What Is The Actual Purpose Of Politics?

And how far away have we gotten from said purpose?

Let’s start with this article, which in turn references this article.

The author of that second article then says this, as quoted in the first article:

“As people affectively polarize, they appear to blow out-group threats out of proportion, exaggerating the out-group’s dislike and disgust for their own group, and getting ready to defend their in-group, sometimes aggressively,” Kleinfeld argued.

I’ve felt this way for a while, especially about the “blowing out-group threats out of proportion.” Like, remember when a guy shot up a pizza parlor because he thought children were being trafficked inside? Usually a Democrat President just means more woke policies and pandering to one or two affinity groups. It doesn’t mean pedophiles are running the country. And usually a GOP President means big business and billionaires are in a good spot; it’s not the demise of society writ large either. In fact, what the President does day-to-day doesn’t really touch many people. It’s kinda just a thing we talk about more than we should, and often in performative terms, to boot.

Here’s another quote from the first article: