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The piece is more calling out the consequences of the stark divide than it is saying "just get over it and date a J6er"
Yeah, but you can't yada yada over why that divide exists. They might not be directly saying "get over it and date a j6er" but they're not saying much less. It's basically "you don't have to date a nazi, just someone who supports nazi's and their positions." Which, you know, is a nazi with less fancy clothes.
I def get your take, but this isn't an idle discussion. If things don't change and change severely, this deep of a schism where people won't even date someone with differing views, will have real societal impact.
I say this while being "part of the problem" from the article's view because I'm totally in agreement with you. I'm ENM and I straight up won't even fuck Trump supporters.
I still think it's an important commentary on the issue though, and shouldn't be treated as if it's a throwaway "avocado toast" kinda thing.
But even this language that you're using is shifting the Overton window:
We're not arguing about marginal tax rates. This is not just "differing views," and it's not on women or the left to solve. If we wanted to have a seriously discussion about this issue or someone wanted to write an article about how to solve this divide, they'd start with "what the fuck is wrong with republicans" and move on from there. Questions like "why are republicans so susceptible to propaganda" or "how can we get republicans to stop voting against themselves and support basic education" would be a good starter.
This article is basically "incels have a point" except they don't. As any sort of real intellectual discussion, this piece is even more silly because these aren't questions that don't have answers or need some deep philosophical thinking, the answers are right there. It's the equivalent of the Skinner meme "Women won't fuck me, it must be the women that are wrong." It's like how I keep seeing all of these "the economy is great, why do people think it's not?" pieces that go on to tout employment numbers and the stock market, and ignore that groceries cost too fucking much, you can't buy a house any more, and you're not getting a decent raise anytime soon. These are both pretty simple fucking problems, tbh.
We know what is wrong with Republicans tho. This is extremely well documented. The question, and the difficulty, is how do we change that mindset?
Well, that's the thing, it is pretty well documented as are the causes. We'll never completely stop people from taking stupid positions, but there is a ton of data that shows education and economics tie heavily into political ideology.
There are really about three categories of modern Republicans:
These groups are always going to exist to an extent or another. The thing is that while there are some people who will always, always fall into one of these buckets, I think they are actually vanishingly small, and the vast majority of folks are the product of things that are controllable through societal function. More simply, why is basically every American city not only blue, but also generally deep blue? Cities generally have better economic outcomes, higher rates of education, and more diversity in general because of the first two. Conversely, red states fall at the bottom of the country on basically any measure of economic outcome, education, etc.
So in short, put in some more guardrails, improve education, and fix wealth inequality. That sounds reductive, but any of those topics have extremely actionable things that we can see better outcomes from in our own country, and if we cast a little further, many other countries get much more right than we do, but that would turn this comment from a novella into a Sanderson-sized epic.
Also, I got bit farther afield from the original article, but tbh I think shame is going to play a part as well. Holding these views should be deeply unpopular, and you should expect to be ostracized if you hold them. I honestly think one of the worst things that we on the left do is engage on some of these things in good faith. If I have a dinner party and invite someone over that wants to have a debate about a wealth tax, fine, we can talk about it. If they tell me they think there shouldn't be an age of consent and pedophilia is a-ok and then shits on the table, we're not talking about it I'm kicking them out of my fucking house and calling the police. Some ideas don't deserve engagement. That's where women (and I'm guessing quite a lot of men) are with Republicans.
edit: it should be worth noting that I'm not saying these are things or qualities that the left doesn't have. Corporations, for example, are by nature greedy, and I'd argue the c-suite in particular probably also has a Venn diagram that is basically a circle. Target and Disney as entities aren't more inclusive or celebrating pride because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the profitable thing to do. But this leads to a more inclusive society with better outcomes for everyone anyway...
I don't agree with this assessment at all. Populism is seductive and people fall for it for a wide variety of reasons. "Ignorant" is a bit of a catch-all here and is doing a lot of the lifting, and that seems unfair.
Populism of any sort is toxic to democracy after a certain dose. Obama leveraged populist rhetoric without invoking nationalist or exclusionary concepts, and that's about as far as populism can go without being unethical.
The rise of conservative talk radio, and the media sphere it eventually evolved into, is at the heart of this slide into populism. Combine exclusive media exposure and gerrymandering and you have a race to extremes.
I strongly recommend anyone coming by this thread to read Why We're Polarized and/or What's Our Problem, two books that explore this radicalization in-depth.
I strongly agree with this sentiment, however. This is most definitely what the article is about, at it's true heart. The question is, is shame enough or is it more radicalizing over time? We honestly don't know.
Oh it definitely is. My general assessment would be the truly bad people who know all the things we know and still hold insane positions is vanishingly small. Trump, for example, has no ideology. He has and will reverse course on basically any position he holds. Do we think he actually gave a shit about overturning Roe, knowing that he's probably paid for more abortions than Planned Parenthood? Even in the category of bigots, I think it's largely more of a function of ignorance that it is some deeply held belief. Like, if you're white I'm sure you know someone who'll drone on about "orientals" except the people they personally know who are "one of the good ones."
I don't think that we're disagreeing. I think Rush, for example, falls pretty firmly into the bad people group and is part of a machine that is basically keeping people ignorant. Fox News is the prominent example, and it's hard to call its viewers much more than ignorant, and there would be far fewer of them if they weren't all aggrieved about their economic situations and had some basic knowledge. It's not a secret that economic/education has taken a major dive in the last few decades, and I simply don't think you end up with this populist movement without that.
See my comment I just posted. It's really not, and it's not even effective regardless. Right wing authoritarianism is a symptom of larger societal problems.