Also, I believe that we're constantly hearing so many voices trying to convince us one way or another, that our own discussions on those topics end up being attempts to convince others. That would explain "safe spaces" to some degree -- people don't want the pressure of having someone else try to convince them of something they don't agree with.
Some of it just the two-party system. The points don't matter, just which side of the line each person is on. I wonder if more parties would help depolarize the situation. I'm really not sure.
That's because it isn't just about ideas, it's about power. Politics and government now are not about coming to consensus solutions that everyone, or at least everyone but a small minority who just wants to game the system, can live with. Politics and government now are about imposing on everyone whichever set of ideas gets a slim 51% majority. That isn't the way it was supposed to work.
I personally would like to see a Constitutional amendment that would require a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress to pass any legislation, and a 3/4 majority required to override a Presidential veto. That would at least require some amount of bipartisan consensus, and therefore some amount of actually somewhat reasonable debate instead of just shouting back and forth, before a public policy was imposed on everyone.
B) it doesn’t matter how high the bar is set when one side refuses to do their half of bipartisan responsibility (see impeachment)
When people are strictly divided, the barrier to pass something should be lower so that elections change things again. A government that can’t act might as well not exist. There’s no point in holding elections if legislators never pass any change. The liberal values that make the West free depend on civic engagement.
Plenty of laws have been passed with that much of a majority.
> When people are strictly divided, the barrier to pass something should be lower so that elections change things again.
No, when people are strictly divided, they should try different things locally instead of having one side's preferred policies simply imposed on the other--much less having things flip again for everyone every time the party in power changes. That means it should be harder to pass Federal legislation that is binding on everyone, not easier. Federal legislation should only be passed if it has broad enough support to make it worth attempting to impose on everyone. Policies that don't have that kind of broad support throughout the country simply should not be enacted at the Federal level. They should be tried out on a smaller scale, in a state or locality where there is broad enough support.
> The liberal values that make the West free depend on civic engagement.
Civic engagement at all levels. Using the Federal government as a bludgeon to impose one side's policies on everyone is not "civic engagement". It's tyranny. Which is exactly what we set up the United States of America to protect against.