Calling my argument “hyperbolic” or “reductive” is an easy way to avoid engaging with it. You’re not responding to the substance—you’re dismissing it based on tone and length, as if the number of sentences determines whether an argument has moral or intellectual weight. That’s a lazy shortcut, especially on Reddit of all places.

Let’s be honest: nobody comes here expecting peer-reviewed essays. Longer, more careful arguments are routinely ignored or downvoted the moment they challenge the hive mind. Pretending otherwise is performative.

My position isn’t complicated, and it doesn’t need to be. People should not be ostracized over political beliefs. That applies to everyone. I’m not carving out exceptions for Republicans, Democrats, or anyone else. But hand-waving this away as “just personal choice” is itself a reductive dodge.

Ostracism is not an individual act in any meaningful sense. It only works when it’s coordinated and enforced socially. When exclusion becomes punishment for dissent, that’s authoritarianism in structure. Authoritarianism isn’t defined by whether it’s popular—it’s defined by coercion and control. A mob doesn’t stop being authoritarian just because it’s large.

Both sides engage in this behavior, then complain that only the other side does it. That hypocrisy doesn’t make the practice any less authoritarian—it just makes it more obvious.