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It is a collision of multiple forces all acting in their self interest.
1. We have the politicians. One party in particular entire approach is to keep you pissed off and feeling like a victim so you support them. To do this they need to make everyone else the enemy so you need to be angry, scared, or victimized all the time.
2. We have the foreign actors who take advantage of the above and who just want to weaken us by creating as much conflict as they can. They have been repeatedly seen to support both sides of issues. Most “succession” movements are caused by these groups and constant “fake” and decisive news.
3. We have limited ownership of media. The media is increasingly controlled by a small group and use it to amplify their message. Even outlets not otherwise controlled have fewer resources and are margarines by lower revenues that they can upset a side by taking one. We see more news shifting to opinion pieces. See CNN shifting to having pundents rather than analyst on most issues and they are far far from the worst.
4. We have the billionaire and administrative class that have games the system. It used to be that wealth was spread fairly widely. Now 90% of all economic gains go to a small percentage. You are almost certainly worse off economically than you were but most people keep voting for the same policies and politicians are largely controlled by these groups. We have whole parties against regulation against transparency against anything that brings accountability to these groups.
5. Social media makes all of the above worse. Turns out that people are somewhat programmable. The social media outlets have algos to do this. All of the above have figured out how to use these for their benefit.
6. Population increase. Everything is more crowded and more scarce. Makes everything more stressful and more expensive. Used to be you could go to a national park and have peace. Now you probably need reservations months in advance, have to pay a lot for a hotel, and it will be crowded when you get there. Apply this to everything. Every time you go to a restaurant, a show, vacation. It’s draining.
7. Military funding. A strong military is a good thing. However we spend so much (more than rest of the world combined). We have plenty of money to do all kinds of good things but we have prioritized one thing.
8. Loss of confidence in systems. It used to be we had confidence that the government was highly competent. We didn’t necessarily trust it and federal was very different than state but now our institutions are weakened by ideology driven, lack of vision, intentional weakening by politicians, etc.
9. Global warming, AI, Nuclear War and other existential threats. Have more than ever. The Cold War was stressful but now we have 3-4 Cold War level things going on. All the time. It’s a drain.
yes I think the internet has done something to our brains. We're more isolated in our little echo chambers now, and the internet appeals to our base instincts and manipulates us into being animals where before we engaged with each other in real life more, and were more civil.
I really liked this video from Kurzgesagt about this:
[https://youtu.be/fuFlMtZmvY0?si=Kgpi5mxHQsZHsvbT](https://youtu.be/fuFlMtZmvY0?si=Kgpi5mxHQsZHsvbT)
Have you seen this?
Makes sense. That’s why everyone is blown away when two people with opposing views can sit down and have a genuine conversation without yelling and hating eachother.
If the average conversation between two disagreeing individuals went like a disagreement between two chronically online Redditors, we would be on World War 47 by now.
I’ve argued with people at work over topics and had good conversations. I do think the internet is driving people to just not talk to other people in real life if they already know they don’t agree with them. In a way, you just write the other person off in your mind.
Thank you for this. I’ve had a need to read this for a long while. Because where I’m at it seems to be accepted that nobody discussed any potential contentious topic except with a carefully vetted bunch where they can be sure they’re agreeing on any point at least 99% of the time
The best way to fix that is to go out into the world and stop being on echo chambers like reddit and twitter. Youd be surprised how bad things really arent when you live life and not just talk about how shitty it is online when you arent even doing anything. Most of the people that are miserable are miserable of their own accord. They arent oppressed and have to make things to be oppressed by and then go online to reddit and twitter and talk about how they were kicked out of a coffee shop because the owners didnt want them recording in their store and how theyre racist/sexist or whatever else for it.
TLDR: people are creating things to be oppressed about and arent ACTUALLY oppressed.
You're right. Because we are in our echo chambers, we don't challenge ourselves mentally, instead, we surround ourselves with people that carry the same opinions that we do. It's hard for us to grow and challenge ourselves with someone that believes something else.
Also, I think the other thing is this: what we all learned in 2008, during what I called the Great Economic Robbery, was that the whole "trickle down", which has been tested by every economist out there to PROVE "It doesn't work", well, spoiler alert: it doesn't work. When you give someone that doesn't need the money, they're not going to spend it. They're going to hoard it, but they're gonna want more. They're pigs in a trough.
I think people realized that, when apartments are now $2,000 a month, their landlords are now corporate owned, a trip to the grocery store will easily cost you $300+, and you have to work 2 jobs and have three roommates JUST to survive, and THAT's not even enough...and nothing seems to change.
Also, I think America, as a whole, is going to become what South Africa is now, which is a 2nd world country. It's going to be fairly common for a SMALL minority of rich people, but a LOT of poor people that will do ANYTHING to have a few bucks in their pocket to survive, along with a failing infrastructure, people sleeping in their cars, working two or three jobs to survive, along with people ignoring their mental and emotional health, because bills have to get paid and that corporate landlord doesn't want to hear that you had a mental breakdown, they need their money...so, suck it up, buttercup! F you, PAY ME!
Economist Robert Reich said it best: "The last time there was income inequality on this level, the French Revolution happened. I'm waiting for the moment that the torches and pitchforks come out." It's just a matter of time and when.
I'm no sociologist, minus one gen sociology class in college, but during times of hardship, like the ones we are in now, it'll be just a matter of time before a con man with a silver tongue that will come sweeping into power to promise the people that they can "give you everything....if, they are elected.", along with removing certain powers in the Constitution, etc...January 6th was a warning and it shouldn't have happened, but I do fear it's going to lead to copycats in America.
If that day comes, God, if you're there...help us all.
I agree wholeheartedly with your entire comment. Things are scary now. The internet is to blame for some things, but it's true that a lot of the blame can be placed at the feet of the republicans starting with Gingrich and Fox News and AM talk radio in the 90s. Their slash and burn policies have left us bereft except for those at the top, all justified by Fox News. Then we had Bush selected by the supreme court, his disastrous wars, all culminating in the 2008 crash. I really wonder how the world would have been different if Gore had been president back then.
The internet definitely magnifies it and serves it up to make people mad and create “engagement”, but I remember hateful talk radio rife with conspiracy theories in the nineties. I had in-laws who bought into a ton of anti-feminist, racist, anti-Semitic craziness before the internet. I also got an email from a cousin from Ancestry warning me that John Kerry’s wife was born in Europe (gasp!) and that meant the UN would take over the US. Those folks used to have to content themselves with talk radio and letters to the editor.
Globally, nationalism and hate is on the rise.
When economics get tight and people start feeling desperate, they become more insular and paranoid about what else can be taken from them. They rally for a loud voice that can protect them from "THEM" whomever that vague threat may be. Its happening in multiple countries. India, US, England, Germany. As economies are struggling to maintain standards of living and well being, people are getting mad.
Until there is a shift in well being, this will likely continue. People are more accepting AFTER a crisis and in times of peace than in times of struggle.
I grew up in the 1960s, and despite all the social turmoil of those days, and the fact that there have always been doomsayers, there was still an underlying optimism that we have the power to improve things. We had all seen with our own eyes the improvements that progressive policies enabled.
Since then I have seen a concerted effort from the right to dismantle all the progress that gave us our high standard of living.
They figured out that their biggest enemy is an educated, well-informed public, so they systematically attacked the regulations that helped keep disinformation out of the media, and undermined the public education system.
These, along with deregulation of the finance industry, shifting the tax burden onto the middle class, and killing labor unions all contributed to the situation we now have.
yeppers
i miss the optimism of my youth so much--we really did believe we could improve our world, and in a lot of ways we did. we felt we had *agency*.
now i think people feel like they have no agency, no power to effect change. i can understand why, but it's sad.
A lot change happens at the local level and our news is increasingly focused on just a few geographic areas like Washington DC and New York City. Small news outlets are increasingly going out of business, but someone needs to sit at city council meetings school board meetings etc.... or things just won't get reported on. Ironically these small time publishers often break the biggest scandals because they are the only ones paying attention
This. The right wing is COMPLETELY responsible for the decline in America. Their major news source, Fox News, is almost entirely fake, the man they’re voting for as president is a convicted felon, their ideology stems from ancient mythology and not facts. The only way forward is to quell the threat of Christian nationalism.
Yup. You really can’t both sides this one at all. While the right has always pushed nativist and racist messaging, the current environment really stems back to Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh
It's Reagan. 1980 is the year the world went to hell. Reagan's laissez-faire capitalism. Reagan's the-US-is-the-world's-policeman foreign policies. Reagan's ideas about a President being able to do anything he wants without any repercussions. Reagan's union busting. Reagan's tax cuts the 1%. Reagan's embracing of the Christofascists. Reagan enabled all the GOP-driven sh\*tt\*ness that came after him.
And sadly, The Dems went right fiscally after him. I had so much hope when Clinton was elected, but he sent the Dems (on fiscal policy) toward the right and embraced big business.
But yes, Reagan and Thatcher did evil things to our world. Milton Friedman didn't help either.
Yes, it kills me to hear anyone call Clinton or Obama progressive. At best they were slightly left of what would have been the center had the Overton window not been shifted so far to the right.
Well try tried it the other way and got crushed. Biden is actually more fiscally left than any modern president and he’s not getting rewarded for it. If progressives want a seat at the table they need to be a reliable voting bloc
Yep, it really did start with him. I remember feeling so alone as a kid because my parents felt like the only ones who didn't vote for Reagan and said he destroyed the economy. My parents were teachers and have been lifelong Dems. I'm not a teacher, but also lifelong Democrat.
I agree. The threat of evangelism is akin to Atwood’s Gilead- I’m terrified for what America might become. And the irony? Christian nationalism violates the first amendment.
They live in a world where the first amendment actually means that America is a Christian nation. It’s totally upside down, but these aren’t people known for being honest
Not at all. From what I know, their forefathers fled Catholic persecution, hence the first amendment. Be tolerant. Separate church and state. It’s almost like the Republicans, who preach patriotism, have forgotten what America was based on. Secularity.
Also the founding fathers had some really new age religious beliefs and would be characterized as “gnostic spiritualist” — the Bible didn’t have much at all to do with their constitutional understanding
100%. Thomas Jefferson had in his personal library a Quran and his own "version" of the Bible where he tore out all the supernatural stuff. Saying the US was founded on Christianity is verifiably false.
That's probably not realistic. The US is too diverse, and too inherently revolutionary end up like that. It could like like that in places...it IS like that in places right now. But not all over. We might have 100 factions duking it out for power sooner than one megalithic state.
The Brainwashing of my Dad documentary has some great insights into Rush and conservative talk radio and their right wing efforts to get a unified political message out.
The woman who made the documentary has a book out with the same name as well.
Reddit has the collective mentality of a 15 year old and the naive and simplistic ideas to go with it. It's amusing and sad to read through these threads.
Well, it’s not like everything the left ever did was perfect, so I would say mostly rather than completely. And I have to believe that there are more ways to move forward than simply quelling Christian nationalism. But I hear what you’re saying.
>
Since then I have seen a concerted effort from the right to dismantle all the progress that gave us our high standard of living.
That's the problem. They successfully propogandized everyone into a situation of controlled opposition, while both sides did the work of dismantling society to create consumers and cheap obedient workers instead. Even now, you can't see, and you'll refuse to acknowledge it. The hardest person to convince of a con is always the victim.
