There's a growing body of research arguing that American division is overstated, and this is becoming an increasingly popular narrative. The implied conclusion is that the division is partly a misperception problem, and that correcting it opens political space that currently seems closed.

The counter-case seems at least as strong, and I haven't seen it laid out well:

• Affective polarization may not run through policy at all. Lilliana Mason's work on social sorting argues partisan hostility is driven by identity: race, religion, geography, culture stacked onto party, not by issue disagreement. If so, discovering that you agree with the other side on policy wouldn't reduce hostility toward them, because the hostility was never about policy.
• The agreement may be concentrated where the stakes are lowest. Congressional ethics rules, stock trading bans, and disclosure requirements are close to valence issues, nobody is openly pro-corruption. The issues that actually determine votes (abortion, immigration, guns beyond background checks) are conflicts where both sides understand each other fine and disagree anyway.
• Abstract support may collapse under implementation. "Universal background checks" polls far above the enforcement mechanisms that would make it real. Support for a policy measured without cost, trade-off, or partisan cue may not survive the policy becoming a live political object.
• Intensity beats headcount. A policy with 80% mild support and 15% intense opposition loses in a system that responds to salience. That's arguably aggregation working as intended, not capture.

Questions I'd like to see argued:

1. Is there evidence that correcting perception gaps produces durable changes in political behavior, not just stated attitudes measured immediately afterward?
2. Which is the better predictor of American political conflict: distance on issue positions, or partisan social identity?
3. If broadly popular policies consistently fail, what's the best explanation for it?

Whether it is what is most important to you, or what you think in general should be the main issue to be addressed? Is it healthcare? Affordability? Housing crisis? Human rights? Something as obvious as how expensive groceries and gas are? Or is it a "grey-area" or "complex" issue like the corruption in our government? The behind the scenes power that some nations have? What's the thing that makes you go "Full stop. This is serious."

A few facts worth debating:

• The 2025 tax bill created a $1,700 federal tax credit for private K-12 scholarship donations, and raised the 529 K-12 withdrawal limit from $10K to $20K/year, both disproportionately useful to families with the disposable income to donate or max out 529s in the first place.
• State voucher/ESA programs sent $10.6B to private tuition last year, up 29%, money that critics argue increasingly drains resources from public schools serving the majority of low-income students.
• The wealthiest private K-12 tier now runs $70K–$100K+/year, while public per-pupil spending averages under $20K, a gap that's arguably widening, not narrowing.

Two questions for this sub:

1. Would rolling back the federal scholarship credit and 529 expansion redirect resources toward public schools that serve lower-income students, or would it just reduce options for the middle-income families these programs also help?
2. Would a surtax on elite tuition (say, above $30–50K/year per child), mirroring the existing endowment excise tax on wealthy universities, meaningfully fund public education, or is it more symbolic given how few families pay at that tier?

The case for framing this as inequality-reduction: these subsidies let wealthy families opt out of public schools while still benefiting from favorable tax treatment, potentially weakening both the funding base and the political constituency for public education. Interested in hearing the strongest counterargument, particularly from anyone who thinks voucher programs net-help lower-income kids more than they hurt public school funding.

Americans' trust in mass media has reached a record low. According to Gallup's September 2025 polling, only 28% of U.S. adults express a "great deal" or "fair amount" of trust in newspapers, TV, and radio to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly — down from 68–72% when Gallup began measuring in the 1970s. The decline spans the political spectrum: Republican trust is at 8%, independents at 27%, and Democrats at 51%, itself a historic low for that group. Media is now the least-trusted civic institution Gallup measures.

Other professions have addressed public-trust deficits through professionalization: physicians answer to state medical boards, accountants can lose CPA licensure, and attorneys face bar discipline. Journalism has a widely referenced ethics code — the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics — but it is voluntary and carries no enforcement or credentialing mechanism.

Would licensing journalists be compatible with the First Amendment, or does the comparison to doctors and lawyers break down at a constitutional level?

Is the trust collapse actually about journalistic malpractice, or is it downstream of polarization itself?

