Before starting: I consider myself to be far left of center on topics like: Social welfare, mental health, equal rights, war, and economics (whatever -- tax me more if it pays for people to go to the hospital).  I find myself a little less left when it comes to "identity politics".  I'm a firm believer in giving my best shot on anything, if I am in a position where I use the wrong pronoun or use a word that might offend you (I called someone a "Lady" recently and got a somewhat vitriolic response), sorry, it's a best effort.  If you choose to get offended -- I'm sorry?

Many of my friends have many "solutions" to problems that ail the country at the moment.  Most of these "solutions" take into account nothing about the status quo and focus on some make believe world where 1 person is dictator and we can implement magical legislation with absolutely no oversight, regard for costs, understanding of minority / majority groups displaced, etc.  These posts are largely masturbatory in nature, where people like to seem like they are politically knowledgeable and intellectual while having no business commenting on politics at all.  I'm a strong believer in political engagement, but that starts with an understanding of how politics work, how bills are passed, how laws are enacted, and the timeframe that it takes for these things to pass / be enforced in IDEAL circumstances. Understanding logistics behind proposed solutions, cost / benefit analysis, and the agencies that perform them are the start of an educated political discussion.

I think another, larger problem that this country faces is the fact that our politically involved people are not only poorly educated; but treating politics similarly to sports.  It's all about "my team".  I find many ideas on the right to be repulsive, and think that they are largely out of touch with civil rights; however, not every policy that they try to enact is going to literally destroy the nation. So many of my friends feign outrage in posts about bills that they can't name, which contain material and provisions that they haven't read anything about.  They got a summary from a blog, which was a summary of a huffington post article, which was a summary of a Washington Post article, which contains 1 author's interpretation of what a bill means.  I'm not trying to dictate who can take part in the political process, but imagine hearing a story 4th hand and getting outraged about it before you talked to any of the primary sources from the story?  You'd be insane and pissed off CONSTANTLY.   This false dichotomy in American politics combined with intense jingoism / xenophobia on the right and the "inclusion at all costs" from the left is creating a divide that is harmful to the fabric of what makes us a nation.  If you are unable to have political discourse without insulting ~40% of the country, then you aren't ready to debate politics and you either need additional education or to understand that not everyone who disagrees with you is racist, sexist, or some other horrible name.  The reality is that different parts of this country care about different stuff, and voted largely based on what they saw.  Insulting anyone for their choice is not democracy, in fact that is quite the opposite.  People who disagree with you are not the enemy.  If you believe you have a more valid point, convince them.  Slowly, calmly explain where you disagree.  Use some amount of empathy -- if you are trying to put yourself in the shoes of a rural farmer and not someone living on the East / West coast, you may understand that one party gives more subsidies and they need that for their way of life to exist.  You don't know what motivates someone if you don't ask.

Next off, rampant sexism.  If you post something funny about sex / gender (maligning men / women or otherwise) and nobody gets hurt -- whatever, comedy is part of the social fabric and I'm far from thin-skinned and can take a joke about any part of who I am.  If you make posts that malign an entire sex because you feel as though you are entitled to, you are not a "feminist" or "#noteveryman" -- you're an asshole.  Period.  This is not open for discussion.  If you are willing to malign an entire sex because of things that have happened to you, when a statistically small portion of that are perpetrators, you're not a good person.  It's great the the "#MeToo" movement has gained some steam and has drawn attention to the problems that women face -- but it doesn't actually do much to provide a solution.  There's a very clear problem, and a very clear solution.  If you are sexually assaulted by someone, or taken advantage of in some other way, or forced to do something you aren't comfortable with -- it is your duty, to report it.  If you do not report it, and this person goes on to hurt anyone else, you are partly responsible.  This goes for anyone, men, women, or any other sex / gender in the LGBT+ community.  If every crime were reported this would be a very different discussion -- but many people I've talked to about abuse in their past / present / future have said:
Them: "I didn't report it, but even if I did, nothing would happen."
Me: "How do you know that?"
Them: "Oh, it never does..."
Me: "Oh, you've tried in the past?"
Them: "No, but like, it wouldn't have mattered"

This circular logic continues until one party or both are exhausted.  The argument that I see a lot of is that "people (usually men)" have to talk with their friends and stop this from happening.  I have never in my life had a friend come up to me and brag about sexually assaulting someone.  I've never had someone tell me about taking advantage of someone sexually.  I've never had someone tell me they raped someone.  If they did, it would have resulted in an ass kicking that would have been fucking biblical.  I don't think that anyone tells the story about how they did these things, and if something were to go bad, the version we hear is one of the following:

"Oh man, I hooked up with that chick, fuckin' awesome dude."

or

"Fuck that, that chick was such a prude, I'm not gonna see her again"

As a guy -- how am I to know if either of these are sexual assault?  What do you want me to do -- "The chick that was a prude, did you force her to do anything you fucking piece of shit that I've known for the majority of my life"... it's unreasonable.

I support anyone who is a survivor of abuse, and as someone who has suffered more than most I can say that it's never fair.  Being abused both physically and sexually growing up -- that wasn't fair.  Being told that I was seeking attention / trying to get out of class when I told guidance councilors in high school -- that wasn't fair.  And all of us have to put up with some of this to some extent.  Life has hurdles, and some of us face more than others.  If you identify a hurdle that shouldn't be there -- work to include people, don't single them out.  You cannot divide people to make a more just society.

Every day thousands of bots in Russia are working hard to deepen the social / political divides in our country on even more issues than I even mentioned above, including guns, drugs, war, sex, politics, which news sites can / can't be trusted, etc.  In this age of information warfare, for society to continue to function as a whole, we need to adjust our rhetoric to bring everyone together and stop working so hard to tell people "what you're doing is wrong" and focus on "here's what we can all do to do better"