Suppose you were a normal, decent, conservative-leaning American. Since many of my readers share my skepticism about our president, it might be good to put ourselves in the shoes of his base and understand the kind of daily outrage that confronts them. We are thankfully not caning each other on the floor of Congress (yet), but the daily barrage of horrific images we are subjected to makes us feel as though things have never been worse-that we have never been more divided. It seems absurd to compare modernity to those difficult days, and yet, to most Americans I talk to, things feel pretty horrible. We have endured a bloody civil war, as well as unrest and riots. Unfortunately, for us-the consumers-it is also parasitic one. We are being provoked and bated into a culture war by a political class and the chattering classes who have a mutually-beneficial symbiotic relationship. What I’m suggesting is that this toxic dance is all interrelated and increasingly perverse. To be sure, we have a president who commits outrageous acts, and it’s fair to say the media has a responsibility to cover them. But I’m starting to wonder: Is America’s outrage machine-social media platforms, political activists and agitators, and cable news-tearing this country apart by incentivizing (and monetizing) conflict? We could probably generate a long list of factors that have contributed to this malaise and apathy. Despite relative peace and prosperity, nobody really seems happy. Is it just me, or lately have Americans been living their lives just waiting for the other shoe to drop? You don’t have to be a sociologist to know that something is wrong with the world as we know it.
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