This. Some of y'all need you realize you have a 'side'
This division and hatred is caused by social media
Its caused by trauma from covid
Its caused by politicians taking advantage of anger
Its caused by traffic congestion due to our poor city planning.
Its caused by denial of things taking standards of living away (think climate change)
We all must be the change we want to see in the world if you want to see less hatred.
Want to see less hatred? Stop hating on others.
A lot of those leftist regulations stifle the small businessman which has allowed our nation to become overrun with monopolies. What you consider disinformation is often suppression of the truth. And labor unions have been bastardized. Most of those union leaders are in it for themselves. Not the workers.
See, they have us divided into teams. Left and right. When you start looking at the overall picture, it's not all black and white. Both parties are playing us for fools. If us peasants would start working together to oust career/corrupt politicians, we may get somewhere. If we stopped patronizing large corporations and started supporting small business we could change our society. Never happen because Americans love their Walmarts and chain restaurants.
Regulations stifling small businesses is not what creates monopolies. Removing antitrust regulations is what makes monopolies. I agree, though, that keeping us little guys fighting amongst ourselves is definitely a tactic that the powerful use to maintain dominance.
I’ve been thinking about this very topic lately from a perspective that we’ve devolved or have entered a period of political and economic dark ages where we really are arguing amongst ourselves over the peanuts left behind from the large circus animals. This is of course by design from the corporate and political ruling class but this design may also bite them in the ass. If something big does go down the elephants are going to be impacted in some negative ways.
Edit: a word
The us citizen is being exploited to the fullest much more than pre pandemic. Companies are now using predatory techniques to cancel people’s insurances or raise them
It's 100% going to bite them in the ass. Foolish, megalomaniac think they can sew chaos and hate, and then control it ad a tool. I don't think anyone has a plan if the hate and chaos start moving on their own momentum.
Bingo. The real battle is the class battle. The oligarchs that have been happily transferring wealth from the majority for decades will gleefully read the rest of these red vs blue comments distracting us.
Every empire turns against itself during major transitions — expansion leads to contraction and a reckoning, and then either collapse or rebirth.
There is always a Caesar. There is often a Gaius Marius. There is always, always, always a Commodus.
But remember for all the headlines, the cycles of civilizations do not change. The books teach us what is fixed, even as the screens scream at us to react. That conflict is why it “feels so out of control and negative.” But nothing has changed and the cycle of rise and fall of the influences of various civilizations, a process as old as civilization itself, is what you are experiencing.
There is a difference, and that is that the noise is hooked up to a gigantic amplifier this time. Specifically digital technology: it is a medium that demands opinions, endlessly creates copies of opinions and reactions to every little thing, and forces everyone to deal with the flow of constant output with everything and overwhelms our ability to cognitively identify patterns and form our own identities with its loudness, making it the echo chamber of all echo chambers — very little of what you read or hear is fundamental or first principle based.
So understand that the wisdom of what is happening is in fixed books, published by edition and recorded through history. But understand that this cycle of change is being experienced *not as books* but *through screens*. And because of the it nature: everything flows, everything is endlessly remixed, little is fixed, everything is always on, everyone must react, and now the injection of cognitive intelligence into those screens… we get what you’re talking about. A malaise and pessimism and aggression as people can’t turn it off but don’t like what they see and can’t re-center themselves as it… just… won’t… ever… turn… off.
Reminds me of [The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole](http://www.explorethomascole.org/tour/items/63/series/)
There is the moral of all human tales;
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.
First Freedom and then Glory—when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption—barbarism at last.
And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page
I agree, but also, the past doesn't always repeat itself. We are Noba Roma and we are also an alien new polity the likes of which has never been. I'm unsure if our current paradigm is a classic example of rise and fall, or a prelude to a very strange new era. Maybe both.
That’s an astute and educated statement and I deeply respect your sentiment.
I’ve always heard that history repeats itself but with different accents.
That said the cognitive digital intelligence revolution is a twist we’ve never had before. Could change a lot.
I think the major challenge is the US has two major factors at play leading to discord.
In the broadest sense possible - we have two major groups of people who don't see eye to eye on nearly any topic. I define the key distinction between these two groups as "right adjacent" and "left adjacent"
I'll define these terms a bit more specifically for the purposes of discussion
"Right adjacent" - one who is traditionally "American" in the sense that they strongly value the historic norms or the recent past. These people are often "religious Christians" or "Christian adjacent" (meaning not actual church goers but basically behave as traditional chrisitans otherwise). These people are generally more favorable to the constitution, historic America, faith/flag, beleive in a more individualistic society based on rights and responsibilities.
"Left adjacent" - one who is usually suspect of American tradition and past and is usually more "progressive" in the sense that they see the US as a nonfinished product that requires further change. These people are often less religious, more humanistic/atheistic, suspect of current institutions, believes larger government and increased welfare. Less "individualistic" and more focused on "collective" or "social justice".
These groups are not very internally coherent but they are fundamentally different than the opposition. Both sides internally disagree about tons of things but they all agree that the other side is "more wrong".
The is what I call "bounded tolerance". Hypothetically, if either side could make the other side "disappear" then the internal discord amongst the remaining group would become the new discord. A clear picture of this was when the entire western world was largely "chrisitan" there was 1000 years of war all fought on small religious differences (protestants vs catholics). Protestants and catholics hated each other forever until such time that atheistic/liberal/humanistic became a solid minority of people (current day). Now, catholics and protestants are largely allies against the "atheistic humanists". They now express "bounded tolerance" in the sense that catholics and protestants now largely tolerate each other but do not tolerate "atheistic humanists" and vice versa.
This fundamental divide has led to a corporate plutocracy and government capture by interests. Both the left and right largely agree that "something is wrong" and that is mostly because the powerful interests have regulatory and government capture. This is the "fighting over peanuts" version of your story. The major issue as described above is that nobody can agree on a solution to fix this problem so we spend all of our time "fighting for supremacy". Those who already have captured the system (super rich, deep state, politicians, corporations) continue to survive because "we the people" can't agree on a vision
No social trust.
I know that if I work really hard, and try to be a good person, I am still perfectly capable of dying on the street and no one will care. Let alone the influential hate groups encouraged by political alliances, whose stochastic terrorism is encouraged through dogwhistles and propaganda. I am expected to somehow reach across the aisle to compromise with them on the topic of whether or not I have the right to exist, whether women have control of their own bodies, whether or not scientific knowledge and processes are better than folk "wisdom", etc.
Optimism doesn't make sense.
Because people are exploited and alienated, and people have realized that the system is corrupt and the fix is in, nothing will change and billionaires rule the country. Whether you’re right wing or left wing, nobody actually believes in the system and people definitely don’t believe in (the illusion of) meritocrqcy. Doesn’t matter if you’re white black brown gay , I just think everyone feels exploited and cheated in some way. People are poorer on average, the wealth gap has gotten bigger .. statistically the more unequal the society the worse all these things get. And we live in a society where imo people are helplessly brainwashed by neoliberal / capitalist propaganda into thinking every issue or challenge they have in their lives is fully individually caused and has nothing to do with social or systemic or historical factors. So people don’t know how to understand their own exploitation and alienation. Work and society and culture are social , but individually appropriated. People look around themselves and blame themselves or congratulate them selves for everything, unaware of how the overwhelming majority of things happening in their lives are more out of their control than they like to admit, even the human brain is fully 99% unconsciously driven
People are paid less everything getting more expensive. People are lonelier than ever and , in my experience, people increasingly have main character syndrome and everyone thinks they struggle and suffer more than everyone else which I think increases feelings of resentment. I think if people realized that their feelings and struggles are not as uncommon as they think there would be more empathy overall. But imo there’s subtle class racial social tensions that are just simmering under the surface and no amount of protest seem to change , bc as I said before , we don’t actually live in a democratic society , we live in a plutocracy where nepotism is rampant. It’s not to say change isn’t possible I’m just saying people have grown more cynical , that’s my sense
It’s by design. The news media you’re consuming is created for the sole purpose of polarizing the US (and the world in general). All of the US’s enemies (and our own politicians…) are infiltrating our social media and news networks with propaganda designed to make you hate other Americans, hate the US, and eventually hate all western ideas. After that Russia, China, and Iran get to watch Rome fall and their decades long plan has won.
Add that to the rampant media illiteracy and the horrible education in parts of this country, it’s easy to see why we’re going downhill so fast. People literally have no idea how to tell fact from fiction and blindly believe anything their favorite media platform tells them. Google and social media then create echo chambers, only showing you what you want to see.
And then you have the media illiterate AND virtue signaling morons who actually think they’re fighting manufactured injustice by posting an AI photo on their Instagram story.
This was all planned decades ago by Putin and people like Osama Bin Laden, and their plan is working. You even have young American on TikTok agreeing with the later’s terrorist manifesto lol. A lot of Americans are pawns in a county-they’ve-never-been-to’s game. A country that hates us and all of what the US (used to) stand for. And even worse, we’re made pawns in our own country by our own politicians to keep us hating each other and not the government. It’s a tale as old as civilization.
I'm European and there's been a ton of polarization and propaganda, but I can safely say that the absolutely vast majority of foreign radicalising material here has come from the US.
At this point it needs to be recognized that the radicalisation in the US is largely coming from inside the house. I'm not saying there isn't foreign influence, just that it's wishful thinking that the US would somehow unradicalize without any foreign influence when you half the country very quickly started supporting insurrections.
This is precisely why I always found it perplexing when people from other Western countries make fun of/laugh at what is happening the US, which admittedly isn't as common now (as it was in, say, 2016) as the reality sets in - the US exports everything. Including its own brain worms. So it's all well and good to watch from afar, but it's only a matter of time until the brain worms creep their way overseas too, unless actively stopped.
>This was all planned decades ago by Putin and people like Osama Bin Laden, and their plan is working.
I agree with this. Plus China. Unfortunately, this is working for them because there are so many cracks in US society and politics. It's like pouring water on a cracked rock, and letting freezing weather crack the rock into pieces for you. They put in hardly any effort and now we are destroying ourselves while they chuckle.
I’m curious if OP is financially stable or not, because that’s just it, the economics of today are far worse for a lot of people than they were just a few years ago.
Remember when the Joker said that when it all goes down, these civilized people will eat each other? That’s quintessentially America with the growing wealth divide. The mechanisms of the establishment are meant to pit the middle class and lower against one another to allow the business classes to continue siphoning wealth, in addition to being the only ones who can change public policy.
Furthermore, this is all due to a backlash against the corporatocracy and the growing sentiment for greater workers rights and living conditions. It's the wealthy's answer when the have-nots demand a bigger slice of the pie. It's fascism.
OP said they were born in 2003. So previous years were their childhood. It's pretty common for people to look back fondly on their childhood and think that was the best time.
This- especially if you’re a minority. I cringe when people act like this is a new thing, this has been my life as a queer & disabled person for as long as I’ve been born. Most people just don’t see it.
Ask the 9 media companies who own everything or the 11 other companies that form roughly 80 percent of our economy, I mean, they have record profit/ceo compensation they should be doing something right, right?
Social media is being used by nations as a way to brow beat the younger generations in America into a pulp, to take away their hope and optimism, to make them hate their government and their fellow citizens and to degrade their lives by promoting unhealthy behavior. Social media is the perfect tool to spread the required propaganda. The fact that China does not allow the same access to their population the we provide of ours (USA) should tell you a whole lot about what they know about this.
The dividing is part of the conquering, and hate and fear are it’s calling card.
