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When you have trolls on this site cheering on trump like adolescents it kind of rubs people the wrong way. There's something about Trump that brings out the worst in people also. Maybe it's the constant bragging and childishness of trump comparing almost everything he does with Obama. It's gone too far now, because he threw out accusations with no evidence. Everybody knows you can't do that especially as President. The partisanship started with the Republicans against Obama (Tea Party) It doesn't look like it will end now because most Republicans are ultra right wing.
The short & sweet answer to the topic title: Sophisticated algorithms populate ad space with the sort of news and opinions that are relevant to preconceived biases. Couple that with the human tendency to meet opposition with equal or greater force and you get the lunacy that comprises contemporary social culture -- particularly so when the aforementioned lunacy can be promulgated via the cowardice of anonymity (whether it be while wearing a ski mask or simply hidden behind an internet moniker).
When you have trolls on this site cheering on trump like adolescents it kind of rubs people the wrong way. There's something about Trump that brings out the worst in people also. Maybe it's the constant bragging and childishness of trump comparing almost everything he does with Obama. It's gone too far now, because he threw out accusations with no evidence. Everybody knows you can't do that especially as President. The partisanship started with the Republicans against Obama (Tea Party) It doesn't look like it will end now because most Republicans are ultra right wing.
Thing is, each side is very good at pointing out the flaws of the other side, but they always seem very poor at identifying those exact same flaws exist on their side as well...
That's probably always been true to an extent but simply more evident given the current atmosphere.
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You talk of how FOX News and other right-of-center outlets always have this undertone of anxiety and how they always seem to send the message that "something is wrong".... In other words, they purposely exaggerate the severity of the situation, but have you turned on MSNBC lately? Have you listened to virtually any liberal commentator? If MSNBC was my only source of information and I listened to no one else but them, I'd be hard pressed not to believe that the sky was falling down, that America as we know it is over, and that the 2016 elections was nothing short of a Russian takeover of the country.... none of which is true.
No. A few years ago I gave up cable and now only stream TV. I'll watch news clips of Fox (Roku) ... sometimes PBS ... The only MSNBC is 40 minutes or so of Morning Joe via podcast. After the election I picked up unlimited access to CNN through Sling. So I got a clearly delineated view of before (election) CNN and after (election) and certainly saw the more open politicization or bias that had occurred in the interim.
But I've always preferred to get news through print - it's easier to quickly scan and reread as necessary.
Back when I had cable, I appreciated the intelligence and verbal dexterity of a Rachel Madow but simply did not want to hear polemics no matter how well done. Years ago I tried to listen to Air America but had the same reaction there as to conservative talk radio. Stumbled across the Young Turks last year for an episode that seemed quite interesting but was disappointed on looking further to find more of the same, albeit from the opposing camp.
It's just not an "art form" that works (for me) for I think much of it is more about emotion - being with the tribe, so to speak - than information. But that said, today I AM now for the first time ever picking up CNN more for commiseration and to find a common viewpoint.
Talk radio has been telling its listeners for years that they were about to lose America. As much as I try with Trump (and I still do, at times) there remains this sense of unease, lack of predictability and so, sure, having friendly commentators to reflect back my own thoughts is soothing.
Increasingly, it seems like we are beyond any pretense of bias. Maybe just accepting that would be a plus. It's hard not to appreciate the historical importance of a fourth estate but how many would make effective use of it? News organizations are businesses. With all the recent furor over "fake news" I've never quite understand why one business entity is charged with the responsibility of developing the raw material ("true" facts) for another to distort at will in the guise of opinion or worse entertainment.
No argument that deliberate propaganda can pull a nation apart but we seem to be doing that to ourselves.
As for Russia and the elections, again no argument that there is not some intense exaggeration of possible scenarios. Why is a whole another subject. But if we are to dial it down, it's hard not to appreciate that it would be helpful if the lead is taken by Trump.
When you have trolls on this site cheering on trump like adolescents it kind of rubs people the wrong way. There's something about Trump that brings out the worst in people also. Maybe it's the constant bragging and childishness of trump comparing almost everything he does with Obama. It's gone too far now, because he threw out accusations with no evidence. Everybody knows you can't do that especially as President. The partisanship started with the Republicans against Obama (Tea Party) It doesn't look like it will endnow because most Republicans are ultra right wing.
"We are only super partisan in response to the other side's super partisanship"
It's amazing that, even in a thread that calls out blind partisanship, people try to explain it in such a blindly partisan way.....
The 2 major parties have created the environment of partisan politics. Divide and conquer is in play. The more divided we the people are, the easier it is for them to control us. It really is that simple.
Politics is the kissing cousin to religion. It is no surprise that you see such heated emotions to both.
Why do people on this forum totally ignore facts and ignore valid arguments against their side? Its just constant knee-jerk attacks with no analysis or support provided.