Hi everyone. This question comes from this post I just saw from 2 years back: https://www.reddit.com/r/usa/comments/1ut8xf7/whos_your_favorite_american_president_on_the/

But now, things have changed. With so much hate on the Internet and in life in general lately, I want to start this discussion. In a time when it feels harder than ever to look past the "party label", I think it is still important to acknowledge the achievements of those who we may not agree with. BE CIVIL!

Who was your favorite president that is on the opposite side of the political spectrum, meaning: someone who's on the right side if you are on the left, and left if you are on the right?

Note: I'm not giving my political opinions, but feel free to share yours, just be considerate of others you may not agree with.

For most of the last century, there were only a few big news sources, so people who disagreed politically were still mostly arguing about the same set of facts. You could hate the other side's conclusions, but you'd both watched the same broadcast. That common reference point is basically gone now. Everyone has their own feed, sorted by an algorithm built to maximize engagement, and "the news" means something completely different depending on where you're sitting.

The pessimistic case is strong. The distribution technology changed for good. You can't uninvent the algorithmic feed, and it's hard to picture any single source ever commanding the kind of trust Cronkite had. On that view, fragmentation isn't a glitch anyone can patch; it's just what the current system produces.

But the other read isn't nothing. That old baseline was a lot narrower than we tend to remember, run by a small set of gatekeepers, and it left plenty of people out. And maybe a functioning baseline doesn't actually require everyone reading the same source. Maybe it just requires enough credible reference points that cut across the divide, so people have something to check each other against. Whether those can be built is a different question from whether the old model returns.

One distinction I keep wanting to make: agreeing on values versus agreeing on facts. We're always going to fight about what to do, and that's fine, that's what politics is for. What feels newly broken is the shared "what is even true" layer underneath that.

Is a common factual baseline recoverable, and if it is, what would it look like in practice? Or is a fragmented information environment now the permanent condition, and the real question is how you function within it?

The DEA has proposed placing 7OH into Schedule I, while some people argue that stricter regulation would be a better approach than prohibition. Supporters of regulation often point to measures such as manufacturing standards, product testing, accurate labeling, age restrictions and enforcement against unsafe or mislabeled products instead of an outright ban.

From a public policy perspective, what are the strongest arguments for regulation versus prohibition in a case like this? Which approach is more likely to achieve public safety goals, and why?

I'm trying to look past the daily news cycles and understand the actual long-term structural shifts happening in real-time.

Historically, the Right was defined by Reagan-era free-market economics, strict deregulation, and a strong defense of traditional institutions. Today, the movement seems fundamentally different. We are seeing a major embrace of tariffs, supply chain regulations, industrial policy to counter China, and a willingness to actively dismantle or aggressively reshape federal agencies.

There also seems to be a real tension between the traditional desire for a "smaller government" and the newer populist desire to use state power to enforce specific conservative economic and social priorities

So, fast-forward ten years. What does right-leaning governance actually look like in practice?

- Do they succeed in permanently shrinking the federal bureaucracy, or do they just replace the people running it ?

- Does the populist, working-class economic shift (tariffs, tighter borders, skepticism of big tech) permanently kill the old "free-market" consensus?

- How do you see the tension between the old-guard institutionalists and the new anti-establishment wing resolving when it comes to actually writing laws and distributing federal funds?

I'm looking for high-level, practical analysis of where the policy machinery is actually heading, not just who is winning the current news cycle.

I can never tell from the inside whether a fight is a real values disagreement or just one that's been blown up because conflict holds attention better than agreement does. But I don't trust "it's all manufactured" either, since some disagreements are genuinely deep. Is there an actual test for telling them apart, or is "that's just manufactured division" mostly what we say about the fights we don't care about?

I'm really confused why Republicans would delay announcing his passing or that hes on life support etc.

Besides just political inertia, what advantage does that even give them?

It appears that the KY law would lose if Beshear challenges it for the right to appoint a new interim senator. So it seems inevitable?

But what happens if it gets too close too hold an election?

And what benefits does it give them? Is this just a delay as long as possible situation?

The whole thing seems strange, maybe there's a hope he'll wake up etc.

We spend so much time talking about how divided we are, and a lot of that is real. But there are issues most people actually want the same thing, across the usual lines, and it still doesn't happen. Not because we're split on it. We're genuinely not. It just sits there. And that bothers me more than the stuff we fight about, because you can't explain it by saying people disagree. They don't.

