Divided and Conquered

[TokenLiberal]

Tthink the
media is some kind of benign, harmless entity that has no controllers seems a bit naive. We went through four years of non-stop coverage of everythiing Trump did being portrayed as the worst disaster to befall our country ever 24/7/365.Not one positive news story was ever showcased on MSM>
That was followed by four years of lies, deceit and coverup during the biden presidency. We were told the economy was great, joe's approval ratings were the highest ever-even surpassing obama's. He was the sharpest guy in the room!
If that isn't enough proof of the media being deliberlty used to control people and their opinion I'd say some people are beyond being politically biased and just non compos mentis.

Fox is MSM, and was always heavily biased towards Trump. But I'm not going to disagree with you that the Trump admin, on average, got more negative coverage than the Biden admin. What I will disagree with is that this proves that the MSM is biased. An alternative reason is that the Trump admin was a complete mess, which makes sense because Trump was only ever in it for himself and was grossly unqualified to be president. If you're going to come out and glorify sexual assault ("just grab 'em by the pussy"), or suggest all kinds of non sense around how to treat COVID, and all the other crazy shit he's said over the years, that's going to generate some negative news coverage. That's not the media's fault. (Trump of course loves any kind of media attention, his ability to keep the conversation about him is why he's successful as a politician).

So my question is: On what basis did you discard this alternative, and consider negative coverage of Trump "proof" that the media is biased?

[Michigan Swampbuck]

I suggest that if we are really after the perps of polarization, be it the media, a political party, or the nefarious powers behind the scenes, then the old "follow the money" should offer some evidence for this.

At this point, we can at least agree that polarization is occurring on the political front (I contend that it spans across our culture from almost every angle imaginable as well), with discussions like we are having being the only solution offered thus far.

Some small steps are progress, esp. if you believe we landed on the moon.

ETA: If the media is merely responding to our "clicks" while using doom porn based on the idea that "If it bleeds, it reads", then the media is biased toward our selections based on what they offer. They work on individual interests and what delivers the biggest bang for the buck, apparently, and that is manipulation, esp. when they choose the content you are responding to.

[Michigan Swampbuck]

I also want to add that I have found that it is more productive to pay attention to what they don't say or report on, or what "opinions" they outright mock and suppress. Reading between the lines is hard to prove and will always remain conjecture, so grain of salt, I guess.

[TokenLiberal]

Journalism is not just dying; it's DEAD. 

I'm not saying this is you but people who say this are often so enamored with Trump that he can do no wrong in their eyes, and since he does do a lot of things wrong, the media, which report on it, end up looking like the enemy. And that's a fast track to radicalization because now, the only sources you think you can trust are Trump himself and everyone who has their tongue up his ass. The truth is, mainstream media are still the most reliable source of the facts. If you are good at processing information, you can distill them out of even the most biased stories. When serious news orgs like the Economist or NYT get a fact wrong, they correct it. Highly partisan media orgs, let alone influencers on social media, don't hold themselves to this standard.

Some of the best articles I've ever read were written in the last 10 years. Good journalism is definitely not dead, it's just being drowned out by the noise. You have to put in the effort to find it. Some examples:
Obama's secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin's election assault (2017)
Polarization in Poland - A warning from Europe (2018)
How democracy died in Hungary (2018)
Joe Biden's big squeeze (2021)

Elections - Two major factors affect current elections in the US today.  Money, [...].  I've said before; if it takes a billion dollars for a candidate to be elected POTUS, then the system is badly broken. 

Indeed! I've asked you this before, but I'll ask again, this time to everyone here, since I'm sure we all agree this is a problem: What do you think should be done about it? 

The problem here is that SCOTUS is in the way. It ruled that money = speech, which means that stricter campaign finance laws violate the first amendment. They have struck down such laws on this basis before. Is this fact something we can agree on, or do you all have a different perspective?

In the past 40 years we have seen some of the most corrupt presidents in history...Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, and Biden.

Citation, or at least explanation, needed. As far as I know, (most of) these presidents were corruption-scandal free. Nixon wasn't, for one.

Why did I leave Trump off the list?  Because he's not corrupt.

 
Musk donated 300m to his campaign and now has a position of power in his administration. Let's wait and see what kind of public policy windfalls and anti-trust lenience his monopolistic companies (SpaceX and Starlink) get in the next 4 years.

How do we know this?  Because one of his main focal points is corruption; he'd have to be crazy to be corrupt himself.

 
This is non sense. There are many examples in history of politicians who ran campaigns saying they will fight corruption, and ended up being corrupt themselves. When I asked ChatGPT to list me some of these examples (prompt: "examples in history of politicians who made anti-corruption a staple of their message but then ended up being corrupt themselves"), it started by saying "Oh yeah, there are plenty of examples — it's almost a cliché at this point. Here are a few notable ones from history:"

You can put the prompt in yourself if you're interested in the examples. It rightly noted that it's almost a cliché at this point. Anti-corruption is popular with the people, and opportunistic politicians (who tend to be corrupt) use that to get elected.

You may hate every last molecule of his guts, but he's not stealing money from the US taxpayer and putting it in his pocket like the rest of the guys on that list.