Why do you assume everything FOX NEWS or CNN tells you is automatically true just because the guy on the TeeVee happens to be someone from your political party?
Are people really this dumb?
i don't think anyone is believing what they are seeing on fox news. They draw from more reputable sources, like Trumps Twitter.
[quote=[B]Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge[/b]]
Quote:
I don't think the South would have arrived at the same conclusion. It took decades for the North, which was a less direct beneficiary. Lincoln didn't want slavery in new territories. That was enough for the Confederacy to attempt secession. I can't agree that individual rights were more subordinate to the greater whole in the North. If anything, the opposite was true. The issue was very much about slavery. It is only revisionism that has tried to obscure slavery's centrality to the election of 1860, nullification, and secession.
Today differs. We can trace roots back to the Civil War era, but the tree is not the same. I don't think it's about the individual's rights against the rights of the greater whole. I think it is more fundamentally about who can vote, become a citizen, worship, and work in America--how should the government's police interact with our communities? It is also about policy: how much should the government support health care for people with lower incomes? Who should we trade with? How should we make war and peace? But the policy questions are often subsumed by emotional appeals and unrealistic pandering.
But the States and regions have changed. Virginia and Pennsylvania are close analogs in contemporary politics, but one is northern and the other southern. And the urban/suburban/rural divide is at least as strong as the regional divide.
Neither southerners nor northerners (nor westerners nor midwesterners) dislike each other as a whole. I am a westerner who probably has a lot more in common with someone from Charlotte, NC than I do someone from Prineville, OR.
We didn't see anything like an active central government until the New Deal. FDR won almost every State in the Union in 1932 and 1936 (except for bits of the northeast). His results were especially strong in the South. FDR was the strong central government President, and his support base was the South.
NB: slavery would not have failed in a decade or two. It was more efficient than the
tenant farming of cotton that followed and remained a huge industry well into the 20th century.
Although we are at times using concepts somewhat differently, there is nothing that you've written with which I'd disagree.
Briefly ...
* The references to the Civil War in earlier posts were secondary and but for illustration. I'm aware of the conflicting narratives about the timing of slavery's eventual demise. Certainly later rather than earlier seems a strong possibility.
* Absolutely the divide is more urban/rural than merely geographical. (Two different posters here, although I've merged your response.)
* Dislike? I was referring to inherent tension between those holding different views of government. That some of this tension is now expressed more emotionally increasingly infects the blogosphere, internet, and undeniably includes CD postings. Agree that doesn't necessarily equate to "dislike" in personal terms, say of a neighbor.
* If you are speaking of "government" in purely political terms, then yes the legislation of the New Deal was a watershed although I suppose some comment might be made about the progressiveness of the first Roosevelt.
Here, though, I was not using the term "government" politically but instead culturally. Interest in this topic was sparked by a book read several years ago - American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (Colin Woodward). The book is billed as an aid to understanding modern politics - a goal in which it fails but that fortunately only comprises the last third of the book. The historical / cultural analysis is by far the more compelling portion.
So often we stay locked within our own paradigms and simply define "the other" as wrong. That book then others that I sought out (some of Jim Webb's writings, for example) resulted in an cursory understanding or perhaps appreciation for what had previously struck me as incomprehensible positions.
Here, government is discussed not as a purely political structure but more as subjugation of the individual to the collective for the good of the whole. The acceptance of this likewise (or at least so goes the argument) is less a political decision than one conditioned by the inherited culture. Unfortunately, the terminology that I'm using is my own and sounds more like a treatise on Communism (which it is not) and less like the description of a New England village, which is what is meant.
Very briefly, the orderliness and intense structure of the Puritan way of life (and those of associated colonies) not to mention the certainty of its religious texts was a precursor to your statement, namely:
I can't agree that individual rights were more subordinate to the greater whole in the North. If anything, the opposite was true. The issue was very much about slavery.
You are correct, as far you as go. But it is in "forcing" this view ON the South that the North acted on the needs of the community (with the needs, in this instance, defined the rights of the individual slave reinforced by the perceived morality of their position). Here, community need or rightness superseded any rights of the slaveholder to self-determination.
Likewise, the same principal holds as you move to the present with: "I don't think it's about the individual's rights against the rights of the greater whole." The questions you ask connect to the relationship of government and the individual - but that we ask them AT ALL infers that it is the role of government to take a role or "make policy" that betters the outcome for individuals. To me (and I suspect you) we think the answer obvious.
The initial point of past postings was that those who disagree may be influenced culturally by past events. Here, I mentioned the inheritance of their Scot-Irish heritage - either directly or indirectly through transmission to later immigrants.
I will reread this to see if there is a hope of clarity. If not, my apologies. Now I notice your sentence: "But the policy questions are often subsumed by emotional appeals and unrealistic pandering." And so perhaps we DO disagree on the essential point.
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