Among Republicans, 82% say they have a close friend who is a member of the other party, compared with 64% of Democrats, according to the NBC News poll.

Despite a polarized, partisan political environment, most voters who consider themselves a member of a party say they have a close friend on the other side of the aisle, according to the latest national NBC News poll.

Self-identified moderate Republicans (87%) were 8 points more likely to say they have a close Democratic friend than conservative Republicans (79%). By the same token, moderate Democrats (78%) were 21 points more likely to say they have a close friend who is a Republican than liberal Democrats (57%).

Among voters categorized as "core" GOP supporters, 77% have a close Democratic friend, while 90% of "soft" Republican voters do. There was a similar gap between "core" Democratic voters, at 57%, and "soft" Democrats, at 73%, when it comes to having a close Republican friend.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[+] -11 points 1 year ago (28 children)

I shouldn't be surprised Lemmy thinks this is a good thing. It's really a problem for Democrats, and it's a big reason trump won in the first place. You need people that disagree with you on occasion.

  • source
  • hideshow 28 child comments
  • [–] 36 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    There's a time and place for disagreements, but basic human rights ain't it. If this was the 1980s and we were all arguing over whether the wealthy getting yet another tax break would actually benefit the poor you might have a point. At this point the argument is about whether trans people should be allowed to exist and whether birth right citizenship should be removed (to say nothing of the concentration camps). Those are not disagreements anyone needs to hear.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    That happens when groups get into purity spirals. When you push people who mostly agree with you away, they might find people that you really don't agree with.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    Yeah, those people are the centrist/slight right Democrats. The Republican party can fuck all the way off. Just because an ideology exists doesn't mean it deserves to be respected.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 16 child comments
  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (15 children)

    Writing off half the population is part of the problem. Not all of them are terrible, but if you shun them, the only place accepting them is even further right.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 15 child comments
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    It’s weird that this never applies in reverse. It’s always “Democrats need to be more accommodating.”

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    It's part of Murc's Law. It's just a given that Republicans can and will behave like broken individuals with psychopathy and arrested development and are completely incapable of getting any better or growing up. It is the responsibility of Democrats to reach out and coddle and "compromise" with such types, even if the Republicans' policies have the end game of these people being erased or imprisoned or excommunicated or treated like second-class citizens....

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murc%27s_law

    The idea reflects an asymmetry in press coverage, where Democrats are assumed to be responsible for policy outcomes and are expected to compromise, while Republicans are often portrayed as passive or structurally constrained. As Paul Campos summarizes, "American politics operates within a frame in which the party of the government is the Democrats, while the Republicans are the party opposed to the government. This holds without regard to which party happens to be in power at any moment … The Democrats think the government should do things, and the Republicans think it shouldn’t…"[4] He also describes the dynamic by noting that "Republicans are like rocks rolling down hill or perhaps sharks eating seals: they do what they do because that’s just what they are, so there’s no point in holding them responsible for anything, since they could not do ottherwise [sic]".[4]

    I've been noticing this for decades and could not put my finger on what I objected to, and now that it is named and properly described, holy shit, you just cannot unsee it. It's not confined to the press, it is EVERYWHERE, all the time, and those finger-wagging nannies that try to pull this shit look all the stupider for it now that it has a name...

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Probably because Republicans are about 20 points more likely to already be accommodating.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Giving people a pass for being intolerant is writing off the people they are being intolerant towards. And if you actually care about those intolerant people you would shun them in the hope they recognize their mistake instead of coddling them like they're incapable of being an adult.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Shunning them doesn't work work though. It just pushes people to further radicals. Friendship can actually keep people from and sometimes bring them back from extremism. Shunning feels a lot better for the shunner though.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Tough shit,. It is our responsibility to protect people, not to fix every broken man. Even Jesus flipped tables and ran out the money collectors from his house.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    He also defended a repentant tax collector.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago*

    Yes, because he repented! He didn't defend those who thought they did nothing wrong. Jesus and the Bible is pretty clear that Jesus won't defend you unless you're actually sorry. He is the friend that calls you out on your shit, to your face in front of your peers to the point that you either run away or admit your mistake. What would you call that if not shunning?

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I don't really care at this point. I'm tired of people acting like it's wrong to not be willing to compromise with a group of people that rubber stamp inhumane treatment of other people. This admin is doing fascist Nazi shit and yet I still see Republicans covering for them and supporting them. Until Republicans can stop condoning and supporting evil, they deserve to be ostracized.

    I do not give a single fuck if it drives them further right. Trying to compromise with these people has not done anything but drive them to the far right anyway, so why should they be validated by continuing to take them seriously?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago*

    Struggle sessions are one thing.

    Inviting the neighbor over, who voted to take away my healthcare and put me in a concentration camp, is another.

    I'm for forgiveness and second chances. But I don't call fascist sympathizers friend.

    So no, I don't hang out with folks who voted for Trump. Not without them admitting they fucked up first.

    A Rebulican that voted for Harris I'd be far more tolerant of, if such unicorns exist.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago*

    I don't think it's good, I think it's unavoidable. For decades the right has been a party of, for lack of a better term, evil. However, they'd hidden it under a cloak of libertarianism/freedom and religiosity. This gave them plausible deniability. Sure, some voters were responding to dog whistles or were otherwise drawn in by the undercurrent of evil, but it was forgivable to vote conservative because the cloak gave them plausible deniability.

    Trump threw away the cloak. He'll bring out a fragment of it and wave it around when someone points out hypocrisy, but it's so transparently performative that the plausible deniability is gone. Those in power on the right are openly greedy, hateful, petty, dishonest, racist, authoritarian, fascist, etc. Anyone who still supports them has to either be so ignorant and frustrating to deal with that they aren't worth your time or so willfully ignorant that they are difficult to forgive.

    I still think they can figure it out, but the leopard will likely need to eat their face and the faces of everyone they love and go on a villainous "This was my plan all along mwahahahah" speech before that happens. Or Trump will just say "AI, Fake News" and they'll find more loved ones' faces to feed them.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Compromise doesn't have to mean meeting in the middle. You could agree to allow abortions and require hospitals to provide guns for newborns.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • What's the compromise with the neighbors across the street that voted to put half their neighbors in concentration camps and outlaw abortion?

    Do we throw brown folks under the bus? Women? Transfolks like myself?

    Which out group do we let them hurt in the name of compromise?

  • source
  • parent
  • What a load of nonsense.

    I watched for 30 years as Democrats tried to be nice and tolerant and compromise with Republicans, and Republicans spat in their face and called them communist traitors every single time. Republicans don't want people who disagree with them, just people who will let them walk all over them.

    Trump won because people tolerated the racist uncle, the homophobic grandparents and neighbors, and the anti-vaxxers. And they took that tolerance and used it to propagandize the shit out of everything and everyone, telling people that all their problems are the fault of minorities.

  • source
  • parent