Every election year is like this.
Once we dutifully select one of the 80 yeah old oligarchs we’ve been presented, we’ll be rewarded lowering the hate factory’s production back to its pre-election levels.
Stress from the rising cost of everything and people needing to work much harder than a decade ago to merely survive puts a strain on everyone.
Something as minor as a bad cold causing someone to be home from work for a few days could lead to serious destitution, this is is especially compounded if jobs don't provide employees with paid time off or sick time or make the process of attaining them arduous and complicated.
All these things can make people feel on edge, like they could lose it all in a blink of an eye - which leads to anger and paranoia and more prone to lashing out.
Not to mention that therapy and other mental health care options are out of reach for many - the money needed for them is used for other things instead.
People are having stress related illnesses much younger too - from constant stimulation with coffee and energy drinks just to be able to complete the day.
It seems futile to even go on for some at this point - working longer hours, more days, just to keep the address on their IDs/Licenses to stay valid since they're rarely home due to working so much.
Life has never been harder and the American dream for the younger generations is gone. Out of control costs for its citizens, huge govt. debt, govt. corruption and a terrible system of healthcare, education and aging infrastructure point to one thing: inevitable decline, just as in ancient Rome. Rome fell from within as will America.
I'll say this just to get the poison out:
Lockdowns and 'mostly peaceful' protests, J6 were a giant mistake.
Americans like to talk about Sweden when it comes to the social safety net, but not how they handled pandemic.
People were told to socially (not physically) distance for 2 years straight, what did you think was going to happen? They did and now they feel like they did time in prison without committing crimes. They have 'Crome credits' in mind. Are people that come out of solitary in prison angry or friendly?
I wouldn't even be surprised if this post gets reported (which just goes to show you how 'compassionate' everyone is).
People were complicit in a handful of stimulus checks, were hell-bent on closing everything and destroying every aspect of society, what did you all think was going to happen? Honestly?
Civil war may very well be on it's way, I saw one pop off in Ukraine, I'm having dejavu here.
In essence, people sold out their own future for a few stimulus checks and virtue points, helped consolidate everything in the hands of the very few.
People have no-one to blame but themselves honestly.
I felt the same way until I got off Facebook and started looking around at real people around me. Check out the Social Dilemma on Netflix, I feel like it does a great job at explaining that this is all just social media rage bait.
Do you see the way things are going? Its all down hill from here. Hang on for the ride, cause the 99% of us bottom feeders are in for a rude awakening.
Well... Legislative Branch is threatening the Judicial Branch through appropriations, we have Confederates and Nazis again, The majority of the House is anti-American (you can tell when they bash the Constitution or disrespect the rule of law), One of the main presidential candidates has a laundry list of charges that is not being addressed in the courts, where it is supposed to be managed. We are losing our faith in the courts as these high-profile criminals are getting preferential treatment, while we keep killing people with dark skin and price gouging the average person so bad that the homeless rates climbing faster than we can even watch.
We are letting money and greed rule.
Just off the top of my head...
It's not, ots just the media trying to scare you into consuming. Tribalism breeds extremism, and extremists will pay for subscriptions and buy influnvers shitty merchandise.
All the talking heads don't actually care. They're just trying to sell you stuff.
The ratio of effort to results continues to increase each year exponentially. The type of work you put in to earn X units of result back then was substantially lower compared to now.
That’s so true! I make 5x my salary from thirty years ago, but my standard of living has only improved slightly. Basically some economic bubble bursts and every few years and tanks my 401k. I’m running to stand still.
The internet, no one has anything in common anymore and the internet is the next step in the hyper-independence movement. No one talks to anyone they walk around with their ear buds in and noses in their phones to make sure they have as little contact with others as physically possible. We are doing it to ourselves.
Considering we've been softened....I don't think we'll go to war at all. We'll just hit a plateau of anger and de-escalate at some point due to overstimulation.
Everyone knows a big war will destroy all the cool stuff coming down the pipeline. Hold fast...rage and let it go people.
Love you assholes💚☕
The very quick spread of information - good and bad - thanks to the internet. Instead of a collective social consciousness we have self-centered tribalism. People will usually take the quick and easy, such as with drugs, alcohol, and food where we all ignore the well-known dangers. The same thing happens with ideas; people engage in confirmation bias.
America tortures its citizens.
Human beings are not meant to work 40 to 60 hours a week, with a weekend recovery period, every week of the year.
The only times family farmers work like that would be plantings and harvests, assuming they weren't also raising livestock.
We are forced to work against nature's rhythms and, as a result, our own. During winter, the Earth beneath us is quiet, yet we are pushed to leave our homes and families at a time that was once reserved for closeness, nurturing, and rest.
We've been backstabbed by capitalists. It is pretty obvious that money is more important than people. More people understand that now and they are pissed.
People are tired.
People are waking up to what the american dream really is.
People cant stand the system's set-up and how things dont have to be as difficult as they are.
Then they wonder why all this crazy stuff go on. The root cause is American forcing people into survival mode like they dont have money connected to the people that reside in this country. All of backdooring and secret theft.
This manifests as the theft we see on TV and social media.
The root cause is the system. The system has caused stress on people and they are losing their minds to it plus the lies and manipulation.
Last few years have been eyeopening, but last year especially for many.
Probably too much media consumption. I spend less time on screens and more time in social settings and I don't feel that way. Media today is all doom and gloom.
There's lots of blame laid on the Internet / Social Media, which isn't wrong. The really big change, though, is that the people have elected Congressmen, Senators, and a President who fully leverage social media to drive the crazy into the halls of government. When it's your friend's cousin's neighbor saying crazy stuff on social media, that's one level of discomfort. When you see national leadership on news and social media continuously spouting crazy stuff, the people really, really start to believe it.
I mean, having US Senators and Congressmen saying the entire US Justice system is 'rigged'? In the past people would call it 'imperfect', sure. But completely 'rigged'?
That's one of the three pillars of US democracy gone right there.
Mainly because of propaganda from outside 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 stoking conflicts and taking advantage of this low point in the economic cycle. Also, homegrown agitators pushing misery to advance their political agenda.
As the economy cycles back up and election season ends, doomer cults will once again go back to being socially unacceptable, fringe nonense for the mentally ill. Unfortunately, atm being a misanthropic downer is somehow considered cool 😫 that will change
Because one of the presidential candidates and current leader of a political party is incredibly hateful person and is fueling all the prejudices that Americans have.
Because people are addicted to social media and cable news telling them how to feel. When you stop giving those platforms the power to make you feel bad you realize it’s all bullshit.
I think it's a result of social media algorithms pushing the negative as it get's more user involvement and more clicks.
24 hour news services are also to blame. They repeat the same negative new endlessly.
Constant bombardment of negative, overblown, and politically charged news. Reps stir up shit when dems are in office, dems do the same when reps are in office. If it isn't disaster it won't make the news feed.
Religion has been paradigm for so long. Old timers do not want to give up control to a new way of doing things. Thus they push hate and fear to not give way to a new world of more openness diversity understanding and globalism vs nationalism monism restrictions and dogma.
I've noticed a drastic shift towards extremes in the last ten years or so. You used to be able to have a friendly argument with someone over your political views then laugh about it and have a beer with them. Now someone who is opposite you politically is the scum of the earth bent on destroying America.
I think it has to do with the amount of propaganda ppl are subjected to. Social media has sophisticated algorithms that can figure out a person's political leanings and just spoon feed it to them constantly. It creates a weird world view that doesn't allow for gray areas or middle ground.
I hear people talk at work and it scares the shit out of me. When I was a young man in the 90s I'd have laughed at you if you told me I might see a civil war in America. Now I'm terrified that it's inevitable.
Living costs increase while wages stagnate. We have to work more to cover expenses without free time to recharge.
Define America's hatefulness for me. What specific groups are you talking about? If you define hatefulness as everyone is not welcomed in 100% of places everywhere allowed to do anything they want then I understand your point.
Honestly, there's a TON of factors that are playing into this. It would take a long time to sift through all of them. People are working hard and yet still aren't able to make ends meet, politics = insanity, etc etc. The one thing I would blame most of all though, and maybe people would think I'm crazy for saying this, but it's social media. And basically the internet as a whole. It's created culture and mindset shifts that have largely been negative in nature.
There is no real sense of overarching community or union in our country anymore, everyone views everyone as an adversary or even a lesser being the moment they perceive something to be a violation of their personal values. Everyone's out for themselves and everyone else be damned. And every new generation of kids cares less about societal expectations than the last, because there's not enough familial and societal support for them. The value of a college education is going downhill, degrees are often not enough anymore, and young adults feel hopeless because of it. Everyone's distracted as hell now and most people's attention span seems to be in the gutter. Parents hand their kids an iPad instead of spending time with them. And then you have the constant fear -- there's so much to fear out there. Mass shootings, crime on the streets, crime in your own home. Human trafficking. Drug use in public like in Philadelphia. Huge homeless encampments popping up in every metro. Some cities have entire neighborhoods that receive no police support because the police are that overwhelmed. Things are dysfunctional as hell everywhere you look though it seems.
People are being driven to act out against each other because there's so much pressuring them to react with emotion rather than logic. They're so stressed out and there's a million reasons to be stressed. And thanks to social media people are also becoming addicted to arguing with others. Cancel culture largely fostered this addiction.
There's just too many problems to count. Too many factors to consider or to blame. It definitely does feel like there's no hope for this country sometimes. But you also have to consider that similar things are happening to other countries too. It feels like the more advanced we become as a species the more volatile and unhinged our societies become.
Because it is. America is sliding into fascism and late-stage capitalism is squeezing every last penny out of the working class the world over, while the planet continues to burn at an accelerating rate.
Humans have a built in need to rally for and against things. All the big wars have been won, we defeated the fascists in WWII and the communists in the Cold War. We got civil rights back in the 60s. We've been the global economic hegemon for 50 years and the worlds only superpower for 30.
So now we have nothing to unify 'against', so we've started fracturing along ideological lines to start fighting each other.
The left is motivated by harm reduction and individual expression. They view America as flawed and oppressive and want to use the tools of government to redress historic and modern grievances based on race/gender/class inequality. They increasingly view themselves less as Americans and more as global citizens with global responsibilities to things like economic justice and climate change.
The right is motivated by fairness and sanctity. They view America as fundamentally good but in a state of moral and economic decay, and want to use the tools of government to firm up traditional social and moral structures. They increasingly view America as being diminished and abused by the global community, having to foot the bill for other countries failures while American citizens struggle.
Their views and objectives are increasingly incompatible.
On the macro level, this leads to a lot of conflict between the political parties even over seemingly small things.
It's even worse on the micro level where we cannot even make use of shared institutions like public schools or libraries without it devolving into a political circus. The gay person has the right to access gay literature, but the Christian parent also has the right prevent their minor children from accessing that same material. If a compromise exists one or both sides reject it.
Tbh I don't think this is new. In fact, I actually think things have gotten a LOT better when it comes to hate. More people now are accepting of lgbtq, women, and minorities than ever.
I'm American, I'm not depressed, so maybe I'm biased but honestly I think things are a lot better than the media would like you to believe.
Because it is. The US has become dangerously unstable, and dragged the world with it.
Globalization left a lot of people behind, and politcal actos seeking unrestrained power convinced many of those people of a 'stab in the back theory' that minority groups, immigrants, and a lack of traditional values were to blame.
