other party” or people with opposing views in general, as this article states. It’s clearly more about young Dem’s feelings towards Trump than Republicans in general.

someotherperson• 5 years ago

Can we have the title adjusted to "Young American Democrats more likely to despise Republicans" instead? The current title doesn't give much context for non-Americans (i.e, I would have avoided this article entirely).

rnmwfQ3f2• 5 years ago

Of course. There's a reason why "shy conservatives" are a thing.

glacia01• 5 years ago

The irony is lost in the comments, lmao.

Aeolun• 5 years ago

Unsurprising. I imagine they’d kind of enjoy having a world to grow up in.

argentumReal• 5 years ago

The republican president told his top general to deal with BLM Protesters and "just shoot them". I don't know how you are supposed to hold a conversation with someone who still supports him.

drivingmenuts• 5 years ago

That’s the same side that is arming themselves to kill their opposition (literally, not figuratively). I don’t want to have a conversation with someone who sees me as a target of opportunity in some blood sport.

voz_3• 5 years ago

How is anyone still a republican or democrat these days? I understand being forced to vote as the system is rigged for two parties, but outside of the voting booth, actively identifying with either party? How is anyone finding these absolute crooks relatable?

DocTomoe• 5 years ago

From an outside, non-US-citizen perspective, it boggles my mind that people in the US think of relatability as a distinguishing factor when choosing a political candidate/party to run their country.

I do not need to happily drink a beer with Merkel to know she was an efficient chancellor who all things considered did a lot of good (and some bad) to my country, nor do I need to find Scholz unlikeable to believe his coalition will be a net negative for our general well-being. What people around me care about is whether their government is capable of solving what the voters think are pressing matters, not necessarily if politicians are likeable.

Sometimes, it is all about trade-offs, even if the less bad choice comes with a crook.

esarbe6• 5 years ago

The US electorate is pretty substandard.

I blame the horrifyingly bad educational system for that; it's hard to have any functional democracy when most of your voting population is under-educated and has an active disdain for scientific consensus.

__alias• 5 years ago

Probably a highly jaded opinion, but the way I perceived this is that left leaning is seen to signify higher social empathy -- which is something that people on that end would value from peers.

Where as on the flip side, right leaning people likely don't have the same conservative requirements for a partner.

So i'm not really surprised at all by the results.

rnmwfQ3f2• 5 years ago

Here's the question:

    Would you __________ someone who voted for the opposing presidential candidate?

Where the blank is "go on a date with", "be friends with", "work for", "shop at or support the business of"...

Important to point out that stated preferences are not actual preferences. There's a pretty good change a lot of them who say they wouldn't be friends with a Republican actually would be friends with a Republican if they found themselves in that situation.

atoav• 5 years ago

Interestingly enough I'd imagine you could take a conservative republican from the 80s and he would despise the GOP in today's shape as well.

I am not from the US, but for me condemming the way the Republicans conduct themselves is actually something I would expect anybody who cares about democracy to do in the current state of affairs. They had the choice to change their policy to adapt to a shifting demographic environment – instead they chose to change the rules, change who is allowed to vote, ignore a coup attempt, throw democracy under the bus, all while stoking violence and anger.

I live in Germany and the way US party politics read today remind me very, very much about what I learned and read about the fall of the Weimar Republic. The situation is nothing to joke about, it started with treating Trump like a king and then you realized that really a lot in US politics depends on the will of those in power to honor convention. The institutions saved your asses this time, but they won't be able to do it once more. Where is the bold, free democracy that "denazified" Germany after WWII?

Even those who say I am exaggerating here – imagine where the US would have been today if they managed to "hang Mike Pence", "kill Nancy Pelosi". What would that then have done with the way Trump dealt with the situation? Would he have distanced himself from the mob? Or would he have been emboldened? Maybe the military would have had to remove the guy from office? Maybe that in turn would have lead to a civil war?

In my eyes it is legitimate to have conservative ideas about how society should be, but this is not conservativism, it is fascism.

fareesh2• 5 years ago

"The only explanation for allowing abortion is because they are evil and they want to kill babies. No other explanation exists."

This view is widely considered to be a fringe one. No serious person espouses it. You don't hear it on Fox News, but Alex Jones will say it and his audience will mostly laugh at him. A small fraction of them agree.

On the other hand:

"The only explanation for limiting immigration is racism. No other explanation exists."

"The only explanation for prioritizing action against illegal immigration is white supremacy. No other explanation exists"

This interpretation of the "other side"'s policy is universal. You'll hear it on CNN, MSNBC, late night comedy. Celebrities will tweet about it. It is espoused by folks who say it seriously, framing it as some kind of serious battle of good versus evil. There is no room in the conversation for debating it, therefore you despise anyone who takes this kind of view. Anyone who tries to debate it will be labelled one of Skeletor's minions.

In fact, one of the more charitable explanations of these points of view are things like "unconscious racism" like the evil spirits of old who would possess you and make you think evil things.

After centuries of orthodoxy, in the west there used to be a culture of enlightenment and free enquiry. In the third world we have never really had a serious understanding of the importance of these topics, and the enlightenment movements had a relatively minor impact. There have been occasional spurts of it, but generally there is no mature understanding of freedom amongst the population. In my country a comedian was arrested for allegedly planning to tell a particular joke in his forthcoming standup set. This kind of authoritarianism is supported because there is widespread support for blasphemy laws, and it is a fairly mainstream position.

