Post seems fit for the community as this is more “real life discussion” than “rage inducing news bait” and appears asked in good faith.

OP, disregard this comment: just commenting this per admin suggestion to sticky it to get ahead of any potential reports.

Left and right, particularly in American politics, are very wishy washy ( definitions easily changed).

The politics have drifted rightwards ( the Overton Window) in the USA the last two generations.

A hard core American socialist these days is more like mildly leftist when compared to different places and times.

Often, in lemmy and other fringe media, this is the first exposure many mainstream Americans get to the real left. And I have to say, having been in the 1970s, most of this left here is cozy and mild and nonviolent compared to what it can become.

I’m experiencing the opposite effect. I was used to being on the liberal side of most online debates so I thought of myself as firmly on the left, but here I see so many people far to my own left and I think “Wow, these guys should be nowhere near power.” My political opinions haven’t actually changed much because of that (although some things IRL have made me seriously question some of them) but now I identify more as a centrist (or “classic liberal”) and I think it’s important to keep the Democrats from veering dangerously far to the left like the Republicans have already veered dangerously far to the right.

Also doesn’t this discussion break rule #1 here?

I think things that keep you engaged mentally, even if they’re memes, can keep you thinking about issues even when you’re away from that media.

I was raised solidly conservative, but through exposure to issues and talking with people and learning the finer points of issues, it really made me question things. I went from thinking things where the way they were for good reason (maintaining status quo) to more asking why things should stop where they are and not improve to help more people (progressiveness).

Some people can hear a “fact” and be satisfied they have an answer with no more desire to expand on that. You’re seeing things that make you question things you’ve felt were true as your mind saw them and your opinions are evolving. I don’t think there’s an inherit way people can form their opinions. You could read conservative media and see fallacy in it. I lean left a decent bit, but I read plenty on Lemmy that is ridiculous to me, especially authoritarian left views.

I think people go more conservative when they feel they are losing something. Prosperity, career trajectory, friendly/familial bonds, social status. I don’t think that is the way to get things back, but when you’re afraid of losing things, you tend to lose some rationality as you desperately cling to things. If you can blame wokeness on why your jokes and treatment of people isn’t cool anymore, if you can blame cheap migrant labor for why your career isn’t advancing, if you can blame other people why you aren’t getting paid enough to get by, you maintain your sense of self and can externalize a real problem.

I don’t want to outright say those problems aren’t real, because they are to those feeling them. I just think more of the root causes are systematic, and having those scapegoats helps maintain status quo.

I like Lemmy not because it is leftist, but moreso that it is small enough I get to know individuals a bit more deeply that I can from bigger platforms. People can keep it real without worrying about pleasing a very wide general audience. For example, I don’t personally know any trans people in real life. With the high visibility they have here, I’ve gotten a better grasp of many issues from just sitting here and paying attention. It’s given me great opportunity to start to learn about something I didn’t really know how to approach mentally. I feel it’s been really good to get to know them and understand a bit of where they’re coming from. If I hadn’t been here with an openness to get to know them, I’d still just be lost and confused and while I never had an issue with trans people, I just plain didn’t understand. For some people that can turn to distrust.

Point being, I think it is just as much what you personally are looking for out of the content as it is for you to be exposed to the content itself. If you want to expand your mind and grow, you can do that, and if you want to circle the wagons, you can do that too. I feel you will eventually shift naturally to things that support that desire to grow or become walled off, but it isn’t inherent to the content itself.

It’s pretty much the same thing yeah: you find something you’re somewhat interested in, and then The Algorithm will shove increasingly aggressive content at you and hey presto, you’ve fallen down the rage-bait circlejerk hole for whatever side you were already somewhat aligned with.

I’m old enough to remember when you could have friends with different political opinions and it never went past ‘oh, cool, well i don’t agree but whatever’. That’s 100% not a thing anymore, because everyone on both sides of any issue have been completely radicalized.

The right are Nazis, and the left are raping children, and that’s where the discussion starts now, and thus you have… the mess we have now.

I don’t know what the solution is, other than literal deprogramming, since that’s almost exactly how a cult works: the cult leader affirms what you already think, tells you that you’re special, and then makes sure no voices of dissent are heard.

You know, like social media’s algorithms do in the name of “engagement”.