Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

If it really was population density, it would be easy to discuss politics in urban NYC and very difficult/ rare in rural Wyoming. I don’t think that’s really the case.

I suspect politics are more discussed in forums where there is more “psychological safety” where the consequence of saying a thing that others disagree with doesn’t cause a rift in the relationship (as evidenced by the “it’s hard enough for a parent to make friends” statement).

The reason we can’t discuss politics is because we don’t practice. The widespread saying “don’t discuss politics or religion [in X context]” means that we have fewer places to discuss it, so we get less practice to do it. We are less practiced so it is brittle. If we practiced more, we would be more resilient.

Discussions about politics and religion are rife with conflation of opinion with fact, true fact with false fact, claim with evidence.

Most good faith differences on politics boil down to differing values and priorities. Having a discussion about those directly, rather than through the lens of the broken US political parties / election system is usually more productive in avoiding the screaming / emotions.

Then again, you could argue that the premise is flawed and we talk about politics too much…

Disagreements can be healthy. But everything you say somehow ends up getting used against you in a formal way. Somebody at work can misinterpret what you say and it can cost you your job. You have a political idea that some nutty Republican shares? Well you're basically Hitler now. Good luck with your career.

I'm obviously exaggerating, but it's related to our political discourse in society at large. Open up reddit, read some of the political commentary, and try not to vomit in your mouth. People don't engage with ideas, or each other. I can't tell you how often I see people respond with things they assume the other person thinks instead of just talking about what was said. People in this thread have mentioned how difficult it is to untangle beliefs, assumptions, etc and that's true. No, politics isn't about ideas, it's about group identity. A consequence of this is that the conversation can quickly become reactive and emotional. It's easy to get othered (and this can have severe consequences) and we're apparently very aware of how the other necessarily impacts our life in a negative way (via social media and the major news outlets).

Part of the problem is that we've normalized this degree of sensitivity. I also wouldn't be surprised if our news feeds were incentivized to spread divisive beliefs.

Many years ago my then girlfriend now wife and I were finishing the trip through France. We wound up in the port city of Rouen up north, with the plan to drop off the car near train station, rent a room for a night and take the train to Paris. Unbeknown to us there was some sort of student strike and ALL hotel rooms everywhere were sold out. We found some sort of skanky hostel in a really iffy part of town, not at all the place where we'd usually stay. After dinner near lovely Rouen cathedral memorialized by Monet we got lost on the way back to that iffy area of town. We hailed a young woman walking right ahead of us who was first a bit startled but then helped us find a way in excellent english. We complimented her on her language skills and she said she learned it in America, she was quite proud of it. We asked - where did she go in America? She says - Wyoming! - with a large beaming smile. Why Wyoming of all things we asked (a reasonable question, mind you, considering other more exciting places we have in USA). Her response - "NO PEOPLE!" - and gestured around, alluding that in Europe you are surrounded by people or places the people have been for millenia. She spent a year working on a dude ranch herding cattle there. Definitely if you don't want people you shall find it somewhere in Wyoming.

For a lot of people in the US, politics has become very personal. I believe that some policy decisions have become a direct threat to my health and I can try to discuss those policies calmly but I'm not good at covering my aggravation.

I'd say that everyone has gotten increasingly disdainful of the 'other side'. I know I have - I'm not proud of it but I'm also not a good actor. I was in a message group recently and someone said something that (in my opinion) was so stupid and ill-informed that it was all I could do to sit on my fingers. If we'd been speaking in person, I'm not sure what I would have done but I certainly wouldn't have managed a polite response.

Read the rest of the post. Indian politics are not somehow lower stakes than ours, the Indian subcontinent is not less diverse, and the author's friend included a specific example of people getting literally killed over their politics.