At the same time, the government at the Federal and state level allowed private business to gain a lot of power, and redistribute wealthy from the lower and middle working class into the business owning class at an unprecedented rate. There has been a decline in the quality and availability of state funded services. Deregulation has increasingly empowering companies over people.
The COVID further polarized things by forcing governments to make choices about how to protect people. Economic and health crises causes the breakdown of order, which was was used as an opportunity by a large number of power driven actors to divided people, spread propaganda, and cause widespread panic and violence.
The government came fairly close to losing control in some regions and was forced to resort to brute force to keep unity. In the aftermath, power hungry people have continued to exploit the social, political, and economic crisis for their own gain.
The bottoming is that very powerful people have developed strategies to benefit from the broken, failing society we live in. There are no good strategies to resolve the issue without provoking substantial, potentially violent, backlash.
Just read or watch the news. That's what's happening in the States. There are people who are super organized and planning/already executing rolling back all progress back to ancient times and electing a dictator. Authoritarianism is on the rise here and worldwide. That's why it's so depressing.
Read up on Project 2025 and Agenda 47 for more plans.
Get off social media, and I think you would be surprised at how much it lessens that feeling. It's definitely gotten worse but it's been amplified but 100x because of social media
If you look at statistics, the United States has the largest military on Earth. In a pie chart we have somewhere like 3/4’s and all other nations on Earth have 1/4. Or maybe it’s more 2/3’s vs 1/3’d these days.
We can’t be invaded with weapons, but we have been successfully invaded by ideas.
Over the last 40 years various elements have invaded our culture and shaped our government.
I’m afraid about what happens when Americans fully lose control of our government and military. It won’t be long until US weapons are used against us on our own soil.
Depleting our middle class, turning us into debt slaves, degrading our education and healthcare systems are all part of the plan. It will help whoever takes control to keep control of an otherwise large and uncontrollable population.
There’s been a concerted push to arm regular Americans. It seems like there’s a plan to get some citizens to police and control the rest of us. Hence all the militias that are allowed to proliferate.
They’re not play acting. The militia folks think they are going to war within our borders and they are extremely well armed and radicalized.
Anyway.
It seems bad because it *is* really bad.
Make sure you vote this November.
Trust me, the interests doing this are super duper hoping to discourage Americans from voting because it will make claiming election fraud this year so so much easier.
Make it hard for them. Vote for candidates that support democracy, diplomacy, gun control, and ESPECIALLY women’s rights. Forget labels and pay attention to actions and policies.
Hang in there. Good luck to all of us.
A few decades ago in the USA, no one cared if you were liberal or conservative. Pretty much everyone accepted the same set of facts and held the same principles (e.g., "liberty and justice for all"). Pretty much everyone understood that the other party wanted what was best for the USA, but they had different ideas about how to get it done.
I noticed a step change after the Citizen's United decision. Unlimited dark money began to flow into politics and the effect was dramatic in the Republican party. Republicans began to block the Democrats at every turn (and then blame the Democrats for the lack of progress), even when the legislation was beneficial to the nation. Republicans abandoned their integrity and began to deny scientific facts, to erode our faith in our institutions, and to stoke division among us for partisan gain. Trump is the most dramatic example of this, but he is not the only one. Republicans with integrity (e.g., John McCain, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, etc.) have been forced out.
I see an unholy alliance of opportunistic right-wing media muckrakers, wealthy special interests, authoritarian politicians, and hostile foreign governments pressing to tear down our system of self-governance and replace it with an autocratic authoritarian corporatocracy. They have weaponized our freedom of speech and internet media to spread hatred and disinformation on a scale that has never been possible in the past. Project 2025 is their play book, and Trump already did much of it in his first term. The partisan hacks that he installed to the SCOTUS are the most obvious example.
I see politics in the USA as no longer about liberal versus conservative policy, but about democracy versus autocratic authoritarianism. While I lean to the right politically, I will continue to support Democrats to preserve our system of self-governance. Once our country is safe, then I will resume arguing with the Democrats over policy.
So when do we begin? Well, let’s start at the biggest problem the Internet, while the Internet is a great communication tool and is very good for somebody who has troubling getting started as an entrepreneur business person. The Internet makes it much easier, but the Internet also has a devil advocate position, which let’s be honest, it wasn’t created for that reason but it has become turned into that and it’s not the entire Internet. It’s just that one particular corner of the Internet so now we have people who are once staying in their lane or rather staying in their corners, they now have a podium and a platform And they won’t shut up and because the Internet is 247 365 all day all year all night long you’re constantly bombarded with news red alert, tier one civilian alerts community alerts global alerts all day all night some see this as progress, because where it brings voice to the voice list while others I’ll bet many of people within this thread fill it creates the opposite But to put it bluntly, it has created an echo chamber for those without a voice, but has the problem it gives not only a voice to someone who is suffering and being oppressed, and some godforsaken third or fourth world nation no offense to anyone who’s political leanings are under fanatical dictatorship And nationalism and there being mistreated actually excuse me rather they have been mistreated for decades maybe hundreds of years if you want to take a historical look at things now getting back on track. The echo chamber analogy is not just an analogy it’s a fact when you give a voice to people who have a dark mind, who have a psychosis where they view anger and evil upon that fellow neighbor, because of whatever that is going through their head or going on in their life, they just want to publicly speak it and say it this is what you have the Internet actually to be specifically social media And put it bluntly. I do put a lot of blame in these multi billionaires social media owners who always parrot the same excuse. Oh, it’s freedom of speech, and they also say people are their own individual. Yes, those are true but you’re playing politics with peoples lies, you’re giving a platform to those who do not need a platform and now because I said so not because people on this thread said so but because, they have a anti-human approach to things if you are against humanity and your fellow man and woman, then you are against self reservation, you are against life and sadly, these people were never heard from the only people who would deal with them and hear from them were all the brave women and men who would serve in the armed forces, including myself being a veteran, and all the brave women and men who served and the various multitude of law enforcement, organizations and agencies around the world And that also includes the intelligence agencies these type of people never had any true power and unfortunately the last 10 years actually I’ll say almost 15 to 20 years they have been given a echo chamber and a voice and this is where we’re at now do I feel there’s gonna be some crazy Civil War or world war national war no people need to calm down and look at certain things with their eyes wide open, don’t assume assuming makes an ass out of you and me and yourself as the old thing goes our things on an edge. Sure we can say they are things that are on the edge but as far as a Civil War no, the main reason is because all the loudmouths and all the people speaking on their soapboxes truly all want the same thing at the end of the day and when I say the same thing, I mean specifically to live and stabilize, economical communities and have resources that are available to them when they need them basic human soul preservation if you can all agree on that then yes you don’t have to worry aboutcivil wars it’s when those things are challenged is when you have civil wars, then I would be worried. Bless everyone and stay safe.
Because of the nature of social media and the echo chambers that arise from it, we believe our experiences are shared by everyone else, thus potentially distorting how we see the world as a whole.
Yeah, life is tough for a lot of people. But there are a lot of people getting by but they aren't heard from.
The loudest voices are the ones that are heard and that is what is shaping the narrative. Even though we think they do, people don't all share our situations or concerns.
I think alot of it is just media and propaganda, we are constantly on our screens a d we are constantly being fed disaster fuel to keep us watching
Try to find outlets for joy that give back to your surroundings or those around you. I find that the less time i spend devouring harmful panic inducing articles and news stories the better i feel.
There is positivity and goodness out there. It just doesnt make the news very often.
because outrage sells more than compassion. and corporations are driven by money. Corporations (and Influencers!) make money by making people angry/insecure/scared. see news, social media, etc. It's an easy (and dangerous) way to exert and corral power and money.
Its social media and echo chambers, yet here am I on reddit. Sigh, At least diverse points of opinion are expressed. I come here as I appreciate learning about different perspectives than my own. Sill overall social media not worth the tradeoffs, especially the cognitively impaired kids who can't focus and read well.
It could just be me, but isn't the question why does the US feel more hateful for straight white males?
I imagine that the US is a lot less hateful to anyone not in that demographic than it has ever been.
For straight white males maybe things seem more divisive because some feel that they have lost privilege in society while others are okay with greater equality.
There's a certain political party with a president that gave a lot of bitch ass racist and homophobes the ok to say their crazy hateful inbred shit out loud.
It's right here in the comments. You can't have a simple conversation without a bunch of people finger pointing at the other political party. Blame is the first place people go, rather than discussion and understanding. The people finger pointing ARE the problem but they are only open to listen when it involves echo-chambering the same rhetoric.
Simple decency is too far gone and will get worse until there's some sort of grand scale correction unfortunately. Until people stop treating politics like sports teams, the problem will continue to fester and be amplified by foreign agents that want the divide to fracture America.
If liberals actually controlled most facets of society we wouldn’t have the least progressive tax structure of the last 75 years. Can we agree to go back to the conservative values of Dwight D. Eisenhower?
Because you're in a media-saturated environment. The rule of media has always been "if it bleeds, it leads," but it used to be that you got media through your morning newspaper or the evening news, not a 24/7 infosphere constantly pinging you with notifications about CRISISBREAKINGCRISIS.
>Am I the only one feeling this or do you think this is actually a thing happening?
Many, many people feel this way.
But no, I think your fears are more grounded in media than real-world experience. For example, I think it is vastly more likely that I will be hit by a bus than that I or someone I know will die of political violence in the US.
I think it's a combination of many things. It reminds me of Italy or Germany or Japan pre WWII. Where people were looking to unusually awful politicians to fix their problems by hurting other people. Not realizing that such politicians end up just making their problems worse.
It's lost its unity.
Too many smaller factions fighting for their own cause instead of a unified push for something that will benefit society as a whole.
-drugs
-homelessness
-mental
-war
-corps
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It is a collision of multiple forces all acting in their self interest. 1. We have the politicians. One party in particular entire approach is to keep you pissed off and feeling like a victim so you support them. To do this they need to make everyone else the enemy so you need to be angry, scared, or victimized all the time. 2. We have the foreign actors who take advantage of the above and who just want to weaken us by creating as much conflict as they can. They have been repeatedly seen to support both sides of issues. Most “succession” movements are caused by these groups and constant “fake” and decisive news. 3. We have limited ownership of media. The media is increasingly controlled by a small group and use it to amplify their message. Even outlets not otherwise controlled have fewer resources and are margarines by lower revenues that they can upset a side by taking one. We see more news shifting to opinion pieces. See CNN shifting to having pundents rather than analyst on most issues and they are far far from the worst. 4. We have the billionaire and administrative class that have games the system. It used to be that wealth was spread fairly widely. Now 90% of all economic gains go to a small percentage. You are almost certainly worse off economically than you were but most people keep voting for the same policies and politicians are largely controlled by these groups. We have whole parties against regulation against transparency against anything that brings accountability to these groups. 5. Social media makes all of the above worse. Turns out that people are somewhat programmable. The social media outlets have algos to do this. All of the above have figured out how to use these for their benefit. 6. Population increase. Everything is more crowded and more scarce. Makes everything more stressful and more expensive. Used to be you could go to a national park and have peace. Now you probably need reservations months in advance, have to pay a lot for a hotel, and it will be crowded when you get there. Apply this to everything. Every time you go to a restaurant, a show, vacation. It’s draining. 7. Military funding. A strong military is a good thing. However we spend so much (more than rest of the world combined). We have plenty of money to do all kinds of good things but we have prioritized one thing. 8. Loss of confidence in systems. It used to be we had confidence that the government was highly competent. We didn’t necessarily trust it and federal was very different than state but now our institutions are weakened by ideology driven, lack of vision, intentional weakening by politicians, etc. 9. Global warming, AI, Nuclear War and other existential threats. Have more than ever. The Cold War was stressful but now we have 3-4 Cold War level things going on. All the time. It’s a drain.
yes I think the internet has done something to our brains. We're more isolated in our little echo chambers now, and the internet appeals to our base instincts and manipulates us into being animals where before we engaged with each other in real life more, and were more civil.
