For example, I believe people should be able to use a doctor to get healthcare, and they believe the government should prevent that. There's no middle ground there, it's a boolean.
1) prohibiting late term abortion in non-exceptional cases, and
2) imposing some degree of penalty or liability for assault, including harm to a pregnant woman herself as well as to any potential offspring that are in development?
There may also be some other areas of agreement, even between conservative republicans and democrats, on permitting certain forms of abortion in some cases (e.g. ectopic pregnancies) to save the life of the mother.
The issue philosophical boils down to 1) what defines a human life, and 2) when is it acceptable to kill.
But IMO the debate is not really about that -- it's about what we do based on the answer to those questions. It's about what governments can force upon people. Should they be allowed to imprison you if those that write laws believe in something without hard evidence and for which harm is likely unprovable?
They do all the time, on a variety of issues. That's part of the social contract of living in a society.
Should they? Maybe not - penalties that are disproportionate to provable harm seem unjust and opposed to personal liberty.
Do they? Absolutely, because for certain things we've decided (rightly or wrongly) that we should lock people up. For example, a case of attempted murder can result in a life sentence, even if the attempted victim is provably very alive and physically unharmed.
There are those that want abortion banned under all circumstances, allowed, and allowed only in some cases. That third option is deceiving, however, and should for all practical purposes be treated as "banned" because:
a) one must prove they meet the government's requirements
b) the government with such a law is de facto hostile and run by those predisposed to deny requests
c) the government must make their decision quickly (which may be impossible, like if a rape must be proven in court)
It really is as simple as that.
The reason I was being vague is that this applies in a lot of other cases.
Frankly, I think the problem isn't that some algorithm is causing a divide or merely reflecting it. The real problem is that many people aren't used to thinking about the second-order details of their policies, they just respond and vote with their gut.
(Ironically, the same side that wants to ban abortion also tends to argue against policies like UBI because they say if the government can grant it the government can also take it away.)
We know, but notice it took you three posts to actually mention the word. In your other posts you euphemistically used the nicer sounding (and more general) "healthcare" word to make your point. That's what OP is talking about: You're ironically doing the same thing the "other side" does. Using euphemisms and vague, but extreme positions (healthcare itself is under attack) such that it's hard to have conversation.
For what it's worth, I agree with you, but it's hard not to notice you using the same tactics the other side uses.
Similarly, policies that would outlaw, say, coal burning in our country will just outsource that pollution to other countries because we don't enforce the ban on exporters. Such policies make some folks feel good about themselves because they don't think them through to their logical conclusions.
And with regards to abortion specifically, I didn't even get in to the forms of punishment and tracking being proposed. That's where there's a middle ground -- exclusively between far-right conservatives.
It ignores the thousands of years of division that we've had along ethnic and religious lines.
What we have now is simply the peak of a longstanding trend that's older than the United States: it's white supremacy. That's all it is. Anti-immigrant hysteria? White nativism and white chauvinism.
These things are manifesting now because of deteriorating material conditions and longstanding beliefs, not because of social media (eg [1]).
Moreover, the idea that white supremacy is at its peak right now is ridiculous and ahistorical in its own right. It's also massively disrespectful to those who lived through things like chattel slavery or the holocaust. To say that seeing some loudmouth spout off on Twitter is worse than either of those is pretty gross.
What we've seen in the last 10-20 years is a similar reaction to improvements in the rights for various minorities. Combine this with poor material conditions and you have a recipe for reactionary attitudes and violence.
There are many parallels between now and 1930s Germany. The Great Depression hit Germany hard so there's your declining material conditions. One of the earliest targets of the Nazis was what's likely the world's first transgender clinic, Berlin's Institute for Sexual Research [1], complete with book burnings. We also have increasing nationalistic sentiment, currently with the completely invented anti-immigration crime hysteria.
Also in common: this idea of moral decay. Then with "cultural Bolshevism" [2], now with "cultural Marxism" [3]. And the Great Replacement [4].
What's required is a normalized belief system and the right material conditions for this radicalization and polarization to spread. Social media is, well, a medium. It cannot replace or create either of those conditions. It's like blaming radicalization in earlier times on the existence of the printing press.
[1]: https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/6-may-1933-looting-of-the-in...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Bolshevism
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th...
[4]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-the-great-replaceme...