How American politics went batsh*t crazy

[58miles]

This is an article in Axios that pretty describes how American politics got to where it is today. With the rise of Newt Gingrich and Fox News. The only thing this article left out is the influence of talk radio which imo a huge part of the reason for the state of American politics.

• Newt Gingrich, in the early 1990s, weaponized warfare politics in a methodical and sustained way. In tactics and rhetoric, Gingrich ushered in a good-versus-evil style that persists today.
• Fox News, created in 1996, televised and monetized this hard-edged combat politics. This created the template for MSNBC to do the same on the left, giving both sides a place to fuel and fund rage 24/7. CNN soon went all politics, all day, making governance a show in need of drama.
• Facebook and later Twitter, both products of the post-2000 Internet revolution, socialized rage and argument. Now every nut with an opinion could find fans and followers to cheer/egg him or her on. This happened as the middle in politics was officially purged from Congress.
• John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, celebritized rage politics. Until that moment, Republicans typically picked conventional, next-in-line candidates. Palin, made for cable and social media, was the precursor to Trump.
• Facebook, starting in 2015 with command of so much of most voters' time and attention, algorithm-ized rage. The more emotion you felt and sought, the more the news-feed machine pumped at you. With no one looking, fake news was born and metastasizing.
• Twitter + Trump, starting in 2016, habitualized and radicalized the moment-by-moment rage and reaction of politicians, voters and the media. This created more froth and more fog and resulted in a spike of people who don't believe real news, much less the fake news pulsing through the system.

Now all of this has been institutionalized. No wonder people don't trust, like or believe politicians — or often each other.
https://www.axios.com/how-american-...860-b5c49fe2-b406-4b41-82d4-b2cb74673b53.html

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

What do you know, someone on the left thinks that Republicans and conservatives are somehow solely responsible for our political discourse descending to this level.

The left not wanting to take responsibility for the consequences of their own misdeeds?

Color me shocked, shocked I say.

 

[Soul Crusher]

What do you know, someone on the left thinks that Republicans and conservatives are somehow solely responsible for our political discourse descending to this level.

The left not wanting to take responsibility for the consequences of their own misdeeds?

Color me shocked, shocked I say.

 

[ultramanhyata]

What do you know, someone on the left thinks that Republicans and conservatives are somehow solely responsible for our political discourse descending to this level.

The left not wanting to take responsibility for the consequences of their own misdeeds?

Color me shocked, shocked I say.

What do you know, someone on the left thinks that Republicans and conservatives are somehow solely responsible for our political discourse descending to this level.

The left not wanting to take responsibility for the consequences of their own misdeeds?

Color me shocked, shocked I say.

Please, by all means, disclose the names of the political and media figures on the dem side who were discourse disrupting precursors of Limbaugh and Gingrich.

 

[Happy Man]

To start let's go with Ted fucking Kennedy.

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

Please, by all means, disclose the names of the political and media figures on the dem side who were discourse disrupting precursors of Limbaugh and Gingrich.

Robert Byrd and all of his buddies in the Ku Klux Klan, just to name a few.

 

[EradiatedHaggis]

OP, the year 1800 is...umm...lettering you to inform you of the articles wrongness.

Of Jefferson, Adams calls "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."

http://mentalfloss.com/article/12487/adams-vs-jefferson-birth-negative-campaigning-us

 

[ultramanhyata]

Robert Byrd and all of his buddies in the Ku Klux Klan, just to name a few.

<45>

 

[HereticBD]

"Warfare Politics really got kick started around 1990. That's when it started to get ugly, and the seeds were planted for the divisiveness we see today."

- Some fucking idiot

 

[Ripskater]

This is an article in Axios that pretty describes how American politics got to where it is today. With the rise of Newt Gingrich and Fox News. The only thing this article left out is the influence of talk radio which imo a huge part of the reason for the state of American politics.

• Newt Gingrich, in the early 1990s, weaponized warfare politics in a methodical and sustained way. In tactics and rhetoric, Gingrich ushered in a good-versus-evil style that persists today.
• Fox News, created in 1996, televised and monetized this hard-edged combat politics. This created the template for MSNBC to do the same on the left, giving both sides a place to fuel and fund rage 24/7. CNN soon went all politics, all day, making governance a show in need of drama.
• Facebook and later Twitter, both products of the post-2000 Internet revolution, socialized rage and argument. Now every nut with an opinion could find fans and followers to cheer/egg him or her on. This happened as the middle in politics was officially purged from Congress.
• John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, celebritized rage politics. Until that moment, Republicans typically picked conventional, next-in-line candidates. Palin, made for cable and social media, was the precursor to Trump.
• Facebook, starting in 2015 with command of so much of most voters' time and attention, algorithm-ized rage. The more emotion you felt and sought, the more the news-feed machine pumped at you. With no one looking, fake news was born and metastasizing.
• Twitter + Trump, starting in 2016, habitualized and radicalized the moment-by-moment rage and reaction of politicians, voters and the media. This created more froth and more fog and resulted in a spike of people who don't believe real news, much less the fake news pulsing through the system.

