The root cause of America’s radicalization and polarization problem

submitted by BioEssentialism from self.TumblrInAction

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[–]LyingSpirit472 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

While most of your logic makes sense, I'd posit it goes earlier than the 2008 recession:

The answer to "why does each of these theories require demonizing the majority to prop up the minority?" was helped by the recession, but the real answer is: All politics are glorified sports teams. Your political group, your identity, that's YOUR TEAM, and your team are the heroes right or wrong. The "other" is the enemy. They are literally, inherently evil and they are not to be trusted. Even if they pretend to be on your side, it's a lie, they hate you and everything that you stand for. They want you and everyone you care about dead. Hell, the ones who flat out say they hate you are BETTER than that- at least they respect you enough to admit there's no place for you in their perfect world. You cannot truly live while they draw breath."

So, the answer to the root cause of this radicalization becomes "what chokepoint caused that to happen?", and the answer to me would be: THE 2000 ELECTION. The aftermath of the 2000 election and how it was truly too close to call was the real start of it. The Republicans and Democrats both had a case to say "our guy won, your guy lost!", and it went on for months as Florida was just too close to call, and both sides of the coin truly believed their guy won Florida, and thus was President...and it got to a choke point where both sides truly believed their guy won and the other guy was trying to steal the election...and then suddenly you have that irreconcilable difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. Before 2000, people disagreed with the other party, but after that, the two sides truly HATED each other and believed the other side was out to get them. It was bad enough the only thing to bring people together was 9/11 and the most vicious attack on US soil in history...and even THAT only bought people about 18 months before the Iraq War started and Democrats had the "Saddam Hussein is a fuckhead, but he had nothing to do with 9/11 and we all know it! It's just done for oil prices and your chance to look like a big man to Daddy!", vs. "the war is about getting revenge for 9/11. You don't support 9/11, do you? ...you DO, DON'T YOU? I KNEW you're anti-American! You want us all dead!" and it all derailed quickly. This is important because since then, literally EVERY election, no matter how obvious the result was, has been contested and fought for, and the two sides became more and more convinced there was no reasoning with the other side...and now, it's been 22 years since that election and we're seeing a full generation that has been taught their opposing sides are literally, inherently evil and have no other thoughts in their head except how much they want that person, personally, dead just for existing.

[–]BioEssentialism[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Maybe it’s because I was really young at the time (2000 I was literally only 8) but I don’t remember the country being nearly as divisive as it currently is now, or even started ramping up in the late 00’s-early 2010s. The early to mid 00’s rings as a relatively peaceful time to me, with only 9/11 really being the only thing truly of note. Certainly I don’t remember the fandoms at the time that I grew up with concerning itself with any politics or “problematicness” over what was okay to write let alone this whole special snowflake SJW pronoun brigade.

Was it truly just due to the rise in social media that allowed the public to be exposed to the political underbelly that was the hostility steaming between Dems and Republicans since the 2000 election and allowed it to take surface and enter the mainstream? Cause from what I remember growing up, the early to mid 2000s was no different than the 90’s politics wise.

[–]Chipit 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeesh, 2001-2004 was horrible. People unironically calling Bush Bu$hitler and saying he was going to implement a fascist dictatorship. You know Trump Derangement Syndrome? Back then it was called Bush Derangement Syndrome.

And then when Bush was re-elected in 2004, journalists were completely baffled. They did not know anyone who didn't vote for the Democrat and were utterly in the dark about anything outside of their own circles. They sent reporters into darkest middle America to find out what the fuck had happened and how people could be so stupid as to vote for anything but what others thought was best for them. A book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" spent years on the best-seller lists. Its conclusion was that Americans are too stupid to be allowed to vote and decide what kind of government they want.

[–]Haylstorm 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

People are always like this. Some uni students are despised where I am cause they're like that. Go into a local's pub and let them know they voted liberal democrat or labour for them, aren't you happy i'm helping you? Only to find that people in there voted conservative. Then they get pissy about people voting against their own self interest and basically call them idiots and wonder why no one there is receptive to listening to them. Then they don't listen to WHY people have voted conservative, just continue to call them idiots. Not really helping their case there if you've ever met the stubborn old man at the pub who doesn't like being told what to do.

[–]jet199 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

One of the main things you learn as you get older is that no one votes against their interests.

Rather you just don't understand what their interests are.

People get the politicians the deserve.

[–]Haylstorm 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Honestly a lot of it just seemed to be that they didn't get people had other priorities. The business owner you're talking to doesn't care about family tax breaks but is pretty interested in the business grants a party might want to offer. It's like they don't want to even think about the reasons people might have, they just think the person is stupid and dumb for it. Def pushes people more away.