When Did We Get So Hateful?

Politics & Elections
21

It has its roots, as do most of today’s societal ills, with the liberal activism of the sixties. (Witness the behavior of anti-war demonstrators taking over college admin buildings, chanting ‘Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today’ and excoriating returning servicemen as ‘baby killers’, etc.) The erosion of the fabric of society that followed the breakdown of family values plays a large roll too. But long story short, today’s hatred began when the left began hurling accusations of racism, sexism, bigotry, etc., at anyone who had even a slightly different opinion than they on anything, and even worse, hurling them when they weren’t remotely called for. To have heard the left tell it, anyone who opposes universal health care wants people to die, anyone who opposes abortion wants women to die, anyone opposed to forced busing was a racist (hell, for that matter, anyone who opposed Obama was a racist). Etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum from the sixties up to today.

Predictably, Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell, Fox News, etc., are getting the blame for today’s political hatred on this board, but their success was a reaction to the hatred and intransigence coming from the left that had become so prevalent by the time they rose to prominence. When you yell at people, hurl insults at them (especially when they’re undeserved and/or make no sense and take a my-way-or-the-highway-and-if-the-highway-you’re-an-asshole’ approach to politics, you create enemies, and so much of the country that had been seething under relentless leftwing attack were ripe to become the audience of the aforementioned media figures.

Then with the advent of social media, the right finally had an effective way to fight back, and, deciding to fight fire with fire, we get to where we are today.

And now of course, it’s gotten so bad and so many on the left are so eager to find some way to virtue signal their superiority that even card-carrying members of the left are being attacked by their own - the brouhaha that arose when Steve Martin dared to describe Carrie Fisher as beautiful being just one example. And so now we’ve got 1,000 different liberal groups with a 1,000 different perspectives all shouting at everyone else for not seeing things their way, which of course leads to more hatred and more division. Even the election of Donald Trump and a Republican Congress, both of which were a direct pushback against all this, has been enough to put them off their game. In the wake of Trump’s election any of wiser and more prescient liberal commenters tried to caution their brethren about their politics of insult and hatred but the most of the left in this country would have none of it, vowing not only to back off with their attacks but to increase them. I have no idea how this will all end and there’s not even a hint of it on the horizon, but more than ever things look quite bleak as to our future.

The left in this country is notoriously blind to the consequences of its own behavior, and this post will no doubt be followed with an endless number of ‘No u’ responses. But all you have to do is look at how people comported themselves in this country prior to the late sixties and how they behave now, where people are brawling and stabbing each other in J.C. Penny’s no less in a mall that already has ‘a history of violence’, and the reasons are obvious.

22

If I may comment on that a bit - sure, the **politicians **behave clownishly, but by and large there is not as much venom by *voters *against voters in Taiwan as there is in America. (I lived in Taiwan for over 10 years.) There also isn’t as much partisan “I’ll always vote for my party no matter” dynamic there, either - the Blue voters can vote Green and the Green voters might vote Blue - whereas in America, both sides are incredibly, deeply, entrenched, and there is a baked-in vote for every D or R presidential candidate by default. Trump still got almost all of the Republican votes by mere virtue of having an R after his name.

23

Also, American society tends to have more of a moral streak than most other countries. Once you insert morality into a quarrel or dispute, it is gasoline on the fire; it makes the dispute that much nastier, the heels dug in that much deeper, the battle all the more ruthless. Because then the other side is EVIL, and how can you possibly compromise or have dialogue with EVIL?

24

Yep.

And a recent 538 on the same subject:

From the partisan party POV I’d guess we’ve had other divides wider but 538 has it right: the current environment is not especially nasty, the nastiness and the positions are just more entrenched along party lines than is typical. And along geographic lines as well.

25

No one has brought up the obvious reason: the Internet.

