Almost everyone agrees there should be more compromises in politics. So I’m curious, how would that play out?
While I love the policy debates and the nuances, most people go for the big issues. So, according to the party platforms/my gut, here’s what I’d put as the 3 for each party:
Democrats: Abortion rights, gun control, climate change.
Republicans: Immigration, culture war (say, critical race theory in schools or gender affirming care for minors) , trump gets to be president. (Sorry but it really seems like a cult of personality at this point.)
Anyway, here’s the exercise: say the other side was willing to give up on all three of their issues but you had to give up on one of your side’s. OR, you can have two of your side’s but have to give up on the third.
Just curious to see how this plays out. (You are of course free to name other priorities you think better represent the parties but obviously if you write “making Joe Pesci day a national holiday” as a priority and give it up, that doesn’t really count.)
Edit: The consensus seems to be a big no to compromise. Which, fair, I imagine those on the Right feel just as strongly about what they would call baby murdering and replacing American workers etc.
Just kind of sad to see it in action.
But thanks/congrats to those who did try and work through a compromise!
Call me naive or stubborn but these aren’t points I would compromise at all with.
Abortion rights: People have the right to bodily autonomy. Anything less means that you don’t own yourself.
Gun Control: People have a right to live safely and without fear or going to school to be shot up or at the mall. The fact that gun violence and school shootings are a regular occurrence is not a good thing.
Climate Change: Every single scientist is literally saying the next few decades will see some of the worst weather patterns in human history and that’s even if we go to 0 emissions starting tomorrow. This will affect humanity on a global scale and cause unprecedented population displacement and suffering.
Any compromise on any of these posts means you are causing some kind of demographic to suffer and die simply to appease the egos of individuals who lack empathy.
The sad hilariousness of this really comes into play when you look at the compromises of the opposite three points that OP suggested. If I try to do the same style of justification explanations you gave as to why those would be uncompromisable:
Immigration: people have a right to… Jobs? (Firmly debunked that immigrants are “taking American jobs”). People have a right to not have to see non-Americans in “their” country?
Culture war: people have a right to… Ignore racism? People have a right to be as ignorant as they please? People have a right to be saved from others confirming their sexual identity and feeling peer pressure to do the same?
Trump gets to be president: people have a right to… Fascist leadership if they willingly elect it? People deserve the “best president ever”?
It’s absurd that these are political issues if you take a half a step back and examine the 6 points in isolation. 3 of them are concerned with individuals making their own choices or the safety of humanity as a whole. 3 of them are about nationalism or controlling information and education, basically the definition of “putting myself and my beliefs above the rights of others”. How the hell did we even get into a situation where this is what we are choosing between? Or rather, a situation where roughly half our country actually thinks this is a choice and not just blatantly obvious based on basic morality.
Oh yeah, I 100% agree with you. I don’t know what OP was thinking when making this post and listing those points.
Easy, we compromised :). We said ok we’ll meet you halfway on things that are absolutely crucial to humans rights for the sake of progress. Over the decades the right got more and more extreme as we continued compromising. It’s not just in the US. I see it here in Canada as well. I really hate it.
What would you say are the big three priorities for either side?
Here’s the thing: you’re not wrong on what each side seems to have as priorities. It’s just absurd that anyone should think there’s any kind of equivalence between them.
Half of America seems to think so. And whether we like it or not, we live in a pluralistic society.
The point of my original comment was on how bad compromise is in these scenarios. We got to this point where we are arguing for basic human decency with complete sociopaths. When I read your post all I could think of is “this is literally asking us to choose which demographic we should screw over for the sake of appeasement and compromise”.
I know I’m coming off really bitter, and none of it is targeted towards you. I’m just really tired of this all.
That’s fair.
Lol that’s what I noticed too.
One side wants less people to die, the other side wants fascism and racism. Please help me compromise.
This is why they’re known as wedge issues because there’s no compromise.
Aren’t wedge issues for stuff that are divisive for a group of people who usually agree on most things? Something like the effective tax rates for billionaires among democrats.
Yup!
Compromise would mean you bend over to coorporate interests, and that’s a no from me as well.