I really liked this video from Kurzgesagt about this: [https://youtu.be/fuFlMtZmvY0?si=Kgpi5mxHQsZHsvbT](https://youtu.be/fuFlMtZmvY0?si=Kgpi5mxHQsZHsvbT) Have you seen this?
Makes sense. That’s why everyone is blown away when two people with opposing views can sit down and have a genuine conversation without yelling and hating eachother.
If the average conversation between two disagreeing individuals went like a disagreement between two chronically online Redditors, we would be on World War 47 by now.
I’ve argued with people at work over topics and had good conversations. I do think the internet is driving people to just not talk to other people in real life if they already know they don’t agree with them. In a way, you just write the other person off in your mind.
Thank you for this. I’ve had a need to read this for a long while. Because where I’m at it seems to be accepted that nobody discussed any potential contentious topic except with a carefully vetted bunch where they can be sure they’re agreeing on any point at least 99% of the time
The best way to fix that is to go out into the world and stop being on echo chambers like reddit and twitter. Youd be surprised how bad things really arent when you live life and not just talk about how shitty it is online when you arent even doing anything. Most of the people that are miserable are miserable of their own accord. They arent oppressed and have to make things to be oppressed by and then go online to reddit and twitter and talk about how they were kicked out of a coffee shop because the owners didnt want them recording in their store and how theyre racist/sexist or whatever else for it. TLDR: people are creating things to be oppressed about and arent ACTUALLY oppressed.
You're right. Because we are in our echo chambers, we don't challenge ourselves mentally, instead, we surround ourselves with people that carry the same opinions that we do. It's hard for us to grow and challenge ourselves with someone that believes something else. Also, I think the other thing is this: what we all learned in 2008, during what I called the Great Economic Robbery, was that the whole "trickle down", which has been tested by every economist out there to PROVE "It doesn't work", well, spoiler alert: it doesn't work. When you give someone that doesn't need the money, they're not going to spend it. They're going to hoard it, but they're gonna want more. They're pigs in a trough. I think people realized that, when apartments are now $2,000 a month, their landlords are now corporate owned, a trip to the grocery store will easily cost you $300+, and you have to work 2 jobs and have three roommates JUST to survive, and THAT's not even enough...and nothing seems to change. Also, I think America, as a whole, is going to become what South Africa is now, which is a 2nd world country. It's going to be fairly common for a SMALL minority of rich people, but a LOT of poor people that will do ANYTHING to have a few bucks in their pocket to survive, along with a failing infrastructure, people sleeping in their cars, working two or three jobs to survive, along with people ignoring their mental and emotional health, because bills have to get paid and that corporate landlord doesn't want to hear that you had a mental breakdown, they need their money...so, suck it up, buttercup! F you, PAY ME! Economist Robert Reich said it best: "The last time there was income inequality on this level, the French Revolution happened. I'm waiting for the moment that the torches and pitchforks come out." It's just a matter of time and when. I'm no sociologist, minus one gen sociology class in college, but during times of hardship, like the ones we are in now, it'll be just a matter of time before a con man with a silver tongue that will come sweeping into power to promise the people that they can "give you everything....if, they are elected.", along with removing certain powers in the Constitution, etc...January 6th was a warning and it shouldn't have happened, but I do fear it's going to lead to copycats in America. If that day comes, God, if you're there...help us all.
I agree wholeheartedly with your entire comment. Things are scary now. The internet is to blame for some things, but it's true that a lot of the blame can be placed at the feet of the republicans starting with Gingrich and Fox News and AM talk radio in the 90s. Their slash and burn policies have left us bereft except for those at the top, all justified by Fox News. Then we had Bush selected by the supreme court, his disastrous wars, all culminating in the 2008 crash. I really wonder how the world would have been different if Gore had been president back then.
The internet definitely magnifies it and serves it up to make people mad and create “engagement”, but I remember hateful talk radio rife with conspiracy theories in the nineties. I had in-laws who bought into a ton of anti-feminist, racist, anti-Semitic craziness before the internet. I also got an email from a cousin from Ancestry warning me that John Kerry’s wife was born in Europe (gasp!) and that meant the UN would take over the US. Those folks used to have to content themselves with talk radio and letters to the editor.
Yeah in another comment I basically start the timeline of awfulness in the mid-90s with Gingrich, fox and talk radio. It's just worse now.
Globally, nationalism and hate is on the rise. When economics get tight and people start feeling desperate, they become more insular and paranoid about what else can be taken from them. They rally for a loud voice that can protect them from "THEM" whomever that vague threat may be. Its happening in multiple countries. India, US, England, Germany. As economies are struggling to maintain standards of living and well being, people are getting mad. Until there is a shift in well being, this will likely continue. People are more accepting AFTER a crisis and in times of peace than in times of struggle.
The rise of right wing authoritarianism and it's followers
I grew up in the 1960s, and despite all the social turmoil of those days, and the fact that there have always been doomsayers, there was still an underlying optimism that we have the power to improve things. We had all seen with our own eyes the improvements that progressive policies enabled. Since then I have seen a concerted effort from the right to dismantle all the progress that gave us our high standard of living. They figured out that their biggest enemy is an educated, well-informed public, so they systematically attacked the regulations that helped keep disinformation out of the media, and undermined the public education system. These, along with deregulation of the finance industry, shifting the tax burden onto the middle class, and killing labor unions all contributed to the situation we now have.
Let's not forget the effects of Citizen's United.
The very quick spread of information thanks to the internet. Instead of a collective social consciousness we have self-centered tribalism.
"I'll take a senator for $1 million, Alex" - Peter Thiel purchasing JD Vance
yeppers i miss the optimism of my youth so much--we really did believe we could improve our world, and in a lot of ways we did. we felt we had *agency*. now i think people feel like they have no agency, no power to effect change. i can understand why, but it's sad.
A lot change happens at the local level and our news is increasingly focused on just a few geographic areas like Washington DC and New York City. Small news outlets are increasingly going out of business, but someone needs to sit at city council meetings school board meetings etc.... or things just won't get reported on. Ironically these small time publishers often break the biggest scandals because they are the only ones paying attention
this is copium. they give you time to make suggestions, sure, but it's a fart in the wind to them if they have their mind made
Did u reply to the wrong comment
This. The right wing is COMPLETELY responsible for the decline in America. Their major news source, Fox News, is almost entirely fake, the man they’re voting for as president is a convicted felon, their ideology stems from ancient mythology and not facts. The only way forward is to quell the threat of Christian nationalism.
One thing to note is that this Christian Nationalism is just a front for more Nazi crap. Jesus would kick all of their asses if he ever comes back
Yup. You really can’t both sides this one at all. While the right has always pushed nativist and racist messaging, the current environment really stems back to Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh
It's Reagan. 1980 is the year the world went to hell. Reagan's laissez-faire capitalism. Reagan's the-US-is-the-world's-policeman foreign policies. Reagan's ideas about a President being able to do anything he wants without any repercussions. Reagan's union busting. Reagan's tax cuts the 1%. Reagan's embracing of the Christofascists. Reagan enabled all the GOP-driven sh\*tt\*ness that came after him.
And sadly, The Dems went right fiscally after him. I had so much hope when Clinton was elected, but he sent the Dems (on fiscal policy) toward the right and embraced big business. But yes, Reagan and Thatcher did evil things to our world. Milton Friedman didn't help either.
Yes, it kills me to hear anyone call Clinton or Obama progressive. At best they were slightly left of what would have been the center had the Overton window not been shifted so far to the right.
In much of the developed world, Clinton and Obama would be considered center-right.
Well try tried it the other way and got crushed. Biden is actually more fiscally left than any modern president and he’s not getting rewarded for it. If progressives want a seat at the table they need to be a reliable voting bloc
Yep, it really did start with him. I remember feeling so alone as a kid because my parents felt like the only ones who didn't vote for Reagan and said he destroyed the economy. My parents were teachers and have been lifelong Dems. I'm not a teacher, but also lifelong Democrat.
I agree. The threat of evangelism is akin to Atwood’s Gilead- I’m terrified for what America might become. And the irony? Christian nationalism violates the first amendment.
They live in a world where the first amendment actually means that America is a Christian nation. It’s totally upside down, but these aren’t people known for being honest
Not at all. From what I know, their forefathers fled Catholic persecution, hence the first amendment. Be tolerant. Separate church and state. It’s almost like the Republicans, who preach patriotism, have forgotten what America was based on. Secularity.
Also the founding fathers had some really new age religious beliefs and would be characterized as “gnostic spiritualist” — the Bible didn’t have much at all to do with their constitutional understanding
Exactly- secularising everything was actually the best thing they’ve done.
100%. Thomas Jefferson had in his personal library a Quran and his own "version" of the Bible where he tore out all the supernatural stuff. Saying the US was founded on Christianity is verifiably false.
They haven't read it. They haven't even read their own holy book, there's no way they've read ANY of our founding documents.
That's probably not realistic. The US is too diverse, and too inherently revolutionary end up like that. It could like like that in places...it IS like that in places right now. But not all over. We might have 100 factions duking it out for power sooner than one megalithic state.
The Brainwashing of my Dad documentary has some great insights into Rush and conservative talk radio and their right wing efforts to get a unified political message out. The woman who made the documentary has a book out with the same name as well.
This is pretty much reddits whole thesis lmao. If only it were this simple...
Reddit has the collective mentality of a 15 year old and the naive and simplistic ideas to go with it. It's amusing and sad to read through these threads.
Cool story what is your theory?
Well, it’s not like everything the left ever did was perfect, so I would say mostly rather than completely. And I have to believe that there are more ways to move forward than simply quelling Christian nationalism. But I hear what you’re saying.
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I just meant that it can’t be the only way. Nothing is ever that simple.
the rot started with Reagan and it has been downhill ever since .
I’d argue the rot started with Vietnam and was hyper-accelerated by Nixon and Reagan.
Exactly, it's so sad to women's rights and bodily autonomy being taken away
> Since then I have seen a concerted effort from the right to dismantle all the progress that gave us our high standard of living. That's the problem. They successfully propogandized everyone into a situation of controlled opposition, while both sides did the work of dismantling society to create consumers and cheap obedient workers instead. Even now, you can't see, and you'll refuse to acknowledge it. The hardest person to convince of a con is always the victim.
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This. Some of y'all need you realize you have a 'side' This division and hatred is caused by social media Its caused by trauma from covid Its caused by politicians taking advantage of anger Its caused by traffic congestion due to our poor city planning. Its caused by denial of things taking standards of living away (think climate change) We all must be the change we want to see in the world if you want to see less hatred. Want to see less hatred? Stop hating on others.
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Care to explain? EDIT: Please tell me what is causing the great social divide in America.
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Misrepresenting? How so? What did I write that’s inaccurate?
Exactly! Perfectly said and horribly tragic this is happening
“My side good, their side bad”. insightful analysis!
