>From a European perspective: clearly, the US has a polarization problem.

Oh for sure, they measure this objectively. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-d...

Put your finger on Republican line in 1994. You will see at first the republicans went left with the democrats but then went right back to where they have always been.

The polarization is entirely from the democrat camp.

>It has always had it due to the two party system but it's been getting exponentially worse. Or, alternatively, maybe the silent majority isn't necessarily more divided, instead the extreme ends are disproportionately promoted in media and social media, since outrage sells and reasonable people are boring. Reasonable people have nowhere to go, they have to pick one of the two types of crazy.

Social media is certainly at play but not in the way the media portrays. You can see the polarization started long before social media.

This isn't really the giant douche vs turdsandwich factor neither. They've been doing that since Lincoln's times. This isn't a key factor.

>For example, I'd argue that the "Trumpist" white working class person in the Midwest has a lot in common with the black suburban working class person.

This has far more to do with symptoms of the problem. The irony is that in terms of George Floyd or BLM. Trump is the only person who has done ANYTHING for them. BLM picked the wrong allies.

> These are now worlds apart, at times enemies even, but they share a lot of issues. Both groups, which I argue to be a single group, struggle to get a livable wage, access to education and healthcare, and so on. Somehow, society has sorted these groups into good and bad people, where good and bad change based on perspective.

Yet blacks overwhelming vote for the democrats. In fact, places like Detroit, Georgia, etc voted far more for Biden than they did for Obama. Biden is the most popular president in US history by his own words.

>Same for complicated divisive issues. Most people, yes even conservatives, would agree that racism is bad.

The USA certainly has a racism problem. Objectively proven over and over. However, labeling the republicans racist is hilariously wrong. In fact, it has gone way beyond reality. There's countless examples of the media labeling black republicans as white supremacists. Larry Elder or Winsome Sears for example. Which again, this isn't because of the republicans. This is coming from left-wing media and democrats.

>ut that doesn't necessarily mean that they support every method to combat it, like "defund the police"

Literally nobody supports defund the police. That's not a thing anywhere in the world.

> reparations,

Kamala Harris officially supports this. Perhaps the democrats will move on it? I highly highly doubt it.

>equity policy, and many other policies not at all related to the original problem. But you can't discuss any of the points or plans intelligently. You're all-in with every idea, including bad ones, or you're out, and thus a racist.

This isn't really about fixing issues.

>A system like this leaves only one option: silence.

They've run 2 parties since Lincoln. This polarization is much newer.

>In contrast, the political system in my country, the Netherlands. It's a coalition country where the ruling government consists of 3-4 parties to form a majority. So that means that the norm is that everything is multi-partisan. You are forced to work together or you will not rule. Likewise, you can't destroy or smear the other in a campaign because you'll meet them again at the formation table.

I'm a gigantic fan of proportional representation. Canada was about to do this, then Trudeau lied about supporting electoral reform and swung the polls in his favour. He got into power and never delivered because he wasn't planning to do proportional rep, he was planning to change to an electoral system that would basically keep in power forever. The provinces basically looked at his plan and told him to go away and wouldn't even consider talking to him.

>In a system like this, consensus is the norm, and extremism has no chance, they will never rule. This has its effect on people, as most people are centrists with a notch to the left or right.

I dont think extremism is the problem with the democrat's polarization. In fact, the extremists in the democrat party basically go unopposed. They dont necessarily achieve anything but they dont get called out.

>My group of friends is politically all over the map. Nobody takes issue with deviations in opinions, there's no hard or clear line to sort people into. There's also no left-right consistency. I know progressive people that are conservative regarding immigration and I know conservative people that are progressive environmentalists.

Left -right is a complete fabrication by the media. Take here in Canada.

We have the Green party which is really a single issue party about climate change and environmentalism. The media labels them far-left. According to the media there was a problem in the last election. Their leader who is black and jewish lost because the Green party was infested with nazis. They lost about 4% of the popular vote dropping to 2%.

So where did that 4% of support go? Well we know because no other parties really changed in popular vote. The far left vote went to the Peoples Party. Who jumped up to 5% of the popular vote. So who are the peoples party? According to the media. they are far-right white supremacists and nazis.

WTF? Canada has a serious Nazi problem eh. Or maybe is it that the media is lying and mislabeling these parties? That Canadians are good people and there's virtually no nazis. It's the media who are the problem.

>Sorting people into left-right, good-bad, conservative-democrat is a crime. An insult to humanity. Because the really sad thing is most political needs are universal. The split is entirely artificial.

It's literally only the media. Yellow journalism is back with a passion of calling everyone a nazi and racist.