What's more appealing and addictive than hope is victory. The addiction of the never ending "struggle" against the other side is rooting in the three step psyc

What's more appealing and addictive than hope is victory. The addiction of the never ending "struggle" against the other side is rooting in the three step psychological process of Outrage --> Hate --> Victory. Step 1. Outrage: Set the table for an outrage - some grave injustice that is occurring that can/will ultimately impact the reader. Hyperbole, cherry picking data, misinterpreting data, or even falsifying information are functional if you can do this in an echo chamber. This step creates the emotional investment in the event. Step 2. Hate: Choose a target to blame for the outrage in step 1. Again, if it exists in an echo chamber, the writer can functionally use ancillary data, tenuous/indirect relationships, or flawed logic to tie the target to to the event above. What's important here is channeling the emotion generated in step 1. Emotion is important because it make the reader immune to entertaining opposing viewpoints. Step 3. Gratification: Mobilizing pressure against the target is a bonus, but what's really needed is to be able to paint the outcome as a victory, even if it isn't. You can highlight how the "good team" actually won in some segment or district or demographic, and above all give the reader the sense of victory (or inevitable victory). It's always advisable to paint the target as in decay, aging, or fundamentally self-destructive, such that even their victory is short lived and self-consuming. Then repeat. ...and if you do this independently with both or multiple "sides", you've basically mechanized a political system that has no material path for improvement. No nuanced debate takes place because you've convinced both sides that it's "all or nothing", and that victory is reliable. They are always winning - yet constantly outraged. Any of this sound familiar?