The article asserts a strawman, that we had, in the past, cool, rational, reasoned debates that we all stroked our beards and decided what the right choice of a

The article asserts a strawman, that we had, in the past, cool, rational, reasoned debates that we all stroked our beards and decided what the right choice of action would be. I would suggest several counter examples: * Hearst Newspapers and "Yellow Journalism" * McCarthyism * Revolutionary War era op-eds (e.g., https://thefederalistpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/The-American-Crisis-by-Thomas-Paine-.pdf https://thefederalistpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/T... )