At this stage I just reject communication anyway, I am never going to reach some dumb compromise with conservatives, [homo,trans]-phobes, racists, oligarch supporters, climate change deniers etc. In my view they are morally, ethically, scientifically wrong so there is absolutely nothing constructive to even engage with. I don't think the fundamental problem is:
>wow if only you just were good faith and were able to engage with these people!
They are fundamentally opposed to everything I stand for. I don't think communication is possible. Maybe there are unaligned or uniformed people that are still to pick, but the only solution is actually building a better society, and one side winning.
I think the fundamental mistake this article makes is in assuming that bad-faith tactics are non-partisan. It's not as if fake news is coming from equally both sides of the spectrum. It's not as if there can be any equivocacy between Trump's administration and Biden's administration in terms of their willingness to lie. Right-wing media and left-wing media do not manipulate the truth to equivalent degrees. Science does not equally support liberal and conservative ideas about medicine and the environment.
I'm not saying that no elements of the left operate in bad faith, or that elements of the right do not operate in good faith. I'm saying that (as the saying goes) reality has a liberal bias, and the question is not "how do we fix the discourse," but rather "how do we fix what conservatives have deliberately done to the discourse."
There's also the advent of the political dogwhistle, which is a pretty effective form of doublespeak invented by the right to court fiscal conservatives and racists simultaneously [1], that's done tons of damage to discourse. Part of the reason many on the left are trigger-happy with accusations that seem to come from nowhere is because Trump mainstreamed far right dogwhistling into American politics.
>wow if only you just were good faith and were able to engage with these people!
They are fundamentally opposed to everything I stand for. I don't think communication is possible. Maybe there are unaligned or uniformed people that are still to pick, but the only solution is actually building a better society, and one side winning.