4 ms·

What is the fundamental value / mindset within America that would need to shift for all of this to shift?

CamperBob2 4y ago
Hard to address without getting overtly political, but much of it comes down to what happened with the rise of right-wing mass media. "Indoctrination" is not too strong a word to use. If Fox News had never existed, the Republican Party would have had to invent it. Some would argue that the loss of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine contributed, but I see that as a non-starter. It would never have applied to cable news or to the Internet, only to broadcast media, and in any case it would only have given the fallacy of "both sides-ism" more credibility than it has already. As far as what it will take to restore the status quo and return at least a veneer of civility to partisan politics, I have no idea. It probably can't be restored. A good start might be to force news outlets to declare themselves as either "News" or "Entertainment," rather than the unholy hybrids we have now that exist to spread lies, incite violence, and issue misleading talking points under the guise of commentary. But that has obvious 1A implications. Again, it could have been justified as a public-interest requirement for over-the-air broadcast outlets, but that ship has sailed.
- jfengel 4y ago
  If Fox News had never existed, the Republican Party would have had to invent it. The Republican Party did invent it. It is owned by an Australian media magnate, but its first CEO was Roger Ailes, a media consultant to the Republican party.
- r00fus 4y ago
  Why do you think the Fairness Doctrine wouldn't have been applied to cable/internet (eventually)? TBH, I think the loss of Fairness Doctrine, Citizens United decision, etc are all skirting the real issue: the concept that corporations are people. Not enshrined in law, but from old Supreme Court decision in 1886. Make corporations non-people (or limit their personhood aggressively) and you can actually punish them effectively without a corporate death penalty which is never used.
  - CamperBob2 4y ago
    The ability of the FCC to exercise enforcement power over broadcast content, seemingly in defiance of the First Amendment, is a tradeoff that OTA broadcasters have to accept in exchange for their station licenses. In exchange for being granted a legally-enforced monopoly over a given frequency for a given geographical area, they agree to carry programming that's considered to be in the public interest, and to adhere to strict content regulations. Cable networks and websites don't require these monopoly privileges, so they aren't, and shouldn't be, required to adhere to broadcast content standards.
krapp 4y ago
The First and Second Amendments, specifically their cultural products in America's fetishization of gun violence, worship of the founding fathers as prophets of American civil religion, and romanticizing of the Confederacy as tragic antiheroes. Radical indoctrination and anti-government violence are intentional features of the design of America's philosophy of government, founded as it was by people who saw the terror of the French Revolution and thought it would be a good idea to normalize the pathos behind it, believing a stable, functioning government not always a hair's breadth away from being steeped in blood can only lead to tyranny. Unfortunately, that's not a conversation we can really have here.
drekipus 4y ago
Nuance and understanding. The "rise of right wing media" doesn't come up out of thin air, it appears because people don't feel connected to and valued by society. The divide deepens when people are less and less involved together (in person) because you forget that the face on the screen is actually a human being. Trump supporters will look at videos of Biden on YouTube or whatever, and wonder why everyone is turning a blind eye to Biden's obvious gaffs* when Trump got picked apart. As an Australian who looks over with great interest and humour, the only way i can watch American politics is through individual YouTubers who make short highlight videos of headlines and Biden clips. I'm sure many people there are the same. And it does two things: 1. Paints everything in a bad light. 2. Shows news sites (pick your flavour) glossing over or turning a blind eye to it. If you (as a country) are going to call every criticism, "hate speech" and "domestic terrorism" (my words) that is exactly what you get. ((It's like when you call a child "little monster" their whole life, you'll get a little monster as soon as they are able.)) * Biden and his administration seem to literally have dementia, armchair diagnosis comparing Biden and my late grandfather. I have no idea how he is fit for office
- mola 4y ago
  Well, you are basically saying ng you are exposed to US politics entirety via media. And the narrative you got is that Biden s administration suffers from dementia. So how is that different from Trump being picked apart? It doesn't matter what Biden will do, by now it's a meme to view anything he does in light of supposed dimentia. The narrative you propose as to why and how "rise of right wing media" is naive at best. I suggest something different, and I base it on my own country that is both highly influenced by US culture and ended up in a very similar place. The "rise" of right winged media is far from being some organic thing that just happened. In my country it was highly engineered. There was a massive influx of money coming from the US and directed to creating and buying media channels which you can very easily follow to being manuvered by a single person, the head of "right wing" politics. It's even more crazy than that, not only does he manage this media complex using governmental benefits for owners of these media channels he also gets them to continually redefine what is "right wing" and basically it has devolved to a personality cult, where if you are not loyal (as in mafia type loyalty) you are automatically a leftist. The narrative that the "other" population was left behind and that's why it's reacting is false. It doesn't matter how much the so called left side tries to be inclusive and ponder on it's own guilt of current affairs, it's at best being ignored and usually used as an admition of some primal sin that makes the "right" even more galvanized. These things are not organic, a huge amount of money without scruples is being spent to inflame a culture war.

