I’d like to shake the hand of the guy who went rogue with the road sign here. But, while his message is funny, it makes an important point.
Americans from the baby-boom and the earlier generations remember a time when our personal politics meant relatively little in the way we regarded one another.
As an example, 50 years ago, few parents were upset if one of their children proposed to marry someone from the other major political party. Yet that’s no longer the case. Today, more than half of Democrats interviewed said they would object if one of their kids wanted to marry a Republican (and vice versa).
What has changed fundamentally? In particular, how did the MAGA movement come to divide us so completely?
In my mind, it’s largely a function of the fact that what we now call “news” is no longer information; it’s content designed to capture our round-the-clock attention and make us loyal to one club or another. News is no longer a service; it’s an extremely lucrative business, and the only way to establish and maintain these megaprofits is to have two halves of America, each of which considers the other half “assholes.”
It depends on what you believe.
Fox News will tell you that our southern border is no longer being overrun, that we’ve discovered that vaccinations are unsafe, that we’re standing up against Sharia Law, we’re preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon, prices are coming down (or soon will be), Trump is an honest and effective servant of the American people and that the U.S. is once again respected on the world stage.
We live in a country where tens of millions of idiots believe every word of this.
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I met a guy today from a rural part of Central England–“nothing but farms and pubs,” as he put it. His father was an epidemiologist working for the United Nations, and so, as a boy, he lived all over the world and grew up largely in developing countries that suffered from horrific diseases.
He and his wife had the conversation one would expect from such people:
- Why are we so content to ignore climate change that is ruining our planet?
- Why are people so indifferent to the suffering of others?
- How is it possible that billionaires expect to live well here on Earth while 99.9% of us suffering with wildfires, devastating storms, blistering heat, losses of landmasses, and desertification?
- At the end of the day, is money really that precious?
Obviously, not everyone thinks this way, but to be in something of a “lovefest” for just a few minutes was a great relief.
relief.
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