How divided are we?
For some, America is indeed a polarized nation, perhaps more so today than at any time in living memory.
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As summed up by the distinguished social scientist who writes humor columns under the name of Dave Barry, residents of Red states are “ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marrying road-kill-eating tobacco-juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks,” while Blue-state residents are “godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving leftwing Communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts.”
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The reasons for the widening fissures in Congress are not far to seek. Each of the political parties was once a coalition of dissimilar forces: liberal Northern Democrats and conservative Southern Democrats, liberal coastal Republicans and conservative Midwestern Republicans. No longer; the realignments of the South (now overwhelmingly Republican) and of New England (now strongly Democratic) have all but eliminated legislators who deviate from the party's leadership. Conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans are endangered species now approaching extinction. At the same time, the ideological gap between the parties is growing: if there was once a large overlap between Democrats and Republicans—remember “Tweedledum and Tweedledee”?—today that congruence has almost disappeared. By the late 1990's, virtually every Democrat was more liberal than virtually every Republican.
The result has been not only intense partisanship but a sharp rise in congressional incivility. In 1995, a Republican-controlled Senate passed a budget that President Clinton proceeded to veto; in the loggerhead that followed, many federal agencies shut down (in a move that backfired on the Republicans). Congressional debates have seen an increase not only in heated exchanges but in the number of times a representative's words are either ruled out of order or “taken down” (that is, written by the clerk and then read aloud, with the offending member being asked if he or she wishes to withdraw them).
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Next, the mass media. Not only are they themselves increasingly polarized, but consumers are well aware of it and act on that awareness. Fewer people now subscribe to newspapers or watch the network evening news.
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In part, media bias feeds into, and off, an increase in business competition. In the 1950's, television news amounted to a brief 30-minute interlude in the day's programming, and not a very profitable one at that
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The news we get is not only more omnipresent, it is also more competitive and hence often more adversarial. When there were only three television networks, and radio stations were forbidden by the fairness doctrine from broadcasting controversial views, the media gravitated toward the middle of the ideological spectrum, where the large markets could be found. But now that technology has created cable news and the Internet, and now that the fairness doctrine has by and large been repealed, many media outlets find their markets at the ideological extremes.
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As one journalist has remarked about the change in his profession, “We don't deal in facts [any longer], but in attributed opinions.” Or, these days, in unattributed opinions. And those opinions are more intensely rivalrous than was once the case.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-divided-are-we/
That story was posted in February of 2006.
Now today:
U.S. Political System Is Structured to Divide
Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter is basically saying that Congress has been moribund for 20 years. It no longer cares about the pressing issues of the nation, it is just caught up in partisan opposition for its own sake.
https://www.xumo.tv/video/XM0V66HXDT...n-open-economy
I think that the change in the media's reporting of the news is a reflection of the political reality in Congress which has become so polarized that there was no middle position possible, so sides had to be taken in order to cater to an increasingly divided public.