4 ms·

If we knockout the nationalism, what's left? States, counties, for some - districts. Thirty years and I've met one representative. America wasn't designed to

If we knockout the nationalism, what's left? States, counties, for some - districts. Thirty years and I've met one representative. America wasn't designed to operate at the current scale and it's causing considerable strife internally and externally. We're effectively the de facto world sovereign, and at the same time we the people and the collective will is so contrived as to be totally incomprehensible, largely, I would posit, as a product of federal overreach and inertia. We'd do well to refederate - California's America is not the same as Texas' nor is Florida's the same as Michigan's. It's kind of an absurdity to indicate we're a nation at this point, there are really no points of unity which bond us in this era, and that's what defines a nation. That is to say there are no more Americans.

macintux 4y ago
I think we muddled along fine as long as we had 3 or 4 TV networks steering the national conversation and no social networking. Now we can self-select for our biases and realities. I think we’ll come through it intact. Hopefully.
- brnaftr361 4y ago
  I'm sorry, but my point was that it would be healthy to drop the nationalist trope, for everyone. There's no real foundation for it.
krapp 4y ago
> California's America is not the same as Texas' nor is Florida's the same as Michigan's. It's kind of an absurdity to indicate we're a nation at this point, there are really no points of unity which bond us in this era, and that's what defines a nation. That is to say there are no more Americans. It's weird how this wasn't the case prior to 2016. Like, I distinctly recall there being a unified American culture and identity. Even between California and Texas, both considered themselves (and one another) Americans despite their differences.
- tomc1985 4y ago
  You think that was weird, witness how America came together immediately after 9/11
- brnaftr361 4y ago
  There's a lot of parallel process going on that are hard to account for. Internet use, for example. According to Statista, 2011 is a trough in internet use, some ≈210mn users, by 2016 it plateaus at ≈290mn, meanwhile the platforms and accessibility are evolving alongside, in manifold ways. And there's old industries developing in new ways, TV supplanted by the modem, papers by the web, and it's all interactive. TV, I suspect, and the legacy boys, are pressing hard for turning their outlets up to 11, like have you watched Tucker Carlson? And that's got to be exacerbating the problem. And information is more accessible than ever, too: COINTELPRO or the Iran-Contra or the Mexican Revolution, or Banana Republic, or go go banking a la 1980's financial imperialism and there's the third world debt crisis for you. Viola! Schismogenesis. Erstwhile we're competing inside of a relatively inert system with intractable inertia, and the pressure builds. Of course the economics of the individual are poorer and poorer, as well, and at what appear to be increasing costs and that is a considerable portion of what the government ultimately does - enable commerce. And we're finding out, perhaps, that we're running on fumes.
GiorgioG 4y ago
Nationalism isn't the problem. The problem is political tribalism. Both parties have become extreme in their own right and now people don't feel they have much in common with one another because of this extreme rhetoric coming from both sides.

macintux 4y ago

I think we muddled along fine as long as we had 3 or 4 TV networks steering the national conversation and no social networking. Now we can self-select for our biases and realities. I think we’ll come through it intact. Hopefully.

brnaftr361 4y ago
I'm sorry, but my point was that it would be healthy to drop the nationalist trope, for everyone. There's no real foundation for it.

krapp 4y ago

> California's America is not the same as Texas' nor is Florida's the same as Michigan's. It's kind of an absurdity to indicate we're a nation at this point, there are really no points of unity which bond us in this era, and that's what defines a nation. That is to say there are no more Americans. It's weird how this wasn't the case prior to 2016. Like, I distinctly recall there being a unified American culture and identity. Even between California and Texas, both considered themselves (and one another) Americans despite their differences.

tomc1985 4y ago
You think that was weird, witness how America came together immediately after 9/11
brnaftr361 4y ago
There's a lot of parallel process going on that are hard to account for. Internet use, for example. According to Statista, 2011 is a trough in internet use, some ≈210mn users, by 2016 it plateaus at ≈290mn, meanwhile the platforms and accessibility are evolving alongside, in manifold ways. And there's old industries developing in new ways, TV supplanted by the modem, papers by the web, and it's all interactive. TV, I suspect, and the legacy boys, are pressing hard for turning their outlets up to 11, like have you watched Tucker Carlson? And that's got to be exacerbating the problem. And information is more accessible than ever, too: COINTELPRO or the Iran-Contra or the Mexican Revolution, or Banana Republic, or go go banking a la 1980's financial imperialism and there's the third world debt crisis for you. Viola! Schismogenesis. Erstwhile we're competing inside of a relatively inert system with intractable inertia, and the pressure builds. Of course the economics of the individual are poorer and poorer, as well, and at what appear to be increasing costs and that is a considerable portion of what the government ultimately does - enable commerce. And we're finding out, perhaps, that we're running on fumes.

GiorgioG 4y ago

Nationalism isn't the problem. The problem is political tribalism. Both parties have become extreme in their own right and now people don't feel they have much in common with one another because of this extreme rhetoric coming from both sides.