I've noticed that the vast majority of people who latch onto one side of the extreme or the other are also extremely ignorant about the overall issues that they protest for or against. They can't seem to articulate their anger without chanting empty slogans.
That's what happens when people let their emotions dictate their actions.
Okay, now with that outta the way... I see that this is your first post so I'd like to offer a little unsolicited advice for your blog from another new steemit user.
First, add an image to your post. It will create a thumbnail in the feed and be more of an eye-catcher for people. And it's probably not a good idea to thumb-up your own posts. Most people frown on it.
Other than that, welcome to the steemit community, and lots of luck to you.
Hi! Thanks for replying, for the kind words and for the advice. They probably shouldn't have included a checkbox to upvote one's own post then, but I will heed your advice :)
I'm mainly looking to use steemit as a way to share ideas. I'm not trying to start a successful blog, but rather, to jolt down thoughts in a place where a handful of people can get something out of them, without worrying about censorship or obsolete content being deleted. Beats a notebook, doesn't it?
Now, if Steemit is not suited for this kind of content, that's fine. You tell me :)
It seems to me that this is the case for the vast majority of people in general, because politics just aren't their top priority, so they just 'go with the flow'. In my experience, Facebook definitely reinforces political echo chambers. It's a subtle, modern form of local brainwashing that leads to the creation of opinion bubbles in which everyone not only agrees with the others, but is also convinced that people who think differently are idiots or lunatics. This leads to a strong 'Us VS Them' mentality.
It seems obvious that one should be knowledgeable about a political party before supporting it, but the truth is that this is usually too much to ask. I believe this is an inherent flaw of party systems, because it leads to blind support of candidates you know next to nothing about, save for their political affiliation. How is the well-meaning average Joe supposed to make an informed choice? He is not going to sift through newspapers and books to figure out whether $current_candidate is the right leader for his country.
What I think will happen is that Joe will mostly base his decision upon his personal biases, hearsay, the looks of the candidate, and Joe's favorite news source, which will itself be aligned with his biases. This is how we end up with two sides shouting at each other without even really knowing much about their candidate.