5 ms·

Fox News and conservative talk radio have existed since the early 1990s yet the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010, which appears to

by jdkee 5y ago

Fox News and conservative talk radio have existed since the early 1990s yet the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010, which appears to prove Haidt's point.

groby_b 5y ago
Uh, no, it does not prove his point in any way. For that, he'd need to establish any causal link, which he utterly fails to do.
titzer 5y ago
Fox News came about in 1996. I remember before that, there was just Rush and co, and they were fringe on the radio. Fox when mainstream in the early 2000s and just snowballed slowly ever since. There was never a moment where extreme polarization just suddenly appeared. Rush in the early 1990s was saying f-nut stuff back then, too.
- pixl97 5y ago
  I do think the internet was required for the final acceleration into madness. In general commercial media is seeking ad dollars, even though its saying some crazy things it still has some limits. In addition, it has a limited number of guests and they tend to get limited to 'interesting' individuals. The internet is not limited in such a fashion and the echo chambers and feedback loops are faster.
  - supramouse 5y ago
    Well yeah, now you can't turn it off
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  Limbaugh was so "fringe on the radio" that they gave him a Monday Night Football announcer spot, at least until he had a predictable response to a black football player in a position traditionally played by white guys.
brimble 5y ago
Fox News took a shift toward more alarmism and a bolder, "holy shit things are happening!" look after 9/11[0]. My recollection is that it had another major shift—independent of other media, this time, which shared some of Fox News' alarmism after 9/11—around the time Obama's Presidential candidacy started, moving farther into entertaining and promoting fringe ideas (like the birth certificate thing), and kept going down that road afterward. [0] A little while back I was at my parents' house and they had Fox News on in the background (of course) and I noticed that this has now gone so far that everything at the bottom runs with a big "FOX NEWS ALERT" tag and all the trappings that come with some kind of urgent announcement—for every little mundane thing, no exceptions.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010 You're late by about 200 years. There was an unusually long period from the 1930s through the early 1990s where, due to a set of overlapping partisan realignments, the divide between the major parties did not line up with the main axis of polarization, such that after the end of this period with the crystalization of the partisan alignment partisan polarization increased, but the prior bipartisan era was not one of low polarization, but merely of poor alignment between party and salient ideology. America’s intense partisan polarization is it's normal state.
ProjectArcturis 5y ago
Something else happened around 2010 -- we elected a black president. Frankly that made a lot of people lose their minds. I think there's a lot of folks out there who don't mind black people exactly, but absolutely abhor the idea that a black person might be in a position of power over them. Witness the commentary from the far right on the new Supreme Court Justice: "Your children and your grandchildren are going to have to take orders from people like her." (Among a pet-store's worth of other dog whistles. Source: https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-ketanji-brown-jackson-what-your-country-looks-critical-race-theory https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-ketan...)
- zo1 5y ago
  It's kinda hard to untangle, unfortunately. Like to contrast your point of view about people not liking to see a black person in power over them: perhaps a black person in a position of power was the catalyst by inciting racial discord (not just among whites, but black people too). I wouldn't be surprised, as a black person he was expected to promote issues affecting black people.
  - ProjectArcturis 5y ago
    Can you get more specific? What did Obama do to incite racial discord? From my view he worked very hard to promote harmony.
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  I recall the news here (in Norway) covering a demonstration against Obama during the elections. They interviewed a woman who was in tears because she, apparently, really thought Obama would kill her kids if he got elected. To me it seemed so utterly bizarre I had problems processing it.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    I had a similar experience catching a bit of Alex Jones when switching through the channels at the beginning of the pandemic. He was ranting about how the police were rounding up the homeless, chaining them to beds, and then "blowing up their lungs".
nr2x 5y ago
Began with Gingrich

by jdkee 5y ago

Fox News and conservative talk radio have existed since the early 1990s yet the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010, which appears to prove Haidt's point.

groby_b 5y ago

Uh, no, it does not prove his point in any way. For that, he'd need to establish any causal link, which he utterly fails to do.

titzer 5y ago

Fox News came about in 1996. I remember before that, there was just Rush and co, and they were fringe on the radio. Fox when mainstream in the early 2000s and just snowballed slowly ever since. There was never a moment where extreme polarization just suddenly appeared. Rush in the early 1990s was saying f-nut stuff back then, too.

pixl97 5y ago
I do think the internet was required for the final acceleration into madness. In general commercial media is seeking ad dollars, even though its saying some crazy things it still has some limits. In addition, it has a limited number of guests and they tend to get limited to 'interesting' individuals. The internet is not limited in such a fashion and the echo chambers and feedback loops are faster.
- supramouse 5y ago
  Well yeah, now you can't turn it off
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Limbaugh was so "fringe on the radio" that they gave him a Monday Night Football announcer spot, at least until he had a predictable response to a black football player in a position traditionally played by white guys.

brimble 5y ago

Fox News took a shift toward more alarmism and a bolder, "holy shit things are happening!" look after 9/11[0]. My recollection is that it had another major shift—independent of other media, this time, which shared some of Fox News' alarmism after 9/11—around the time Obama's Presidential candidacy started, moving farther into entertaining and promoting fringe ideas (like the birth certificate thing), and kept going down that road afterward. [0] A little while back I was at my parents' house and they had Fox News on in the background (of course) and I noticed that this has now gone so far that everything at the bottom runs with a big "FOX NEWS ALERT" tag and all the trappings that come with some kind of urgent announcement—for every little mundane thing, no exceptions.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010 You're late by about 200 years. There was an unusually long period from the 1930s through the early 1990s where, due to a set of overlapping partisan realignments, the divide between the major parties did not line up with the main axis of polarization, such that after the end of this period with the crystalization of the partisan alignment partisan polarization increased, but the prior bipartisan era was not one of low polarization, but merely of poor alignment between party and salient ideology. America’s intense partisan polarization is it's normal state.

ProjectArcturis 5y ago

Something else happened around 2010 -- we elected a black president. Frankly that made a lot of people lose their minds. I think there's a lot of folks out there who don't mind black people exactly, but absolutely abhor the idea that a black person might be in a position of power over them. Witness the commentary from the far right on the new Supreme Court Justice: "Your children and your grandchildren are going to have to take orders from people like her." (Among a pet-store's worth of other dog whistles. Source: https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-ketanji-brown-jackson-what-your-country-looks-critical-race-theory https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-ketan...)

zo1 5y ago
It's kinda hard to untangle, unfortunately. Like to contrast your point of view about people not liking to see a black person in power over them: perhaps a black person in a position of power was the catalyst by inciting racial discord (not just among whites, but black people too). I wouldn't be surprised, as a black person he was expected to promote issues affecting black people.
- ProjectArcturis 5y ago
  Can you get more specific? What did Obama do to incite racial discord? From my view he worked very hard to promote harmony.
magicalhippo 5y ago
I recall the news here (in Norway) covering a demonstration against Obama during the elections. They interviewed a woman who was in tears because she, apparently, really thought Obama would kill her kids if he got elected. To me it seemed so utterly bizarre I had problems processing it.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  I had a similar experience catching a bit of Alex Jones when switching through the channels at the beginning of the pandemic. He was ranting about how the police were rounding up the homeless, chaining them to beds, and then "blowing up their lungs".

nr2x 5y ago

Began with Gingrich