Says who? Fox? I seriously doubt you have any substantial basis for your belief that Trump is the singular exception in a list of recent corrupt presidents.

I personally feel that social media is at the root of all this evil.

Social media is at the root of a lot of evils, but not the problem of money in politics in the US. Social media is big in Western European democracies too, yet corruption is barely a problem there. We've gone over this before, but I'll just repeat for posterity: The US corruption problem is caused by lax campaign finance law, and politicians' high demand for money. This high demand is in turn caused by the weakness of parties (main culprit: primaries) which makes it important for every individual campaign to raise its own war chest. Parties are much stronger in most of Western Europe, which explains (most of) the difference.

[TokenLiberal]

If the media is merely responding to our "clicks" while using doom porn based on the idea that "If it bleeds, it reads", then the media is biased toward our selections based on what they offer. They work on individual interests and what delivers the biggest bang for the buck, apparently, and that is manipulation, esp. when they choose the content you are responding to.

It's just capitalism. Media orgs have shareholders, and those shareholders want to make money. They may be manipulating us, but it's not because they want to divide us, it's because they want our attention; our attention increases their profits. Polarization is a side effect.

You seem to accept this explanation, yet find it hard to let go of the sort of conspirational "someone is doing this to us on purpose" thinking. Why? Is it because it's hard to accept that the world is chaotic and we are all just passengers on a train nobody knows the destination of? Do you need, deep down, someone to be in control?

[TokenLiberal]

I also want to add that I have found that it is more productive to pay attention to what they don't say or report on, or what "opinions" they outright mock and suppress. Reading between the lines is hard to prove and will always remain conjecture, so grain of salt, I guess.

Reading between the lines is fine, but you'd better know what you're doing. It can end up serving as a way for us to validate ourselves, by imagining things that aren't there.

[Michigan Swampbuck]

Reading between the lines is fine, but you'd better know what you're doing. It can end up serving as a way for us to validate ourselves, by imagining things that aren't there.

Absolutely. It can also lead down a lot of dead-end rabbit holes. However, conspiracy theories always begin as "imagining things that aren't there" until they are. IMO, reading between the lines can produce pay dirt. It isn't tough to look into the opposite of what you are researching, or those ideas that fit neatly into the void made by omission.

[Michigan Swampbuck]

It's just capitalism. Media orgs have shareholders, and those shareholders want to make money. They may be manipulating us, but it's not because they want to divide us, it's because they want our attention; our attention increases their profits. Polarization is a side effect.

You seem to accept this explanation, yet find it hard to let go of the sort of conspirational "someone is doing this to us on purpose" thinking. Why? Is it because it's hard to accept that the world is chaotic and we are all just passengers on a train nobody knows the destination of? Do you need, deep down, someone to be in control?

Hell, I've been paranoid and waiting for the end of the world since I was around 9 years old (around 1973). I became an avid survivalist/prepper during the Clinton administration and moved to a 40 acre swamp in the Manistee National Forest by the mid-90s.

With these end times, I believe evil forces are in control of the chaos.

". . . we are all just passengers on a train nobody knows the destination of."

Driving that train
High on cocaine
Casey Jones you better watch your speed

Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion just crossed my mind

- The Grateful Dead

Call that what you will and scrutinize it if you desire, but leave my personal disorders out of the conversation, please. The Ad Hominem distraction is unproductive, but your use of the playbook is amusing to a degree, as I could start a check list.

[TokenLiberal]

Hell, I've been paranoid and waiting for the end of the world since I was around 9 years old (around 1973). I became an avid survivalist/prepper during the Clinton administration and moved to a 40 acre swamp in the Manistee National Forest by the mid-90s.

With these end times, I believe evil forces are in control of the chaos.

". . . we are all just passengers on a train nobody knows the destination of."


Call that what you will and scrutinize it if you desire, but leave my personal disorders out of the conversation, please. The Ad Hominem distraction is unproductive, but your use of the playbook is amusing to a degree, as I could start a check list.

No playbook, no ad hominem, I'm not trying to win an argument here, I'm genuinely trying to understand why you think the way you do. I get that it can come across like I'm trying to psycho-analyze you, that's a fair complaint. I'm just wondering if the control thing resonates with you because I've met conspiracy theorists with whom it did. Anyway, the fact that you've been paranoid from age 9 is interesting; that sounds very early. Were your parents preppers?

If you're not into the personal questions, I understand. To me, this is where forum discussions become the most rewarding. It humanizes us to each other.

Thanks for your answers so far.

[FCD]

I suggest that if we are really after the perps of polarization, be it the media, a political party, or the nefarious powers behind the scenes, then the old "follow the money" should offer some evidence for this.

...

Absolutely agree on this point.  And George Soros is right at the top of the list (as are many others).  But Soros in particular intentionally breeds and creates chaos to make money.  The "short" works much better in chaos.  I've talked about this often here and elsewhere.  Soros isn't the only one doing this, but he's certainly one of the leaders of the pack.  Hedge funds are also part of this same idea.  They profit from creating doom or the impression of it.