Speaking as a non-American (if there even is such a thing anymore) I found the top-rated comment at the end of that article to be as poignant as the article itself. "Kurt" is politically opposed to Friedman, but he agrees wholeheartedly that social blocs in the US are becoming increasingly isolated by ideology: "[L]iberals don't know any conservatives and vice versa, so we do not engage or compromise with each other but instead demonize." Both sides of the mainstream media have contributed to this by slanting their coverage to accommodate the biases of their audience in an attempt to secure eroding market share. The result is rabid public dialogue with no middle ground, moronic discourse and a massively disaffected voting public, which in turn leads to further alienation of and resentment among the disenfranchised.
I missed that the first time around. Thanks for pointing that out. It seems to me that the current two-party system facilitates this "us vs. them" mentality. Yes, there are other parties, but they are much smaller and are often regarded as distractors rather than real threats. The comedian Chris Rock has a bit about this very thing.. "No moral, decent person is one thing." I agree about the media. I don't think it's good that so many media outlets are owned by the same people. I think that lots of smaller media companies would have to compete for attention in a way that the current media outlets do not. I also think that specialized media is more desirable than generalized media as the latter often results in "stories" about puppies and stuff instead of investigative journalism, if only because it's a safe bet that people will tune in for puppies.
I'm guilty of the "us vs them" mentality, myself. The problem from where I'm standing is that it has become the default method of winning votes and attracting readers. Critical issues that involve all of us are being reduced by both the media and the major parties to cynical interpretations of the other parties' motives.
I think people are entrenched in their views for the most part, but I don't think it's true that liberals and conservatives don't interact. There are certainly geographic areas where one ideology is dominant, and perhaps in those areas people are less likely to have friends of a different creed. But for most of us, politics just don't reign supreme when picking our friends, neighbors and whom to spend holidays with. Personally--and although I speak for myself I know many people who are the same as me--I'm a fairly liberal thinking I suppose, but my friends and family are all over the map. We talk, argue, debate, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if we "compromise" (as the commenter suggests), because there's nothing to compromise over. We aren't the ones making the political decisions. I can convince my gun loving friend that maybe handguns for everyone isn't a good idea, and perhaps he can convince me that we don't need higher taxes, but in the end neither of us has a vote in the legislature. The real problem isn't people not talking, it's political entrenchment (protection of incumbents at all costs to society) and big money politics, where laws are written by groups whom the law is supposed to protect us from. edit: Friedman is a windbag who just spouts meaningless drivel not supported by data to promote his inane opinions about the world. Not sure how he still has a job, or why anyone listens to him when he's wrong so very, very often.
I don't doubt that liberals and conservatives still interact within the community; my point is that the interaction isn't occurring in the public sphere, where it is needed. Instead, both sides seem to be doing their utmost to shoehorn the motives of the other half of the population into a box. That is how it looks from outside the United States, at least. Not a regular reader of the NY Times so I couldn't give you an informed opinion about Friedman either way. I'm happy to accede to your perspective.
By "public sphere" you mean the media. The media in this country are a disaster thanks largely to for profit, publicly traded news being the overwhelming source for most people. If it looks like liberals and conservatives don't interact to the rest of the world, it is wholly the result of the media concocting and exporting a story they find compelling. Politicians, most of whom are egomaniacs, love this narrative, because it give them them the feeling that they are like a sports team that gets to have a cheering section.