America's Culture Wars

This is one of the best articles and most honest assessments of the cultish and divisive behavior being hustled by cable news propaganda and political parties I've ever seen.

You're either all-in on one side or the other, with absolutely no unbiased objectivity, or you're labeled a "bothsider." I'd rather weigh the merits of each issue and person independently than blindly and mindlessly follow a "side." On some topics, I lean towards a liberal or conservative solution and on others, I come up with novel ideas or a mix of both. But always of a mindset that the fix work towards the greatest good for the most people. At least I'm not an insecure bobblehead looking for validation and acceptance from an angry hoard.

Every day when I wake up, I turn on cable TV news to see what I missed while I was sleeping. I stopped expecting anything that even vaguely resembles an honest, down-the-middle newscast a long time ago. Biased journalism is not exactly something new. But what I’m getting now on a seemingly endless loop is something new, I think — or, at least, something different.

What I’m witnessing now, each morning, is America’s divisive culture war playing out on television. So even before breakfast, we’re being fed a steady diet of information that divides us, that tries to convince us that “the other side” is not simply wrong but is on a mission to destroy America. What a lovely way to start the day, right?

On Fox, we get the same culture war stories every day — stories about the mess on our southern border, about mask mandates, about parents upset with what their kids are being taught in public schools. They’re all legitimate stories, but it’s as if nothing else is going on in the world.

On CNN, they’re still obsessed with Donald Trump. Tune in any morning — or for that matter, almost any time during the day or night — and you’ll get a lot about Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, which CNN anchors routinely call an “insurrection.”

On Fox, mask mandates are bad, a threat to personal freedoms. On CNN, mask mandates are good, they save lives. On Fox, you get the impression that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a disaster. On CNN, he’s a national treasure. On Fox, you’ll see dramatic, newsworthy video of massive caravans moving north from Central America to the United States. This is not a story in which CNN is especially interested. No one tunes into Fox News to hear what a great job President Biden is doing, and no one tunes in to CNN to hear what a lousy job he’s doing — or that Donald Trump wasn’t responsible for the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The fact is that cable news — because the line between news and opinion is blurry, at best — has become one of the most divisive institutions in all of America.

A recent poll conducted by the University of Virginia’s (nonpartisan) Center for Politics found that roughly 52 percent of Americans who voted for Trump either “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree” that it’s time to divide America into two separate countries, with either red states or blue states seceding from the union.

Fewer Democrats who voted for Joe Biden agree, but still a large number — 42 percent — want the same thing: the breakup of the United States of America along ideological lines. It would be unfair to lay all the blame on cable news for what we’ve become: the Divided States of America. But it would be unrealistic to believe that cable news bears no responsibility for the deep divisions in our country.

Cable news didn’t create those divisions, but cable news’s relentless repetition of the same hot-button culture war issues has made the divisions worse. And the more cable news panders to its audience, the more the “news” people throw red meat to their viewers, the more they rile them up and entice them to come back for more — the more divided we become.

The culture war that tears the two sides apart may not be good for America, but it’s good for the cable news business. There’s lots of money, after all, in turning Americans against each other.

On the front lines of America’s culture wars: Cable news

Cable TV news, with its blurred line between news and opinion, has become one of America’s most divisive institutions.

thehill.com

 

[GhostlyJoe]

This is one of the best articles and most honest assessments of the cultish and divisive behavior being hustled by cable news propaganda and political parties I've ever seen.

You're either all-in on one side or the other, with absolutely no unbiased objectivity, or you're labeled a "bothsider." I'd rather weigh the merits of each issue and person independently than blindly and mindlessly follow a "side." On some topics, I lean towards a liberal or conservative solution and on others, I come up with novel ideas or a mix of both. But always of a mindset that the fix work towards the greatest good for the most people. At least I'm not an insecure bobblehead looking for validation and acceptance from an angry hoard.

On the front lines of America’s culture wars: Cable news

Cable TV news, with its blurred line between news and opinion, has become one of America’s most divisive institutions.

thehill.com

Yep ... pretty much. Although cable news is just one polarized institution -- one with a lot of influence, sure, but still a tiny fraction of the culture at large.

 

[grip]

Yep ... pretty much. Although cable news is just one polarized institution -- one with a lot of influence, sure, but still a tiny fraction of the culture at large.

But they may be one of the most influential with much of their rhetoric repeated and exaggerated on social media and other online sources.

