...urban or rural, the increasingly 'right' rural lands versus the increasingly 'left' cities. I thought the interactive graphic HERE from Pew Research on the increasing partisan divide in political values in the USA was very interesting [full article here]. The images below show the effect over recent decades; an effect we can all see and notice in everyday life; remember that in the USA by 'liberal' they mean lefty twat, mostly. See how the 'mixed' middle is being squeezed and flattened while the extremes grow in both size and distance from the centre.
"But we are in a post-truth era.... ...According to Pew, 72% of Democrats and 77% of Republicans agree that the sides 'cannot agree on basic facts.' We now speak 'my truth.' This is not cognitive dissonance: it is cognitive division."
There, the separation isn't a joke nor a conspiracy theory; here in the UK we see similar signs, not so much on national election level but certainly on many other things: climate change, Brexit, Trump (Ok, OK!), COVID etc are now house dividers, family dividers, friendship splitters, and the Extremes Grow. You may think then that the (presumed) election of Sleepy Joe to POTUS46 is a step to correct the outward pull and bring things back to the happy centre...but if you think that you haven't been paying attention.
* and I was in turn led there from the links in the comments on this post on Samizdata: "It was an astonishing thing to see."
