The Core of America's Current Conflict Is Fundamentally Different Attributions of Social Inequality
8 hours ago
Right now, whether left or right, young people basically all agree that society is unfair and that they've gotten the short end of the stick.
The only difference is that MAGA blames the source of unfairness on women/Black people/other minorities/legal or illegal immigrants for taking away their opportunities through policies like DEI/H1B/589/outsourcing (it's not that they genuinely believe opportunities should be allocated by ability—or rather, they just think they're the most capable and smartest).
Meanwhile, liberals believe that the privileged (which, through public opinion manipulation by the privileged themselves, has been broadly reduced to white men) acquired massive resources due to historical reasons, so DEI should be used to redistribute wealth and opportunities to the traditionally disadvantaged. (Interestingly, many liberals actually come from privileged families themselves.)
Finally, there's a group of young white men in the Rust Belt who feel they haven't benefited either and have had opportunities taken by DEI, while liberals have directed their ire at a broad group of people, stirring up resentment. No matter how the two sides fight, the privileged always come out unscathed.
Following this line of thinking, rather than continuing to argue over attribution, it would be better to first distinguish which issues are about resource allocation and which are about identity, because the solutions for these two categories are completely different. The former can involve tax, education spending, unions, and housing policy, while the latter involves public discourse and community relations. If we mix them together, it is easy to slide back into mutual recrimination, and the room for practical progress is actually narrowed.