 

[GhostlyJoe]

But they may be one of the most influential with much of their rhetoric repeated and exaggerated on social media and other online sources.

I wonder if it's a feedback loop with social media algorithms, with cable news contributing to the content and the algrothms filtering out contrary data. We're all soaking in entirely different pools of information -- at least the middle and upper-middle classes who are online and always connected.

 

[grip]

I wonder if it's a feedback loop with social media algorithms, with cable news contributing to the content and the algrothms filtering out contrary data. We're all soaking in entirely different pools of information -- at least the middle and upper-middle classes who are online and always connected.

Of course, this ^. Facebook supposedly gives 5 points for an angry emoji and 1 point for a 'like.' They promote negative content to stir up emotional reactions, which equals more clicks and traffic.

Facebook's algorithm 'promoted toxic and hateful content'

Facebook's algorithm, which decides what people see on a newsfeed, was allegedly programmed to use the reaction emoji as a sign to push more provocative content.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Lloyd Christmas]

The only culture wars are coming from right wing assholes. Liberals don't care what they do, they can go be rednecks and hate gays and colored people all they want, they just can strip others of their civil rigthts and discriminate. It its the conservative assholes that want to tell everybody they should live by their depraved Christian morals and can't midn their own business with things that have no affect on them. And there is no need to behave like the right when we have all the facts, the logic, the reasoning. That's why this forum is full of conservatives posting nothing but lies, bogus links, deflections and can never back anything up. THey have no facts. so the both side nonsense is bullshit when one side has actual facts and the other has to make shit up. The right just makes up these fake liberal positions and attacks them.

And Fox news is the one that started extreme partisan media that the right ate up becuase Fox sold them lies and BS. And claimed everything but them are bias. ANd who do nothing but try to own libs. Liberals have facts and arguments to shut down the conservatives, not lies and deflections

This both side garbage is just yet another BS lie the right likes to sell to justify their scumbaggery and try to project themselves on the opposition

 

[grip]

The only culture wars are coming from right wing assholes. Liberals don't care what they do, they can go be rednecks and hate gays and colored people all they want, they just can strip others of their civil rigthts and discriminate. It its the conservative assholes that want to tell everybody they should live by their depraved Christian morals and can't midn their own business with things that have no affect on them. And there is no need to behave like the right when we have all the facts, the logic, the reasoning. That's why this forum is full of conservatives posting nothing but lies, bogus links, deflections and can never back anything up. THey have no facts. so the both side nonsense is bullshit when one side has actual facts and the other has to make shit up. The right just makes up these fake liberal positions and attacks them.

And Fox news is the one that started extreme partisan media that the right ate up becuase Fox sold them lies and BS. And claimed everything but them are bias. ANd who do nothing but try to own libs. Liberals have facts and arguments to shut down the conservatives, not lies and deflections

This both side garbage is just yet another BS lie the right likes to sell to justify their scumbaggery and try to project themselves on the opposition

This opinion supports the OP perfectly. Thanks!

 

[Da Mole]

The only culture wars are coming from right wing assholes. Liberals don't care what they do, they can go be rednecks and hate gays and colored people all they want, they just can strip others of their civil rigthts and discriminate. It its the conservative assholes that want to tell everybody they should live by their depraved Christian morals and can't midn their own business with things that have no affect on them. And there is no need to behave like the right when we have all the facts, the logic, the reasoning. That's why this forum is full of conservatives posting nothing but lies, bogus links, deflections and can never back anything up. THey have no facts. so the both side nonsense is bullshit when one side has actual facts and the other has to make shit up. The right just makes up these fake liberal positions and attacks them.

And Fox news is the one that started extreme partisan media that the right ate up becuase Fox sold them lies and BS. And claimed everything but them are bias. ANd who do nothing but try to own libs. Liberals have facts and arguments to shut down the conservatives, not lies and deflections

This both side garbage is just yet another BS lie the right likes to sell to justify their scumbaggery and try to project themselves on the opposition

Lloyd is a good example of why the right fears what is in the minds of liberals.

 

[eohrnberger]

Lloyd is a good example of why the right fears what is in the minds of liberals.

A good example of the left's imagined moral and intellectual superiority, when the reality is far from that.

 

[calamity]

A good example of the left's imagined moral and intellectual superiority, when the reality is far from that.

Sorry if truth hurts. Fact is. Right Wing ideology is ignorant. See Nazis for reference.

