There is no new political divide. We see news stations claiming something along the lines of the world (and in particular the United States) being more divided politically than ever before. To this i have only one thing to say back... bullhickey!
The political divide has always existed. The only thing that has changed is our awareness of it because social media and the ability to talk to anyone, anytime, has changed. Our political differences have been a thing that we never spoke about in the past because well, you had to do it face-to-face or on some anonymous forum. I remember even back when I was in university the topic would come up sometimes and then we would be a LOT more polite than someone will be on FB for example. We would likely have a logical exchange of ideas also, but now it is just a bunch of people shouting at strangers and nothing ever gets accomplished.
For the sake of simplicity I am going to only look at Presidential elections in the United States for the past 50 years or so. I want to point out that nearly every single one of these things have had a near 50 / 50 split in the votes. Sure the electoral college changes things and what not but do you remember when Bob Dole ran against a wildly-popular-at-the-time Bill Clinton? Ok, Bill Clinton won by 8%. There was no uniting under one flag. The divide is not new.
What is new is our constant influx of horse-S**T stories that pop up on our newsfeeds, the obviously biassed news networks that may as well just change the names of their organizations to solidify their stance with one particular political stance. Fox is Republican, and everyone else is Democrat; everyone knows this. It should come as no surprise that the stories they cover happen to reflect exactly that.
In the U.K. the whole Brexit thing (which I admit i know very little about) was a near 50 / 50 thing. The elections in most of Europe fall upon the same lines.
The last time the United States had a completely overwhelming presidential victory was when this guy was running at the result was around 75 / 25.
and well, there is a good chance that you already know what happened with that.
What I am trying to say is that anytime that anyone on some a*hole network tries to say that "Such and such candidate is strengthening the political divide" and you are within arms' reach of them, I highly suggest you slap them to try to knock some of the bullsht outta their brain. This simply is not true. People being conservative vs. liberal is not a new thing. We have been this way for a long time.
I live in Thailand and guess what? There is around a 50 / 50 split on the political ideologies of the people here as well. Vietnam is the same. It is almost as though the figures are fabricated, kind of like the whole "Hillary Clinton has a 95% chance of winning the Presidency." It's a load of crap and it makes me angry to see people claim this is the case when there is very little in the way of evidence to support this.
We are either being lied to about the numbers or the political divide just kind of sort of meets its normalization around50% anyway. I would be willing to believe either one of these things because they always make more sense than the "such and such person is dividing (insert country here) bullcrap that fills the airwaves these days.
Your article has received a 50% upvote from Democrats and 50% upvote from Republicans!
you made me laugh. you get 100% upvote.
How very true this is. Jefferson spent his own money purchasing a newspaper to slander his political opponents such as John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Under pseudonym, these brilliant minds referred to each other in the worst form. Hamilton was a monarchist and a philanderer (the first US sex scandal...) and Adams was called a toothless hermaphrodite. Of course, Jefferson's relations with Sally Hemmings provided a lot of fodder for Hamilton's Federalist faction.
It's nothing new. It's just more ubiquitous with the constant messaging pounding our eyes and ears so it appears that we're more divided - which is precisely what major media outlets want.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Mortimer and Randolph Duke were behind the scheme.
"I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Mortimer and Randolph Duke were behind the scheme."
I'd bet one dollar on that.
George Washington warned of a two party system long ago. Why? Because he realized it creates an "us vs. them" mentality. We're seeing this play out now. It's no longer "I'm voting for Hillary because I like this and that, her policies." Same for Trump. It's now "I'm voting for Hillary because I don't like Trump." This creates for dangerous elections, where people simply don't care about anyone's actual policies and ideas; they just care about the other person not getting elected. This needs to change in the future for a better country.
this is very true... good point
@gooddream thanks for this. There has and will always be a political divide, which is not new. The MSM tries to paint it like something new probably to win over new millennia voters or something
Every country has a divide on the base of the politically ideologies they follow. The more the ideologies the greater the divide is.
Hiii...
Great Post with Great Information
I can only say one thing politics is a game that you can only deal with if you have a super gray conscience because it is a bipolarity of characters to treat people in the way they prefer in order to get votes but in spite of all the dispariety 50% among voters is good I am from Venezuela and here the numbers never fit always wins the same side that has the country oppressed in a declave that has been 18 years but as reason the media always handled the news in their hands and in us is the one to believe
Very informative article.
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Do you remember turning on the news in the 80s? What you would get is a sort of neutral, fact based rundown of the daily happenings.
I agree that people probably haven't changed much over the years. As you say, they now have more exposure to each other because of social media and such. I do think though, that some things have definitely changed.
Because of the massive amount of innuendo and exaggeration that has been introduced in news for the purpose of entertainment, the way that we consume it has also evolved. It has gotten to the point that it would be nearly impossible to go back to the old way even if we wanted to.
Imagine that today a new network started. This network is dedicated to just the facts. Within a day, this news network would be labeled as either liberal or conservative depending on that days' reporting. I suppose they could get past this by making sure that if Trump said something stupid and they reported on it, they'd have to find something equally stupid that some liberal said that day. But at some point it isn't news anymore it's just gossip.
People don't care about the facts anymore. They only want to hear what supports their current belief system.
I think this is why I've gotten really into Vipassana meditation over the last few years. It is a process of eliminating incorrect perceptions and most importantly, wrong beliefs by looking deeply at reality and seeing it for what it really is - not what you want it to be. Which makes logical sense, but takes a lot of effort to actually achieve! I guess that's why everyone's not a buddha by now.
What a surprise I had no idea that this happened in several parts of the world I thought we were just us here in Venezuela. regards