Specifically, it feels like the lack of discernment goes off the rails and falls into the chasm of derangement where people assume that their opponents do not have that common goal. Anti-natalists and population control advocates excluded, most of us do share that goal. The differences are in the proposed approaches.

There are legitimate discussions which can be had about those approaches to achieving that common goal. The discussion is no longer in good faith where partisans deny that common goal or assume evil intent.

There are a large number of policy issues the average American should be able to agree on, but have been polarized to the point that we don’t solve them.

- Get money out of politics. Everyone complains about corruption, no one tries to do a constitutional amendment to get rid of Citizens United.

- Strong privacy protections for your online data. Does anyone like the fact that your data gets sold and then used against you by car insurance companies?

- Break up big companies that are taking their power too far. Seriously, take your Syscos, Nestles, AB InBevs of the world and break them up. No company deserves to have that much power over consumer markets, and the centralization of that power definitely makes prices higher. My conservative parents definitely don’t like how when Walmart and Rite Aid came to small-town midewest, all the local drug & grocery stores went out of business.

- Every American knows our private health insurance system sucks. I mean every person you meet either doesn’t have good coverage, hasn’t used it much, or has had had a terrible experience with it.

- We need to do away with police overstep like asset forfeiture, where the government can basically just rob you. I’m not talking defund the police, but you could sit the average American down, and probably come to agree that the police state has too much power and not enough accountability in a couple areas.

There are so many stories along these lines which could get republicans and democrats on a similar page, and it comes down to the frustrations we ALL have with the systems we live in. It doesn’t matter who you voted for, when health insurance starts scamming you out of a procedure you need, it’s frustrating on a deeply personal level. And we all feel like we don’t have much control over federal policy — partly because businesses & moneyed interests can protect their interests while everyone else struggles, no matter who’s in charge.

(And btw, this isn’t a elected officials on both sides are the same comment, more of a “we Americans have a lot of shared frustrations regardless of party”

> the issues arise when it gets a smidge more nuanced then that

The issues arise when folks get distracted from common prosperity.

I meet so many people in the Rockies and New York who are up in arms about some imaginary problem, or a problem they have no influence over and which cannot affect them, one they solely know about due to social media.

Yeah but when you discuss nuances in person rather than online your natural social chemistry in your brain kicks in and we all behave like actual people instead of mindless savages