Comment by whack | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whack | Hacker News Reader

> One obvious question is what people mean by “political correctness.” In the extended interviews and focus groups, participants made clear that they were concerned about their day-to-day ability to express themselves: They worry that a lack of familiarity with a topic, or an unthinking word choice, could lead to serious social sanctions for them

The problem is that everyone is hyper sensitive to specific things, even where they claim to oppose political correctness. For instance, most "devoted conservatives" dislike political correctness, but made a big issue out of Obama's passing remarks about "you didn't build that" and "cling to guns and religion". They took great exception to Clinton's comments about "basket of deplorables", but didn't have a problem with Trump's "rapists and drug dealers".

Ie, when the other side says something that offends you, it deserves to be made into a big issue. When the other side is offended by something you say, political correctness has gone too far.

The difference between Republicans and conservatives used to be minimal. I'd say that conservatism swung so far right that most long term Republicans didn't even realize it. The vast majority of people who vote Republican or Democrat do so nearly without any understanding of a particular candidate's positions apart from the general party platforms and only votes on one or two issues that are personally important to themselves. With how gerrymandered the country is, especially in many Republican controlled states, the middle ground for centrists Republican and Democratic candidates is gone.

This was started by a concerted effort in the 1980s to turn the country more conservative, which was very successful and backlash to the liberal culture expansion of the 1960s through the 1970s. I don't however believe that the architects of that plan foresaw the damage that would come from polarization.

America has a large reckoning coming as we must learn and define what we want our national image to be. It's certainly no longer the shining city on the rock. We're far closer to the loud, obnoxious uncle at the dinner table talking about what we did in the past. Unless we can find common ground as a country, we're destined to fade in global power far quicker than we should have.

Edit: Typo

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