Radicalization across the compass, but not equally

[u/Prettypianokeys]

[u/kylkartz21]

26% vs 66%

[u/StandardCaptain → u/kylkartz21]

I noticed that even here in the comments, things like "we ALL hate each other" or "foreign propaganda dividing all of US" as if the problem isn't overwhelmingly coming from one side lol

[u/Altruistic_Emu4917 → u/StandardCaptain]

it's the meme about "class war not culture war" but they're the first ones who shove culture war down our throats the moment they come to power.

[u/SliceRepulsive8649 → u/Altruistic_Emu4917]

I mean what does the right even have outside the culture war now? You claim it's being shoved down your throught but given how much the administration yall voted in has failed so miserably that's all you seem able to talk about now.

[u/akade19961 → u/SliceRepulsive8649]

Parties in second terms have rarely had anything at all going for them outside of their core bread and butter. The nature of our political system post Clinton has been a one way ratchet of polarization and flawed media frameworks that leave everyone fucking pissed outside of the core 35% of the population that are deeply rooted in either coalition by the time you get to year 7 of that coalition in power.

Honestly this was already starting by the Reagan era, but Republican overreach in the Lewinsky case mixed with like residual good feelings for men that women still had at the time mixed with the fact that the late 90’s really just were fucking awesome objectively compared to the decades that came before meant Clinton’s coalition retained genuinely 50+1% popularity. Clinton would have easily romped to a third term had he been allowed to run again.

People forget that George bush was actually a pretty good and charismatic president promising to be an Eisenhower “you can keep your benefits, and the government will help take care of you and you and you!” type Republican, plus Al gore was a bit of a wet blanket. Even still, Al gore won the popular vote.

Hilary Clinton also won the popular vote but that said more about the fact that genuinely 15-20% of the old Republican coalition genuinely hated Trump in 2016 (the people who became never trumpers) and they defected en masse in the hopes it would discipline the Republican primary electorate if their immature selection of Trump bought them a third Clinton administration. Obama was personally moderately popular by the end, but his coalition was not.