 

[The Baron]

Sorry if truth hurts. Fact is. Right Wing ideology is ignorant. See Nazis for reference.

Nazis are Left wing.

Sorry if the truth hurts.

 

[ecofarm]

"Anthropology is fake science. Now I'll lecture about culture."

Seen it a thousand times. I know why.

 

[Indydave]

This is one of the best articles and most honest assessments of the cultish and divisive behavior being hustled by cable news propaganda and political parties I've ever seen.

You're either all-in on one side or the other, with absolutely no unbiased objectivity, or you're labeled a "bothsider." I'd rather weigh the merits of each issue and person independently than blindly and mindlessly follow a "side." On some topics, I lean towards a liberal or conservative solution and on others, I come up with novel ideas or a mix of both. But always of a mindset that the fix work towards the greatest good for the most people. At least I'm not an insecure bobblehead looking for validation and acceptance from an angry hoard.

On the front lines of America’s culture wars: Cable news

Cable TV news, with its blurred line between news and opinion, has become one of America’s most divisive institutions.

thehill.com

yup......Fox and tabloid media as instrumented by Rupert Murdoch pretty much started all this.....and of course he is guaranteed by the Constitution to print whatever he pleases.....that being said however he recognized the dumbing down of America and that we as a nation had morphed into this under educated tabloid reading nation we are......he, like PT Barnum and the TV preachers recognized a sucker when they saw one......we have given over to being under educated.....white working class conservatives to abortion and gay madness wrapped in their church and the flag......which they use as a smokescreen to mask their real feelings of white supremacy......black America to urban education hip hop rap thug life as being some kind of life goal and the mass chip on their shoulder to act and dress and act like thugs......both sides retreating into their own clan......neither side values education because education might convince them how ridiculous they are...and the middle who know better just sit back, like the Germans of the 1930's and do nothing......and the Murdoch's sit back making gazillions perpetuating America's descent into mediocrity

 

[grip]

yup......Fox and tabloid media as instrumented by Rupert Murdoch pretty much started all this.....and of course he is guaranteed by the Constitution to print whatever he pleases.....that being said however he recognized the dumbing down of America and that we as a nation had morphed into this under educated tabloid reading nation we are......he, like PT Barnum and the TV preachers recognized a sucker when they saw one......we have given over to being under educated.....white working class conservatives to abortion and gay madness wrapped in their church and the flag......which they use as a smokescreen to mask their real feelings of white supremacy......black America to urban education hip hop rap thug life as being some kind of life goal and the mass chip on their shoulder to act and dress and act like thugs......both sides retreating into their own clan......neither side values education because education might convince them how ridiculous they are...and the middle who know better just sit back, like the Germans of the 1930's and do nothing......and the Murdoch's sit back making gazillions perpetuating America's descent into mediocrity

You've nailed it. Americans as a whole have gone tribal and retreated into the lowest common denominator of the culture they feel most comfortable in, rather than enlighten and educate themselves to at least see the shared goals we're trying to achieve as an inclusive society.

 

[Fiddytree]

"The culture war that tears the two sides apart may not be good for America, but it’s good for the cable news business."

Maybe, but at some point we are supposedly functioning adults that can make better decisions. If the collective "we" don't, that's an indictment on "us" much more than cable news.

 

[Fiddytree]

The only culture wars are coming from right wing assholes. Liberals don't care what they do....

Let's remember that the next time we start talking about "problematic" mass media.

 

[d0gbreath]

When I cut the cable four years ago, the cultural war disappeared. There are fragments, yet when I cast my gaze o'er the vast fields of pointed heads, I see one culture.

 

[MaryP]

"The culture war that tears the two sides apart may not be good for America, but it’s good for the cable news business."

Maybe, but at some point we are supposedly functioning adults that can make better decisions. If the collective "we" don't, that's an indictment on "us" much more than cable news.

We can change channels.

I heard both CNN and Fox have suffered in the ratings this year. Maybe that's a good sign.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Yep ... pretty much. Although cable news is just one polarized institution -- one with a lot of influence, sure, but still a tiny fraction of the culture at large.

Culture; The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievements regarded collectively.

Social media is a major problem, one which is dominated by reactionary politics build on a foundation of ignorance, greed, hate and self interests. Achievements require progressive ideals based on changes on the political economy of a nation, changes which are debated by open minded individuals, not demagogues and charlatans.