Wednesday, December 8, 2021

The U.S. is at a dangerous 'level of polarization,' political scientists warn — Nicole Karlis

Wakeup call falling on dear ears. Is the US past the point of no return, where even exogenous shock and existential threats fail to overcome polarization?

AlterNet

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9 comments:

mike norman said...

Gotta get outta here.

Peter Pan said...

US is united: Lets go Brandon!

Matt Franko said...

LOL AlterNet: “ Politics in the United States have become an increasingly polarized affair for decades, driven largely by the right moving further to the right. ”

Oh of course!

Bottom line is this polarization is becoming investable…

lastgreek said...

Just note, Mike, that the escape velocity to break free from our planet's gravitational pull is 11.2 km per second.

Now, if you just want to get off our planet but still stay within its orbit, say a few hundred kilometers above like the international space station (ISS), then just maintain a circular orbit velocity of at least 7.6 km per second. Anything less than that and you are going to spiral down back to earth; in other words, you're going to crash.

You know, when it comes to 3-D shapes the sphere gets all the glory. But when you pause a think for a second, it's the cone that should reign supreme. No cones, no universe as we know it. Just sayin' :)

lastgreek said...

I am old enough to remember when right-wing, evangelical nut cases wearing surgical masks in the 80s because they believed that AIDS was an airborne disease.

And to keep it recent, wasn't it a right-wing, evangelical nutcase congressman who recently referred to women (regarding female reproductive rights) as "earthen vessels"?

And isn't it a right-wing party (aka Republican Party) that is threatening to shut down the federal government because... wait for it... too many of their fellow Americans are getting vaccinated.

Yeah -- so the escape velocity to leave forever earth is 11.2 km, Matt. You shall have a parabolic trajectory, Matt. Any faster, and you will achieve a hyperbolic trajectory.

Trivia: Parabola, hypebola are Greek words. Reason those words were chosen. "Para" means "side," "beside"; "hyper" means "super."

lastgreek said...

11.2 km per second

Peter Pan said...

Mike's a gunslinger who knows when it's time to get out of Dodge.

Joe said...

I'd argue it's driven by the democrats moving to the right, starting with Clinton, that forced the Republicans to fall off the cliff beyond all reason.

Joe said...

Then since democrats can't deliver for people economically cause they're bought and paid for corporate stooges too, they're left being able to nothing but give yhe appearance of progress by pissing off all normal people by insisting on saying stupid shit like "latinx"(which polling shows Latinos absolutely hate) or "pregnant people".