From an outsider, it really feels like there's no middle ground in American politics. You either commit yourself to the full slate of beliefs for one side, or you're the "enemy".
I hope that Americans on both side start to see that either they need to tone down the rhetoric, work together and reach across the aisle, or just take the tough step of a national divorce due to irreconcilable differences.
Part of that is to stop giving a voice to the insane rhetoric, and stop electing *waving vaguely*.
The truth is the US has been seen periods of extreme rhetoric and even political violence, including most obviously an actual civil war, and also key periods like the labor movement and civil rights movement. It will happen again even if things cool.
Political violence and assassinations are obviously terrible and should hopefully not happen as debate allows consensus or at least compromise to be reached, but the reality seems to be if you allow the people a stake in their government, passion and anger will be instilled in some subset of those people cause government policies have real world implications, and the end result is extreme acts, many of which are detestable like this one. I don't see a way forward other than to prosecute crimes and let the debate rage on.
However, both the established parties seem to have become totally incompetent to do that, in very different ways. One party got taken over by people who make public statements on a daily basis that would have been immediately disqualifying at any time since 1950 or so. The other party is so bad at doing politics that they're beaten in elections despite running against those people.
It looks like Trump's term is going to end in either the end of America as we know it or a constitutional convention anyways. Anything is on the table given how America is currently being torn apart anyways.
The best we can hope for is that the convulsions will be short and sharp and no foreign power takes advantage of our convalescence. In 1945 the Germans learned a hard lesson about fascism, and learned it well; we can hope that Americans will learn something too, and at less cost.
I actually think it’s possible a national divorce makes the problem worse. Lots of these killers have not had clear motives or “sides”
Leaving a Midwest rump state run from.. Chicago?
Strongly disagree with "most".
Margins on many recent elections have been so low they'd be too close to measure a generation ago.
I think that's relevant, a hard check on the idea that an overwhelming majority of Americans are getting what they voted for. No.
(FWIW I agree with your other points. I miss the era of Walter Cronkite consensus. Not clear that it was better. But less terrifying.)
Many of us don't vote either. And our two party systems have created extreme partisanship. I wish it could be different because I do love this country, but our politics are so broken by the two party system, fueled with misinformation through these partisan news networks + social media algorithms (the way Youtube turns one person into an extremist of either side is an example...)
Assuming welfare as in healthcare and food subsidies, money to low-income individuals.
Prior to social media, or the internet in general, it was quite difficult to amass large numbers of people in your echo chamber without becoming a person of power (like a president or equivalent). But today, it isn't uncommon for someone with views towards conspiracies or extreme viewpoints to become a "popular" voice in social media. In fact, one might argue that it is easier to become popular by being divisive. Even though most people aren't on either side. The ability to grow a "large enough" side is enough to become an existential threat to the other side. And they end up justifying their own existence.
I don't know what the solution to this is. I don't even know how to reduce it at this point.
When people say the north fought to preserve the union, I always thought it meant the physical union. But recently, I saw a lecture by Gary Gallagher at the UVA that shone a brighter light on what union meant in 1860. It's worth a listen, search for it on YT.
More recently, selfishness has taken second seat to hurting the “other” (whatever other happens to be) even to the detriment of one’s own self interests. America is not built for this.
Personally I think there needs be laws regarding social media, perhaps limiting the number of followers/viewers for anyone engaged in social or political commentary, and/or making promotion of political content illegal if it is false or misleading. Something akin to the fairness doctrine that used to exist for television prior to 1987.
that might be where youre running into problems?
A lot of people here are no better than reddit. Worse in some ways because they wrap their gravedancing in an additional layer of pseudointellectualism.
I’ve left out which side is which, because I think it works both ways.
So the algorithms that prioritise engagement reward outrage, and the social media users who want to be engaged with tend towards posting outrage
It leads to people sitting around being angry at something or someone for hours on end, multiple days a week (if not daily)
It doesn't lead to a healthy mind or a healthy society