the greatest lie ever told was convincing the American people there is only a "left" and a "right"; a "correct" view and an "incorrect" view. just like sports teams, bad guys and good guys. one must win and one must lose. perhaps it wasn't always this polar but it feels like the vast majority of opinions are arrived at by simply listening to their pole's consensus and knee jerking to attack "the other", rather than critical thought.
and for politicians, this is the greatest job security they could ever imagine. probably 50%, if not far more, of their votes are gained simply via the letter next to their name. really, does any politician actually care about any national or local issues? why would they even waste energy to think about it. simply follow their tribe's consensus and ensure self preservation, salary, perks, social status and power.
>There is more than one dimension in American culture or politics
Yes, but that's neither here nor there, if most of public discourse falls along two, at best three, lines.
>To try to compress American culture to one dimension is rarely useful and often a disservice to peoples' actual opinions or beliefs.
On the contrary, it's a very useful proxy, and the only sane way to make sense of a stream of 40% opinions towards one direction, 40% towards another, and some opinions all over the place... You prune the statistically irrelevant ones...
This is fundamentally true for everything in the universe. Every single category breaks down. Even if I were to drill down into, say, five dimensions, your basic argument would still hold true.
If we took the raw complexity of reality into consideration, we'd never be able to move forward because we'd be stuck in an endless debate over categorization. It's why I included caveats at both the beginning and the end of my statement.
Actually the argument is "why lose the forrest for the trees?".
Every day you make abstractions to better understand reality. For example, you don't devote equal attention to every blade of grass, you sum it as "this is a lawn" and move on.
If you didn't you'd be lost in the first few feet walking outside of your house, seeing everything as an equally important detail.
That's true but but over the last few decades in the US it's been getting increasingly less true over time as various debates get partisan valence and ideological sorting gets stronger.
Unfortunately, when it comes to public policy (at the national level at least), the way our system is structured doesn’t leave room for anything except for two distinct positions.
There is more than one dimension in American culture or politics.
There are two political parties. That doesn't mean there are two groups, nor two orthodoxies.
To try to compress American culture to one dimension is rarely useful and often a disservice to peoples' actual opinions or beliefs.