More in Common - Perception Gap Quiz

More in Common is an organization that attempts to highlight areas of agreement between the right and left in the US to address rampant polarization. They developed this quiz to show people where they stand on various issues in relation to both sides of the political spectrum.

I'm solidly on the right, but listen to many lefty podcasts and read their writing in order to try to understand their positions. I also have a lot of liberals in my extended family. I had a feeling that my perception gap about what liberals think would be very small, and according to this admittedly flawed quiz, I was correct:



There are plenty of obvious criticisms for this quiz, but my main one is the open-ended, squishy phrasing of questions designed to show that the right and left agree on a given area. For example, "does racism still exist in America?" is a ridiculous question. Of course it does, somewhere in some form. You can always dig up some knuckle-dragging Neo Nazi or argue that BLM is itself racist. Racism in America is a question of degree and kind, not existence or lack thereof. If the only thing we can agree upon is that there is, somewhere, some species of racism still lurking in the US, then we really haven't agreed on much at all.

The most concerning thing to me was how many liberals apparently agree with me on generalized statements (not all cops are bad, lawful people should be allowed to bear arms), but then have extremely opposite views on non-generalized, policy-specific questions (open borders, abolish ICE).

Overall, I find myself disappointed that the only things both sides agree on are obvious, overarching statements which are so neutered as to avoid conflict that they don't really say anything. It would have been much more informative to get into the weeds on the issues, but my suspicion is that the outcome would not reveal that we have "More in Common."

They report that Americans believe that 55% of their fellow citizens hold extreme views (right or left), but the data shows that it is "only" 30%. Approximately a third of the country is a shite ton and I'd bet it's higher among actual voters.

Anyway, let's see dem scores.

Perception Gap Quiz