> on Reddit I was simultaneously subbed to /r/The_Donald, /r/politics, /r/ChapoTrapHouse, /r/Libertarian, etc
Maybe you were just enjoying reading shitposts? Nothing wrong with that, everyone has their version of tabloids they enjoy, but these are mostly barely thought through hot takes posted to get a reaction (and surfaced because they were successful at it). There's no reason to think their intersection is going to be anywhere near something "true" (let alone usefully true).
^ A person studying their daily bowel movements for political commentary would be better informed than someone who read those subreddits looking for accurate political news, and they’d have a more honest assessment about the worth of their news sources.
I can list plenty of subreddits with worthwhile political discussion, but none of that matters if a persons idea of “balanced” is to find the dregs of fringe and extreme political movements and use them as the basis of said balance. I’d wager that those subreddits represent less than 10% of the views of most Americans.
The hard part is that reddit is majority liberal, so it's very very hard to find a good balance.
Any random non-political subreddit is going to be liberal slanted. In order to find a conservative slant you have to go specifically to a political conservative subreddit.
A spectrum of subreddits across ideological views, all with discussions you may actually learn something from. You’ll notice that none of those subreddits have been suspended because their members and moderators are repeatedly calling for violence against their political opponents, nor are they just recruiting boards for Stormfront. Again, finding the fringe conspiracy theorists repeatedly calling for violence doesn’t actually give you a well informed or balanced perspective.
Maybe you were just enjoying reading shitposts? Nothing wrong with that, everyone has their version of tabloids they enjoy, but these are mostly barely thought through hot takes posted to get a reaction (and surfaced because they were successful at it). There's no reason to think their intersection is going to be anywhere near something "true" (let alone usefully true).