I agree with you that politics should focus on things like economy, infrastructure, overall general well being of the population at large, stability, keeping things as level, balanced, and fair as they can be (just), dissuading corruption (because someone is always going to try to take advantage over others), etc.

As far as identity "politics" goes, from where I'm sitting, most of what I see is social, not political. In a free society x everyone is allowed to state their case to persuade people to their line of thinking. You can't have free speech for some, but not for others. So.... as far as I'm concerned, as long as lunatic right wing proselytizers can call for the murder of gays and theys, scream at women from street corners that they are whores and Jezebels, drive crucifixion tableau floats through residential neighborhoods dripping fake blood everywhere then if somebody wants to try to convince me that men can have babies is proven because male seahorses give birth they can make that argument.

I'm not going to buy it because seahorses are fish, not mammals, it's still the female that lays the eggs, and I'm not an idiot but you're also going to have a hard time convincing me my name is Jezebel. It's SC, the same as it's been for 51 years.

So it's not have a problem, per se, with these discussions taking place. If a political answer needs to be made in response to a social change or desire for change, then we take a vote on it, like we've always done.

Nobody can make an informed vote without all these discussions taking olace beforehand. They're not all going to be good ones. It's unrealistic to demand or expect that. People are idiots; we all act the part of a fool from time to time. We can't help ourselves. Some of us do so more than others. Being in the role of a fool is also somewhat subjective.

I don't see the existence of these conversations to be the problem. To my mind, the bigger ir more direct problem is twofold:

• the moderation of the "debates" or discussion have been chaotic, inconsistent, and predicated on financial gain rather than maintaining quality of discussion and debate. Because it's monetized, it allows bad actors to not only stay in the mix, but to thrive at the expense of others. It allows abuse and corruption.

• people were not mentally prepared for so much 'noise'. It's like living in a hive almost, or a Borg cube but without the override of the queen's voice. Social media has been like telepathy in a way. We're all now suddenly exposed to what everyone else thinks. Often, it's first thoughts, shallow ones, not deep thinking. There's very little editing. Plus, you lose something in the format. You have to know someone to really know why they believe what they do, why they react the way they do. Lots of times you have to listen for a really long time to get to the root of what they're upset about. With social media, you lose personal history and are limited by time. There's a learning curve in being able to effectively communicate with each other this way. It's kicking our butts, were annoying the hell out of each other.