26

I would agree it has to do to a large extent to the rise of FoxNews and AM radio, especially Rush Limbaugh, but not exactly for the reasons stated. Back in the day, the Left had pretty much a monopoly on the media - all the TV networks and the Washington Post and the New York Times felt that they controlled the national debate by rights.

What started the slide was Reagan. The MSM hated him, and yet he won his elections, first decisively and then in a landslide. Even though the lefties in the MSM explained, over and over, that the apparent prosperity of the country and success in foreign policy didn’t really exist. But nobody bought it. Then Bush Sr. was elected, he was not nearly the politician that Reagan was (or Clinton was) despite winning an overwhelming victory in Desert Storm, and then Clinton was elected (albeit with less than a majority) and the Dems controlled Congress and all was supposed to be right with the world. But Clinton’s inability to tell the truth on a bet, plus his zipper problems, and the discovery of the GOP that they could stop him from increasing the budget deficit, and the various scandals like the Congressional Post Office scandal allowed the GOP to regain control of Congress, aided and abetted by AM radio who had no interest in covering anything up, as the MSM wanted to do.

Then the election of 2000 happened, and the Dems were outraged that they couldn’t sue their way into the White House. Fast forward four years, and they found to their horror that the endless repetition of “Bush lied!!!” and their efforts to slant the news coverage didn’t work - Bush was re-elected, with a majority of the vote. So, much screaming and yelling later, at long last we elected a liberal Democrat, and a black guy at that. Now at last, we can run this country as it should be - fix health care, fix racism, raise taxes on the rich and use it to fix everything else. Except, oops - if you like your plan, you can’t keep it, your premiums went way up, not down, Putin and Syria treated Obama with contempt, North Korea paid no more attention to a liberal Democrat than he did to anyone else, Black Lives Matter spent most of their time and energy complaining when some black criminal got his nasty ass shot resisting arrest instead of addressing the real causes of the problems in their community - and the Dems steadily and consistently lost ground in Congress in all ensuing elections. And no, you don’t get another liberal Supreme Court justice to jam the next liberal cause down people’s throats.

Then Trump was elected, and the screaming ratcheted up to eleven. And here we are. And I would, at this point, predict the chance of Trump’s re-election at better than 50-50 (early days, I know), and the chance of anything that resonates with the general public as a result of the Mueller investigation at <20%. Wait until you hear the howls then.

Regards,
Shodan

27

When republicans abandoned science and reason in favor of “Jesus told me so.” So now we get yet another activist supreme court judge shoving their sicko version of Christianity down everyone’s throats.

28

A relevant quote from Barry Goldwater: “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”

29

Etc. You’re providing evidence of the results, not the causes.

That includes following the traditional RW alternative-facts approach that pretends Clinton didn’t produce budget surpluses. Just for one example.

In fact, it’s bad enough that the devoted adherents of one party can no longer recognize the importance of democracy and the integrity of the voting process itself. They can no longer even understand Country Before Party.

30

I think the start of this trend had more to do with the Fall of Communism, our changing economy, and sheer boredom with longterm issues more than anything else. I remember the change in politics much the way others have described in the 90s. We can certainly find fault in the way one party or members of the media speak of their strawmen of the other side, but this rhetoric has always been here and will exist in any liberal democratic society.

With the absence of the USSR and Communism to focus our Conservatives’ ire upon, it turned on their political enemies. Liberals never really changed their focus throughout this period. They’ve continued to fight the same fights and have been met with boredom on the part of the largest proportion of our electorate. Couple all this with an economy that has apparently taken the rug from under a sizeable majority of the largest proportion of our electorate and you have the anger we have today.

31

So glad we have an ‘unbiased,’ ‘fair and balanced’ view from one of the usual suspects. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

32

Rush didn’t plant the seed - that the media was biased to the left was screamingly obvious. AM radio and FoxNews tapped into that, but they would not have been successful if people didn’t see it already.