Hard to address without getting overtly political, but much of it comes down to what happened with the rise of right-wing mass media. "Indoctrination" is not too strong a word to use. If Fox News had never existed, the Republican Party would have had to invent it. Some would argue that the loss of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine contributed, but I see that as a non-starter. It would never have applied to cable news or to the Internet, only to broadcast media, and in any case it would only have given the fallacy of "both sides-ism" more credibility than it has already. As far as what it will take to restore the status quo and return at least a veneer of civility to partisan politics, I have no idea. It probably can't be restored. A good start might be to force news outlets to declare themselves as either "News" or "Entertainment," rather than the unholy hybrids we have now that exist to spread lies, incite violence, and issue misleading talking points under the guise of commentary. But that has obvious 1A implications. Again, it could have been justified as a public-interest requirement for over-the-air broadcast outlets, but that ship has sailed.

jfengel 4y ago
If Fox News had never existed, the Republican Party would have had to invent it. The Republican Party did invent it. It is owned by an Australian media magnate, but its first CEO was Roger Ailes, a media consultant to the Republican party.
r00fus 4y ago
Why do you think the Fairness Doctrine wouldn't have been applied to cable/internet (eventually)? TBH, I think the loss of Fairness Doctrine, Citizens United decision, etc are all skirting the real issue: the concept that corporations are people. Not enshrined in law, but from old Supreme Court decision in 1886. Make corporations non-people (or limit their personhood aggressively) and you can actually punish them effectively without a corporate death penalty which is never used.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  The ability of the FCC to exercise enforcement power over broadcast content, seemingly in defiance of the First Amendment, is a tradeoff that OTA broadcasters have to accept in exchange for their station licenses. In exchange for being granted a legally-enforced monopoly over a given frequency for a given geographical area, they agree to carry programming that's considered to be in the public interest, and to adhere to strict content regulations. Cable networks and websites don't require these monopoly privileges, so they aren't, and shouldn't be, required to adhere to broadcast content standards.

krapp 4y ago

The First and Second Amendments, specifically their cultural products in America's fetishization of gun violence, worship of the founding fathers as prophets of American civil religion, and romanticizing of the Confederacy as tragic antiheroes. Radical indoctrination and anti-government violence are intentional features of the design of America's philosophy of government, founded as it was by people who saw the terror of the French Revolution and thought it would be a good idea to normalize the pathos behind it, believing a stable, functioning government not always a hair's breadth away from being steeped in blood can only lead to tyranny. Unfortunately, that's not a conversation we can really have here.

drekipus 4y ago

Nuance and understanding. The "rise of right wing media" doesn't come up out of thin air, it appears because people don't feel connected to and valued by society. The divide deepens when people are less and less involved together (in person) because you forget that the face on the screen is actually a human being. Trump supporters will look at videos of Biden on YouTube or whatever, and wonder why everyone is turning a blind eye to Biden's obvious gaffs* when Trump got picked apart. As an Australian who looks over with great interest and humour, the only way i can watch American politics is through individual YouTubers who make short highlight videos of headlines and Biden clips. I'm sure many people there are the same. And it does two things: 1. Paints everything in a bad light. 2. Shows news sites (pick your flavour) glossing over or turning a blind eye to it. If you (as a country) are going to call every criticism, "hate speech" and "domestic terrorism" (my words) that is exactly what you get. ((It's like when you call a child "little monster" their whole life, you'll get a little monster as soon as they are able.)) * Biden and his administration seem to literally have dementia, armchair diagnosis comparing Biden and my late grandfather. I have no idea how he is fit for office

mola 4y ago
Well, you are basically saying ng you are exposed to US politics entirety via media. And the narrative you got is that Biden s administration suffers from dementia. So how is that different from Trump being picked apart? It doesn't matter what Biden will do, by now it's a meme to view anything he does in light of supposed dimentia. The narrative you propose as to why and how "rise of right wing media" is naive at best. I suggest something different, and I base it on my own country that is both highly influenced by US culture and ended up in a very similar place. The "rise" of right winged media is far from being some organic thing that just happened. In my country it was highly engineered. There was a massive influx of money coming from the US and directed to creating and buying media channels which you can very easily follow to being manuvered by a single person, the head of "right wing" politics. It's even more crazy than that, not only does he manage this media complex using governmental benefits for owners of these media channels he also gets them to continually redefine what is "right wing" and basically it has devolved to a personality cult, where if you are not loyal (as in mafia type loyalty) you are automatically a leftist. The narrative that the "other" population was left behind and that's why it's reacting is false. It doesn't matter how much the so called left side tries to be inclusive and ponder on it's own guilt of current affairs, it's at best being ignored and usually used as an admition of some primal sin that makes the "right" even more galvanized. These things are not organic, a huge amount of money without scruples is being spent to inflame a culture war.