Harris would have been a strong candidate in any other epoch in American history.
What’s changed is the average median voter’s attention-span and engagement in politics. Exit polling showed most Trump voters were stuck on the price of groceries, which they blamed on Biden, and they thought Harris was just more Biden.
At other periods in history, I think voters would have understood what was at stake, who was responsible for what, and would have been just generally a little more connected and involved. 45% of eligible voters stayed home. And I honestly don’t know if it would have mattered if they voted, because people were voting almost at random this last election cycle. Lifelong dems through to Bernie supporters all voting for Trump because “what the hell, why not see what happens” because they’re so checked out, bored and disconnected from their larger community.
A good glimpse into our collective psyche can be seen in any major news outlet’s science headlines every fucking day. “Scientists baffled at HUGE discovery of ancient structures on Mars! Unknown signals from Venus confirm scientist’s worst fears! Giant eyeball planet found in space! Pyramids found to be generators for lost civilization!!!111”
These are all actual headlines from CNN, MSNBC and FOX. This is where the BULK of our society gets their information on the world around them. It doesn’t matter if you care about science or not, the fact that the sources for ANY kind of accurate reporting have thrown in the towel and no longer give a shit about journalism says as much about the state of our countrymen and women as it does about the sorry state of media and journalism. Nobody cares anymore. Nobody knows what’s real or not, so they just tune out and have been encouraged broadly to just “believe what makes you feel good.”
You’re right. Harris would have likely won in 2016. Now everyone’s brain is soup from all the mental masturbation caused by the sloppification of media. The tabloids won, in a spiritual sense. Feels like we’re in a death cult, or at least that life is a lot cheaper. All the stable democracies on the verge of electing far right psychos, won’t be long before we start fighting each other like the good ol’ days — and the people will cheer for carnage just to feel something again.
You’re also right, something has changed. I’m old enough to have seen it on a much larger scale than most who use these sites. I remember before the internet, people were engaged and focused on issues, families gathered around the nightly news and presidential debates and then discussed them with their peers.
What we’re seeing now is the result of America (and other nations) opening up an unchecked access-point for enemies, foreign and domestic, to subvert our very identity as a people. They (being a mixture of forces who want to slice off a piece of America’s pie) used the KGB handbook word-for-word for years to amplify both sides of every discussion, every social issue and every political debate to absurd levels. Online allowed this to happen without any resistance and it’s so easy to do that with a tiny amount of funding anyone can set it in action. There is no point or goal other than making online discourse so incredibly vitriolic, absurd, unreal, and disconnected from reality that people gradually tune out and stop caring about the actual issues that impact us all.
You saw this happen slowly and ramp up in the last several years, so we now have a population who do not trust science, do not trust their political representatives, they do not trust what they see online, they don’t trust what they see on television, and they don’t trust their neighbors. While at the same time, feeling that it’s so inconsequential that there’s no point in being involved anyway. If everything is bullshit and nonsense, why not just watch the latest Netflix series, browse facebook and laugh at everyone you don’t agree with and go to bed.
Harris would have been a strong candidate in any other epoch in American history.
What’s changed is the average median voter’s attention-span and engagement in politics. Exit polling showed most Trump voters were stuck on the price of groceries, which they blamed on Biden, and they thought Harris was just more Biden.
At other periods in history, I think voters would have understood what was at stake, who was responsible for what, and would have been just generally a little more connected and involved. 45% of eligible voters stayed home. And I honestly don’t know if it would have mattered if they voted, because people were voting almost at random this last election cycle. Lifelong dems through to Bernie supporters all voting for Trump because “what the hell, why not see what happens” because they’re so checked out, bored and disconnected from their larger community.
A good glimpse into our collective psyche can be seen in any major news outlet’s science headlines every fucking day. “Scientists baffled at HUGE discovery of ancient structures on Mars! Unknown signals from Venus confirm scientist’s worst fears! Giant eyeball planet found in space! Pyramids found to be generators for lost civilization!!!111”
These are all actual headlines from CNN, MSNBC and FOX. This is where the BULK of our society gets their information on the world around them. It doesn’t matter if you care about science or not, the fact that the sources for ANY kind of accurate reporting have thrown in the towel and no longer give a shit about journalism says as much about the state of our countrymen and women as it does about the sorry state of media and journalism. Nobody cares anymore. Nobody knows what’s real or not, so they just tune out and have been encouraged broadly to just “believe what makes you feel good.”
You’re right. Harris would have likely won in 2016. Now everyone’s brain is soup from all the mental masturbation caused by the sloppification of media. The tabloids won, in a spiritual sense. Feels like we’re in a death cult, or at least that life is a lot cheaper. All the stable democracies on the verge of electing far right psychos, won’t be long before we start fighting each other like the good ol’ days — and the people will cheer for carnage just to feel something again.
You’re also right, something has changed. I’m old enough to have seen it on a much larger scale than most who use these sites. I remember before the internet, people were engaged and focused on issues, families gathered around the nightly news and presidential debates and then discussed them with their peers.
What we’re seeing now is the result of America (and other nations) opening up an unchecked access-point for enemies, foreign and domestic, to subvert our very identity as a people. They (being a mixture of forces who want to slice off a piece of America’s pie) used the KGB handbook word-for-word for years to amplify both sides of every discussion, every social issue and every political debate to absurd levels. Online allowed this to happen without any resistance and it’s so easy to do that with a tiny amount of funding anyone can set it in action. There is no point or goal other than making online discourse so incredibly vitriolic, absurd, unreal, and disconnected from reality that people gradually tune out and stop caring about the actual issues that impact us all.
You saw this happen slowly and ramp up in the last several years, so we now have a population who do not trust science, do not trust their political representatives, they do not trust what they see online, they don’t trust what they see on television, and they don’t trust their neighbors. While at the same time, feeling that it’s so inconsequential that there’s no point in being involved anyway. If everything is bullshit and nonsense, why not just watch the latest Netflix series, browse facebook and laugh at everyone you don’t agree with and go to bed.
The carnage is all people tune in for.