That’s how capitalism works - find an underserved market and address it. The market here was people who were tired of the liberal spin on everything. Before Rush and Fox, they didn’t have much of an alternative. After, they did. And much of the fury is the MSM in particular and liberals in general finding out that people had an alternative, and that all the “we are telling you the truth” in the world didn’t stop them. Because the alternative spin provided by Rush et al. is not always wrong, as the Democratic party wanted to claim. As mentioned, the question of the 1984 elections was the US was doing well, and the Dems asking “who are you going to believe - us, or your own lying eyes?” They chose differently from what the Dems wanted. And one of the infuriating things about people is that they don’t always do as they are told.

No, I am talking causes, and one of the causes is the failure of the liberal narrative to control the public debate when other narratives are available that cannot be spun away. F or instance -

There is your problem - the idea that Clinton produced budget surpluses is one of those narratives that cannot survive examination, and so depends on not having any examination available. Because the budget was not balanced until after the GOP took over Congress, Clinton’s first act upon becoming President was an attempt to increase the deficit, Clinton’s submitted budgets had $200 billion deficits as far as the eye could see, and it takes a determined effort to ignore the GOP’s fulfillment of balancing the budget which they made in the Contract With America and Clinton’s efforts to stop it, and then give the credit to the Democrat who fought it instead of the GOP who brought it about.

Yes, it is good to have other viewpoints even on the SDMB, because ignorance fights on the liberal side a good deal of the time. Even if it infuriates those in the MSM and elsewhere, who want ignorance to win, providing it’s liberal ignorance.

Regards,
Shodan

33

While I do agree that in past days the hate was stronger (there even was a civil war) there was in more recent times more chances at effective government and compromises based on positions that had independent support. IMHO that time was when Bob Dole decided to get into politics and so evenly handed on the issues where the Dems and Reps that he had to ask his mentor what party should he join to make a difference. Nowadays he would (and was) spat on by the party that he belonged for so long.

With the embrace of conservative religions, anti-science and media (including the internet) that is being corrupted by powerful interests, many compromises that were possible before are not now, because powerful interests press most of the current Republicans to not have any use for democracy and even (ironically) Republicanism.

34

OTOH, JFK would be unacceptable to today’s Democratic party. Both parties change over time. Both are in particularly shrill phases where ideological purity trumps all just now.

35

You’ve made your point, such as it is. Yes, Fox etc. did recognize that there was a large market for people who want to be reassured more than informed. But that isn’t really the good thing you portray it to be, now is it?

All of that, including the Fed chairman cautioning against “irrational exuberance”, stemmed from the 1993 Budget Act, didn’t it? Now tell us how many Republicans voted for it. Here, I’ll save you the trouble: 0.

Alternative facts, your people call them.

:rolleyes:

You *could *choose to be part of the solution. You always have that option. Even now.

36

Just by looking at issues like evolution and climate change I can say that a lot of the “alternatives” were, and are even more so today, poppycock.

One can grant that on some issues liberals and Democrats are wrong, but as I noted the situation is not like it was before; in the past there was a lot of pandering to the religious right, anti-science believers and media influenced by the same and divisive powerful interests. Nowadays the pandering is gone and now the ones that were pandered are driving the ship of government.

What you are showing then is actually a capitalistic tragedy, the one called of the commons.

37

Of course I disagree. I think the Vietnam protesters did enormous good for the country, forcing the end of the war which otherwise might still be going.

I believe hate began with Nixon’s Southern Strategy, where all the racist wing of the Democratic Party were welcomed into the Republican Party with open arms. Gerald Ford I believe was not a racist, but enter Ronald Reagan and his stories of welfare queens. He blew a giant dog whistle by opening his campaign in Philadelphia, MS. Tax cuts for the rich and union busting and benefit reductions for the rest of us. George HW Bush capitalized on the racist wing of the GOP with the infamous Willie Horton ad, which sent the unsubtle message that voting Democratic would unleash violent black men upon our white women.