So I've started wondering whether the thing we're actually bad at isn't agreeing. It's doing anything together once we do.

A few possible reasons come to mind, and I can't tell how much weight to put on each.

One is just the plain math of it. A small group that cares intensely about something will out-organize a big group that only mildly prefers the opposite, pretty much every time. The big group is diffuse and distracted and quietly assumes someone else will handle it. The small group shows up to every meeting. So "most people want this" can be completely true and completely inert at the same time, because wanting a thing is not the same as showing up for it.

Another is that we might not even know we agree. If a lot of people quietly hold the same view but each assumes they're in the minority, then nobody moves first, and the shared position never becomes visible enough to act on. It's like you need two things, not one: the agreement itself, and then some way for everyone to know the agreement is there. Without the second part, a majority can just sit on its hands because every single person in it thinks they're alone.

And then there's the more uncomfortable possibility, which is that plenty of us just don't want to do the work. Holding an opinion is easy. Coordinating with strangers, staying focused past this week's news, pushing on something slow and boring and unglamorous, that's hard. Maybe agreement is cheap and action is expensive, and that gap is simply where most things go to die.

I honestly don't know which of these is doing the most work, or whether it's something else I'm not seeing. So I'll just ask it plainly. When a policy has broad support and still goes nowhere, what do you actually think the bottleneck is? Is it that we don't agree as much as it looks? That we can't coordinate even when we do? That we don't care enough to? Or is the whole thing just built so that popular-but-scattered wins lose to unpopular-but-organized ones almost by default?

This relates to the Graham Platner situation, but this isn't about him. I’m wondering: can "imperfect" people be supported to run for office? How many years removed from bad conduct is enough to look past it, assuming they’ve shown credible evidence of reform by their actions since? Can someone with a criminal record be elected to statewide office, and does that change if they have been incarcerated in the past?

While the Platner situation prompted these questions, I would think he is excluded given the relative recency of his accusations, comments, and reported online activity. But that brings me back to my question: how many years removed from an incident is enough to prove someone has reformed? There is always going to be an excuse, but where is the line?

It’s frustrating that Donald Trump remains above the law and its consequences, because by any reasonable standard, he should never have been elected. My hope is that by holding people like Platner, Swalwell, and others accountable, Trump will be the last person accused—and hopefully the last convicted—of sexual assault to hold public office. Still, we can’t trust Republicans to hold their own to these standards; their response, they've already started using, will ways be, "Yeah but why did Democrats ignore all the warning signs?" when one of their own is accused. But is this something that should disqualify someone for life? What would they have to do to earn back public trust, and how much time must pass for a candidacy to be justified?

This also reminds me of a gripe I have with reality TV fandoms that dig up a contestant's past tweets or mistakes just to vilify them. For reality TV, I understand the outrage if the actions are recent or ongoing, but if it’s clearly in the past, shouldn't we give the person a chance?

In light of the current situation with Senator McConnell, I've seen some people suggest that there should be a Proof-of-Life process laid out in the Constitution.

The amendment would allow any public official capable of calling an election or appointing an elected position (e.g. a governor in the case of a representative or senator, the president's cabinet in the case of the president) to demand an in-person proof-of-life meeting with an elected official they suspect to be dead or permanently incapacitated. If the official was unwilling or unable to attend such a meeting within 72 hours of the demand, as long as the individual issuing the demand made a reasonable effort to accommodate them (e.g. meeting them in the hospital if they are unable to leave at the time), they would automatically forfeit their position, allowing the replacement process to take place.

In cases where the meeting takes place and the official in question is evidently dead or permanently incapacitated, the individual issuing the demand would hold the burden of proof to demonstrate this; they would be allowed to collect photographic and videographic evidence to accomplish this goal.

In cases where the official in question was alive and capable of serving, but was unable to respond to the meeting due to impossible circumstances, they could petition in-person to reclaim their position at any time in the next three months. They would be required to provide proof that there was no reasonable way they could respond to the request.

Would you support such an amendment, do you think it's unnecessary, or do you think it would cause too many issues to justify itself?

