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Zachary Elwood's avatar

One thing that your post had me reflecting on: due to the outgroup homogeneity effect, we'll be prone to seeing the "other side" (our adversaries) as often acting in bad faith, just because it will be easy for us to find instances of that on the "other side" (or at least many things that seem that way to us). This can in turn make us think "okay, depolarizing, bridge-building approaches are not warranted because they are acting in bad faith." But I think that often obscures a lot: that even if we think some people on the "other side" are acting in bad faith, it doesn't mean the whole group is; it doesn't in itself detract from the many defensible grievances and concerns on the "other side."

To be specific, some liberal people might look at how Trump engages and think, "I think Trump is acting in bad faith and has no interest in embracing conflict resolution ideas; therefore conflict resolution ideas can be forgotten." (An example of this kind of thinking can be found in this New Yorker pieces https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/03/how-politics-got-so-polarized, where Elizabeth Kolbert writes: "...those who have done the most to polarize America seem the least inclined to recognize their own 'impairments.' Try to imagine Donald Trump sitting in Mar-a-Lago, munching on a Big Mac and reflecting critically on his 'own thinking.'") This is a common reaction by many on both sides, who increasingly see the "other side" as the unreasonable and bad-faith ones -- based on how they filter for grievances and prioritize issues -- and use that as a reason to ignore conflict resolution ideas.

But what this misses is that Trump (or anyone) is a part of a larger group -- he doesn't exist in a vacuum and his popularity depends on the interplay between him and his supporters/voters -- and so writing off conflict resolution ideas due to one's view of Trump is short-sighted as it can result in amplifying tensions unnecessarily.

To sum it up: Even when we think some people on the "other side" are behaving in bad faith, we must recognize that they are still only individuals. We must think about the effect our words and actions have on the entire group.

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