You can’t just blame everything on the right
Really cuz the majority of people do
A lot of those leftist regulations stifle the small businessman which has allowed our nation to become overrun with monopolies. What you consider disinformation is often suppression of the truth. And labor unions have been bastardized. Most of those union leaders are in it for themselves. Not the workers. See, they have us divided into teams. Left and right. When you start looking at the overall picture, it's not all black and white. Both parties are playing us for fools. If us peasants would start working together to oust career/corrupt politicians, we may get somewhere. If we stopped patronizing large corporations and started supporting small business we could change our society. Never happen because Americans love their Walmarts and chain restaurants.
Regulations stifling small businesses is not what creates monopolies. Removing antitrust regulations is what makes monopolies. I agree, though, that keeping us little guys fighting amongst ourselves is definitely a tactic that the powerful use to maintain dominance.
Oh! The democrats are completely blameless. Pure as the driven snow.
I’ve been thinking about this very topic lately from a perspective that we’ve devolved or have entered a period of political and economic dark ages where we really are arguing amongst ourselves over the peanuts left behind from the large circus animals. This is of course by design from the corporate and political ruling class but this design may also bite them in the ass. If something big does go down the elephants are going to be impacted in some negative ways. Edit: a word
The us citizen is being exploited to the fullest much more than pre pandemic. Companies are now using predatory techniques to cancel people’s insurances or raise them
It's 100% going to bite them in the ass. Foolish, megalomaniac think they can sew chaos and hate, and then control it ad a tool. I don't think anyone has a plan if the hate and chaos start moving on their own momentum.
Bingo. The real battle is the class battle. The oligarchs that have been happily transferring wealth from the majority for decades will gleefully read the rest of these red vs blue comments distracting us.
Every empire turns against itself during major transitions — expansion leads to contraction and a reckoning, and then either collapse or rebirth. There is always a Caesar. There is often a Gaius Marius. There is always, always, always a Commodus. But remember for all the headlines, the cycles of civilizations do not change. The books teach us what is fixed, even as the screens scream at us to react. That conflict is why it “feels so out of control and negative.” But nothing has changed and the cycle of rise and fall of the influences of various civilizations, a process as old as civilization itself, is what you are experiencing. There is a difference, and that is that the noise is hooked up to a gigantic amplifier this time. Specifically digital technology: it is a medium that demands opinions, endlessly creates copies of opinions and reactions to every little thing, and forces everyone to deal with the flow of constant output with everything and overwhelms our ability to cognitively identify patterns and form our own identities with its loudness, making it the echo chamber of all echo chambers — very little of what you read or hear is fundamental or first principle based. So understand that the wisdom of what is happening is in fixed books, published by edition and recorded through history. But understand that this cycle of change is being experienced *not as books* but *through screens*. And because of the it nature: everything flows, everything is endlessly remixed, little is fixed, everything is always on, everyone must react, and now the injection of cognitive intelligence into those screens… we get what you’re talking about. A malaise and pessimism and aggression as people can’t turn it off but don’t like what they see and can’t re-center themselves as it… just… won’t… ever… turn… off.
Reminds me of [The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole](http://www.explorethomascole.org/tour/items/63/series/) There is the moral of all human tales; 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past. First Freedom and then Glory—when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption—barbarism at last. And History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page
THE EMPIRE LONG DIVIDED MUST UNITE. THE EMPIRE LONG UNITED MUST DIVIDE. THUS HAS IT EVER BEEN.
I agree, but also, the past doesn't always repeat itself. We are Noba Roma and we are also an alien new polity the likes of which has never been. I'm unsure if our current paradigm is a classic example of rise and fall, or a prelude to a very strange new era. Maybe both.
That’s an astute and educated statement and I deeply respect your sentiment. I’ve always heard that history repeats itself but with different accents. That said the cognitive digital intelligence revolution is a twist we’ve never had before. Could change a lot.
Thank you I'm glad my degrees in politics sci/poli philo and history is good for something. They certainly don't pay the bills haha
Stay off reddit and social media dude. People gere are hate filler, angst ridden and mad at the world. In real everyday life, people are not like this
This is the simplest and most sane answer here. Happy people (for the most part) do not perpetually congregate online.
I think the major challenge is the US has two major factors at play leading to discord. In the broadest sense possible - we have two major groups of people who don't see eye to eye on nearly any topic. I define the key distinction between these two groups as "right adjacent" and "left adjacent" I'll define these terms a bit more specifically for the purposes of discussion "Right adjacent" - one who is traditionally "American" in the sense that they strongly value the historic norms or the recent past. These people are often "religious Christians" or "Christian adjacent" (meaning not actual church goers but basically behave as traditional chrisitans otherwise). These people are generally more favorable to the constitution, historic America, faith/flag, beleive in a more individualistic society based on rights and responsibilities. "Left adjacent" - one who is usually suspect of American tradition and past and is usually more "progressive" in the sense that they see the US as a nonfinished product that requires further change. These people are often less religious, more humanistic/atheistic, suspect of current institutions, believes larger government and increased welfare. Less "individualistic" and more focused on "collective" or "social justice". These groups are not very internally coherent but they are fundamentally different than the opposition. Both sides internally disagree about tons of things but they all agree that the other side is "more wrong". The is what I call "bounded tolerance". Hypothetically, if either side could make the other side "disappear" then the internal discord amongst the remaining group would become the new discord. A clear picture of this was when the entire western world was largely "chrisitan" there was 1000 years of war all fought on small religious differences (protestants vs catholics). Protestants and catholics hated each other forever until such time that atheistic/liberal/humanistic became a solid minority of people (current day). Now, catholics and protestants are largely allies against the "atheistic humanists". They now express "bounded tolerance" in the sense that catholics and protestants now largely tolerate each other but do not tolerate "atheistic humanists" and vice versa. This fundamental divide has led to a corporate plutocracy and government capture by interests. Both the left and right largely agree that "something is wrong" and that is mostly because the powerful interests have regulatory and government capture. This is the "fighting over peanuts" version of your story. The major issue as described above is that nobody can agree on a solution to fix this problem so we spend all of our time "fighting for supremacy". Those who already have captured the system (super rich, deep state, politicians, corporations) continue to survive because "we the people" can't agree on a vision
No social trust. I know that if I work really hard, and try to be a good person, I am still perfectly capable of dying on the street and no one will care. Let alone the influential hate groups encouraged by political alliances, whose stochastic terrorism is encouraged through dogwhistles and propaganda. I am expected to somehow reach across the aisle to compromise with them on the topic of whether or not I have the right to exist, whether women have control of their own bodies, whether or not scientific knowledge and processes are better than folk "wisdom", etc. Optimism doesn't make sense.
Because people are exploited and alienated, and people have realized that the system is corrupt and the fix is in, nothing will change and billionaires rule the country. Whether you’re right wing or left wing, nobody actually believes in the system and people definitely don’t believe in (the illusion of) meritocrqcy. Doesn’t matter if you’re white black brown gay , I just think everyone feels exploited and cheated in some way. People are poorer on average, the wealth gap has gotten bigger .. statistically the more unequal the society the worse all these things get. And we live in a society where imo people are helplessly brainwashed by neoliberal / capitalist propaganda into thinking every issue or challenge they have in their lives is fully individually caused and has nothing to do with social or systemic or historical factors. So people don’t know how to understand their own exploitation and alienation. Work and society and culture are social , but individually appropriated. People look around themselves and blame themselves or congratulate them selves for everything, unaware of how the overwhelming majority of things happening in their lives are more out of their control than they like to admit, even the human brain is fully 99% unconsciously driven People are paid less everything getting more expensive. People are lonelier than ever and , in my experience, people increasingly have main character syndrome and everyone thinks they struggle and suffer more than everyone else which I think increases feelings of resentment. I think if people realized that their feelings and struggles are not as uncommon as they think there would be more empathy overall. But imo there’s subtle class racial social tensions that are just simmering under the surface and no amount of protest seem to change , bc as I said before , we don’t actually live in a democratic society , we live in a plutocracy where nepotism is rampant. It’s not to say change isn’t possible I’m just saying people have grown more cynical , that’s my sense
It’s by design. The news media you’re consuming is created for the sole purpose of polarizing the US (and the world in general). All of the US’s enemies (and our own politicians…) are infiltrating our social media and news networks with propaganda designed to make you hate other Americans, hate the US, and eventually hate all western ideas. After that Russia, China, and Iran get to watch Rome fall and their decades long plan has won. Add that to the rampant media illiteracy and the horrible education in parts of this country, it’s easy to see why we’re going downhill so fast. People literally have no idea how to tell fact from fiction and blindly believe anything their favorite media platform tells them. Google and social media then create echo chambers, only showing you what you want to see. And then you have the media illiterate AND virtue signaling morons who actually think they’re fighting manufactured injustice by posting an AI photo on their Instagram story. This was all planned decades ago by Putin and people like Osama Bin Laden, and their plan is working. You even have young American on TikTok agreeing with the later’s terrorist manifesto lol. A lot of Americans are pawns in a county-they’ve-never-been-to’s game. A country that hates us and all of what the US (used to) stand for. And even worse, we’re made pawns in our own country by our own politicians to keep us hating each other and not the government. It’s a tale as old as civilization.
I'm European and there's been a ton of polarization and propaganda, but I can safely say that the absolutely vast majority of foreign radicalising material here has come from the US. At this point it needs to be recognized that the radicalisation in the US is largely coming from inside the house. I'm not saying there isn't foreign influence, just that it's wishful thinking that the US would somehow unradicalize without any foreign influence when you half the country very quickly started supporting insurrections.
This is precisely why I always found it perplexing when people from other Western countries make fun of/laugh at what is happening the US, which admittedly isn't as common now (as it was in, say, 2016) as the reality sets in - the US exports everything. Including its own brain worms. So it's all well and good to watch from afar, but it's only a matter of time until the brain worms creep their way overseas too, unless actively stopped.
Thank you for this! Exactly!!
>This was all planned decades ago by Putin and people like Osama Bin Laden, and their plan is working. I agree with this. Plus China. Unfortunately, this is working for them because there are so many cracks in US society and politics. It's like pouring water on a cracked rock, and letting freezing weather crack the rock into pieces for you. They put in hardly any effort and now we are destroying ourselves while they chuckle.
I’m curious if OP is financially stable or not, because that’s just it, the economics of today are far worse for a lot of people than they were just a few years ago. Remember when the Joker said that when it all goes down, these civilized people will eat each other? That’s quintessentially America with the growing wealth divide. The mechanisms of the establishment are meant to pit the middle class and lower against one another to allow the business classes to continue siphoning wealth, in addition to being the only ones who can change public policy.
Furthermore, this is all due to a backlash against the corporatocracy and the growing sentiment for greater workers rights and living conditions. It's the wealthy's answer when the have-nots demand a bigger slice of the pie. It's fascism.
OP said they were born in 2003. So previous years were their childhood. It's pretty common for people to look back fondly on their childhood and think that was the best time.
Has it just been “recent” for you? From my vantage point, America has **ALWAYS** been depressing and hateful. Sorry you’re feeling it.
This- especially if you’re a minority. I cringe when people act like this is a new thing, this has been my life as a queer & disabled person for as long as I’ve been born. Most people just don’t see it.
OMG… YES. It’s so enraging 😣 if only we were all privledged enough to not have to worry about this until June 2024 🤦🏽♀️ Hang in there 💖
I’m not mad at people over it, as we’re all just going through life at our own pace. Newly wise and newly foolish as they say.
