&gt; They make the craziest things up about Common Core, Environment and the nation&#x27;s Safety Net.<p>I find your selection of topic really interesting. I&#x27;m not a US citizen, but I&#x27;m on good terms with a lot of smart and reasonable people in US from all the political spectrum, from Bernie to Trump, and I&#x27;ve noticed a curious thing: the issues these people are talking about are different. Even if they are sometimes related (like taxes and government spending), red&#x2F;blue teams don&#x27;t make the connection.<p>When a friend of mine (highly intelligent developer at Facebook, btw) explains why he would vote for Trump, he doesn&#x27;t mention any of these. He and others like him talk about gun laws, about foreign policy, macro-economics and capital flight.<p>If both parties weren&#x27;t as polarized, I think they would be able to come to some compromise about these issues, allowing the adversary to get his way on some stuff that is just not as important for them. But the rhetoric I see is always polarized and absolute. People aren&#x27;t ready even to ask the question about <i>why</i> would the other side think otherwise and assume good will even for a second. Instead, they immediately conjure racist&#x2F;anti-american&#x2F;anti-poor&#x2F;communist strawmen.