Just a realization I had today, that the mass majority of people subscribe to one of two ideologies, each of which tells you the other people are inherently bad. This is my attempt at rationalizing some reasons to why that is.
There is one more danger of groupthink and that is, it inevitably leads to an 'us' vs 'them' situation.
Irving Janis (who coined the term) proposed groupthink as a small group dynamic. Yet the collective shifts in perceptions towards target groups and group goals that occurred in Germany, Rwanda or Cambodia are clear examples of groupthink at a national level. The groupthink spreads, becoming a national dogma with an unchallenged world view or view that defines reality.
Another fun realization: Neither side's collection of opinions makes any sense. Both from a compositional view (e.g. small government is good, spend more on crime and defense) an internal consistency view (e.g. we want to support free speech, so long as its not bad about certain groups).
