Let's see. 20 years ago you wouldn't have said this. Now you do. Did "a large percentage of our country" go "crazy" as you said two comments up, or "stupid" as you say now, in 20 years? When did this incredible phenomenon start? In 1992, with Bill Clinton's election? In 1994 with that year's Republican wave election? In 2000 with Bush's election? In 2006 with the Democrat wave election? In 2008 with Obama's election? In 2010 with that year's Republican wave election? In 2016 with Trump's election? ...
Please tell us.
Or does it go back to 1980, 1976, 1968, ...? When did the country go nuts?
Or is it just that you dislike one very large set of the polity's opinions so much that you are willing to go to great lengths to have them quashed?
They were always stupid, they just didn't have people manipulating them to the same extent before. People being mislead by disinformation goes back at least to the spanish american war, and really much further. But now even more people have the megaphone, so even more people are buying into the disinformation. This comes back to the point of the thread, Youtube knows it is largely culpable for the division within this country, and dislike trolling is one reason why.
One is the Washington Economic Consensus. Very significant majorities of both parties have no interest in representing ordinary Americans, labor, populist interests. And to be clear, this means basics: wages, health care, housing, and the like.
Flat out, more Americans struggle every year. More.
The real conflict is class based, and class is simply not discussed well in American politics today. Hasn't been for quite a while.
Calling large numbers of us stupid, and then claiming they are too stupid to be trusted with the national policy debate is completely unproductive.
The second thing going on here is the actions of Reagan and Clinton. Reagan got rid of the fairness doctrine and Clinton deregulated media, both of things things allowing for the massive news networks we have today, as well as the idea of newstainment and one sided national coverage.
There's our struggle over what many believe to be a divided nation, when the reality is that division is quite shallow and would pack one heck of a lot less of a punch had we not allowed big corporate media to gobble news up and produce almost nothing from the labor / populist point of view and what they do publish is partisan, biased strongly for conflict and ratings.
Not being able to see the doctor is not a partisan issue.
Being unable to feed the kids is not a partisan issue.
Tepid wages for decades on end is not a partisan issue.
I could go on.
Until those same media giants got involved and decided they needed to be in first position on the likes of YouTube, far more reasonable voices, all doing much better journalism and less inflammatory commentary were wiping the floor with CNNFOXMSNBC and friends.
It's no contest!
The need for CNN to dominate You Tube, you know because god forbid people actually get some real news and not establishment drivel for profit, is driving a lot of this garbage.
CNN and friends get a ton of dislikes because their product is garbage and tons of people, and in particular younger people, know it! They know CNNFOXMSNBC are not speaking to them, about them, for them at all, and why bother liking that?
Who wants to like the people trying to make the Internet into yet another broadcast type thing?
Not me, and I've pushed that button many, many times hearing raw garbage, misinformation, and more.
That's who this is all about. Establishment, for profit media.
The same media who gets it wrong all the time. The same media who has proven in court it has the right to force it's journalists to lie. The same media brought to you by the same wealthy donors buying ads as we see buying government one election donation at a time.
The idea people are too stupid is an insult and I'm flat out embarrassed to read it.
Completely disagree. If this were true democrats would have complete control.
> Not being able to see the doctor is not a partisan issue.
> Being unable to feed the kids is not a partisan issue.
> Tepid wages for decades on end is not a partisan issue.
These actually all are partisan issues, democrats have plans to solve them, republicans don't. Democrats literally are weeks away from passing universal childcare and tax credits for kids.
The real conflict is the culture war. White Americans wish to remain superior to minorities and those in other countries, and are willing to sacrifice a lot to make that happen.
Dems were given complete control this last election.
The GOP has only the say Dems chose to grant them, and Dems chose to do that rather than take action on long overdue policy backed by majority American support.
That speaks volumes to Dems actually being about class, and even more about how Dems often run on class policy then govern well away from making any of it law and blame jaded voters, who have seen all this before, for those voters lack of trust, disapproval, and tepid vote turnout!
Those voters ask a simple question, "vote for what?" to which Dems have wagged fingers while giving non answers and lame excuses.
And let us be clear: the obstruction in play exists because Dems made bipartisan legislation a higher priority than those voters who gave them full control only to see it handed off like a hot potato.
"Willing to sacrifice"
Sorry, haven't seen it. At all.
Finally, the issues are not partisan at all. People of all political alignments are struggling. This is why populist solutions to these issues are enjoy majority support. Far too many people are impacted for it to be otherwise.
Neither party appears willing to act, and that is why we keep having change elections that result in basically no change.
Please tell us.
Or does it go back to 1980, 1976, 1968, ...? When did the country go nuts?
Or is it just that you dislike one very large set of the polity's opinions so much that you are willing to go to great lengths to have them quashed?