> You said a lot of correct things but I failed to see where you presented a solution.

On the contrary, I think I have, but I'll try to explain a bit better because I have abstracted a bit for sake of brevity.

> a solution would be something like "this is how we become more communal".

> One of the largest "meta issues" stopping this being solved is as you mention the political climate:

> I primarily hold the mainstream media accountable

They are a big contributor (I'm not going to ignore your qualifier) but it also demonstrates something actionable. __YOU__ stop doing that thing. Sure, you're only one person, but these things tend to be infectious. We infect each other with ideas just as the media infects us with ideas. If you're "above" them, then reverse the situation and infect others to rebuild that community. Get out of the habit of attacking each other and assuming. Build bridges with _specifically_ the people who are not in "your camp." Encourage these kinds of conversations. You'll constantly be told you're only one person and don't have much of an effect but that's no different than saying "you're just one person, how will Facebook/Google make money off of your information?" You are an integral cog in the larger machine and have more effect than your realize. Infect your friends and family to the degree that they too will start to infect others.

[0] mentioned alignment issues. A major issue here is of divide and rule tactics being used. Stop concentrating on your political enemies and their alignment. First get your house in order. If your team isn't aligned with your belief, then you need to either make them or pick a new team. If your team isn't aligned with your goals, then there is no effective way to play against the opposition. A big difference is that you actually have a voice within your team, whereas you have little to none in the opposing team. So start where your voice is stronger and work from there. This is NOT a common tactic, except by outliers (e.g. Sanders/AOC or Trump/DeSantis). It does run the danger of bifurcation, but the choice matters about how aligned you are. I'd say if it is below 80%, it is an easy choice, and I'm almost certain that is true.

[1] Mentions differing rules. This is a good way to build bridges. Neither liberals nor conservatives agree that this is a good thing. But they poke fingers at the other team before they poke at their own (Pelosi being the poster child of insider trading being the perfect example of this when she's doesn't even make the top 5). You can "infiltrate" any team by talking about these things at a slightly more abstracted level. If you just don't mention specific names or teams then the person will fill in the gaps for you. This goes for a lot of hot topics if we're being honest. Replace "police" with "authority" or use the word "politicians" instead of "democrats" or "republicans." If you want to talk about the oligarchs you might need to be more audience aware and use their specific language. But otherwise you can use the exact same talking points with the same exact intent and meaning, but you need to use the correct diction. It's baffling but also fascinating.

[2] Mentioned wealth gap. We often associate this with a liberal sided conversation, but it is significantly discussed on the conservative side too. When they are talking about "liberal media," "green new deal," or other such things, if you listen carefully you'll recognize that this is about corporate capture of agenda setting and control over the economy and public mind. That is the exact same conversation that is being had on the liberal side about corporate greed and crony capitalism.

If we move up just a little bit in abstraction, you will find that we're all very concerned with quite similar things. It really helps to start there before moving down into the weeds. But that's where we start and that's why we fight. Because one person is looking for a red round fruit that grows on a tree and the other is looking for a orange round fruit that grows on a tree. The differences do matter, but there are more similarities than not. We can't discuss the differences of apples and oranges when we're acting as if they aren't both round fruits that grow on trees and provide people with nutrients. But the reality is that you can't be this hyper focused if you aren't also being hyper specific. If you're hungry, either will do just fine but if you have scurvy, then the difference does matter. Unfortunately most of us are just hungry and are too caught up in being picky that we can't agree which tree to plant. Recognizing the similarities in the abstracted level is essential to all of this. To being infectious. To not falling for the media trap. To aligning your own party's values with your own. To building communities. Because if you can't recognize that people are people, then you're just continuing the cycle. It doesn't matter how you bin your enemies: religion, race, political ideologies; it is all painting with a wide brush that divides people that could get along. Many of these things aren't even apparent from the outside and you wouldn't know without asking.

> I disagree with this core assessment

Then in that, I'll give you a testable situation, using what is discussed above. Sit down and have some beers with some {rednecks,libtards}, whichever is the opposite of your camp. Get through the initial bashing, don't engage in that, but just brush it off. Once you've then been able to talk like a normal person, actually engage with them and ask them about their beliefs. Don't tell them yours or why they're wrong, just listen. I think you'll find something interesting. Often their framing of a problem is different than yours. You can think of it like a dual problem in optimization and this is why we can't really converge. If liberals are considering maximizing the personal liberty of a woman conditioned on the personal liberty of a fetus, then conservatives are maximizing the personal liberty of a fetus conditioned on the personal liberty of a woman. They may look like the same optimization problem, but they are distinctly different (and of course there are many other conditional variables). Humans have a tendency to amplify the differences over similarities because it is the differences that make people unique. The rest is redundant and therefore wasting of memory and compute. But this obviously is problematic at times too. But I guarantee you that if you perform this experiment you'll find that the other team isn't so different than you. They are just people after all, and people are pretty fucking similar. But again, you can't fight or educate them, that's not the experiment. Be a researcher, not an educator. You also may find out how to convince people to come to your "side" if you do so.