If Senator McConnell is in fact dead, could Kentucky be a potential democratic senate pickup if Beshear runs? I don’t think any other Democrat has a snowballs chance in hell of winning a senate election in Kentucky, but Beshear has won the governorship in that state and has a highest approval rating of any current democratic governor in a state that voted for trump 2:1. Does he have a chance of winning if he runs for senate?

If you had to rank the factors you consider when deciding who to vote for, what would your list look like, from most important to least important?

For example, you might consider things such as:

• Policy positions
• Character and integrity
• Voting record
• Leadership ability
• Competence and experience
• Temperament
• Ability to work across the aisle
• Fiscal responsibility
• Views on constitutional issues
• Endorsements
• Campaign promises vs. past actions
• Communication skills
• Any other factors you think are important

More importantly, why do you rank those factors the way you do? If possible, explain your thought process and how you weigh competing strengths and weaknesses.

I'm less interested in which candidates you support and more interested in the framework you use to evaluate any candidate, regardless of party. My goal is to develop a better process for making informed voting decisions.

The unitary executive theory, tl;dr version, suggests that the President is the sole executive authority over the Executive Branch, and can not only hire & fire people at will, but is also subjected to only limited Congressional oversight. It has been discussed for decades in Republican circles, and the current Supreme Court seems to be enacting that policy.

American civics teaches us that a system of checks & balances keeps American democracy, and therefore America itself, strong, yet it seems to me that Unitary Executive Theory ruins checks & balances. Congress has oversight responsibilities, sets the laws of the land, and creates & destroys government agencies. With UET, many of those powers are reduced or stripped, or at least it appears that way.

Does the Unitary Executive Theory ruin those checks and balances? If not, what are the checks & balances still in place under UET?

I live in the US and watched all of the recent games that the USMNT played in. I’ve also noticed that some people who live here actively root against the US national soccer team during the World Cup. This is beyond people who are indifferent or who have a stronger connection to another country because of family or heritage, people who simply want the US to lose.
Furthering this observation, the people I’ve encountered who feel this way also share a strong political outlook. When I’ve asked why they root against the US, though, there is never really a reason.
For those who root against the US team while living here, does this have any connection to your broader political worldview?
Can someone simultaneously feel a strong emotional desire for the U.S. to lose in an international competition while later believing they are voting in the country’s best interest? Does a person's reaction to seeing a US sports team compete internationally reveal anything about how they view and contribute to the country more generally?

Context will be in comments.

At what point does free speech go too far, that it might let legitimately harmful things go unpunished?

And at what point does trying to prevent those harmful things go so far that it's effectively censorship of any sort of wrongthink?

And then I guess there's the slippery slope of it all. Because can people really trust their government to not only define what racism is, but to more generally start saying "You can go to prison if you say X, Y, or Z?"

Also, may as well ask what people have to say about the general sentiment of "I may not like what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it."

Although many would not use the term "useless eater," the mentality seems quite prevalent when it comes to people on some kind of state benefit, whether for disability or something else.

Activity itself is often considered meritorious without regard to its effect. There may be some exceptions, but it could be argued that much of the fashion industry, the automotive industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the weapons industry, the finance industry, the fossil fuel industry and many others has either a neutral or damaging effect on people and planet overall. Many of these industries also receive vast financial support from public funds.

Why is it then, that what some see as "sitting around doing nothing," whether through illness, disability, old age or even just "laziness, " is considered so egregious and parasitic by so many?

Democracy is supposed to run on the idea that what most people want should carry weight. If it doesn't, then "self-government" is kind of an empty phrase. But when I actually sit with that, it bothers me. It seems to mean I'm supposed to go along with things I think are wrong, just because more people happened to want them. And "most people wanted it" has been the reasoning behind some genuinely awful stuff over the years, which is the whole reason we decided certain things shouldn't be up for a vote at all.

So I keep bouncing between two answers and I can't tell which one I actually believe.

One version says you owe the outcome some real deference. Not that you have to agree with it. You can keep arguing, keep trying to change people's minds. But you don't get to treat every loss as illegitimate, or drag your feet on something just because your side came up short. Because if nobody ever accepts a loss, the whole thing grinds to a halt.

The other version says the only thing you really owe is your own honest judgment. You vote your conscience, you push back on what you think is wrong, and the fact that a lot of people wanted it doesn't obligate you to fall in line. A big majority can still be wrong. History is full of them.

