I saw this thread over on Reddit and was about to comment with the following, but in this instance, I think it’s better shared here, with the original content embedded, given that it’s now less of a comment and more of an essay.
There’s agreement with OP’s [Original Poster] overall sentiment of things being different now than it used to be when discussing politics, and I think it’s important to consider why that might be. I also want to preface what I’m about to say (tone can often be lost in written form without using literary prose, which is a bit ridiculous for social media posts) as something for everyone to think about rather than being an outright political statement.
I’m an elder millennial myself, and I began paying attention to politics in the late 90’s/early 2000’s as I was progressing through high school. While I do agree that political discourse has changed dramatically since then, it might not be so easily understood as people themselves being more politically charged as it is the political issues that are being argued and the means of discussing them being more readily available and manipulable for those political ends.
It used to feel like, particularly at the provincial level, which I feel OP is mostly driving at, that the issues at hand were much more mundane than they are now, like how to handle our local oil, how to use the profits from such; healthcare issues province-wide (a perennial issue if ever there was one); how to best stem out-migration and spur in-migration; fishery issues like conservation of species (another perennial), and so forth. There seemed to be spirited, but far friendlier debates, from both sides generally. Yes, there were other issues of great importance, but they felt like outliers at the time and not the dominant conversation drivers.
As to why we lost that level of decorum, it seems to be a carry-over of greater political issues that have cropped up both federally and internationally (particularly in American politics) that have driven hard wedges as people (both among electoral candidates and the electorate itself) have to take sides in an increasing number of high-stakes battles.
For people of my age range or younger, we’ve not had to fight these battles, or at least not to the degree to which they are fought in their prime or these days. The AIDS crisis happened when I was a child. The Civil Rights movement, suffrage, abortion rights, pivotal events like Stonewall, all of those were largely fought and settled before I was even born. That’s not to say that there haven’t been efforts to revisit those issues or that every detail has been ironed out to satisfaction, but we did miss a lot of it. Now, though, in the current political climate which has been steadily ramping since the mass-adoption of social media and the internet in general, we’re seeing those same issues being re-litigated in the public sphere again.
Stepping back and looking at the political apparatus, it can easily be seen that these issues are being pushed out by the right-wing influence sphere [While you may feel that this flies in the face of my earlier statement, to quote, “Our job is not to report both sides. One side says it’s raining and the other side says it is not raining. Our job is to look out the window.”] in an effort to manipulate voters into “us vs. them” scenarios, with groups like immigrants, women’s autonomy, the transgendered community, and people of colour cast in the role of the “them” side. As I said before, none of this is new, but it’s used as ammunition to corral the masses in a way that many people from my cohort and younger have not personally witnessed on this side of the world.
These issues spill over into all the political levels, and is now part of consideration when at the ballot box. Granted, we don’t see it coming to the table so far in the [NL premier and leader of the provincial PC party] Tony Wakeham government, but there is certainly a plural caucus of voters and MHA’s in the federal conservative ranks that are only eager to attack the aforementioned minority groups for easy points among the pearl-clutchers. It should also be said that the PC’s and CPC’s aren’t mutually exclusive anymore (particularly like they were during the Danny Williams/Stephen Harper feud). Granted, again, Wakeham certainly seems inclined to break bread with the Carney government in a way that his actual federal counterpart, Pierre Poilievre isn’t, but that issue itself seems to be contentious in conservative circles.
Still, the fact remains that many who are in these minorities or those who support these minorities have a difficult time reconciling with an entity whose political cousins in the CPC and GOP would happily do them harm. Meanwhile, those on the other side have had to determine that they don’t feel like those minorities are in danger under a PC government, or if they’re apathetic to these minorities, or are part of the group that are actively against those minorities. Either way, that second group have decided to embrace an entity whose identity is linked to those ideologies, therefore wagering them, even if the odds are low, for what they otherwise perceive as the most desirable political option.
That’s where the wedge comes in. It’s no longer just sharing a family meal and arguing the merits of private vs. public investment or fish quotas or tax brackets, it’s the (often unspoken) reality of one side valuing the protection of these minority groups and putting that protection above mundane issues versus the other side being aware and indifferent to the extreme elements of conservatism who vote as they do or being in agreement with those elements. Even if the latter person (or people) says, “I don’t have an opinion on [insert minority], I just want my taxes to be lower, and the PCs say that’s their plan.” you’re still communicating that you’re willing to vote for a party that at best indirectly courts the extreme fringes that do have a vocal and often hostile opinion towards those minorities and therefore can’t possibly guarantee with 100% certainty that those minorities won’t be harmed, but you’re willing to take that risk for a perceived personal payoff. If you’re a conservative reading this, even if you don’t think that what I’m saying is necessarily true, this is how you are perceived amongst a great many non-conservatives.
If you’re a sympathizer or regular contributor towards the conservative political apparatus, even if you feel you’re a centrist to centre-right voter and feel that issues regarding those minorities doesn’t affect you or that you have no ill-will toward them, have a look at posts, replies, and comments on social media any time those groups are mentioned. There is a lot of vitriol these days from people who actively want to restrict or harm those minorities, and if you’re voting PC or CPC, they’re almost certainly in your voting bloc, and everyone on both sides of the issue knows this.
This can make for uncomfortable introspection and conversations, but that’s where we’re at politically. That’s the divide, even if you don’t want it to be and even if you feel it’s not how you politically align. The bad news for fiscal conservatives who reject or are indifferent to the social conservatism side of things is that we can’t get back to a place of friendly debate about the mundane without first recognizing and excising the creeping fringe that’s spreading from the conservative decision-makers you otherwise support.
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