>American coastal elites felt more connected to elites in other countries than to their fellow Americans in the heartland
>When the left-wing attacks the right-wing
This is part of the problem. When you casually define the left as "coastal elites who are out of touch" and the right as "Americans in the heartland who are uncared for", you are taking a real problem and reframing it as "all left-wingers vs all right-wingers". You are making people feel attacked who are not in the group you are trying to criticize. People (on both sides) do this to each other constantly (though they have been since prehistory - it's just particularly bad in the US lately).
It's interesting the consequences of this as well. There are policies being changed without a mindset of urban vs rural. Where a policy that makes sense in a urban point of view is catastrophic to rural communities. "If you think the world is overpopulated, leave the city."
Political policies like carbon tax for example disproportionately harm rural people. Some dude living in downtown toronto taking the subway is basically getting a pay cheque from the government at the expense of rural folks who must drive a low mpg pickup truck. What you think farming can be done in a econobox? https://metro.co.uk/2015/03/28/udder-disgrace-cops-find-cow-...
In fact, if you know a bloc of people support your policies and another doesn't. Figuring out of a system which transfers wealth to your supporters at the expense of your political opponents is an ideal system.
The problem though is that we in a country are the same team. Attacking 1 side is never beneficial. Urban folks attacking farmers with carbon taxes? Ok well how's that food inflation working out? Attacking oil workers with carbon taxes? How about the gas prices?
>People (on both sides) do this to each other constantly (though they have been since prehistory - it's just particularly bad in the US lately).
It's interesting as well to imagine how to solve this in the USA. Lets say Elon fails or even makes this worse and he deletes twitter. It just doesnt exist anymore.
How do you bring both sides back together without blood being shed?
You cant do nothing, it's actively becoming worse right now. Act now or else.
It's certainly not going to be solved by more censorship and removing free speech. In fact, censorship is a new thing. Free speech has been around for plenty long to know it's not causing it. My hypothetical also assumes reduction in censorship by elon failed.
So as president happytoexplain of the independent party. How do you bridge the divide? How do you bring people back together?
You might try to go nationalism. Tell everyone they are Team America, that the fight isnt with each other. Build some foreign enemy for people to rail against. At the same time go around ending all the wars the USA involved in. End wars that the USA arent even involved in. Reduce tension, reduce war exhaustion. Make sure people's economic situation is as good as possible because of high correlation between violence and economic situation. Reduce the poor mindset in general, tackle it directly.
>When the left-wing attacks the right-wing
This is part of the problem. When you casually define the left as "coastal elites who are out of touch" and the right as "Americans in the heartland who are uncared for", you are taking a real problem and reframing it as "all left-wingers vs all right-wingers". You are making people feel attacked who are not in the group you are trying to criticize. People (on both sides) do this to each other constantly (though they have been since prehistory - it's just particularly bad in the US lately).