It seems like western countries are regressing to this kind of worldview, embracing blasphemy laws and the culture of blasphemy where certain "haraam" topics are so unholy that they cannot even be debated, and any infidel who has these views must be removed from society, "by any means necessary". The only difference between this and previous attempts is that the pantheon is some bureaucrats and politicians. I'm reminded of a Stephen Colbert episode where he announced that the President had fired James Comey, and the crowd applauded, and he sprung into action to inform them that James Comey was now on the side of the angels.

As a result of these systems, there is no question of beings friends with an infidel, you can only despise them. Even if one wants to challenge this prevailing orthodoxy, there is fear of being associated with infidels - so for self-preservation, one must go along with this point of view.

There was a TV host - Ellen DeGeneres who is a friend of George W. Bush. When photos of them laughing together and enjoying a sporting event, were published, it became a national conversation about whether she should be held accountable for this friendship. She then had to make a public explanation as to why she was his friend.

This kind of thing exists amongst Republicans too, but it falls flat most of the time. Every now and then there will be a story like Bill Clinton shook hands with Louis Farrakhan or some stupid outrage like that, but it (rightly) doesn't really get much traction and nobody gives it the time of day, because there ought to be freedom of association, and reducing a human being to who they shake hands with is a terrible way of thinking.

newby• 5 years ago

I am not an American and I do not live in the US. However, I try to keep up with what is happening in the US and I would not be so sure about what is universal and what is fringe. This is really hard to estimate without some serious data analysis because we all watch just tiny fraction of media space - when you say that you don't hear something on Fox News, my immediate reaction is that you cannot possibly know that.

You maybe mean it is not common there, but the things you claim to be universal on the left side do not seem to me that common either. They certainly are not universal - I lean liberal, if I lived in the US and had the citizenship, I would probably vote democrats, but I noticed many liberals critiquing those views in left-leaning media like NYT. And I want to especially mention the celebrities - I think they do not represent left mainstream (or something that could be called universal); I believe it is the opposite, they are the fringe, they are the extreme living in their separate bubble totally disconnected from average people.

happytoexplain3• 5 years ago

"The only explanation for allowing abortion is because they are evil and they want to kill babies. No other explanation exists." ... is fringe
"The only explanation for limiting/acting against immigration is racism/white-supremacism. No other explanation exists." ... is universal

This is wildly out of alignment with my personal experience, which is that of much closer parity between the commonness of these two extremes. Though it's only my personal experience, I think you're being overly generous in your interpretation of instances of the former and vice versa.

This is not even to mention that, in reality, there certainly is a minority of people who overzealously oppose immigration due in significant part to racism, while the same is not true to the same degree (to put it mildly) of people who just enjoy killing babies. The two things are very different in various ways, and therefore it's difficult to usefully compare irrational attitudes about them.

fareesh2• 5 years ago

Given the disparity in culture in the various US states, it's entirely possible for people living in one place to encounter typical attitudes which are vastly different from people living in another place, despite both belonging to the same country. There will always be a filter bubble effect around anecdotal experience.

To get around this, one can just monitor the conversations taking place in the national news media and other popular media like late night comedy or some of the more reputable newspapers. You can also expand this to include the A-list "influencer" category of social media users - popular musicians and movie stars. All of these sources mirror the policy positions of the Democratic party. The overall picture is one of a grand moral struggle between good and evil, with all the heroes on the side of one party. In these echo chambers you will frequently find that many of the extreme interpretations of Republican party policies are highly amplified.

The recent verdict against the fraudster Jussie Smollett is also proof of how slanted and devoid of rationality these spaces have become, where major media institutions and powerful individuals could not, or perhaps more insidiously, did not, perform the requisite critical thinking to be skeptical of the alleged crime, despite the extremely dubious fact pattern. Contemporaneous early accounts from more neutral observers were able to quickly deduce and point of the large number of improbable claims in the alleged assault.

The prevalence of innuendo and rhetoric over facts and reason is common in political discourse, but it is unprecedented to see the vastly different standards applied for fact-checking and misinformation based on the partisan nature of the topic at hand. For young people who are new to these types of conversations, it's very easy to get caught up in this imbalance. There was an incident where a woman in a Gorilla mask threw an egg at the black candidate who was a frontrunner for the Republicans in the California Governor election. Contrasting the conversation around this incident with the former one is quite revealing about the way newcomers to these conversations will perceive the status quo - one that aggressively amplifies hate crimes with dubious claims, and apparently ignores hate crimes with clear and apparent evidence.

aww_dang• 5 years ago

The demonization of the other is a base tribal instinct. There's some irony when it comes from people who celebrate themselves as "inclusive". Otherwise, it isn't especially novel or interesting.

It is a useful tool for politicians. Like other manipulative techniques, politicians who do not use it may find themselves at a disadvantage.

A more interesting discussion might revolve around democracy incentivizing these base, short-term time preference behaviors. This calls into question the popular premise of democracy being a virtue unto itself.

happytoexplain3• 5 years ago

"Young democrats less likely to date/befriend/work for/support people who voted for Trump" is different on two counts from "Young democrats despise republicans." "Republicans" are not "Trump voters", and the alternative to befriending/supporting is not "despising". E.g. I would answer this question the same way, and yet I am friends with republicans and don't despise the Trump voters I know. Framing things this way is exactly a symptom of and instigator of the very bitterness it feigns to demonstrate.

jfengel• 5 years ago

"Republicans" are not "Trump voters"

Effectively, they are. They may say that they don't like him, but they voted for him in droves. He got more votes in 2020 than in 2016 -- more than anybody in history except the person he lost to.

There are surely some people who identify with the party but not vote for Trump, but they are a small minority. They may not like him, but if they vote for him, that's how the party will base its policy.

Young Dems more likely to despise the other party

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