Americans can’t stand each other, so let’s stop forcing our preferences on one another

Which is to say, the stereotypes may be largely correct—urban liberals are facing off against rural-to-suburban conservatives. And once settled in their varying homes and kicking back to catch up on the day’s events, lefties and righties strongly disagree on which news sources are worthy of their attention—or whether the media should be trusted at all.

If you increasingly disagree with your political opponents, don’t like them, rarely encounter them, get your information from different sources, and can barely speak with them during scarce meetings, it really does become tempting to treat them as the “other.” In the modern context, that means shaming, muzzling, punishing, and trying to side-line them completely so you can force your preferences down their throats.

But why treat every political preference as a collective endeavor that must be imposed on the unwilling? This country started as a federal system, with most decisions devolved downwards on the premise that each state should be entitled to indulge in stupid political experiments without dragging in the neighbors. Reviving federalism would continue to give dissenters to California’s experiment in one-party rule borders to run across if it turns out to be something of a mistake.