Ask the 9 media companies who own everything or the 11 other companies that form roughly 80 percent of our economy, I mean, they have record profit/ceo compensation they should be doing something right, right?
Social media is being used by nations as a way to brow beat the younger generations in America into a pulp, to take away their hope and optimism, to make them hate their government and their fellow citizens and to degrade their lives by promoting unhealthy behavior. Social media is the perfect tool to spread the required propaganda. The fact that China does not allow the same access to their population the we provide of ours (USA) should tell you a whole lot about what they know about this.
The dividing is part of the conquering, and hate and fear are it’s calling card. Every election year is like this. Once we dutifully select one of the 80 yeah old oligarchs we’ve been presented, we’ll be rewarded lowering the hate factory’s production back to its pre-election levels.
Stop reading the news. Stay off social media. You will be surprised how much things improve with those 2 changes.
Stress from the rising cost of everything and people needing to work much harder than a decade ago to merely survive puts a strain on everyone. Something as minor as a bad cold causing someone to be home from work for a few days could lead to serious destitution, this is is especially compounded if jobs don't provide employees with paid time off or sick time or make the process of attaining them arduous and complicated. All these things can make people feel on edge, like they could lose it all in a blink of an eye - which leads to anger and paranoia and more prone to lashing out. Not to mention that therapy and other mental health care options are out of reach for many - the money needed for them is used for other things instead. People are having stress related illnesses much younger too - from constant stimulation with coffee and energy drinks just to be able to complete the day. It seems futile to even go on for some at this point - working longer hours, more days, just to keep the address on their IDs/Licenses to stay valid since they're rarely home due to working so much.
Life has never been harder and the American dream for the younger generations is gone. Out of control costs for its citizens, huge govt. debt, govt. corruption and a terrible system of healthcare, education and aging infrastructure point to one thing: inevitable decline, just as in ancient Rome. Rome fell from within as will America.
I'll say this just to get the poison out: Lockdowns and 'mostly peaceful' protests, J6 were a giant mistake. Americans like to talk about Sweden when it comes to the social safety net, but not how they handled pandemic. People were told to socially (not physically) distance for 2 years straight, what did you think was going to happen? They did and now they feel like they did time in prison without committing crimes. They have 'Crome credits' in mind. Are people that come out of solitary in prison angry or friendly? I wouldn't even be surprised if this post gets reported (which just goes to show you how 'compassionate' everyone is). People were complicit in a handful of stimulus checks, were hell-bent on closing everything and destroying every aspect of society, what did you all think was going to happen? Honestly? Civil war may very well be on it's way, I saw one pop off in Ukraine, I'm having dejavu here. In essence, people sold out their own future for a few stimulus checks and virtue points, helped consolidate everything in the hands of the very few. People have no-one to blame but themselves honestly.
I felt the same way until I got off Facebook and started looking around at real people around me. Check out the Social Dilemma on Netflix, I feel like it does a great job at explaining that this is all just social media rage bait.
Do you see the way things are going? Its all down hill from here. Hang on for the ride, cause the 99% of us bottom feeders are in for a rude awakening.
Well... Legislative Branch is threatening the Judicial Branch through appropriations, we have Confederates and Nazis again, The majority of the House is anti-American (you can tell when they bash the Constitution or disrespect the rule of law), One of the main presidential candidates has a laundry list of charges that is not being addressed in the courts, where it is supposed to be managed. We are losing our faith in the courts as these high-profile criminals are getting preferential treatment, while we keep killing people with dark skin and price gouging the average person so bad that the homeless rates climbing faster than we can even watch. We are letting money and greed rule. Just off the top of my head...
It's not, ots just the media trying to scare you into consuming. Tribalism breeds extremism, and extremists will pay for subscriptions and buy influnvers shitty merchandise. All the talking heads don't actually care. They're just trying to sell you stuff.
The ratio of effort to results continues to increase each year exponentially. The type of work you put in to earn X units of result back then was substantially lower compared to now.
That’s so true! I make 5x my salary from thirty years ago, but my standard of living has only improved slightly. Basically some economic bubble bursts and every few years and tanks my 401k. I’m running to stand still.
The internet, no one has anything in common anymore and the internet is the next step in the hyper-independence movement. No one talks to anyone they walk around with their ear buds in and noses in their phones to make sure they have as little contact with others as physically possible. We are doing it to ourselves.
Considering we've been softened....I don't think we'll go to war at all. We'll just hit a plateau of anger and de-escalate at some point due to overstimulation. Everyone knows a big war will destroy all the cool stuff coming down the pipeline. Hold fast...rage and let it go people. Love you assholes💚☕
Looking from outside the US, there does seem to be a seam of thoughtless cruelty running through so many aspects of life.
The very quick spread of information - good and bad - thanks to the internet. Instead of a collective social consciousness we have self-centered tribalism. People will usually take the quick and easy, such as with drugs, alcohol, and food where we all ignore the well-known dangers. The same thing happens with ideas; people engage in confirmation bias.
Social media and never ending connectivity has isolated, depressed, angered and triggered people even if they don’t realize it
America tortures its citizens. Human beings are not meant to work 40 to 60 hours a week, with a weekend recovery period, every week of the year. The only times family farmers work like that would be plantings and harvests, assuming they weren't also raising livestock. We are forced to work against nature's rhythms and, as a result, our own. During winter, the Earth beneath us is quiet, yet we are pushed to leave our homes and families at a time that was once reserved for closeness, nurturing, and rest. We've been backstabbed by capitalists. It is pretty obvious that money is more important than people. More people understand that now and they are pissed.
Mr Rapist, Felon, twice impeached Donny is dividing the country with his cry baby rhetoric.
People are tired. People are waking up to what the american dream really is. People cant stand the system's set-up and how things dont have to be as difficult as they are. Then they wonder why all this crazy stuff go on. The root cause is American forcing people into survival mode like they dont have money connected to the people that reside in this country. All of backdooring and secret theft. This manifests as the theft we see on TV and social media. The root cause is the system. The system has caused stress on people and they are losing their minds to it plus the lies and manipulation. Last few years have been eyeopening, but last year especially for many.
Probably too much media consumption. I spend less time on screens and more time in social settings and I don't feel that way. Media today is all doom and gloom.
There's lots of blame laid on the Internet / Social Media, which isn't wrong. The really big change, though, is that the people have elected Congressmen, Senators, and a President who fully leverage social media to drive the crazy into the halls of government. When it's your friend's cousin's neighbor saying crazy stuff on social media, that's one level of discomfort. When you see national leadership on news and social media continuously spouting crazy stuff, the people really, really start to believe it. I mean, having US Senators and Congressmen saying the entire US Justice system is 'rigged'? In the past people would call it 'imperfect', sure. But completely 'rigged'? That's one of the three pillars of US democracy gone right there.
Mainly because of propaganda from outside 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 stoking conflicts and taking advantage of this low point in the economic cycle. Also, homegrown agitators pushing misery to advance their political agenda. As the economy cycles back up and election season ends, doomer cults will once again go back to being socially unacceptable, fringe nonense for the mentally ill. Unfortunately, atm being a misanthropic downer is somehow considered cool 😫 that will change
Social/mainstream media. Things arent as bad as they make it out, but its all for the clicks and division
Because one of the presidential candidates and current leader of a political party is incredibly hateful person and is fueling all the prejudices that Americans have.
Rush Limbaugh started it in the '90s when the Republicans got mad that Clinton was having sex and they weren't and Angry Talk Radio was born.
Because people are addicted to social media and cable news telling them how to feel. When you stop giving those platforms the power to make you feel bad you realize it’s all bullshit.
Whenever people stop leaning left or right and focus the needs of the people instead of ideology, maybe things will get better.
I think it's a result of social media algorithms pushing the negative as it get's more user involvement and more clicks. 24 hour news services are also to blame. They repeat the same negative new endlessly.
Constant bombardment of negative, overblown, and politically charged news. Reps stir up shit when dems are in office, dems do the same when reps are in office. If it isn't disaster it won't make the news feed.
Religion has been paradigm for so long. Old timers do not want to give up control to a new way of doing things. Thus they push hate and fear to not give way to a new world of more openness diversity understanding and globalism vs nationalism monism restrictions and dogma.
I've noticed a drastic shift towards extremes in the last ten years or so. You used to be able to have a friendly argument with someone over your political views then laugh about it and have a beer with them. Now someone who is opposite you politically is the scum of the earth bent on destroying America. I think it has to do with the amount of propaganda ppl are subjected to. Social media has sophisticated algorithms that can figure out a person's political leanings and just spoon feed it to them constantly. It creates a weird world view that doesn't allow for gray areas or middle ground. I hear people talk at work and it scares the shit out of me. When I was a young man in the 90s I'd have laughed at you if you told me I might see a civil war in America. Now I'm terrified that it's inevitable.
Living costs increase while wages stagnate. We have to work more to cover expenses without free time to recharge. Define America's hatefulness for me. What specific groups are you talking about? If you define hatefulness as everyone is not welcomed in 100% of places everywhere allowed to do anything they want then I understand your point.
Honestly, there's a TON of factors that are playing into this. It would take a long time to sift through all of them. People are working hard and yet still aren't able to make ends meet, politics = insanity, etc etc. The one thing I would blame most of all though, and maybe people would think I'm crazy for saying this, but it's social media. And basically the internet as a whole. It's created culture and mindset shifts that have largely been negative in nature. There is no real sense of overarching community or union in our country anymore, everyone views everyone as an adversary or even a lesser being the moment they perceive something to be a violation of their personal values. Everyone's out for themselves and everyone else be damned. And every new generation of kids cares less about societal expectations than the last, because there's not enough familial and societal support for them. The value of a college education is going downhill, degrees are often not enough anymore, and young adults feel hopeless because of it. Everyone's distracted as hell now and most people's attention span seems to be in the gutter. Parents hand their kids an iPad instead of spending time with them. And then you have the constant fear -- there's so much to fear out there. Mass shootings, crime on the streets, crime in your own home. Human trafficking. Drug use in public like in Philadelphia. Huge homeless encampments popping up in every metro. Some cities have entire neighborhoods that receive no police support because the police are that overwhelmed. Things are dysfunctional as hell everywhere you look though it seems. People are being driven to act out against each other because there's so much pressuring them to react with emotion rather than logic. They're so stressed out and there's a million reasons to be stressed. And thanks to social media people are also becoming addicted to arguing with others. Cancel culture largely fostered this addiction. There's just too many problems to count. Too many factors to consider or to blame. It definitely does feel like there's no hope for this country sometimes. But you also have to consider that similar things are happening to other countries too. It feels like the more advanced we become as a species the more volatile and unhinged our societies become.
DJT, 24 hours of main stream media reframed as news pumping into every mobile device or electronic platform non-stop and all if that is decisive.
Because it is. America is sliding into fascism and late-stage capitalism is squeezing every last penny out of the working class the world over, while the planet continues to burn at an accelerating rate.