Now all of this has been institutionalized. No wonder people don't trust, like or believe politicians — or often each other.
https://www.axios.com/how-american-...860-b5c49fe2-b406-4b41-82d4-b2cb74673b53.html

Politics has probably always been crazy.

 

[Quequeg]

Robert Byrd and all of his buddies in the Ku Klux Klan, just to name a few.

I know you think you are owning the libs with this comment, all you are really doing is exposing yourself as a partisan moron.

 

[Quequeg]

Robert Byrd and all of his buddies in the Ku Klux Klan, just to name a few.

double

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

<45>

I accept your concession.

Are you denying that the Ku Klux Klan was the militant wing of the Democratic party throughout the 20th century?

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

I know you think you are owning the libs with this comment, all you are really doing is exposing yourself as a partisan moron.

Robert Byrd was a Democrat, Robert Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the Ku Klux Klan was the militant wing of the Democratic Party in the 20th century.

Each one of these assertions is true. You'll be unable to counter or retort them, so I suspect you will do some form of minimizing, deflection, or equivocation.

The interwoven history of the Ku Klux Klan and the Democratic party is undeniable.

 

[Quequeg]

Robert Byrd was a Democrat, Robert Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the Ku Klux Klan was the militant wing of the Democratic Party in the 20th century.

Each one of these assertions is true. You'll be unable to counter or retort them, so I suspect you will do some form of minimizing, deflection, or equivocation.

The interwoven history of the Ku Klux Klan and the Democratic party is undeniable.

Which Party does the kkk support now and has supported for 40 years?

 

[Grenz]

I haven't read the article beyond the synopsis provided, but a lot of it seems accurate, but also a bit biased against the right. If I had to sum up how American politics got to where it is today, I would say: source of business, which has turned into a race to the bottom.

It's probably easier to explain this for the right. Gingrich, Palin, Fox News, etc. all the 'bad shit' on the Right in the last 25 years, is about attracting previously untapped voter pools. It's difficult to win elections when your traditional voter pool is shrinking so you need to look elsewhere. Fast forward to Trump, and you can see it in full effect. Nobody, not even Palin would have stooped so low as to blatantly pander to racists and people who clearly don't understand anything about what is actually happening in the US, let alone the world. But lo and behold, there's a whole shit ton of people like that out there, and if you tell them what they want to hear, they'll actually go out and vote for you!

The Left as well is trying to do that (pandering to the 'gender is objectively meaningless' crowd, the 'ant-racists' who are looking for vengeance and thus become the very thing they protest against, etc.), but their problem is that those groups aren't big enough to tip the scales.

 

[ultramanhyata]

I accept your concession.

Are you denying that the Ku Klux Klan was the militant wing of the Democratic party throughout the 20th century?

Do you understand what this thread is about, Mr. Green Jeans?

 

[TheGreatA]

America's lack of example-setting intellectuals probably has a lot to do with it. When you take your political talking points from a bunch of comedians, entertainers, talking heads, con artists, this is what it amounts to.

It's not like the "left" fares much better in this regard because they have to bring in an ancient Chomsky in order to truly present a rational and decently well-spoken voice for the left.

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

Which Party does the kkk support now and has supported for 40 years?

Still the Democrats:

Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, 2016:

http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/08/...an-kkk-grand-dragon-endorsing-hillary-clinton

Do I even need to bother pulling up the images of the Clinton-Gore bumper stickers with the Confederate Battle Flag on it?

Now that your attempted deflection is no longer valid, are you willing to concede the Klu Klux klan's roll in twentieth-century Democratic Party politics?

 

[58miles]

"Warfare Politics really got kick started around 1990. That's when it started to get ugly, and the seeds were planted for the divisiveness we see today."

- Some fucking idiot

No idiot what he said was true Gingrich along with the likes of Lee Atwater, Rush, Fox News helped usher in the total warfare era of American politics.