As I write this we still don't know who is going to be living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue come January so I've been indulging in one my favorite pastimes - data analysis. Being from Silicon Valley, it's a given that most of us are data geeks. We parse everything a hundred different ways.
The 2020 election provides an trove of riches that will keep the talking heads happy for years to come.
No surprise that there are deep divisions in how Americans see America. I really fault the beloved technology of Silicon Valley and the naive 20- and 30- somethings running the social media platforms. These platforms were supposed to bring us together and connect us. Instead they divided us into little silos with information algorithms that showed more of the ideas we agreed with and reinforced our opinions and did nothing to foster dialogue but sure sold a lot of eyeballs to the advertisers.
An example: one of my friends published a link to an article about women who voted for Donald Trump with the comment that he could not understand why any woman would vote for him. The reader responses can be summed up as "What is wrong with those people?"
My own reaction: "Did anyone ask them why?"
Then I realized I could ask. I have a few female buddies I am pretty sure voted for DT. But I'm not sure how to start the conversation.
This is the great stumbling block to bridging the divide that's bigger than the Grand Canyon. How, after all the screaming & name calling, are we going to start talking to each other so we can work together? Because if we don't start talking to each other we will never understand the other point of view.
Is there anything we agree on?
I have a friend who is a member of the NRA and reliably votes Republican.
One night at a church camp out after much discussion of how much we hate the Los Angeles Dodgers and prospects for the Giants we discovered we agreed about the problems facing the country. Where we differed was in the solutions. And that's when the conversation began.
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