News Flash! According to a recent Pew Research Survey, most Republicans and Democrats can’t stand each other and large numbers consider the other side to be closed-minded, immoral, and dumb. This got me to thinking: if you want to better understand what people care about, ask them what they hate. And if you want to know what people hate, read the posted comments on political opinion pieces. So that’s what I did.
Specifically, I went to a Des Moines Register editorial endorsing Elizabeth Warren for president, which I predicted would have gotten a rise out of a lot of readers - and it did. Lots of vitriol on both sides of the political equation. Here’s a summary of what commenters didn’t like about the Other Side of the partisan divide:
While there’s plenty of overlap about what each side dislikes about the other, it’s not all overlap. Per the Des Moines Register commenters, the Left is hated for specific things…
…as is the Right:
There are definite themes here - themes that I’ll explore in a later post.