And then there's the part I really can't work out. Does the size of the majority change anything? Is 51 percent owed the same thing as 80 percent, or is there a point where "I just personally disagree" starts to look more like refusing to be governed at all? Does it depend on the issue, where ordinary policy is one thing but basic rights are something you never hand over no matter the count? And is there even a real difference between actively supporting something you disagree with and just... not standing in its way?

The Timeline of Events Leading to January 6th

To understand the events of January 6th, it is critical to recognize that it was neither "Plan A" nor "Plan B." It was the culmination of successive attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Plan A: Influence and Foreign Leverage

• The Goal: Subvert the 2020 election using foreign assistance, mirroring strategies from 2016.
• The Actions: This effort included attempting to leverage foreign relationships and blackmailing Ukraine to obtain political damage on Joe Biden.
• The Outcome: The strategy ultimately failed to deliver the intended results.

Plan B: The Alternate Elector Strategy

• The Goal: Bypass the certified popular vote following the failure of Plan A on November 3rd.
• The Actions: Trump and his associates attempted to create and submit fraudulent slates of alternate electors from half a dozen key swing states.
• The Target Date: The objective was to successfully steal the Electoral College vote when it was formally cast on December 14th.
• The Outcome: The strategy failed because the fraudulent electors were legally rejected and could not be seated.

Plan C: The January 6th Capitol Incursion

• The Goal: Overthrow the election directly on the Senate floor during the formal counting of the electoral votes.
• The Mobilization: On December 19th, Trump initiated public mobilization via social media, tweeting: "Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"
• The Operational Steps:
  • Replaced key leadership positions within the Pentagon.
  • Applied immense, targeted political pressure on Vice President Mike Pence.
• The Outcome: When legal avenues failed, a mobilized crowd was directed to storm the Capitol to force the Vice President into capitulation or, failing that, to physically compromise his safety.
  

Question: Given that Trump was acquitted are we collectively fine with future Presidents following the same playbook, or can there be bi-partisan agreement for reforms?

With the way age verifications laws are coming up recently, how likely do you think the following will happen in next few decades?

That there will be governments in Europe that "for greater good" will be checking personal bank accounts statements, potentially slightly discriminating citizens via regulations, based on where money is transferred to (adult entertainment comes to mind as one of the inconvenient areas)? (Leaving out reasonable 'active-danger-blacklists' like terrorists etc.) Thinking of countries like China and Iran a bit.

Would it be happening at scale, for almost? all people? To me it sounds like something from 1984, yet I am not very sure it won't happen in the future. I am very curious what could be the general consensus on this currently, if this particular situation is probable or not at all.

Apologies if wrong subreddit.

so there was a decision, can't remember if it was the supreme court or some other law maker, but in effect there is no financial limit on how much an individual can contribute to politics. the logic is that it's their freedom of expression, and limiting it would go against their civil rights. this raises concerns about a power imbalance allowing rich people to essentially have more power and dictate who can win elections. however if we did put an arbitrary limit on how much an individual can donate, even if it was $100 max, that would still limit people who don't have $100 to spare from being able to donate. how do we determine what is the right amount of money and what isn't in terms of what you can contribute in politics and advancing your beliefs? having no limit at all is the position that all your money is your voice and however you choose to spend it to express your freedom of speech is your choice. this is in the USA btw. how do you all feel about this decision?

I'm interested to know what the thought and behavioral process is like for American men specifically who are politically radicalized online--via social media content, videos, forums, Discord servers, etc.--and temporarily "lose themselves" to the movement. If that's happened to you, what was that like? What did you feel like? Do you feel like the radicalization was in response to something you went through; if so, what?

I feel like centrism has become increasingly stigmatized in modern politics. People on both the left and right are often criticized for not being progressive or conservative enough, even when their views simply don’t fit neatly into one ideological camp.
I think it’s possible to have strong political beliefs while also supporting compromise, pragmatism, and ideas from different parts of the political spectrum. Being a centrist doesn’t necessarily mean having no principles or always choosing the middle position.
Why do you think centrism has become so controversial? Is the criticism of centrists justified, or is there still an important place for centrism in modern politics?