The public debate by a center-left friend

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Hello YA.

I found the following article interesting (even if flawed)

I find myself on the opposite side of the republicans about half the
time, and generally consider myself more of a democrat than a
republican. However, a lot of the supporters of each party seem to have
a penchant for wanting issues to be simplistic in whatever sense allows
them to appear the Masters of the correct point of view and the other
party to be completely and inexplicably out-of-touch.

I think there ought to be a University Studies course on the
construction of arguments against another point of view in which the
arguments look for the complexity in the other point of view which make
it possible for reasonable people to disagree. A student gets a "D" if
they are incapable of seeing beyond these ludicrous paintings of the
other side. A student is failed, who simplifies the other side beyond
even that student's own sensibilities just so that they can poke fun at
the other side. I think that 1/2 of the time these people know that
they are assigning to their opponents opinions that their opponents
don't have.

This does not mean that I think that many of the politicians are not
trying to sculpt statements that might allow them to be everything to
everyone. However, I think these two go hand-in-hand: there are so
many people willing to misinterpret what one says, and so many people
willing to buy into these idiotic arugments, that a politician finds
her/himself in a difficult spot.