It's kinda sad that we ended up in this political division. It's also sad that increasing hate and and anxiety (and missing education and reasoning) fuels this dumpfire of societal development. That doesn't really increase hope in the future, as stuff like climate change further accelerates this...
It's both, and not a contradiction? But I'd say the USA is indeed more progressed with this. Like both sides. They got really intelligent people but a lot of dumb people. Compared to other western societies, more, the toll of slowly erroding education and the split between poor and rich is progressing harder. Same with things like obesity which as we know of research is bad for brain development (rather the food that leads to this).
Yes I think intelligence is a spectrum and that neither side is more "correct" than the other.
I think there's good and bad ideas from both sides depending on your perspective, and we have to concede that nobody has all the answers, and that we don't know what we don't know.
Probably... For me it's more about the things that should be obvious, like burning fossil-fuels will extremely likely lead us in a worse state. But it seems that a big percentage of the western population doesn't want to believe facts and logical reasoning anymore and I think this is a very dangerous thing, as we have seen in 1920-1945.
Yeah it's somewhat funny (if nature wouldn't play a big part this time) that history repeats again and again (Reagan I think was one of the sparks of this disinformation crisis due to promoting this kind of late-stage-capitalism that optimized manipulation).
Although we have this vast access to information, but I guess it doesn't help, if you're not able to tell (due to reasons discussed) between facts and lies anymore.
And this is exactly why I don't affiliate with either major party.
I used to consider myself Republican because I was frustrated at the majority party (Democrat) always messing stuff up in my home state. I ended up moving for school to a red state, and the majority party there was always messing stuff up. It was then I realized that the problem isn't with one party, it's with politics in general.
I registered with the largest third party in my state (happens to be Libertarian) and I vote for whatever candidate I think is least bad. In 2016, that was Gary Johnson, in 2020 it was Joe Biden, and in 2024 it was Chase Oliver. It doesn't really matter who I vote for because the R candidate will always win with at least 20% margin, so I vote my conscience.
I'm not saying both sides are the same, I'm saying both sides age liars and massive disappointments.