With the election of Bill Clinton, Republicans lost what they thought was their birthright to the White House. This led directly to the rise of Rush Limbaugh. Republicans figured out that their base is so stupid they will believe anything you tell them, and fed them a constant diet of lies and conspiracy theories. Limbaugh begat a host of like minded Hate Radio hosts as well as Fox “News”, America’s answer to Pravda. Pseudo scandals were manufactured out of whole cloth from Whitewater to a consensual relationship with an intern to whack-a-doodle theories about the Clintons murdering people. Nothing was too extreme for the Republican base to swallow.

Enter W and his disastrous presidency. As bad as he was, I never considered him to be a bigot nor do I think he was intentionally steering the ship of state squarely into the reef (though the did do that remarkably well for not trying).

It was Obama’s election that sent Republicans over the edge. Here they spent the last 35 years ginning up racial animosity and a black guy gets in the Whites Only House. For all the carping about the ACA passing with only Democratic votes, the ACA had plenty of hearings and incorporated many Republican changes. When it became apparent that no concession would be enough, it passed through reconciliation. Immediately the lie machine went into overdrive. “Death Panels” was too stupid for anyone but the Republican base to believe, but they ran that message relentlessly. “If you like your coverage you can keep it” was twisted out of all reality to imply that cheapo insurance that covered nothing could be kept. Any increase in healthcare cost was blamed on the bogeyman ACA. White America was being convinced that “their” money was going to support minorities to whom they felt morally superior.

With Obama came the rise of Facebook. Lies were now spreading at warp speed. Bigots felt free to come out from under the rocks and spew anti-black, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim lies. Hate speech was now shared and spread as quickly as it was generated. Hillary became the embodiment of all that was evil and her use of a private server became tantamount to treason. Those same voices calling for Hillary’s head about the emails are noticeably silent when it became revealed that the guy who read every top secret document that landed on the desk of the Howling Yam did not have a security clearance, could not get one, abused two ex-wives, and was considered by the FBI to be at risk for blackmail.

This of course, led to the election of the most evil person in US history, and rivaling Hitler and Stalin for being the most evil in world history.

We’re in two warring camps because one camp lives in alternate reality and spends all of its time spewing lies and hate. This is nowhere close to bothsidesdoitism, this is one party that is perfectly willing to become a Russian satellite state if it means that the rich pay less taxes and minorities have jackboots on their necks.

38

I few months ago, I was watching the movie version of Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) on HBO or something. The Tom Wolfe book it was based on was written in 1987, towards the middle of Reagan’s second term. The film wasn’t very good, but if the story is any indication, racial and class tensions were very much a thing in late 80s New York (this was also the New York of Ed Koch and Bernie Goetz). But in all fairness, growing up during that time, I don’t recall the level of animosity that we see today.

I think a couple of things changed:
The election of Democrat Bill Clinton in 1993 caused Republicans and conservatives in general to lose their mind.

The founding of Fox News Channel in 1996 as a conservative response to CNN’s 24 hour coverage

The mid-90s rise of the internet as a form of mass media communications
Fast forward to the system you have today. Media is split between two “teams” that to varrying degrees continue to stoke controversy to generate viewership.

Add in another 5000 families with a net worth over $100 million, plus another 70,000 or so “ultra high net worth” individuals worth over $30 million.

But it’s not just these wealth families that constitutes a “class”. It is also the institutions and organizations that these individuals create and participate in that perpetuates a “class” structure. It is also their ability to pass on advantage to their offspring.

Not to mention that there are thousands of people who directly or indirectly have interests tied to many ultra-wealth people staying ultra wealthy - lawyers, financial advisors, real estate people, people who sell them products and services, so on and so forth.

39

There are other threads for massaging bothsidesism, or you can start your own. This one involves respect for factuality.

40

I don’t know about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3oY93doosg

The degree to which the parties have changed is a reflection of how the issues have changed. But still we have one that looks forward with hope and one that looks back with nostalgia.