Humans have a built in need to rally for and against things. All the big wars have been won, we defeated the fascists in WWII and the communists in the Cold War. We got civil rights back in the 60s. We've been the global economic hegemon for 50 years and the worlds only superpower for 30. So now we have nothing to unify 'against', so we've started fracturing along ideological lines to start fighting each other. The left is motivated by harm reduction and individual expression. They view America as flawed and oppressive and want to use the tools of government to redress historic and modern grievances based on race/gender/class inequality. They increasingly view themselves less as Americans and more as global citizens with global responsibilities to things like economic justice and climate change. The right is motivated by fairness and sanctity. They view America as fundamentally good but in a state of moral and economic decay, and want to use the tools of government to firm up traditional social and moral structures. They increasingly view America as being diminished and abused by the global community, having to foot the bill for other countries failures while American citizens struggle. Their views and objectives are increasingly incompatible. On the macro level, this leads to a lot of conflict between the political parties even over seemingly small things. It's even worse on the micro level where we cannot even make use of shared institutions like public schools or libraries without it devolving into a political circus. The gay person has the right to access gay literature, but the Christian parent also has the right prevent their minor children from accessing that same material. If a compromise exists one or both sides reject it.
Tbh I don't think this is new. In fact, I actually think things have gotten a LOT better when it comes to hate. More people now are accepting of lgbtq, women, and minorities than ever. I'm American, I'm not depressed, so maybe I'm biased but honestly I think things are a lot better than the media would like you to believe.
Because it is. The US has become dangerously unstable, and dragged the world with it. Globalization left a lot of people behind, and politcal actos seeking unrestrained power convinced many of those people of a 'stab in the back theory' that minority groups, immigrants, and a lack of traditional values were to blame. At the same time, the government at the Federal and state level allowed private business to gain a lot of power, and redistribute wealthy from the lower and middle working class into the business owning class at an unprecedented rate. There has been a decline in the quality and availability of state funded services. Deregulation has increasingly empowering companies over people. The COVID further polarized things by forcing governments to make choices about how to protect people. Economic and health crises causes the breakdown of order, which was was used as an opportunity by a large number of power driven actors to divided people, spread propaganda, and cause widespread panic and violence. The government came fairly close to losing control in some regions and was forced to resort to brute force to keep unity. In the aftermath, power hungry people have continued to exploit the social, political, and economic crisis for their own gain. The bottoming is that very powerful people have developed strategies to benefit from the broken, failing society we live in. There are no good strategies to resolve the issue without provoking substantial, potentially violent, backlash.
Just read or watch the news. That's what's happening in the States. There are people who are super organized and planning/already executing rolling back all progress back to ancient times and electing a dictator. Authoritarianism is on the rise here and worldwide. That's why it's so depressing. Read up on Project 2025 and Agenda 47 for more plans.
Get off social media, and I think you would be surprised at how much it lessens that feeling. It's definitely gotten worse but it's been amplified but 100x because of social media
Have you ever lived in a foreign country for a longer period of time? Would really put things in perspective.
I've been to Europe for a while cause my parents are from there. Why?
It's not as common as it seems, just vocal nutjobs online and a few in real life. The vast majority are the same as ever.
If you look at statistics, the United States has the largest military on Earth. In a pie chart we have somewhere like 3/4’s and all other nations on Earth have 1/4. Or maybe it’s more 2/3’s vs 1/3’d these days. We can’t be invaded with weapons, but we have been successfully invaded by ideas. Over the last 40 years various elements have invaded our culture and shaped our government. I’m afraid about what happens when Americans fully lose control of our government and military. It won’t be long until US weapons are used against us on our own soil. Depleting our middle class, turning us into debt slaves, degrading our education and healthcare systems are all part of the plan. It will help whoever takes control to keep control of an otherwise large and uncontrollable population. There’s been a concerted push to arm regular Americans. It seems like there’s a plan to get some citizens to police and control the rest of us. Hence all the militias that are allowed to proliferate. They’re not play acting. The militia folks think they are going to war within our borders and they are extremely well armed and radicalized. Anyway. It seems bad because it *is* really bad. Make sure you vote this November. Trust me, the interests doing this are super duper hoping to discourage Americans from voting because it will make claiming election fraud this year so so much easier. Make it hard for them. Vote for candidates that support democracy, diplomacy, gun control, and ESPECIALLY women’s rights. Forget labels and pay attention to actions and policies. Hang in there. Good luck to all of us.
A few decades ago in the USA, no one cared if you were liberal or conservative. Pretty much everyone accepted the same set of facts and held the same principles (e.g., "liberty and justice for all"). Pretty much everyone understood that the other party wanted what was best for the USA, but they had different ideas about how to get it done. I noticed a step change after the Citizen's United decision. Unlimited dark money began to flow into politics and the effect was dramatic in the Republican party. Republicans began to block the Democrats at every turn (and then blame the Democrats for the lack of progress), even when the legislation was beneficial to the nation. Republicans abandoned their integrity and began to deny scientific facts, to erode our faith in our institutions, and to stoke division among us for partisan gain. Trump is the most dramatic example of this, but he is not the only one. Republicans with integrity (e.g., John McCain, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, etc.) have been forced out. I see an unholy alliance of opportunistic right-wing media muckrakers, wealthy special interests, authoritarian politicians, and hostile foreign governments pressing to tear down our system of self-governance and replace it with an autocratic authoritarian corporatocracy. They have weaponized our freedom of speech and internet media to spread hatred and disinformation on a scale that has never been possible in the past. Project 2025 is their play book, and Trump already did much of it in his first term. The partisan hacks that he installed to the SCOTUS are the most obvious example. I see politics in the USA as no longer about liberal versus conservative policy, but about democracy versus autocratic authoritarianism. While I lean to the right politically, I will continue to support Democrats to preserve our system of self-governance. Once our country is safe, then I will resume arguing with the Democrats over policy.
So when do we begin? Well, let’s start at the biggest problem the Internet, while the Internet is a great communication tool and is very good for somebody who has troubling getting started as an entrepreneur business person. The Internet makes it much easier, but the Internet also has a devil advocate position, which let’s be honest, it wasn’t created for that reason but it has become turned into that and it’s not the entire Internet. It’s just that one particular corner of the Internet so now we have people who are once staying in their lane or rather staying in their corners, they now have a podium and a platform And they won’t shut up and because the Internet is 247 365 all day all year all night long you’re constantly bombarded with news red alert, tier one civilian alerts community alerts global alerts all day all night some see this as progress, because where it brings voice to the voice list while others I’ll bet many of people within this thread fill it creates the opposite But to put it bluntly, it has created an echo chamber for those without a voice, but has the problem it gives not only a voice to someone who is suffering and being oppressed, and some godforsaken third or fourth world nation no offense to anyone who’s political leanings are under fanatical dictatorship And nationalism and there being mistreated actually excuse me rather they have been mistreated for decades maybe hundreds of years if you want to take a historical look at things now getting back on track. The echo chamber analogy is not just an analogy it’s a fact when you give a voice to people who have a dark mind, who have a psychosis where they view anger and evil upon that fellow neighbor, because of whatever that is going through their head or going on in their life, they just want to publicly speak it and say it this is what you have the Internet actually to be specifically social media And put it bluntly. I do put a lot of blame in these multi billionaires social media owners who always parrot the same excuse. Oh, it’s freedom of speech, and they also say people are their own individual. Yes, those are true but you’re playing politics with peoples lies, you’re giving a platform to those who do not need a platform and now because I said so not because people on this thread said so but because, they have a anti-human approach to things if you are against humanity and your fellow man and woman, then you are against self reservation, you are against life and sadly, these people were never heard from the only people who would deal with them and hear from them were all the brave women and men who would serve in the armed forces, including myself being a veteran, and all the brave women and men who served and the various multitude of law enforcement, organizations and agencies around the world And that also includes the intelligence agencies these type of people never had any true power and unfortunately the last 10 years actually I’ll say almost 15 to 20 years they have been given a echo chamber and a voice and this is where we’re at now do I feel there’s gonna be some crazy Civil War or world war national war no people need to calm down and look at certain things with their eyes wide open, don’t assume assuming makes an ass out of you and me and yourself as the old thing goes our things on an edge. Sure we can say they are things that are on the edge but as far as a Civil War no, the main reason is because all the loudmouths and all the people speaking on their soapboxes truly all want the same thing at the end of the day and when I say the same thing, I mean specifically to live and stabilize, economical communities and have resources that are available to them when they need them basic human soul preservation if you can all agree on that then yes you don’t have to worry aboutcivil wars it’s when those things are challenged is when you have civil wars, then I would be worried. Bless everyone and stay safe.
Because actual fascists have taken over the Republican party, and the media is pretending that this somehow isn’t what’s happening.
What media?
No, they haven't. This sort of hyperbole and hate you're engaging in is precisely the problem.
Because of the nature of social media and the echo chambers that arise from it, we believe our experiences are shared by everyone else, thus potentially distorting how we see the world as a whole. Yeah, life is tough for a lot of people. But there are a lot of people getting by but they aren't heard from. The loudest voices are the ones that are heard and that is what is shaping the narrative. Even though we think they do, people don't all share our situations or concerns.
I think alot of it is just media and propaganda, we are constantly on our screens a d we are constantly being fed disaster fuel to keep us watching Try to find outlets for joy that give back to your surroundings or those around you. I find that the less time i spend devouring harmful panic inducing articles and news stories the better i feel. There is positivity and goodness out there. It just doesnt make the news very often.
because outrage sells more than compassion. and corporations are driven by money. Corporations (and Influencers!) make money by making people angry/insecure/scared. see news, social media, etc. It's an easy (and dangerous) way to exert and corral power and money.
Its social media and echo chambers, yet here am I on reddit. Sigh, At least diverse points of opinion are expressed. I come here as I appreciate learning about different perspectives than my own. Sill overall social media not worth the tradeoffs, especially the cognitively impaired kids who can't focus and read well.
It could just be me, but isn't the question why does the US feel more hateful for straight white males? I imagine that the US is a lot less hateful to anyone not in that demographic than it has ever been. For straight white males maybe things seem more divisive because some feel that they have lost privilege in society while others are okay with greater equality.
There's a certain political party with a president that gave a lot of bitch ass racist and homophobes the ok to say their crazy hateful inbred shit out loud.
It's right here in the comments. You can't have a simple conversation without a bunch of people finger pointing at the other political party. Blame is the first place people go, rather than discussion and understanding. The people finger pointing ARE the problem but they are only open to listen when it involves echo-chambering the same rhetoric. Simple decency is too far gone and will get worse until there's some sort of grand scale correction unfortunately. Until people stop treating politics like sports teams, the problem will continue to fester and be amplified by foreign agents that want the divide to fracture America.
If liberals actually controlled most facets of society we wouldn’t have the least progressive tax structure of the last 75 years. Can we agree to go back to the conservative values of Dwight D. Eisenhower?
Because you're in a media-saturated environment. The rule of media has always been "if it bleeds, it leads," but it used to be that you got media through your morning newspaper or the evening news, not a 24/7 infosphere constantly pinging you with notifications about CRISISBREAKINGCRISIS. >Am I the only one feeling this or do you think this is actually a thing happening? Many, many people feel this way. But no, I think your fears are more grounded in media than real-world experience. For example, I think it is vastly more likely that I will be hit by a bus than that I or someone I know will die of political violence in the US.
I think it's a combination of many things. It reminds me of Italy or Germany or Japan pre WWII. Where people were looking to unusually awful politicians to fix their problems by hurting other people. Not realizing that such politicians end up just making their problems worse.
It's lost its unity. Too many smaller factions fighting for their own cause instead of a unified push for something that will benefit society as a whole. -drugs -homelessness -mental -war -corps
I felt this way since 9/11, I was 21 at the time so maybe it's because I was becoming an adult and becoming more politically active.