Nearly half of Americans think members of the opposing political party are evil

The chart seems somewhat unfair, because there's no line item for Republicans as a whole. Republicans are broken down into two groups, but Democrats aren't broken down into groups. The article never even says what % of Republicans are election deniers.

In any case, my view is that the leaders of both parties often don't believe their own BS and are simply self-centered power-seeking unprincipled liars. As always, they offer their followers convenient scapegoats, to distract from their own personal corruption. Unfortunately, this strategy works. Indeed it has always worked, throughout history.

The question: "The [Outpartyl are not just wrong for politics, they're downright evil".

I suspect a lot of people polled interpreted "The Republicans" or "The Democrats" as referring to the small group of politicians and party officials, not anyone who has voted for that party. That's how I would have interpreted it, at least. I don't think this means that half of Americans think half the country is evil.

It's a rough position for a country to be in, that's for sure. I have to believe we can talk our way out of it, cause I don't want a civil war

I'm surprised it's only half. It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There is constant rhetoric that the other side is evil. Often, that rhetoric goes to the very top.

Either that rhetoric is correct, in which case the other side is evil, or the rhetoric is incorrect, in which case your own side is evil (for promulgating and tolerating such a horrific and false accusation).

So at least one side must actually be evil. Maybe both, but certainly one.

I know that I've been accused of evil, quite often. That seems a pretty vicious and utterly unjustified accusation -- which I consider evil. So either I'm evil, or they are.

This argument isn't airtight, of course. I would expect people to reject the premises, or even if they do, not follow it to the conclusion I reach.

Still... once it reaches nearly half of everybody, I'd expect it to increase just under its own weight.

anyone voting Republican is voting to remove my bodily autonomy and health care choices and eliminate people like me from public life, so yeah, whether you support that or not, that's a consequence of your actions for me and I'm not going to look kindly on you for it.

With both sides being deeply corrupt, I'm supersized that number isn't higher.

thosearerookienumbers.gif

What's the role of the Qanon Belief System in this? Seems to me like an important part of it, and yet Qanon beliefs are so stupid that everyone feels dumb talking about them.

Eh, there's worse then thinking the members of the opposing party are evil. I think there's a view common to both sides that the says the people voting for the opposition are something like indoctrinated dupes.

Nominally that should be a more charitable view but I've seen enough of it in practice to think it more toxic.

Very few people are actually involved in politics on a personal basis. Those few have reason to be more passionate.

Everybody else, whose only involvement is to be a victim of politician plans, has no call for the levels of emotion that some of us invest in political puffery. We've got people bragging over "I'm no longer speaking to family" over ephemeral tribal alliances less relevant to their day to day lives than sports teams.

all enemies are Hitler and yesterday's heroes are today's villains for heresy because they did not hate hard enough. Evil is abundant.

Honestly, how is that news?

Take any nation and this will be true.

No surprise here, I think this trend started with Clinton and got worse and worse.

I also think it was kind of "planned" by the 2 political parties. They discovered contributions from the "regular folk" would increase if they demonized the other side. Because they like money more than people, the demonizations got worse and worse.

As time went on, some politicians got very good at this and some started to believe the other side is evil. So now seems some people running for office now only care about themselves and lie and say anything to get in, and people believe the lies because it is us vs them.