Peter Gerdes on Peter’s Substack

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I think there are some basic differences in communication style as a result of personality, culture and education and over the past 50 years those styles have become more correlated with party and we have fewer personal relationships with people who have the other beliefs and communication style that could help us understand each other across that gap. That underlying change -- plus the disintermediating effect of social media -- left us uniquely vulnerable to ideologes and grifters who were willing to stoke tension and exacerbate misunderstanding for their own benefit (though no doubt some of them believe they are serving some higher purpose). I emphasize the underlying change because it's what is unique. Want to be demagogues, hate mongers etc etc are older than our republic. They've always been there what's changed is their ability to succeed. -- To be fair it's not as though there aren't any figures on the left who stoke tension and misunderstanding. But they much more rarely do so with intentional deceit. That's not because I think left wingers are just inherently more moral. Rather it's because the left inherited the institutions that help check clear factual inaccuracy (journalism/academia), tends to place less weight on conformity/loyalty and **most importantly** most of the leaders on the right were educated at and are comfortable in left wing circles. In other words Vance knows exactly how much he is lieing while on the left it's more about not correcting a misunderstanding or genuine misunderstanding.