@stephenjudkins @ryanlcooper "downstream" suggests a very linear model, but these things are mutually reinforcing, and i think polarization in a cultural level is very much related to incentives over a period of decade to find wedge issues by which to demonize the other voting coalition. only in a 2 party system is making the other party the villain necessarily a win for you. 1/

@stephenjudkins @ryanlcooper it's certainly true that fixing the voting system won't undo decades of manufacturing two sociocultural camps and ginning up hostility between them. it's not a panacea, nothing ever is. but turning off the gravity that slowly brought us here would give us some shot of breaking free, perhaps over years and decades, though perhaps faster as new parties play an active role in complicating identities. 2/

@stephenjudkins @ryanlcooper While the gravity field remains, while the Democratic Party rationally funds MTG style primary candidates because they are demonizable and the Republican Party does everything it can do to make Pizzagate real and suppress non-cis-white-male votes, not because they are evil but because those are the clear incentives of the game, I don't think we're very likely to break free. /fin