Really? But he was such a normal decent person? I assumed he was liberal or progressive or socialist because he valued empathy and niceness. He did not look down on people for their race, class, religion or abilities. He valued education. He genuinely cared for people.
The lesson I take from this is republicans used to not be sociopaths
In the 80s and 90s it was possible to have faith in the country. That the current administration was just a bad actor and we’d get it right next time. That we all kinda wanted the same thing, a functioning government and to lead our lives happily and privately.
Maybe it was true then. Maybe Fox News actually did poison the well, and people who once were rational are no longer so. Fear and hate blight rationality and the media cycle feeds on it. The more angry we are, the more we engage with social media. The more ads we’re served.
It’s wild that we’ll have to explain around campfires and cook stoves in the aftermath to whatever generation follows us that this was all in pursuit of ad revenue.
Politics in the US used to be divided along a lot more lines than just socially progressive vs socially conservative. You had a lot of people voting in ways that would surprise people these days, which was totally normal and reasonable, as the reaction to hearing people voted differently to you wasn’t outrage like it is now. It’s really hard to go back to that though, as now it’s been sorted down pretty much exclusively one very emotional axis being the whole identity of the parties, everyone infers a lot more about people based on who they vote for.
Really? But he was such a normal decent person? I assumed he was liberal or progressive or socialist because he valued empathy and niceness. He did not look down on people for their race, class, religion or abilities. He valued education. He genuinely cared for people.
The lesson I take from this is republicans used to not be sociopaths
In the 80s and 90s it was possible to have faith in the country. That the current administration was just a bad actor and we’d get it right next time. That we all kinda wanted the same thing, a functioning government and to lead our lives happily and privately.
Maybe it was true then. Maybe Fox News actually did poison the well, and people who once were rational are no longer so. Fear and hate blight rationality and the media cycle feeds on it. The more angry we are, the more we engage with social media. The more ads we’re served.
It’s wild that we’ll have to explain around campfires and cook stoves in the aftermath to whatever generation follows us that this was all in pursuit of ad revenue.
Politics in the US used to be divided along a lot more lines than just socially progressive vs socially conservative. You had a lot of people voting in ways that would surprise people these days, which was totally normal and reasonable, as the reaction to hearing people voted differently to you wasn’t outrage like it is now. It’s really hard to go back to that though, as now it’s been sorted down pretty much exclusively one very emotional axis being the whole identity of the parties, everyone infers a lot more about people based on who they vote for.