It seems that in today’s America, Democrats all think that Republicans are racist hate mongers and Republican think that Democrats are radicals working to destroy the country. Why is that?
Anyone who has been paying any attention to what is going on is already familiar with the term “echo chamber,” meaning that each “side” tends to listen, watch, or read only content that reinforces their tendencies and biases. This is true but it is not sufficient to explain what is going on.
I have been subscribing to “Tangle,” an online publication written by Isaac Saul in which he discusses various issues of the day and presents three summaries, two with the views of the opposing sides of the issue at hand (e.g. abortion’s “pro-choice” and “pro-life”) and then adds his own two cents. I find him to be pretty even-handed in his analyses.
And on Friday he always publishes a special edition that is available only to subscribers. Today he started off with this headline: “Why do we hate each other?”
It’s a long read. Saul grants permission to subscribers to distribute his musings far and wide without any restriction, so I am not violating any copyrights here by including the entire content as a PDF.
He makes a very important point well into his piece: The media today are different than they used to be. Once they at least attempted to be objective, even though biases always seem to have a way to inject themselves into even the most well-intended reporting. But this is no longer true. Now the “mainstream” media have all become advocates. It’s the Washington Post vs. Fox News. There’s no middle ground.
And that’s bad for all of us. I don’t know what we can do about it, but as the old adage goes, the first step to overcoming a problem is to recognize that there IS a problem. Read this piece and I think you will see that problem quite clearly. You can download it if you like.
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